.......You’re kidding.”

The bunny girl muttered those words in shock.

She showed a look of amazement that had not been seen on her face before.

“But..you shouldn’t be able to solve those. You shouldn’t be able to solve them!! Those are the worst possible questions for the answerer because they used the answerer’s own thought processes to seal up his personal loopholes!!”

“The worst possible?” Higashikawa Mamoru frowned doubtfully after he finished typing. “You think that’s the worst possible? This was nothing more than a simple monitoring.”

“Oh, I see. It was because they were absolutely impossible to answer. That’s why! That has to be it!! That brought the absurd into play, didn’t it!? The power to make the impossible possible allowed you to answer those unanswerable questions!!”

“..”

Higashikawa Mamoru slowly shook his head.

He did not need any strange powers to solve something of this level.

It was just a matter of preconceptions.

The fixed idea that he could never solve it would restrict his thoughts. By resetting everything and rethinking from square one, he could find a way through.

This was just a game of creating a question and solving it oneself.

It had nothing but himself in it.

But Higashikawa knew of something else.

He knew of his nine comrades who had taken on the burden of others’ lives and futures and shown him the way to the best answer.

When he thought of them..

When their lives hung in the balance..

He could no longer think of this as his own choice. It exceeded the boundaries of playing a game with himself and new pathways of thought opened up.

When someone falls in love, gets married, has a child, or takes on responsibility for anything important, their thought processes transform into something new. This was the same as that.

“I win.”

“..”

“I win. It doesn’t matter if you accept it or not. I won the final attraction. The master key I need to rescue those nine is mine. And more importantly, we no longer need to be bound by those ridiculous powers. Isn’t that right?”

“Ha..ha ha,” laughed the bunny girl.

It was not that she had stopped thinking out of fear or that she was laughing out of desperation.

Some decisive core remained. She had not broken yet.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

“..What do you find so funny about this? Are you laughing at your own fate?”

“I can’t help but laugh. This is so absurd. This is truly absurd!! This is not what we organizers had hoped for, but it is actually of even higher purity! After that conclusion, there can be no doubting it. Objective Alice will be led here!! Our great desire shall be fulfilled!!”

The bunny girl snapped her fingers.

All of the laptops gave off a dazzling light. They were not simply displaying something. The devices themselves had obviously exceeded some sort of limit. The excessive amount of electricity caused them to give off light on the level of a camera flash, but the great burden then caused the laptops to burst to pieces and send sparks flying everywhere.

“!?”

Higashikawa covered his face with his hands and the bunny girl was gone by the time he could see again. One door to the bar was suspiciously sitting open, but he did not know if she had actually escaped through it.

However, he held the key to the entire facility in his hand.

And he still had that unnatural power to call in success that apparently came from the absurd. If what the bunny girl had said was accurate, this power was on the level of the goddess of victory who caused conflicts among the gods because simply having her on your side would give you victory in a war.

If he tried to find her, he could find her right away.

If he tried to kill her, he could kill her right away.

“But more importantly..”

The nine dangling in the great pit below the floor came first.

Higashikawa thought all of the laptops had been destroyed, but when he looked around the area, he found one laptop that was conveniently unscathed.

He did not know if it had simply survived or if his power had overturned continuity once more.

Part 5

Higashikawa Mamoru was a complete amateur when it came to operating such specialized devices, but all it took was randomly hitting a few keys to safely draw up the bags the nine were trapped inside like a giant game of goldfish scooping. It all went unnaturally smoothly as if some invisible force was controlling it all, but he did not care at the moment.

“H-hey, what’s going on!? Weren’t we going to be killed!?” asked Kazakami in disbelief even as he broke through the thick plastic and crawled out.

“It felt like the process suddenly stopped partway through.”

Harumi and Rachel did not seem to understand what had happened either.

After helping Hiyama out of her thick plastic bag, the high school girl named Matsumi asked, “Where’s the bunny girl?”

Higashikawa replied, “She’s no longer a threat.”

