The gunshot rang out, and silence followed.
A wisp of smoke billowed from the muzzle.
Inside the elevator, filled with fine dust, only a foreboding silence lingered.
Beneath the rising smoke, the smell of gunpowder covered the muzzle, which was now aiming at nothingness――
“Uh…?”
Caught in the small hand of the girl.
It was aimed at the completely empty air beneath Eleanor’s chin.
“What―”
She opened her mouth towards the girl, intending to say something.
However, her sentence was cut short, consisting of nothing more than a few disjointed syllables that made no sense whatsoever.
Because the moment she began to act strangely, the men who had rushed in were now just reaching her and throwing her down onto the floor with all their might.
Bang!
With a loud noise, three figures tumbled and rolled across the floor.
Like they had made a pact, two men swiftly disarmed her and pinned her limbs down.
Now completely deprived of her freedom of movement, she began to express her panic and protest to them.
“What, what is this, everyone?! Have you all gone crazy together?!”
Eleanor shouted. From her perspective, she couldn’t understand their intent at all.
The solution written in Rule Five was simple, trustworthy, safe, and absolutely perfect.
To break free from this situation trapped in a falling elevator, there was only that method.
“Members! Self-diagnosis for mental contamination must be conducted! Right now!”
“What are you talking about?! There’s no time for that! You all have to do what I did quickly!”
However, instead of following her actions, they were actively hindering her. What in the world was going on?
She couldn’t comprehend at all why the two men pinning her down were behaving this way.
“Just shut up and do what I said!”
“Yikes… Okay, I get it! I’ll do it!”
But her timid protests were drowned out by their shouting and simply dismissed.
In this urgent situation, when she imagined the bloodshot eyes on the two men, she realized that no matter how much she protested, they likely wouldn’t let her go.
Understanding that she had no way to free herself, she ultimately could not resist their coercion and reluctantly began her self-diagnosis.
“Name, Eleanor Green, Age, 23…”
With a frown, she continued to mutter something.
An exercise to properly recognize herself and piece together her twisted memories and mind.
Even though she didn’t know why she had to perform this diagnosis, the voice coming from her lips was tinged with dissatisfaction.
However, the more she recited her personal information, the more her voice began to normalize.
As the diagnosis neared its end, her face started to turn pale――
“――――”
Finally, when the diagnosis was completely finished, all she could do was awaken with a look of sheer terror on her face.
“W-what, what the heck was I trying to do just now――”
Her words were cut off with a gurgle.
A wave of nausea surged. Fear and disgust overwhelmed her at once.
She felt as if the sensation of pulling the trigger and the vibrations that came with it were still lingering in her hand.
Indeed. Just moments ago, she had tried to take her own life.
Ugh!
Once she freed herself from the grip of the two men, she covered her mouth with her hand.
Rule Five didn’t actually exist, and even if it did, she had been thoroughly trained not to pay it any mind.
Yet the moment she opened the manual and the words came into view.
Without even a moment to recognize that something had changed or to resist it, her perception had been completely altered, as if it had always been that way.
And it was an unsettling and nauseating feeling, far beyond anything she had felt during her mental contamination response training.
“Damn it, one problem after another. The elevator is still falling…”
Struggling with the aftereffects of mental contamination, Eleanor groaned.
Cooper, watching her with a troubled expression, soon realized that there was still something really important pending and shifted his gaze elsewhere.
The elevator floor indicator.
There, only the numbers climbing at a terrifying speed were visible.
“Hey, little expert! Do you have any ideas? We’re really going to die at this rate!”
He looked at the girl standing beside him. The girl remained expressionless, the same as when they first met, unwavering in the face of their situation.
Was dying no big deal to her? Or did she simply not understand the situation at all?
Inside the elevator, still rumbling and falling rapidly with a rough metallic sound.
Even in this place where anyone would feel the fear of death, the girl showed no noticeable change in emotion.
As if she believed there was a solution to this situation, she simply gazed at them quietly.
Grasping at a shred of hope, he turned to the girl and asked her if there was a way to break free from the current predicament.
“Actually, I was about to ask you.”
She replied to his words in a calm voice despite the tense situation.
“This… can I break it or something?”
With an indifferent tone, she pointed her little finger toward her side.
Following where she pointed, Cooper turned his gaze.
And what shone in his view was just a normal wall of the elevator.
“What? The wall?! Why are you asking that?!”
“I heard that due to regulations or something, you shouldn’t just touch anything randomly.”
“That’s not something you say in a situation like this!”
What kind of well-behaved child was she, Cooper thought.
Of course, the girl’s appearance fully fell within the range of being a child, and it was true that adhering to the regulations in this facility was absolutely important.
But in a situation where death was certain, questioning whether it was okay to damage just one wall of the elevator sounded way too lacking in urgency.
“Just do something already! If you can do anything, say it!”
“Aren’t there any problematic regulations?”
“Of course not! Even if there were, you can just ignore them in a situation like this!”
He shouted at the girl, who persistently asked about the regulations.
This kind of situation wasn’t covered in the manual, and even if it were, it would be uncertain.
Nevertheless, at this point, what in the world did regulations matter?
At worst, the worst-case scenario would be getting caught in the explosion of the nuclear weapon charged at this base, dying in the blast.
And that was no different from the death brought about by this elevator crashing to the floor.
So, now was not the time to worry about regulations or anything like that.
“Well, if that’s what you say…”
Having received confirmation that she could do whatever she wanted, the girl walked up to the wall.
Cooper wondered. Was there really a way to break free from this situation?
How? By what means? No, even if it were possible, wouldn’t it already be too late at this speed?
No, maybe it really could be possible.
The management office had investigated all sorts of abnormal phenomena and had succeeded in manifesting the peculiar phenomena they displayed.
He understood that while he wasn’t a superhero like in the movies, a specialist in abnormal responses possessed abilities different from ordinary people.
Even if it wasn’t a particularly impressive phenomenon, it was conceivable that they could escape this location.
With a mixed expression of curiosity and anticipation toward what the girl would do,
Finally arriving at the wall, the girl’s first action was…
CRACK!
She slammed her hand forcefully against the wall of the elevator.
KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KRAK―――!!
The metallic sound that resonated when the elevator first dropped was easily overshadowed.
A roar several times louder and rougher smashed through everyone’s eardrums.
It was a crushing sound, as if utterly pulverizing a gigantic boulder.
Simultaneously, the elevator began to shake violently.
Their bodies inside were thrown about by the impact, scattering in all directions.
“Waaaaaah?!”
“Kyahhh!”
Due to the rough vibrations, their screams erupted without hesitation.
It felt like they were riding a roller coaster without safety belts, their bodies wildly swinging around without being secured.
They had no time to think about anything; they desperately sought something to hold on to, clinging to it while trying to stabilize themselves――
And not long after.
As they began to feel the vibrations subsiding and could just barely understand the current situation.
Wrrrrrrrr…
With the fading sounds,
They realized the speed of the falling elevator was gradually slowing down.
Eventually, the elevator came to a complete stop.
As if after a storm had passed.
Looking at each other with disheveled appearances, they then turned their gazes to the one who had halted the descent of the elevator.
“――――――――”
In the awkward silence.
The girl seemed to notice the gazes directed at her, alternating her eyes among their faces a few times――
“…Why? Didn’t you say I don’t need to care about regulations right now?”
Having completely misinterpreted the reason they were staring at her,
Out of the blue, she attempted to avoid an imaginary responsibility.
She turned her face away in an effort to escape their gazes.
