The moment Alain and Misha pushed open the basement door, the familiar pink room was gone. Instead, they found themselves in a brightly lit white space.
Hand in hand, Alain and Misha stepped out, Alain's gaze sweeping across their new surroundings. He realized with a jolt that this was the first time he'd ventured into the game world beyond the confines of Mita's unsettling chamber.
The floor and walls were a stark grid of alternating gray and white squares. Scattered across this unusual landscape were mundane pieces of furniture: sofas, a refrigerator, and chairs, seemingly placed at random.
Two doors stood before them – one directly ahead, the other behind.
Alain's eyes drifted upwards, and what he saw made his shoulders tense. Almost involuntarily, he turned to Misha.
"Where is this?" he asked.
He continued to stare at the object that had caught his attention, but several silent seconds passed without a response.
"?"
Alain glanced at Misha.
He saw the subtle tremor in her shoulders, her long hair shifting slightly. Her head was bowed, her eyes hidden beneath her bangs, as if she were lost in thought.
In her hand, she casually held the steel pipe from the cage, as if she'd picked it up without a second thought.
A wave of pride for his dear's attentiveness washed over Alain, quickly followed by a question.
"Misha?"
But before the word fully left his lips, a fleeting shadow and the delicate scent of her perfume enveloped him.
"Hmm?"
By the time his mind registered the movement, his entire world was filled with Misha's intense gaze and her approaching face.
The soft, yielding pressure of her lips was as sweet as the finest dessert. Yet, Alain barely had a moment to savor the tenderness.
His attention was immediately drawn to the resolute resentment burning in Misha's eyes.
Jealousy, fierce and unwavering, swirled within her dark blue irises. In his peripheral vision, he caught the flush on her cheeks, a mixture of possessiveness and perhaps a touch of shyness at their sudden intimacy.
A moment later, their lips parted. Misha retrieved a handkerchief and gently dabbed at Alain's slightly moistened lips.
"Hmph~ That makes it two all," she murmured.
Alain blinked, a little stunned, and touched his own lips. "You… were jealous?"
He was thinking of the forceful kisses and even the hickeys left by the unsettling woman in the basement.
"..."
The girl's hands tightened on the hem of her short skirt, her gaze flickering away.
"A… little bit," she admitted softly.
"My dear, that's so incredibly cute. Alright, I'll be more careful next time," Alain said, a fond smile touching his lips. He gently patted her head, and Misha's expression softened, becoming as gentle and content as a petted cat.
Misha's demeanor in the basement had been remarkably composed.
Their escape plan, beyond simply filling the progress bar, had relied on Misha using her knowledge of Alain's blind spot on the stairs to reach the landing first and wait for him.
Alain would then break free from Crazy Mita's grasp as quickly as possible, reaching the bottom of the stairs. At that point, Misha would pull him up and out of Crazy Mita's reach.
Fortunately, the strange woman hadn't pursued them, and they had made their escape unscathed.
However, the possibility of Crazy Mita possessing teleportation abilities couldn't be dismissed, which was why Alain had needed to employ his "hard control" beforehand.
"By the way, Misha. Do you know where we are?" Alain asked, breaking the brief silence.
"This is outside the world, a kind of transfer point between the various rooms in the game. It can also lead to other versions. Usually, they store spare furniture here," she explained.
"Then… in this so-called outside world, is that thing there?" Alain tilted his head towards the ceiling.
"That?" Misha followed his gaze, her own head tilting slightly. Alain gently tugged on her skirt, and she didn't object to the motion. Her blue eyes finally settled on the center of the ceiling, where his had been fixed.
"?!"
Her pupils contracted rapidly.
"What… is that thing? I've never seen anything like it before," she exclaimed, a hint of alarm in her voice.
Suspended in the center of the ceiling, where the room's light source should have been, a circular object had abruptly materialized. It rotated slowly, a stark black against the white ceiling.
Within its depths, lines of white code flickered and drifted like ghostly script, and occasionally, ripples like jolts of electricity pulsed across its surface. It was roughly the size of an adult's torso.
