Chapter 235: Ryuuen Kakeru's Speculation, the Skull Knight Joins the Group (Patreon)

After Kushida Kikyo's tentative questions to the God Sphere came to nothing, Chris and the others didn't linger in the Presiding God's Space.

After all, the gear they needed to buy and the items they needed to upgrade had mostly been taken care of.

Hanging around here would get them nowhere. Pry anything valuable out of the presiding god without spending points? Practically impossible.

Of course, there was one more important reason to hurry back…

Most of the items the upperclassmen had lent them were still in the hands of the testers inside the exam site.

With the depth and vision Miyabi Nagumo's crowd had now, they probably wouldn't take offense if the items weren't returned right away.

But everyone had finished the mission and come back to school. Proper courtesy was still proper courtesy.

There was no need to let a small oversight breed distance between two factions that had only just built an understanding.

So, even though Chris and Ryuuen had just run roughly thirty hours straight in the dungeon without a wink of sleep, their minds utterly drained,

the two of them still forced themselves upright and headed for the Student Council Office.

Knock, knock.

They pushed open the doors. Miyabi Nagumo sat behind the desk, brow furrowed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Seeing the exhaustion Chris and Ryuuen couldn't hide, Nagumo lowered his hand. His fingertips tapped lightly on the desk, and he sighed with a touch of helplessness.

"Looks like the advance test and the Special Exam both run a full day now."

"The Black Sphere and the presiding god really don't intend to leave us even a sliver of breathing room, do they?"

Chris dropped onto the guest sofa and sighed along with him.

"You get used to it. I'm sure Ichinose already told you, Student Council President, about what happened in the Presiding God's Space. But just so nothing slips through the cracks…"

Chris raised his eyes and looked straight at Nagumo.

"Do you know what's happening with Student Council President Horikita right now?"

At the name "Horikita," Nagumo's fingers, which had been tapping the desk, paused.

The Student Council Office fell into a brief silence.

"Ichinose told me."

"I have to admit, Horikita really is a born strong one. He didn't go gloomy just because he lost the Black Sphere system's direct protection, or because he's in danger."

Nagumo laced his fingers together, a flicker of relief crossing his eyes.

"Even in an unknown abyss, he's still shining… Worthy of the man I set my eyes on."

Beside them, Ryuuen listened to this bombshell of a statement and felt goosebumps crawl over his whole body.

He tugged awkwardly at the corner of his mouth, cleared his throat hard, and forced the weird atmosphere to break by changing the subject.

"Cough… Alright, enough. Business."

"Our year's advance test is a survival type this time, with no prepared mission, so those guys have to stay the full twenty-four hours before they can come out."

"Most of the high-grade gear you lent us is still in their hands, and we can't get it back for now."

"So we came while you upperclassmen haven't started your next exam yet, to give you a little 'compensation' first."

Nagumo shook his head, unbothered.

"Honestly, whether it comes back or not doesn't matter. I trust everyone understands that."

"At a time like this, nobody casually lends out the trump cards that actually keep them alive. Whoever lent something out was prepared for it to get worn out."

"True enough, but that doesn't mean we skip what we owe. One thing at a time," Chris said.

With a flip of his wrist, he tossed two Hoi-Poi Capsules straight at Nagumo.

"A piloted mecha, and…"

"The only reward the 200-point BOSS dropped in our exam… the Logia-type [Rumble-Rumble Fruit]."

"Eat it, and you don't just control lightning. Your body can turn into lightning itself, which makes you immune to the vast majority of physical attacks."

"The Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"

Nagumo picked up a capsule, thoughtful.

"If I remember right, in the presiding god's shop, a random Devil Fruit draw only costs 80 S Points…"

"So this one is an exclusive drop from a 200-point BOSS?"

"Looks like the gap between the floor and the ceiling on random blind-box items is staggering!"

Chris didn't commit either way.

He turned and walked over to Fūka Kiryūin, who had been watching the show with obvious interest.

"Senpai, your [Momonga Orb] is still in Yotsuya's hands. As compensation, make do with my [Demon Essence] for now."

With that, Chris held out the other capsule.

Fūka Kiryūin didn't bother with polite refusals. She took the capsule with a smile.

"My, aren't you generous, little junior."

"The [Momonga Orb] is a passive item that costs a life to activate. Its strategic value can't compare to that top-tier Imperial Arms of yours, worth 160 S Points."

Chris shook his head and warned her in earnest.

