Weird Honkai Impact: Chasing Husband Crematorium

Chapter 2: A room where the living must die, a ghost among the crowd

"…I restart."

Riku touched his neck with both hands and then touched his head along his neck.

"The head is still there."

"This is... the entrance to the academy."

Riku quickly calmed down, even though he had already guessed what kind of bloody scene had just happened.

Time waits for no one, he must deal with the weirdness here as soon as possible. Staying here will only lead to more deaths and more dangers.

"So this time the weirdness is attached to Kiana, otherwise Kiana would not do these things that are not in line with normal people."

"The gate is fine, but once I enter the school gate, I will be forcibly beheaded. I will have no way to resist."

"There must be something wrong with the broadcast. The thermometer showed the display right after the voice finished speaking. And I was not killed immediately after the voice finished speaking, which means it has nothing to do with the strangely possessed Kiana. She came only after my death. So there are two possibilities—"

"First, there are people in the broadcasting room, but the person who is speaking is suspicious. The ghost has mixed into the crowd. This is the worst case scenario. I can't convince others to help me kill the ghost mixed in with the crowd."

"Second, there's no one in the broadcasting room, and there's something wrong with the broadcasting. I can solve it perfectly by puncturing my eardrum, and then I can ask Mei to help me with the treatment afterward."

"No... there is a third possibility. There are problems with both the radio and the person speaking through it!"

After just one death, Riku quickly analyzed all the reasonable possibilities.

He raised his head and looked at the dead silent school. The answer must be there.

If he wanted to solve this problem, he had to enter the teaching building of St. Freya College.

Riku has already thought about how to solve the problem of the gate, but he must determine one of the three situations, otherwise, it will lead to errors in his subsequent judgment.

"Now it's my turn to make a difference."

Even though Riku really didn't want to use the notebook, the notebook would never tell you the correct answer to clear a level with one life.

Even if it gave an answer that would definitely succeed, if Riku completely believed in the notebook and did what it said, he would only die many times.

(TL: Why do I feel that this notebook is like the Tome of Wisdom in Re-Zero)

There is no doubt that after dying too many times, Riku will be swallowed by the weirdness and completely lose himself.

[...]

"Don't want to say it?"

"I know you can understand human language and logic. Listen carefully. If you continue to play dead, I don't mind leaving here immediately and ordering a sealed box with extremely high density and Honkai energy that can withstand great pressure. The size is just right to fit you tightly so that you can't move."

"And then lock you in there and sink you into the ocean."

"After all, you are not the Titanic, and there are still rich people willing to spend money to go sightseeing in such a dangerous place."

"You can only sink into darkness forever, and continue to plot your doomed conspiracy in endless loneliness."

"If you are afraid, give me an answer now. I don't mind how many traps you set, but I want to see an accurate answer. Otherwise, there is no point in keeping you."

Riku uttered harsh words and turned to walk outside as he spoke as if he really wanted to leave here.

I don't know if the notebook felt scared because of what Riku said. Curved words gradually appeared on the notebook.

[My name is Riku. When you see this sentence, I am dying and about to be restarted.]

"Don't repeat this sentence again. Could you say it at the beginning every time? Don't waste my time."

[I am now ready to enter the teaching building, but before entering I need to determine what the source of the danger is.]

[I have three theories at the moment. One is that a ghost has mixed into the crowd in the broadcasting room, and the ghost is talking on the radio to attract other horrors to kill me.]

[Second, there is no one in the broadcasting room, and the broadcasting itself is a ghost.]

[The third situation is the most serious. The person broadcasting is a ghost, and a ghost has also mixed in with the crowd in the broadcasting room.]

[Before I know which situation it is, I will have no way to go into the school because I can't fight against ghosts at all.]

"..." Riku coughed twice guiltily, "It's enough that I have a brain. At worst, I can ask my waifu to come over and beat these guys up."

[There are two solutions I can think of at the moment. One is to leave temporarily and invite Elysia. With Elysia's "characteristics", I can easily get rid of the ghosts in the school, but this means that I cannot completely eradicate the weirdness of this world. It is a helpless choice.]

[The second one, which is also the one I am most reluctant to do, is to try to get the answer from this strange notebook.]

[The answer given by the notebook is, in the first case: a ghost mixed into the crowd in the broadcasting room, and the ghost attracted terror through the broadcasting and tried to kill me.]

Riku quickly closed his notebook and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Very good, it's not the third case. Although it's not easy to solve, at least there is still a chance."

Riku did not stop where he was and immediately rushed to the school wall.

"If you can't get through the main door, just climb over the wall."

Riku jumped from the spot, and then smoothly...

Fall to the ground.

"Tsk... forget that I've only died once in this world, and my body isn't as strong as the last time I died twice."

Riku rubbed his butt, remembering his physical strength that caused him to die twice during the last mission.

Each time the return to the original world is completed, the accumulated death will be cleared.

Dying once can reach the limit of human beings. A 100-meter sprint only takes more than nine seconds, and high jump and long jump can easily reach the world's top level.