"I-is that… a bug?" Misha ventured, then quickly shook her head. "No… if it were a bug, it would be sucking in all this furniture. So… what is it then?"
"I don't understand either," Alain admitted, his brow furrowed in thought as he observed the strange sphere. He noticed something peculiar.
Earlier, he'd noted that the room's floor was decorated with staggered gray and white squares. Now, directly beneath the black sphere, two rows of squares – one in front and one behind – had turned completely black, forming two thick, distinct lines.
And the lines…
Alain's gaze flicked from the front to the back of the room.
They were positioned exactly in front of and behind the two wooden doors.
A wave of curiosity washed over Alain. He wondered what would happen if he stepped onto one of these black lines.
He voiced his thoughts aloud to Misha.
"Eh? You want to try stepping on them? What if it's dangerous…" she said, her voice laced with concern.
"Don't worry, I definitely won't be the one doing the stepping," Alain reassured her with a wry smile. His thinking might sometimes be unconventional, but he wasn't reckless. These two black lines looked undeniably suspicious, and he wasn't about to test them himself.
He grabbed a nearby chair and tossed it towards the nearest black line.
With a soft "click," the chair landed squarely on the dark marking.
In the next instant, the sphere in the center of the ceiling convulsed, transforming into a chaotic jumble of garbled code that flickered erratically.
And the chair that had landed on the black line dissolved into what looked like static ashes, vanishing completely.
Once the chair was gone, the garbled code on the ceiling gradually coalesced, reforming into the original black sphere.
It was as if nothing had happened; an unsettling return to calm.
Afterward, Alain tried picking up another object and throwing it just in front of and just behind the black lines, but nothing vanished.
This suggested that the chair's unfortunate fate was triggered only by direct contact with the black line.
"What… is this thing?" Misha whispered, her hand instinctively tightening around Alain's.
"Did anything like this happen when you came outside the world last time?" Alain asked.
"No," she replied, shaking her head.
"Then… did it happen while you were locked in the basement?"
Alain's thoughts drifted to his recent conversation with the strange woman. Honey's words had mentioned "not having time to clean up the trash around the house."
But the woman had used the plural "those," which didn't seem to match the single sphere hanging above them.
"It's alright, let's make a plan first," he said, giving Misha's small hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Mm," she nodded. "I was thinking about it too. We still need to see if these two doors in front of us and behind us have changed in any way."
"Okay. Wait for me a moment, I'll get my bearings," Alain said, his mind already working.
Inside the gray and white checkered room, besides the iron door they had just emerged from, stood two wooden doors – one ahead and one behind – each leading to an unknown destination.
Their primary goal remained the same: find the Mita Misha had mentioned, the one who could assemble the teleportation device.
While they searched, they would also keep an eye out for an opportunity to deliver the "gift" to the strange woman.
Thinking of this, Alain opened his system panel. The candy had just finished downloading.
He didn't take it out immediately but instead started downloading the panties. While he waited, he checked the progress bar on the system panel.
"Phew," Alain breathed a sigh of relief. After their recent ordeal, the progress bar had reached 30%.
[You have activated security protection]
At least their safety was somewhat more assured.
But if possible, Alain still wanted to accelerate the progress. Having a weapon and the body enhancement effect at his disposal would make him feel much more secure in this unfamiliar territory.
He wondered if the order of the progress bar skills within the security system could be rearranged in the future…
Aside from that, after fiddling with the system panel for a while, Alain discovered a new function.
[720 Security Feedback]
"Heh," Alain scoffed inwardly. Had the broken system finally decided to listen to reason?
He tried to voice his concern about the skill order to the system. But apart from a curt "Your feedback is very useful," there was no further response.
"Damn it…" Alain muttered under his breath. He decided to deal with it properly once the mission was over.
Turning his attention back to their immediate situation, Alain looked at the door in front of him, then back at the door behind him.
To find the room of the Mita who wore a hat, they had to see… what lay beyond these doors.
Therefore, their only option was to move forward.
____
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