The clock was turned back.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back where Dante had turned the clock back just a moment ago.
"······."
Yuri stayed silent for a long while.
...I can guess why, but I don't think I can bring myself to say it out loud.
I turned to Gregor in an attempt to somehow restore the atmosphere, which had gone cold for several reasons, but...
"······."
He seemed to be lost in thought as well.
"...Ms. Rodion, should we just pick up some [Enkephalin] as we go? Looks like it could bring in some money."
"Huh? I've been picking it up for ages. You weren't?"
Was I wrong to assume Rodion hadn't been collecting [Enkephalin]?
I scratched my head, feeling awkward for a moment, and kept walking down the corridor.
How long had we walked? We passed the G Corp branch manager and the place with the poison again, and...
"Hostile spotted ahead!"
We met a monster.
...Do we get inflammation if we don't fight for even a moment here?
The monster that appeared was... what was it again, that...?
Ah! Right, I remembered.
Tow. It had a face like a doll made of clay.
Of course, the material of its head looked like stone, and its body had a grotesque shape as if human blood vessels had been tangled all over it.
There's a reason monsters are called monsters.
The enemy count was three. We were thirteen.
Looks like this would be a light fight.
...Maybe it had some strange ability or something?
My ominous prediction did not come true.
They only showed signs of trying to drag us away; they didn't seem to have any strange ability or anything like that.
Of course, that wasn't the problem.
"Did that [Abnormality] just kill all the employees?"
"No. If my guess is right..."
"Keep your eyes ahead, Manager. There's another one of the same thing as before."
At the end of the corridor, something with a stone head was slumped weakly against the wall.
"H-hello...? Did you... come here... for the lottery too...?"
"If you gather all the employee IDs... and hand them over... we pick a winner."
It was holding a cord with an employee ID attached to it.
The ID said Alex.
"...Alex."
"Is he out of his mind? What's this about a winner?"
"Some [Abnormalities] had management logs that said sacrifices had to be chosen and offered regularly."
What a vile [Abnormality].
Forcing them to choose victims among themselves and offer them up like that.
"You can't go that way... they'll find you soon enough..."
The one with the stone head seemed to realize we were heading deeper in and said that to us.
Was it talking about that monster from earlier?
"...So there really was human sacrifice after all. Right?"
"It's your turn... to be chosen..."
The person we assumed was Alex ignored Yuri's words and held out the cord with the employee ID attached.
"Human sacrifice...?"
"What happens if you don't offer a sacrifice?"
"I don't know... the management logs were always followed to the letter."
"So they escaped and went around killing people at random?"
I think Ms. Ishmael was wrong.
Judging by the wounds on the corpses, it was probably...
"Hah! That [Abnormality] must be pretty damn petty. Probably goes around smashing people from behind when it sees them, huh?"
"W-what do you mean?"
...Cruel.
"Did they all go blind or something? Those wounds were made by people. They were trying like hell to land one more hit on each other."
"Those idiots beat each other to death."
"Why, why would that happen?"
Yuri still didn't understand and asked Heathcliff again.
"Obvious."
"After the branch collapsed, they probably thought they could survive somehow for a while."
"If they kept offering people up, maybe they'd get rescued someday."
"They probably lasted months with the lottery. If one person dies, you can hold out for a bit."
"But do you really think the sacrifice would just accept that?"
"If I'm going to die, I'll blow the head off the bastard standing in front of me."
"Then at least I won't be the one getting offered up right now."
"...Well, that's probably how it went."
Heathcliff said that and fell silent.
...A sound argument. Horrifically likely, too.
"And then, if you were the last one left alive... wearing the same stone head as the others..."
"You thought you could avoid the human sacrifice."
"No way. Alex would never..."
"...Sorry, Yuri, but that guess is extremely plausible."
"Those things weren't carrying clubs, and they couldn't have made wounds like that with their own hands."
Yuri went completely pale after hearing me too.
...She's had an absurd amount of bad luck since coming here. It's almost pitiful.
"One piece of... advice..."
"It'd be much easier... to walk over yourself... before they come to get you... k-kek... kek..."
"Let us leave. This one will soon breathe his last."
At Otis's words, all the prisoners except me quickened their pace.
And Yuri...
"It wasn't your fault... you know that, right?"
"Leave me behind, Yuri... please leave me behind..."
"······."
"...Let's go."