To die twice is no longer human, in a sense...

Riku felt that he, who had died twice, was closer to some kind of weirdness. As long as the injury was not fatal, it would be repaired in an instant. Even if his head was split in half, as long as his consciousness was not determined to be dead, he would recover quickly.

He can smash a large truck with one punch and sprint under a hail of bullets without any problem.

After dying three times, his combat power level is about the same as that of an ordinary Herrscher. He has no special skills, except that his punch has a power similar to that of a Herrscher of Binding, which can temporarily suppress the power of the person being hit. He also has a physique that allows him to recover instantly if he doesn't die.

As for more deaths... Riku didn't dare to try it again. The more he died, the faster he would get lost.

'If one day I can't hold on...'

"Phew! Don't think too much... those lazy women at home are waiting for me to go back and cook."

Riku shook his head vigorously to force himself to stay awake. Fortunately, his head was not thrown out.

It is definitely unrealistic to get over it in one go, you need a running start.

For Riku, who now has reached the limit of human strength, physical strength is the most important thing.

After a run-up, he arrived at the school smoothly. The teaching building was ten meters ahead, and above his head was the broadcasting station.

It was not known whether it was an illusion, but the radio seemed to turn stiffly towards Riku, making a "sizzling" sound as it rotated. The thick black radio was like an eye peeking in the darkness.

"I'm right. It's indeed the act of entering the door that is problematic."

Riku bit his index finger. This is a habit that belongs to humans. Although not everyone has it, ghosts definitely don't have it.

After all, most ghosts just act according to the rules. Compared with humans with changeable thoughts, they are more like a strictly running program code, unless they are special ghosts with human consciousness.

"Go to the broadcasting room and find the ghost first, otherwise it will interfere with dealing with the weirdness later."

Riku confirmed his idea and walked to the school's navigation map to find the location of the broadcasting room.

In the deepest room on the second floor.

While going upstairs, Riku carefully observed the surrounding environment.

There wasn't a single corpse around, but there was a strong smell of rotting flesh.

There was no blood, it was so clean that it made people feel a little scared.

You have to know that this is a school, even if it is cleaned every day it can't be so clean.

The current situation means that there will be no human action here for a long time.

Soon, Riku reached the second floor and looked around, the corridor was a sea of scarlet.

"Hmm... It's true. It makes me want to vomit." Li Mo covered his mouth. The scene in front of him made him feel physically uncomfortable.

If you hadn't been dealing with the weird for a long time, you would have seen the mountains of corpses in front of you, the maggots crawling on the rotten skin, the worms eating the corpses completely, leaving only the pale bones with blurry blood clots on them.

"The heads and bodies were separated and the bodies were gathered at the door."

"It seems that the paranormal phenomenon is not limited to the entrance of the academy, but... all the doors. Once you open the door and go in, your head will be cut off immediately."

"No wonder there are no bodies on the stairs. The stench of corpses comes from the corridor. Students are in class and die when they open the door. Naturally, they can't walk to the stairs, and they can't escape from the mysterious Saint Freya."

Riku looked towards both sides of the door. The classroom had windows, and they were always open.

When he walked over, he found that the classroom was empty, not even a corpse.

"So if you open the door, you will die, but there is no problem escaping through the window, and there is no problem with the stairs, otherwise there will definitely be bodies in the classroom and on the stairs."

"Keep going."

Riku walked deeper into the corridor, stepping on the scarlet corpses, and stopped for a moment in every classroom he passed.

"Not everyone has the courage to flee."

"There aren't many school bags in the classroom. They must have been taken away by the survivors."

Riku's voice was cold, showing no sympathy.

Death not only strengthens the body but also gradually extinguishes the emotions.

Soon, Riku walked to the broadcasting room, but there were no windows there.

Riku approached the door and chose not to open it because if he did, he would die. He was not stupid enough to think that this door was different...

But one could faintly hear noisy voices inside and roughly estimated that there were more than ten people.

The college's broadcasting room is usually empty, after all, everyone is in class.

But even without windows, this group of people was still able to enter the broadcasting room safely.

It can only explain one thing.

"Ghosts cannot be killed."

"So the first person who opens the door and goes in is not a human, but a ghost."

Riku came to a decisive conclusion.

'The ghost lured the survivors into the broadcasting room, but... why?'

'What is the purpose of doing it?'

'Huh?'

Riku suddenly realized something. There was no window to serve as an emergency escape route, so the only one who could walk out of the broadcasting room was the ghost itself.

Once a living person enters the broadcasting room, it is impossible for them to walk out alive because opening the door to enter or exit will result in death.

Staying in the broadcasting room will face various difficulties, such as food, water, emotional loss of control, violence, and many other problems.

In other words: this is a room where the living must die.

There is no way to escape; if you escape, you will die.

(TL: Hey there! If you're enjoying this fanfic and want to get early access to more chapters or explore some of my other works, feel free to swing by my Patreon. You'll find plenty of advanced updates and maybe even some exclusive content waiting for you~ 

link: patreon.com/Elysia_Husband)