With that said, Higashikawa and the other nine left the bar. They were supposedly in a vast sealed-off area prepared by the organizers with several layers of locks keeping them in, but Higashikawa had the master key. All the electronic locks were meaningless. He easily opened the hidden doors that were practically part of the wall, the traps and sensors set in the passageways were not active, and they made it to the exit with no trouble at all.

It was a small back door made of aluminum or stainless steel.

Given everything that had happened, Anzai was cautious.

“W-will it really be this easy?”

“After everything so far, I get the feeling they are having us let down our guard before sending in something huge.”

Even Hotaru, who had given off a comparatively calm and collected impression, was overcome by suspicion.

But Higashikawa felt they had no reason to worry.

The issue had already been settled at the level of those strange absurdities. Higashikawa and the others were protected by rules of an insane world where people could not hurt each other even with shards from broken monitors, bombs, or knives. No matter what the bunny girl and the other organizers were plotting, Higashikawa doubted it would go as they expected.

And so..

He did not hesitate to grab the doorknob and turn it.

The door opened wide.

The first thing he noticed was the wind.

It was nothing more than the air of a moderately cool night flowing in. However, that wind tugged at all of their heartstrings. This was not the stale air of that vast enclosed area. This was freely flowing wind. They were overcome with emotion when struck by this completely normal sensation.

It symbolized their freedom.

It proved they had escaped alive from those attractions.

“O-oh.”

Someone spoke.

It may not have mattered who it was.

All of them then cried out.

“Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

They cried out, shouted out, and then scrambled to be the first one out the door. The door was small, so they were squeezing past each other to get through. They lost their balance and fell to the ground.

They tasted dirt.

Dirt.

This was not a floor. It was a flavor that could only come from the earth.

As he reflected on that flavor, Higashikawa’s tear glands finally gave in.

“Ha ha ha!! We won.. Dammit, we won!! Every single one of us escaped those insane attractions aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the starry sky. The wind had a salty smell to it, so they may have been near the ocean or on an island. He looked around while still on his back and spotted distant silhouettes of what might have been a domed stadium and a crane from a harbor.

They may have been facilities related to the past attractions they had seen in the monitor videos.

But it did not matter.

They just needed to escape. That would mean they had defeated the organizers.

The career woman named Hiyama stared down at Higashikawa’s face.

“Excellent work.”

“..We made it somehow. Almost everything was thought up at the last second, though.”

“You could have abandoned us.”

“That wouldn’t have been a victory. After everything we went through, we had to win.”

He grabbed her outstretched hand to stand up.

But then..

“..?”

When he placed his other hand against the ground to support himself, he felt something oddly hard. It almost felt like metal. Higashikawa brushed away the surface of the dirt and found something odd.

It was a handle.

He then uncovered a square frame two meters across.

“What is this?”

“It might lead to a basement,” whispered Hiyama.

Kazakami shook his head.

“Stop that. We got out. That’s all we need to do, right? If we leave and head back home, we can survive. We don’t need to head further in!!”

“But will the organizers really just let us leave?” suggested Hotaru.

Aisu spoke up in agreement.

“They have our personal information. They won’t attack our homes later, will they?”

“..”

Rachel crouched down in fear.

Higashikawa honestly doubted the organizers could damage them now. He did not understand any of this absurdity or Ever-Victorious Challenger nonsense, but the power balance had already been made clear. Regardless of Higashikawa’s own ability, the organizers would be automatically eliminated due to the power to call in success.

But would that power protect him forever?

He had no idea what rules it was based in or what fuel it consumed to function. It could be that once he left this place, once he woke up the next day, or once he had forgotten about it, he would suddenly find the power was gone and he was completely defenseless.

Had they truly ensured their safety?

Was it not better to approach the core of the organizers while he had this overwhelming power and could get away with a bit of risk?

With Anzai’s help, Higashikawa opened the door in the ground. As expected, it contained concrete stairs leading underground. It was too dark inside to see what was there.

“Are the organizers in there?” asked Harumi.

“Who even are the organizers? It certainly sounded like there were more than just the bunny girl,” said Kozue.

Higashikawa was just as curious.

