"When did..." Rihito's pupils contracted sharply as he stared at the changed room number.
His muscles tensed, and he quickly scanned his surroundings.
But the entire corridor remained just as it had been when he first entered: empty and deathly silent.
Dust hung suspended in the stagnant air. There was not even a hint of a breeze.
But Rihito knew this was only how things appeared.
Once a cursed spirit formed, it was inextricably tied to the specific grievances that had spawned it.
If this cursed spirit really had formed from that reporter after he died following endless torment...
Then its abilities had to be connected to those doctors, or even to this hospital.
But that was only speculation. He needed more clues to be certain.
Rihito took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
"The room number changed after I entered the room. No! It wasn't the room number."
His gaze swept down the corridor and settled on the door to Room 11.
That door stood a full twelve room numbers away from Room 23.
"It was the entire room. The space was swapped the instant I stepped inside."
Then Rihito looked toward Room 24 beside him and walked inside.
He deliberately slowed his steps, planting each foot firmly on the floor as though measuring something.
As if he had prepared for it beforehand, he shot backward the instant he stepped into the room, returning to the corridor.
His soles scraped against the floor with a brief squeak.
Then he turned and looked up at the room number above him.
"Room 7. Just as I thought!"
Now, Rihito stood in a completely different spot from before.
Though he had not found the cursed spirit, he had figured out the first rule.
"This cursed spirit can manipulate space. The instant I enter a room, its location switches."
Rihito glanced at both ends of the corridor.
If he went left, he would most likely come out on the right.
Perhaps that was how those explorers had been trapped here until they died.
The entire floor had become its domain-an absolutely sealed "domain" designed specifically for imprisonment!
At that thought, Rihito's heart sank a little. What he had feared most had happened after all.
He would rather the cursed spirit here be cruel and bloodthirsty. At least then, it would charge out to kill him once it saw him.
As long as he could see it, everything would be easy to handle.
But now, he could not find the cursed spirit at all.
It intended to trap him here until he died!
Realizing the predicament he faced, Rihito instead grew calm.
Those exploration teams had already proved that simply walking would never get him out of here.
He had already tried once just now. He entered Room 24 and came out of Room 7.
If the pattern was fixed and he had to test it over and over, how many attempts would it take to find the exit?
Ten? Twenty?
There were at least thirty rooms on this floor, and every time he entered one, the space shifted at random.
The number of possible permutations and combinations made his scalp prickle.
And... would the cursed spirit give him that much time?
The corridor was still deathly silent. That cursed spirit might be hiding somewhere in the shadows.
It was waiting.
Waiting for him to exhaust himself, waiting for him to break down mentally, just like those explorers.
Suddenly, Rihito laughed.
"If I keep trying to work out the pattern room by room, I really would be an utter idiot."
He slowly raised his arms and pressed his hands hard against the cobweb-covered walls on either side of the corridor.
The walls beneath his palms were cold and rough. Dust sifted down between his fingers.
"Since I can't work out the pattern, I'll smash you open with my fists."
Cursed Technique-Withering!
The next second, the corridor walls began to decay and weather at a visible rate, spreading outward from Rihito's palms.
The plaster curled and peeled like dried-out skin, exposing the pale gray masonry beneath.
In just a few seconds, the entire wall underwent decades, even centuries, of aging.
Stone dust showered down, exposing the steel reinforcement within.
But soon, even the incredibly tough steel began rapidly rusting and snapping.
Rust spread like creeping moss from the welded joints toward both ends, accompanied by faint groans.
As time passed, this irreversible effect spread throughout the corridor.
If the cursed spirit did not appear soon, this entire floor of the psychiatric hospital would decay and collapse within minutes.
And the cursed spirit that had made this place its nest would never allow that to happen.
"Kekekekeke... stop... I'll kill you!!"
A warped, grating voice, like a crow's rasp, rang through the deathly silent corridor.
Under Rihito's grave gaze, a humanoid cursed spirit slowly approached from the end of the corridor.
Its footsteps made no sound. The hem of its white coat dragged across the floor like a moving shadow.
The cursed spirit stood two meters tall, its ill-fitting white coat stretched tightly around its body.
It held something resembling a medical chart in its left hand and a pencil in its right.
But its face was not human. Instead, it was a mass of faces that constantly twisted and changed.
"Those are the 'patients' who were misdiagnosed and tortured to death!" Rihito's pupils contracted as he recognized those indistinct faces.
The documents Satoru Gojo had given him included information on some patients who had once been admitted to this psychiatric hospital.
He had never expected the resentment these people released after death to coalesce into an exceptionally terrifying cursed spirit.
Boom!
Almost the instant the cursed spirit appeared, Rihito stamped down hard and launched himself straight at it like a cannonball.
The floor beneath his feet cracked, sending fragments flying in every direction.
He had only one goal: kill this cursed spirit!
Yet when the cursed spirit saw Rihito charging toward it, it changed direction and headed into a room to the side.
Its movements were unhurried, as though it had anticipated this all along.
Seeing it move, Rihito instantly realized what it intended to do.
"Just... die!"
Bang!!
A fist brimming with cursed energy slammed into the room's doorframe. The surrounding temperature plummeted, and the flying wood splinters froze into icy fragments that kept raining down.
Where his fist landed, the doorframe buckled and warped, and a layer of white frost spread along the
wall.
His punch had actually missed?
Rihito's expression darkened as he stared into the empty room before him.
Just as his fist was about to strike the cursed spirit, it had stepped through the doorway and vanished into thin air right before his eyes.
Like a drop of water falling into a pool, without a sound or trace.
"What a troublesome bastard!"
He withdrew the hands he had pressed against the walls. Now that he had achieved his goal, there was no need to keep expending cursed energy.
Besides, what he had done was only a stopgap measure. If he really brought the building down, he would not escape being crushed himself.
"This isn't getting me anywhere. Do I really have to use that move?"
Watching the cursed spirit emerge from another room, Rihito hesitated.
The white figure reappeared barely ten meters away, yet it felt as though an entire labyrinth stood between them.
If he expanded his domain now, he would probably have a very good chance of defeating the cursed spirit and completing the assessment.
But though his chances were high, they were not a hundred percent.
If he could not finish the battle quickly after using Domain Expansion, his total reserves of cursed energy might very well run dry.
He was not at the end of his rope yet. There was no need to stake his life on this gamble.
After a brief moment of thought, Rihito set aside the idea of expanding his domain.
Just then, the cursed spirit in the distance suddenly moved. It lifted the medical chart in its left hand and raised its pencil high in its right, as though writing something on the chart.
The pencil tip hovered above the paper, never touching down, yet an invisible force began gathering in the air.
"Something's wrong. I can't let it finish!"
Seeing the cursed spirit's movements, Rihito swung his fist again and charged forward.
"Kekekekeke... diagnosis... right-hand paralysis..."
Before you continue