"Senpai, the [Demon Essence] is one of the few dangerous items, like the Stone Mask and the Phantom Mask, whose side effects the presiding god didn't block. Back on our side, hardly anyone can use it."

"Still, since you can suppress The World Stand by sheer willpower, resisting the Demon Essence's killing urge shouldn't be out of the question."

Chris paused, his gaze sweeping over Kiryūin's slender waist.

"The thing is, it looks like you already carry [Beast King Transformation], and the iron rule of Imperial Arms is that you can't use two at once. You'll have to weigh that yourself."

Fūka Kiryūin pressed her rosy lips together and thought for a moment before offering,

"Then give [Beast King Transformation] to Senpai Akane Tachibana. I have the Hurricane Knight and the Sky Galloper now, so I don't need the physique boost from an Imperial Arms anyway. Besides, I'd like to find out where the limits of your item lie."

Chris nodded and said no more.

But as he headed for the door, he stopped and added a well-meant reminder.

"Oh, right, Senpai. If you have spare points, you should upgrade your Spirit Crystal."

"In the Presiding God's Space, we learned from the presiding god that those angel abilities, once you spend points to upgrade them back to the original version, can additionally invert and become a 'Demon King'… It's a promotion route."

Fūka Kiryūin turned her head and gave him a long, searching look.

Then she swept her hair back and spoke.

"Conveniently, Nagumo and I were both testers last exam. Tonight we'll buy items in the Presiding God's Space with our refreshed S Points. I'll give it a try."

"But…"

The girl's tone turned, picking up a hint of teasing.

"Now that I think about it, as far as I know, that Imperial Arms is the one little Arisu Sakayanagi said outright she had her eye on, isn't it?"

"Lending it to me now… aren't you afraid she'll get jealous and come after you when you get back?"

Fūka Kiryūin couldn't help laughing. As her silver-white hair swayed, she shed some of her senior's dignity and looked strikingly lively, like an elven phantom stepped out of a dream.

Chris answered offhandedly.

"She isn't that fragile."

"Besides, if it were possible, I'd honestly be curious what kind of face Sakayanagi would make."

Fūka Kiryūin propped her chin on one hand and studied him with interest, half amused.

"Little junior, around me you really are getting less and less careful about hiding that rotten core of yours."

Chris turned and waved over his shoulder, casual.

"If you think back, Senpai, you'll find I've been like this from the very start."

"Alright, Senpai, we won't hold up your plans any longer."

In the corridor outside the Student Council Office,

Ryuuen had already stepped out to wait. When Chris finally deigned to come through the door, he leaned back against the wall and couldn't resist needling him.

"You really are a ladykiller, you know that?"

"I never see you do anything special with anyone, so why does it feel like every woman in this lousy school has a thing for you?"

Chris gave it serious thought before answering.

"Maybe it's because my base stats are high and I'm good-looking. You know how it is. Humans have always been visual creatures, and they love worshiping the strong."

"Or maybe, in those undetermined timelines, we had some deep bond."

Chris shrugged.

"After all, going by what Amasawa said, my past with them… was worth quite a lot."

Ryuuen's mouth twitched. He rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"You've got that many bonds, huh…"

"Honestly, if this ridiculous Black Sphere exam hadn't shown up, I'd say you were this school's hidden life winner. A walking, talking light novel protagonist!"

Chris smiled, not minding the truth Ryuuen had blurted out so casually.

He turned his head and looked through the corridor's glass toward the Student Council Office, his gaze distant.

"The upperclassmen's advance test should be starting soon."

"As for Horikita, Karuizawa and the others, going by the time flow, they still have over ten minutes before the exam in the Backrooms ends…"

"I wonder if the two groups will get a chance to run into each other in the Backrooms."

Ryuuen raised an eyebrow, thoroughly surprised.

"Unless the upperclassmen's exam site is also in the Backrooms this time."

"Otherwise, dungeons across different dimensions have no chance of meeting at all, right?"

Chris glanced at him and said meaningfully,

"Ryuuen, you still haven't figured it out?"

"If even a world like Chainsaw Man, which we took part in, got annexed by the Backrooms…"

"then what about the Godzilla world we visited, or Ainz Ooal Gown's Skeletal King world? Could they have been swallowed by the Backrooms somewhere we couldn't see?"

As Chris laid out his hypothesis, the careless look on Ryuuen's face gradually faded.

Chris went on.

"At the end of the day, we were always short on time in the exam sites, and habit thinking got in the way too."

"We always used the Controller just to find the target of that exam, kill it, and leave."

