"This, this can't be possible..."
The shrunken, faded Agatha murmured in disbelief.
"We're back at the starting point?"
As mentioned before, the research facility itself had a circular structure, with laboratories arranged along both sides of the curved corridors.
But unexpectedly, directly across from the hall was... another hangar?
"Should we go back and verify it?"
When I asked that, Mom shook her head.
"No... Let's keep going."
Sure enough, after passing through the corridor ahead, we arrived at the research facility hall again.
"We've been played, haven't we?"
The Cage-Skirt Witch's indiscriminate bombardment should have severely damaged the research facility hall, yet this place was completely intact, still looking brand-new.
"This research facility is indeed circular... but it's a Möbius Strip, that symbol representing 'infinity.'"
Hangar = Hall = Hangar = Hall
Had it formed a closed loop like that?
"Don't jump to conclusions yet. This loop might not be infinite."
Mom, wearing sunglasses, replied:
"Someone has been here. Maybe we can find the others ahead... If this place could really be divided into infinite loops, there'd be no need to split us into groups of five. Wouldn't one person per group be enough?"
That made sense.
In that case, the group of three should originally have been guarding the entrance hangar.
It was just that the three of us had stayed at the entrance to rest and hadn't gone over for too long. They were worried we'd meet up with people from the previous loop, so they had taken the initiative to attack...
If all our deductions were correct, then the optimal solution to this game was to turn around at the hangar and cooperate with another group to take down their opponents.
"Then who fell into this loop?"
Mom answered, "Those insect Negative Variants."
Spider and snake