Eldritch Horror Theatre

What an auspicious place.

Visibility was poor, but Fu Qian still had confidence in his dynamic vision. That was clearly some sort of humanoid creature, and one harboring malicious intent at that.

Why the malicious assumption?

Simple. If you weren't up to no good, why hide?

Especially when he had only briefly glanced back.

Without a doubt, whatever it was had absolutely locked onto the two of them.

[The piano player?]

With nothing left to see, Fu Qian yanked a stiff-bodied Eva back, grabbed a pen, and casually jotted down a question.

[No, there is no piano there.]

[That is just a special taboo belonging to this Corridor.]

So that figure was completely out of place?

Understanding dawned instantly. Fu Qian had just verified his guess about Eva's reaction.

Clearly, according to her knowledge, this floor might be dangerous, but that danger stemmed more from special taboos than physical, moving monsters.

At the same time, however, Eva had mentioned at the very beginning that something had come inside.

Hence the blood in the restroom.

Putting the two together, it was easy to draw a very simple conclusion: that thing had caught up with them.

Of course, to Fu Qian, this was just a casual guess. He didn't consider it the only possibility.

"Ah—"

Unfortunately, Eva wasn't quite as objective. Having moved in absolute silence this entire time, she finally lost her composure, a half-stifled scream squeezing from her throat.

It only lasted a second. She instantly clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling the sound so hard she almost gagged.

...

Regardless, the situation was looking more and more like her description.

Seeing that Eva's composure was on the verge of collapsing, Fu Qian casually yanked her back. While she took a moment to collect herself, he continued observing the Corridor.

There was no further movement. After the figure slipped Inside the Door, it showed absolutely no sign of peeking out again.

Ruling out the slim chance of a shared hallucination, the situation had undoubtedly escalated.

The harder it hid, the worse its intentions. It wasn't exactly complex logic.

And such raw malice certainly had no business appearing in a high school for no reason.

The credibility of the numerous Transcendent Tier taboos Eva had mentioned seemed to be steadily rising.

[Have you seen it before?]

The figure ultimately disappointed him. When it stubbornly refused to show its face, Fu Qian looked away and wrote down another line.

[No.]

Eva seemed to have recovered slightly. Still shaken, she simply shook her head.

[Let's hurry, before it catches up.]

She then grabbed Fu Qian's arm, her frantic body language echoing the written plea.

A reasonable choice.

Fu Qian glanced at the increasingly dark path ahead and thoroughly agreed.

The current passage wasn't as long as the previous Corridor. It curved outward slightly before terminating at a door.

Though whatever lay beyond was likely just as winding, the odds of finding the stairs still seemed pretty high.

And Eva was clearly dead set against turning back to investigate whatever that malicious entity was.

Nor was that thing going to give up the chase so easily.

Giving a nod, Fu Qian followed her once more.

...

It was hard to imagine that this building had originally been built as a school.

With Eva leading the way, Fu Qian finally understood what it meant by nine curves and eighteen bends.

Fortunately, as they rounded the final corner, an open doorway revealed a stairwell steeped in low visibility.

Victory was in sight. The only downside was that their path had been so circuitous they could no longer pinpoint their stalker's exact location.

Eva was clearly aware of this fact. The lingering sense of crisis, combined with the escape route right in front of them, caused the stealthy pace she had maintained all along to falter, trading absolute silence for speed.

Tap, tap, tap...

But even so, the crisp footsteps that suddenly echoed through the silence were definitely not hers.

Her movements came to an abrupt halt. Just as she was about to cross the final threshold, Eva practically tripped over her own feet in her haste to stop.

Yet, no matter how much she wanted to deny it, the footsteps were unmistakably coming from the stairs ahead.

And they were rapidly approaching.

Interesting.

Fu Qian had already caught up by this point, peering out right beside her.

Theoretically speaking, even though it was a bit late, it was perfectly normal to hear someone walking around a school building.

Eva's reaction was a bit of an overreaction fueled by psychological stress.

Even so, Fu Qian didn't rush to urge her forward.

After all, given her earlier performance, she had somehow managed to accumulate a considerable amount of "knowledge." Maybe she'd detected something incredibly wrong with those footsteps. He had to respect the professional—fuck!

The footsteps suddenly ceased. In that exact moment, Fu Qian keenly noticed the girl beside him sagging and immediately caught her arm.

Eva, whom he had just been praising for her professionalism, went completely limp, collapsing as if all her strength had been siphoned away.

When it truly mattered, she had completely folded.

Though to be perfectly honest, her reaction was entirely justified—

With the footsteps halted, he could clearly see a silhouette standing in the stairwell. It had stopped moving and was tilting its head back to stare up at them.

Although the figure was nothing more than a pitch-black mass, he could easily tell that its head was disproportionately massive, far exceeding the size of a normal human's.

For someone like Eva, who had just endured numerous scares, this sight was simply too horrifying.

And most importantly, there was still something chasing them from behind.

"There's no way out that way."

Realizing she was being rapidly dragged away, the overstimulated Eva temporarily abandoned her writing and whispered a warning instead.

She was absolutely right. Caught in a pincer attack, the direction Fu Qian had chosen was a dead end. The only door led to a small storage room, and it was locked shut.

But the moment the warning left her lips, Eva realized Fu Qian was just trying to find a hiding spot. Her spirits lifted slightly.

That was until she stared dumbly at the padlock, seemingly unable to fathom why a place like this would also be locked.

The footsteps on the stairs rang out again, drawing closer by the second—

With a soft click, Fu Qian popped the lock open. Yanking her inside, he swiftly shut the door behind them.

She knew she shouldn't make a single sound right now, but the relentless shocks had taken their toll. Peeking outside through a tiny crack, Eva let out a long sigh to steady her nerves.

Hmm?

But a moment later, confusion washed over her as Fu Qian grabbed her hand and pressed it firmly over her mouth.

Fu Qian offered no explanation. Instead, he gently guided her head to look behind them—

In the corner of the already cramped space, someone was sitting there.

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