"Nobody ever zoomed the map out and seriously tried to explore the whole picture of the world we were standing in."

"Take the world we're in right now. Isn't the door to the Backrooms under Ayanokōji's family home, the White House? It doesn't open right next to our Advanced Nurturing High School."

Ryuuen narrowed his eyes.

"Put that way… it does make some sense."

"After all, didn't the Black Sphere keep saying in its early announcements that we were 'saving the world'?"

Ryuuen sucked in a breath.

"Saving the world… so sometimes it isn't just an exaggeration."

"It means exactly what it says!?"

Chris ignored Ryuuen's belated realization and turned toward the stairwell.

Given the situation now,

Honami Ichinose would be waiting at the gymnasium for the testers to return safely;

Arisu Sakayanagi was off to the director's office to tell her father how serious the "Backrooms" problem was;

and Kei Karuizawa, Amasawa Ichika and Suzune Horikita were all still in the Berserk world farming points.

But luckily,

there were still two free agents, Hiyori Shiina and Kamuro Masumi.

Now that he thought about it,

the angel ability Hiyori Shiina had pulled from the earlier blind box, [Nia Honjou]'s, was actually a solid intel and recon skill, and its inversion effect wasn't bad either.

If Chris remembered right, in the original Date A Live, setting aside Mio Takamiya, the Origin Spirit, who was outside any standard,

the final BOSS, Isaac Ray Peram Westcott, had been able to cause such a huge commotion largely by seizing Nia's inverted Demon King [Beelzebub]!

Even without inverting and falling, an omniscient angel that could look up all the world's information, in a rear-support role, would be an indispensable boost to any team.

As for the [Weather Memory] Kamuro Masumi had drawn…

In a sense, it could be counted as a budget version of the [Weather Report (Stand)].

After all, in Kamen Rider W, the Weather Memory's user could show strength enough to suppress two Kamen Riders, on the condition that he used innocent people to absorb and fuse many other Memories' abilities.

Without S Points to strengthen it, what Kamuro Masumi could currently bring out was only something that complemented her openly displayed "weather control" technique.

Even so, for Kamuro Masumi it was already an upgrade, and not a bad one.

Inside the director's office at Advanced Nurturing High School,

Sakayanagi Seimori had listened to Arisu Sakayanagi recount everything she had seen and heard in the Backrooms these past two days, and had carefully watched the recorded video on her phone as corroboration.

Behind his desk, he took off his glasses with a headache and rubbed hard at his throbbing temples.

"End of August…?"

The middle-aged man let out a long sigh, fatigue he couldn't hide in his voice.

"I knew Koro Sensei's warning meant the danger wouldn't give us much time, but this deadline is still too tight, as expected."

"Even the monsters in your footage, the ones in parallel worlds with hundreds of points, as strong as gods, couldn't escape being swallowed whole by the Backrooms…"

Sakayanagi Seimori sighed.

"Expecting you to grow, in just these few months, to the point of withstanding that kind of dimensional erosion… That's practically mission impossible. Haa."

Watching the graying hair at her father's temples, Arisu Sakayanagi pursed her cherry lips slightly.

"Father, there's really no need to be so pessimistic."

"Compared with those worlds in the Backrooms that can only wait for doomsday in despair, our time is actually still fairly ample."

"And thanks to the Black Sphere and the presiding god, we're a very special and fortunate case among all the affected worlds."

The girl's eyes blazed.

"At the very least, we have room to change the ending through effort, instead of simply waiting to die like those worlds. Isn't that so?"

"If we clear every one of these trials and survive in the end."

"then even wishing on the presiding god to bring Mother back… is no longer an unreachable fantasy for me!"

Hearing his daughter mention his late wife,

Sakayanagi Seimori put his glasses back on and nodded, his gaze on Arisu Sakayanagi softening.

He knew it. Arisu bringing up the wish to revive her late mother this time wasn't out of fragility or grief.

It was out of her strength!

Because she had already found the resolve to face a mission that seemed impossible.

Arisu's mother, are you watching? Our daughter has truly grown up!

He indulged in a moment of remembrance and pushed the sorrow down.

Sakayanagi Seimori regained the dignity of a director and addressed his daughter solemnly.

"You're right."

"I was just wondering how I'd persuade those stubborn hardliners in the Cabinet to give up their power struggles with nothing but someone's word."

"Now that I have the video evidence you brought back, the lobbying and resource consolidation to follow should all be much easier."