For one thing, he still did not know why they had carried out these large-scale attractions. It seemed the bunny girl had achieved some sort of goal, but he did not know what that meant.

And..

If he could gain control of whatever that was, would he be able to use it as a powerful card in negotiations with the organizers?

“What should we do?” asked Anzai Kyousuke. “Will we continue on or escape outside?”

“..”

Higashikawa thought.

Having all ten of them leave together would likely be the greatest result. But any slight mistake would get them all killed.

On the other hand, the cornerstone of the organizers’ plan might be right before his eyes. The thought of stealing it or destroying it was too much to pass up. Higashikawa and the others had been on the receiving end the entire time, and they finally had a real chance to fight back.

What would he do?

What would he choose?

After thinking for a while, he finally spoke.

“I’ll go. If there are any traps, it’s better if only one person is caught in them.”

Higashikawa and the other nine had defeated the organizers. They had all survived the attractions.

But the one who had won under a special set of rules and had gained the most from his victory was clearly Higashikawa. The one to set foot in the most dangerous place had to be the one who had obtained the Ever-Victorious Challenger.

Anzai asked, “Are you sure?”

“If we overlook this here, it could come back to bite us in the ass. I will find something we can use to ensure we will not be attacked again after escaping. That is the best possible ending.”

Having said that, Higashikawa looked down at the staircase.

Hiyama spoke from behind him.

“If anything happens, just shout for help.”

“I will.”

He took the first step.

After feeling the hard concrete underfoot, he continued down into the darkness belowground.

He was greatly reminded of the abyss of hell.

Before long, the pale starlight could no longer reach him. It was pitch black by the time he reached the bottom of the staircase. He felt his way along and found a metal door in front of him.

He turned the knob.

It did not seem to be locked.

“..”

And then..

Higashikawa Mamoru..

..opened the door.

Part 6

The room was dimly lit.

But compared to that the complete darkness from before, this was quite a bit more light.

The small square room was about the size of a school classroom. About 50 folding chairs were lined up evenly within. A film projector was located against the right wall and a pure white screen hung down on the left wall. The room’s light came from the film being shown.

The screen showed Higashikawa, Hiyama, and the others.

A compilation of footage from their struggles in the Hell Hospital was being carelessly shown.

About 30 of the 50 folding chairs were filled. The people sitting in them were mostly middle-aged or elderly and did not look like they had struggled a day in their lives. They did not even turn in Higashikawa’s direction when he suddenly entered the room. He could see the sides of their faces dimly illuminated by the light of the projector. They were all smiling. That unity lacked any humanity. Higashikawa could feel a sense of revulsion run from his fingertips and across his body like when seeing a swarm of insects.

Higashikawa felt an uncontrollable heat in his head when he spotted the bunny girl among them.

“You bitch!!” he shouted and ran over to grab her shoulder.

But then..

Amid all of the unmoving people, the bunny girl alone turned just her head in Higashikawa’s direction.

Yes, just her head.

There was nothing but her shapely face and spine.

Her smile bloomed on her face like she was some horrifying flower in a vase.

“..Eh?”

Higashikawa’s vision grew psychedelically distorted.

His brain refused to comprehend what he was seeing.

From her neck up, her bright skin and wonderful complexion remained unchanged, but below her neck was nothing but a white backbone. And some sticky, flesh-colored liquid had spread out across the folding chair and the floor around it. That was all. What looked to be her clothes had fallen away with the liquid.

That was truly all.

She could not be alive any longer.

Even if she could change her expression and carry a conversation, something about her was definitively different from a living human. She had become something on the level of a character from a story where a head blinked after being removed by a guillotine.

“What..?”

His question was simply about what had happened to the bunny girl.

But..

Could it be?

He turned toward the middle-age and elderly people who were not moving no matter what.

Were they the same?

“Our..”

The bunny girl’s coquettishly glittering lips moved.

Given the state she was in, it seemed horribly wrong for the bunny girl to still be alive and still smiling as always.

“Our objective was to capture the absurd. We were to call in Objective Alice who symbolizes the absurd and capture her.”

