“……”
To begin with.
Why had I kept exploring this dangerous Segwang Special City in the first place?
It was because of a vague sense of expectation.
The expectation that if I kept digging into this enormous, secret-lidden Ghost Story, I might somehow reach the fundamental truth of this Ghost Story world.
And then…
The expectation that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to understand why this was happening to me.
The expectation that I might learn the cause, or the reason, I had been suddenly thrown into the world of Darkness Exploration Record and forced to suffer through all this incomprehensible hell…
I had just realized that those expectations had been rewarded.
Just not in any direction I had anticipated.
‘They were trying to invite me here….’
The Fun Research Institute had tried to summon me—a person from that place—as proof that there really was ‘a safe world without Ghost Stories’….
And because of that, the disaster in Segwang Special City had happened.
My heart turned cold.
‘Then… the fact that hundreds of thousands of people died in Segwang Special City and the city was sealed off is, in the end, related to me too….’
…No! Don’t get mistaken.
‘Did I ask to be summoned?’
Absolutely not.
I got swept into this just like the other citizens of Segwang Special City. Swept up because the institutions in this damned Ghost Story world went and attempted something insane….
Swept up, and of all people, it had to be me.
“……”
In that instant, something like intense pain surged from my chest all the way to my head.
It was rage.
I barely let out a shallow breath… and looked at the researcher from the Fun Research Institute.
When I spoke, the words came out strangely dry.
In the language of an agent.
“So, in the end, you’re saying something utterly…