"Faced with a doomsday countdown, no matter how much those diehards want to sabotage things to protect their power, they'll have to compromise if they want to live!"

Arisu Sakayanagi seemed to remember something and asked softly,

"Father, given the greedy nature of the government's top politicians, the manpower and resources they poured in after discovering the door to the Backrooms under the White House can't have been small."

"They've explored for so long, even suffered losses… The items they've stockpiled can't possibly be only the ones you just told me about, can they?"

Sakayanagi Seimori tapped his finger rhythmically on the desk and said gravely,

"For now, they have indeed sealed off information on some items."

"I'll find a way, over the next few days, to use this intel crisis to win them over to you."

Arisu Sakayanagi smiled, satisfied.

"That's good."

"If it were before the Black Sphere set our death date in stone, their clutching those items and refusing to release them would be perfectly understandable, normal politician thinking."

"But given how urgent things are now, I believe these politicians, who fear death more than anyone, will see reason."

"Surely…" the girl scoffed, "they don't naively believe the half-baked little tricks they built with human lives can match the presiding god of the Black Sphere, which trains saviors on purpose?"

"Don't make me laugh."

Sakayanagi Seimori listened closely to his daughter's analysis, and couldn't help marveling at how fast Arisu Sakayanagi was growing.

True, as one of only four fixed ones among the qualified chosen by the Black Sphere, she had a guaranteed Resurrection Count, and so naturally had more room for trial and error.

But he knew that not long ago, Arisu Sakayanagi had been just a little girl who, because of her disability, could only pull strings from behind the scenes, and was even troubled by pressure from the politicians outside.

Her little head had still been tangled up in old experiences.

Now she could stand at the height of humanity's survival and look down on those politicians.

Sure enough, true gold needs the fire!

Sakayanagi Seimori was truly proud to have a daughter like Arisu Sakayanagi.

But in return,

as a father, Sakayanagi Seimori also worried about Arisu Sakayanagi's situation.

As someone fighting on the very front line, forced to face unnamable monsters, her slender shoulders carried, one could say, the pressure of the entire world's survival.

Otherwise, with Arisu Sakayanagi's proud, independent nature, she would never lightly have spoken of the mother who mattered most to her.

She said it because she needed the resolve to face every fear.

She needed an obsession to hold on to, one that could keep her walking through mountains of corpses and seas of blood!

Thinking this far, the old father's instincts suddenly kicked in.

Come to think of it, Arisu had changed so much lately. Could it have something to do with her being in love?

Combined with the intel he'd collected recently, he had the feeling this girl's transformation was inseparable from that boy named Chris…

Sakayanagi Seimori's mood suddenly turned rather complicated.

Meanwhile,

in the world of Berserk,

in the ruins of the Kushan Empire's ruined capital,

the concept of the "Astral World" had been erased completely.

The last God Hand had also been utterly destroyed with the help of Chris and the other qualified ones.

Skull Knight, an avenger who had fought the God Hand for a thousand years,

stood quietly in the ruins, the ghostly fire in his eye sockets flickering uncertainly.

He had never imagined that the wish he had endured a thousand years for, and paid everything for without achieving,

would be fulfilled today in a single instant, under the dimension-lowering crushing force of these visitors from another world.

Having lost the God Hand, his sworn enemy,

Skull Knight felt as though something had been hollowed out of him.

For the long time remaining, the only meaning left to his existence would probably be hunting the surviving Apostles across this barren land to pass the endless, tedious years.

And so,

with Skull Knight's help,

the advance test squad led by Suzune Horikita swept through the monsters left in the Kushan Empire's ruined capital like autumn wind through dead leaves, wiping out every last one.

As for the members of the Band of the Hawk, the native resistance force of this world,

they saw this group in strange high-tech armor, surrounded and protected by elusive shadow ninjas, with the legendary Skull Knight even waiting on standby beside them.

The mercenaries of the Band of the Hawk were completely overawed.

Having witnessed the Golden Tree vanish, they guessed that their leader, the "Hawk of Light" Griffith, had probably met with disaster too.

With their faith gone, the Band of the Hawk cleanly and decisively raised the white flag and surrendered.

By now, only about ten minutes remained before the advance test's designated end time.

As for Skull Knight, a veteran warrior, he could do no more than hold the edges and provide support against a God Hand at full power.

But with his [Water-Summoning Sword], forged from countless Apostles' Behelits,

its killing power against mere rabble monsters who couldn't even reach the threshold of an Apostle was devastating.