...Sometimes, bonds become the sharpest, most painful tool for stabbing someone.
Still, the living have to keep moving.
I dragged my heavy feet and followed the prisoners deeper inside.
And that step was stopped almost immediately.
The biggest reason was that a monster demanding a sacrifice had appeared in front of us.
"[Offer a sacrifice.]"
And right in front of us was a person gasping for breath, dying.
We looked at Dante.
In a situation like this, whether we would offer the dying person and avoid battle, or simply fight and pass through, depended on his choice.
Yuri was also looking at Dante with anxious eyes.
Maybe she instinctively knew he was the one with the authority to decide.
Dante's answer, under everyone's gaze, was...
"Let's fight."
He chose not to offer them up.
Yeah, this is better. It puts my mind at ease.
Better a difficult but refreshing path than an easy, disgusting one.
I gripped my spear.
When we made no move, they soon rushed at us.
"Let's go!"
"I'll show you what art is."
Of course, since there were only three of them, the prisoners wiped them out quickly.
...Was offering a person up actually the trap?
Anyway, when we killed them, something unknown came out.
The masks those blood-soaked things had been wearing.
"Those are E.G.O gifts. If you have them, they grant beneficial effects."
After hearing Faust's explanation, Dante took the masks.
"Let's go."
Not long after we started walking, we found a space suitable for resting.
As always, Dante's clock turned back, and we prepared to move forward.
"...Ugh, I can feel an openly ominous presence beyond the wall. That's an [Abnormality], right?"
"What choice do we have? We fight."
Yeah, figured.
Sighing, I got to my feet.
We didn't really need a full rest or anything; one good turn of the clock would fix us anyway.
We moved on in silence.
When we opened and passed through a door that looked like it was sealing something away, what was there...
...was a massive disk.
A disk supported atop something so tangled with human tissue it was impossible to make out.
Its ominous appearance made me tense up and tighten my grip on the spear, but...
...what?
There was no reaction at all.
That's even more ominous, honestly.
We slowly approached it.
Thud
It started making the separated bricks tremble violently.
"Interesting. Dante, would it be acceptable to observe it a little more closely?"
Yi Sang, is that okay?
"No."
Still, Yi Sang seemed to want to move closer, so after the other prisoners stopped him, he reluctantly gave up not long after.
"That thing... looks like it's doing something, doesn't it?"
At Rodion's words, I looked at it and saw that the things wearing the masks we'd seen earlier were slowly emerging from the muscle tissue supporting the disk.
"[Offer a sacrifice.]"
Ah, damn it. I thought we might get through today a little easier.
"Form up!"
No sooner had Otis spoken than the masked things charged at us.
Crunch!
"Got one~"
Whoosh
"Ghk..."
Crack!
"Doctor, you all right?"
"Ugh, thank you, Gregor."
That was close.
Once those things latch on, they're a pain to tear off.
"Hey! Keep your head in the game!"
"Yes!"
"[Offer a sacrifice.]"
As soon as we dealt with all the monsters that had rushed us, the disk spat out more of them.
And arms burst out from the muscle tissue that had been offering itself up, attacking the prisoners.
There's not even time to catch our breath.
Bang!
"Hah-hah, how's that?"
Snap
"Complete silence."
The masks that appeared again were quickly cleaned up as well.
"I'll block the attacks!"
...This is easier than I expected.
It's actually going too smoothly, which makes me uneasy.
Did that unease become reality?
The disk began moving the bricks even more violently.
"[Offer a sacrifice.]"
Something felt wrong.
The ominous feeling coming from the disk was sounding the alarm in my instincts that something was going badly wrong.
"Hey, it looks like we need to offer something up."
...Human sacrifice?
From what we'd figured out earlier, human sacrifice was this [Abnormality]'s management method.
Still, isn't it a bit much to suddenly demand that we sacrifice one of the prisoners in the middle of battle?
"Let's offer up a Tow."
Tow, meaning... one of those masked things?
"If that is the order."
Meursault swiftly picked up one of the dead Tows and 'offered' it to the disk.
"···"
And its shape began to change.
The bricks making up the outside of the disk opened, and from within, the disk began releasing scorching heat.
The Tows also changed form to match the disk's transformation.
It wasn't a huge change... just that fire began to emerge from the eyes and mouth positions of the masks.
...Looks like this won't be over anytime soon.
I tightened my grip on the spear, sensing the battle was about to drag on.