"My dear, stay behind me," Alain said, his voice firm but gentle.
As the only one armed, Misha's first instinct was to shield Alain from harm, wanting to position herself in front. Her grip tightened on the steel pipe, but she nodded at his command.
"Okay."
Alain didn't argue, stepping slightly behind and to Misha's side. He kept close enough to pull her into a protective embrace at a moment's notice, ready to activate the security protection if needed.
Together, they moved cautiously towards the door, their footsteps crossing over the ominous black lines until they stood directly before it.
"Step back a little," Alain instructed. "I'll open the door. I've got defensive measures ready."
"Mm," Misha replied, taking a step back.
Alain reached for the doorknob, his brow furrowing slightly as he pulled it down.
A soft "click" confirmed it wasn't locked and turned smoothly in his hand.
"Ready?" he murmured, glancing at Misha.
"Ready!" she responded, her eyes fixed on the barely open door.
Taking a deep breath, Alain slowly swung the door inward.
They were met by the sight of a brightly lit wooden corridor, its walls painted with cheerful pink and white stripes.
A row of doors lined the opposite side of the corridor. They appeared both near and far.
Near, because the door Alain held was only about ten meters away from the doors across the hall, a distance easily spanned by the eye.
But far, because the left side of the wooden corridor was swarming with a disturbing number of "creatures."
They were round and black, resembling bloated worms. Instead of conventional mouths, each had a vortex-like depression at its front.
As these "worms'" mouth depressions aligned with the wooden floor, the wood seemed to dissolve into lines of code and was sucked into their bodies as if they were drinking.
The worms repeated this process relentlessly, leaving a large section of the corridor to the left of Alain's vision a dark, empty void, as if a swarm of locusts had devoured it.
"W-worms?" Misha's soft exclamation snapped Alain from his unsettling observation. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement. Right outside the door they had just opened, one of the black worms lingered.
Their gazes met the creature's, and the black worm's body coiled and lunged forward.
Without hesitation, Alain slammed the door shut. A muffled "thump!" echoed through the quiet room.
"Seen those before?" he asked Misha.
"No," she replied, her voice barely a whisper.
A shared understanding of the unsettling truth passed between them.
"The game world has changed."
Holding Misha's hand, they retreated back into the white room to collect their thoughts and take a moment to process what they had just seen. Alain guessed that these worms must be the "trash" Honey had mentioned.
"How is it? Do you know where that door leads?" Alain asked, turning back to Misha.
"Mm. If nothing unexpected happens, the row of doors in the corridor should lead to my friend Cappie's room."
"..."
Alain couldn't help but wonder if his Honey had created those grotesque things. But somehow, he felt that with Honey's peculiar aesthetic sense, she would have crafted something more… visually interesting. These were just disgusting.
His gaze drifted to the remaining door.
"Want to try?" Misha's eyes met his, understanding his unspoken question.
"At this point, we don't really have another choice," Alain admitted.
Behind the last door lay an unknown option, and Alain was still determined to explore it.
They walked to the front of the door. This time, Misha volunteered to open it.
Just as their vigilance had reached its peak, the scene that greeted them after Misha swung the door open was peaceful to the point of being… almost anticlimactic.
A room. [Presumably] another Mita's room, or perhaps a living room.
Alain's eyes flicked downwards, noticing that the threshold of this Mita's door was slightly stained with black.
Looking ahead, the layout of the room was strikingly similar to the strange woman's pink cottage. The door they had just opened served as the entrance.
As for why he added the "presumably"…
The lighting in the room was quite dim. The sofa, table, corner, and floor of the living room were all covered in objects with a purple and black checkered pattern.
The light filtering in from outside the window wasn't the familiar white of day, but the eerie black glow of night.
The darkness within the room wasn't as oppressive as in the small black room they had previously encountered, but it still sent a shiver down Alain's spine.
"This is…!" Misha whispered, a tremor of fear in her voice. She pointed towards the sofa, and following her finger, Alain finally noticed a figure sitting there.
The beautiful hair cascading down her back was the same dark blue as his dear beside him. The clothes she wore weren't the bright red knitted sweater that seemed to be Mita's standard attire, but a stark, pure white.
Whether it was Alain's imagination or not, that Mita's body seemed… stiff, almost puppet-like.
"Do you know where this is?" Alain whispered in Misha's ear, his warm breath making her giggle slightly.
"Mm."
"Click."
Just as they were speaking, the Mita in the living room seemed to notice her guests, her body emitting a distinct, puppet-like sound.
"Click-clack."
She slowly turned her head to look at them. In Alain's observation, the girl who turned had a pale, almost sickly complexion. Her eyes were vacant, her pupils dilated, and she regarded them with an unsettling, distant gaze.
Faintly, Alain could also hear a subtle grinding sound, as if she were clenching her teeth.
Misha's voice reached his ear, hushed and filled with apprehension. "That's Ugly Mita, one of the… most aggressive Mitas I know."
"Crunch, crunch, crunch…"
Ugly Mita stood up, her movements jerky and unnatural, as if the joints in her body were made of wood, each step stiff and controlled by invisible strings.
"Click, click, click."
She turned towards the two guests, as if intending to offer some strange form of hospitality, and reached into the embrace of the small bear she was holding.
Her voice was a series of static noises, completely unintelligible as any known language. But as it entered his mind, Alain could inexplicably understand it.
"Guest of Mita-sama, is also guest of Mita."
"Eh…" Alain couldn't quite agree with the moniker "Ugly." He sized up "Ugly Mita's" entire form. Apart from the unsettling teeth-grinding and the somewhat exaggerated stiffness of her limbs, she was actually rather cute.
"You even come up with nicknames like that? Doesn't sound like you at all," he whispered back to Misha.
"I didn't give her that name," Misha hissed, her eyes darting nervously to Ugly Mita's hand fumbling inside the bear's body. "Isn't this not the time to be talking about this?"
But Alain remained focused on the Mita before him, meeting her vacant gaze without looking away.
"Isn't she quite cute?" he voiced his thoughts aloud.
"Click."
He wasn't sure what exactly she did, but Ugly Mita's movements inside the bear's body stopped abruptly. In fact, all movement in her body ceased.
"?"
Alain could see a look of utter disbelief in her otherwise emotionless eyes.
What? Can't I even say she's cute? he thought, a hint of amusement flickering within him.
[30%→35%]
Huh? This can even increase the progress bar? Alain's mind raced. Could it be that Ugly Mita, who isn't ugly at all, is labeled as a virus by the system, just like his Honey…?
"What's wrong with her?" Alain murmured close to his dear's ear, his nose catching the familiar sweet scent of her hair.
But Misha wasn't paying attention to his actions. Cold sweat beaded on the girl's cheeks, her lips twitched, and she pointed a trembling finger in front of Alain. "Y-you, look…"
"Look?" Alain turned his head in the direction she indicated.
He was met by a pale face, staring intently at him.
"???"
Alain glanced to the side and saw that "Ugly Mita's" body was still standing stiffly by the sofa. But her neck had unnaturally elongated, becoming a thin, strip-like extension.
With this bizarre transformation, her head was now almost within touching distance, their eyes locked.
In this critical, surreal moment, his professional habits unexpectedly kicked in.
"So cute," he murmured, a genuine smile gracing his lips.
____
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