With the outcome settled and nothing left to do, Skull Knight turned his horse about, ready to leave and seek whatever destination awaited him.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka suddenly raised a hand and stopped him.

With a flip of his wrist, he released Horikita Manabu, who had been resting inside the Mountains and Rivers Map's inner space all this time.

"Skull Knight."

Ayanokōji looked at the towering armor and asked calmly,

"By what you said earlier in the fight, the Astral World has vanished…"

"I'd like to understand what role the Astral World actually played in your world."

Skull Knight drew his reins. The skeletal horse snorted and halted.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was one of those who had helped him trace the root of his long revenge.

This king, who had spent a thousand years coolly watching from the sidelines, for once did not simply ride off and go on being a man of riddles.

The soulfire in his eyes flickered. He fixed his gaze on Ayanokōji.

"You are not people of this world. Am I right?"

"You came out of that door that devours everything?"

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's expression didn't change. He paused, then answered.

"The first part is right."

"The second… isn't entirely right."

With that, Ayanokōji used the briefest words to explain to Skull Knight his understanding of the "Backrooms," and the trials the Black Sphere's presiding god sent them through across dimensions to fight them.

Skull Knight sat upright in the saddle, listening in silence.

Only when Ayanokōji finished did he speak slowly, after a pause.

"So that's how it is…"

"This world, you can understand as having three layers."

"The first layer is the tangible physical world we stand in now."

"The second layer is the Astral World… the world of consciousness where souls, evil spirits, fairies and monsters dwell. The physical world we're in is, in truth, a substance condensed from the projection of the Astral World's spirits."

"As for the third layer, the deepest one…" Skull Knight tilted his head back. "It is the Sea of Origin beneath the Astral World. As the Idea of Evil's dwelling, it is the source of all fate and causality."

Suzune Horikita, who had been standing nearby listening, knitted her brows slightly at this and spoke after some thought.

"If that's so, then the Astral World's disappearance means the foundation of your world is gone?"

"Correct."

Skull Knight agreed without hesitation.

"Though the Astral World and the Sea of Origin bred countless evils, they were the cornerstone holding this world in existence. They were the most indispensable thing."

"The appearance of that Eye wiped out the God Hand and the Idea of Evil and helped me complete my revenge."

"But the sad part is that, with no Idea of Evil to maintain causality, our world, having lost its cornerstone, will also march toward extinction."

Skull Knight lifted the Water-Summoning Sword in his hand, the afterimage of the ruins reflected on the blade.

"So be it."

"Every life, from the moment of its birth, is a process headed toward destruction."

"Worlds are no different. The collapse now is merely a matter of sooner or later."

Hearing this somewhat pessimistic doomsday talk,

Horikita Manabu, who had just come out of the Mountains and Rivers Map and gotten a rough grasp of the situation, suddenly pushed up his glasses and spoke.

"Since you've already confirmed your world is bound to perish with no way back,"

"then why not come with me into that all-devouring Backrooms, and look for a way to solve the world's crisis? Search for the truth behind it all?"

Horikita Manabu looked Skull Knight in the eye.

"The world we live in will, before long, face the same situation as yours does now."

"Honestly, on this matter, we're fellow sufferers."

"Against a common enemy, perhaps we can cooperate."

Horikita Manabu didn't fully know the upper limit of Skull Knight's strength.

But thanks to Chris having thoughtfully enabled the Mountains and Rivers Map's hidden function that allowed one-way viewing of the outside from within,

inside the map, Horikita Manabu had witnessed the full support effect that the "budget edition Enma Blade" in Skull Knight's hand had provided in battle.

In a dangerous place like the Backrooms, full of unknown rules and spatial mazes, having a special talent who could cut through space on the team was surely better than charging in alone.

Skull Knight heard him out.

The ghostly fire inside his skull flickered, and after a brief moment of thought,

the king of a thousand years gave his answer.

"Very well."

"If we need helpers against the unknown abyss, I happen to have two candidates."

"One is a berserker, hardened by countless battlefields, who stands firmly on humanity's side even cursed by fate."

"The other is a young witch, skilled in binding spirits and magic circles."

Horikita Manabu nodded. With such strong fighters offering themselves, there was naturally no reason to refuse.

"In that case… please wait a moment."

His words finished, Skull Knight raised the Water-Summoning Sword directly.

Rrrip!

One stroke, and the spatial barrier in front of him was torn open!

Without a flicker of hesitation, he rode his Astral spirit horse in great strides into that void of a rift.