“What..?”

“The gambling storyline as well as the Unbeatable Emperor and Ever-Victorious Challenger characters gained from it were nothing more than side effects. We had no interest in the gambling story itself. Our objective was to capture the special girl who can be called the guide for all storylines, be they horror, gambling, love comedy, suspense, action, battle, sports, science fiction, or fantasy. Of all the countless storylines derived from the guide, the gambling one was the easiest to use. We tried to work our way back from there to approach Alice, the guide. ..That is what this story really is.”

At first, it seemed she was explaining it to him, but she was not checking to see if he understood. It was as if she was a digital recorder spouting back predetermined information.

“You may not believe it, but we are an ideological association that stands on the side of justice. To be blunt, this is a great problem that cannot be resolved by any honest means, so we have been constantly working towards resolving it all at once using dishonest means.”

The absurd.

Objective Alice.

Higashikawa had no idea what those terms referred to, so he had no way of understanding what the rest of the explanation meant. However, the bunny girl omitted any explanations regarding them to an unnatural extent.

It was as if someone had edited out the information he must not hear.

“The absurd is an existence that disturbs the proper parameters of things. If used well, we thought it could lead us to the answers to all sorts of problems without having to find a real solution. We thought it could be used like a book of prophecy.”

The bunny girl gave an oddly vivid smile.

Higashikawa could not tell what emotion was contained within it.

He was not even sure if anything remained of the bunny girl’s will.

“But when we attempted it, this is what happened. It seems we angered Alice in the process of our emulation. She used her full ability to protect you or someone in your group.”

The cause of this insane phenomenon.

An existence that had so easily wiped out the organizers of those attractions.

An overwhelming character that held far greater power than Higashikawa’s unnatural ability to call in success.

The strange guide who smiled as she tied together the stories of an omnibus horror movie and stood above the evil spirits and monsters that did as they pleased in the stories.

“But this is a new discovery.” The bunny girl’s expression was one of true joy. “After all, we now know Objective Alice can feel honest anger based in an honest moral framework. That means provoking her that way could eliminate the need for an emulation based in detailed formulas and-..”

The bunny girl’s words suddenly came to an end.

Her beautiful eyes rotated to an odd angle.

Higashikawa heard a splashing noise.

That single flower that had just barely remained intact had finally turned to a flesh-colored liquid and splattered to the floor.

At the same moment, all of the middle-aged and elderly people left in the other chairs melted to the floor as well. It sounded like bucket after bucket of water was being poured to the ground.

It was like a switch had been thrown.

It looked as if a lawnmower had made its way through that creepy flower garden.

They had been absurdly left alive until then just to tell Higashikawa those words.

“..”

Higashikawa felt confused that he was still breathing.

That was how removed from reality it all felt.

He audibly gulped and finally truly felt that he was still alive. He finally came to a conclusion.

(The organizers are gone. We should be safe for now.)

But as soon as he thought that, he heard a small noise.

He had not noticed it before and it seemed strange that he had not, but the room had another door. The lock clicked open and the door cracked open on its own.

He could not see anything through the gap.

It was possible something was peering out at him.

But the organizers were gone.

Higashikawa had concluded that.

In that case..

Who was beyond that door?

Who was left?

“..You’re kidding.”

If what the bunny girl – or whoever had been making her speak – was right, Objective Alice had given this cruel punishment to the organizers in order to save Higashikawa and the others.

And now something else was inviting him into that extraordinarily deep darkness.

Were they trying to save him? Or did they have some other objective?

None of it fit together and everyone’s intentions seemed scattered everywhere.

It brought a certain word to Higashikawa’s mind:

Absurd.

“..”

If he turned back toward the staircase to the surface, he could likely ignorantly meet up with the other nine and safely return home.

But if he headed further into the darkness, he could arrive at the truth in exchange for a fair amount of risk. But this risk would surely be more than he could handle with a puny absurdity like the Ever-Victorious Challenger.

Sweat poured from Higashikawa’s brow and he felt it drip down along his nose.

Which path should he choose?

And finally..

historical

He chose.