In the gap while Skull Knight was away,

off in the distance, Kei Karuizawa and the others, after a hard fight, had finally gotten a brief rest and were leaning against stone pillars to recover.

Only now did they turn their attention to the boy in a modern suit standing beside Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

"Huh?"

Kei Karuizawa rubbed her eyes, staring at that vaguely familiar face.

"Is that… the Student Council President?!"

Amikura Mako gasped too, then instinctively turned to look at Suzune Horikita, who stood to one side with the grotesque, snarling Phantom Mask on her face.

Horikita Manabu turned around and met everyone's gaze, giving a slight nod as a greeting.

Then, in a calm voice, he stated his decision.

"I'm sorry, everyone."

"After this exam ends, I won't be returning to school with you. I have to stay in this devoured world and follow the clues into the Backrooms to see what's there."

"Only by finding the source can we win a sliver of hope for our world."

Behind her mask, Suzune Horikita's eyes trembled violently as she listened.

She looked up at her brother, so close, and suddenly spoke.

"Take care."

Hearing a voice thrown off by obviously suppressed emotion,

Horikita Manabu froze for a moment.

Then, through that cold mask, he recognized the stubborn eyes that belonged to his own sister.

The corners of Horikita Manabu's mouth softened, and he smiled.

"Yeah."

"If possible… in the days without me, let's each fight on our own battlefield and work hard to stay alive."

Suzune Horikita didn't answer in words again.

She only closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, as if enduring the dark whispers of the Phantom Mask eating at her sanity.

She nodded hard.

Just then, space in front of them was torn open once more by a blade.

Skull Knight rode out of the rift on his spirit horse in great strides.

And across the front of his saddle lay a man and a woman, both unconscious.

The man was built like a bear, covered in scars, his left arm a cold steel prosthetic, with a black greatsword taller than a man and shaped like a door slab strapped to his back.

The woman looked very small, like a child in oversized witch's robes trying to act grown-up.

Seeing the scene, Amikura Mako opened her mouth.

She looked at the two being carried like sacks and didn't know what to say.

"This… doesn't look like they were brought here after any friendly negotiation…"

Amikura Mako swallowed and whispered, "Knocking people out and kidnapping them to be teammates… is that really okay?"

Skull Knight seemed to see Amikura Mako's worry at a glance.

He set the two down and explained with certainty.

"Do not worry. To save this world that is about to perish, they will agree when they wake."

"Because, just as with me, there are people in this world they would protect no matter what."

In other words…

Skull Knight had nothing left that he especially cared about?!

The group couldn't help feeling it in their hearts.

Still, the countdown had entered its final stretch, and time was limited after all.

This should have been a precious interval for the group to lick their wounds briefly after a bloody battle.

But after learning that Horikita Manabu would give up a safe life of his own accord and stay alone in the abyss-like Backrooms as an explorer, paving the way for all humanity,

sure enough,

faced with that kind of heroic, solitary courage, anyone with a shred of conscience couldn't look away.

Nanase Tsubasa tightened her grip on her weapon and stepped forward to propose.

"Student Council President! There are still a few minutes before the exam ends."

"Why don't we go into the Backrooms with you first and see what's going on?"

"More people, more eyes. At least we can help you scout the early path!"

Yotsuya Miko's legs were shaking with fear, but she gritted her teeth and chimed in loudly.

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"We've had some experience surviving in the Backrooms before, so we might really be able to help you, Student Council President!"

Though Yotsuya Miko barely knew Horikita Manabu and had hardly spoken a few words to him,

she sincerely admired and respected a "human constellation" who was willing to sacrifice himself to light the way for others' hope of life.

Looking at this hot-blooded group of companions,

Kouenji Rokusuke slipped his hands into his pockets and chuckled, making no move to stop them.

"This is… the last help we can offer you, Student Council President."

"We can't walk the rest of the road for you."

Horikita Manabu saw the sincerity in everyone's eyes, and warmth stirred in his chest.

In the end he nodded and didn't refuse again.

After all, because of the time limits, the time he'd spent with Chris after his rescue, exchanging intel, hadn't actually been long.

His understanding of the Backrooms' twisted rules wasn't comprehensive either.

If he could use this chance to learn more early-stage intel with everyone's help, that would be good.

"In that case…"

Horikita Manabu turned to look at Skull Knight.

Skull Knight understood at once.

"I know a door that connects to the abyss."

"I once entered its edge by chance… Now, I will take you there."