AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 317 - 147 Cafeteria Convenience Store_2

Chapter 317: Chapter 147 Cafeteria Convenience Store_2

When the incandescent lights in the Student Cafeteria began to flicker, they seemed to follow a certain pattern. With a bit of extrapolation, he figured out the pattern of when the lights would go out.

Following that, the two of them timed their movements to the "beat" as they headed towards the Convenience Store.

But just when they had covered most of the distance, a white mist suddenly stirred as if dispersed by something...

Immediately afterward, sounds of ’sizzling’ could be heard in the darkness, akin to the noise of stones scraping across the ground.

"Nocturnal species?!" Lin Yi remained calm. Using the flickering lights in the area shrouded by dense white mist, he spotted those classmates who stood like tombstones.

However, these non-human classmates no longer affected Lin Yi. What truly sent chills down his spine was something behind those non-human classmates.

No.10 meal window.

He back-calculated the starting point of this "ripple," and that location corresponded exactly with the No.10 meal window, shrouded in shadows!

"The horror of the Dark Cafeteria originates from the No.10 meal window? Could it be the Green Apron Chef?"

Lin Yi speculated but wasn’t sure. He faintly felt that the Green Apron Chef couldn’t possess such formidable deterrent power, so the real danger was most likely from... a level of contamination far more severe than that of the Green Apron Chef!

In Lin Yi’s opinion, the Green Apron Chef was actually quite fragile: Xu Shunkang could knock one down with a baseball bat, the Boss could stomp one out with a mere stomp of her foot, Wei Shan could send one flying with a dining tray, and even... Wei Liang could kick a Green Apron Chef’s face beyond recognition through a plastic curtain.

Consequently, Lin Yi deduced that there was a very dangerous source lurking in No.10 meal window.

"If after falling the first floor of the Cafeteria overlaps with the basement of the Cafeteria, then... the dangerous source in No.10 meal window, could it be the same one I heard from the Staff Passage?!"

Lin Yi clenched his teeth tightly, feeling an immense pressure accompanying the darkness descending upon him. Surprisingly, Li Huiyuan, whose graphical layers had fallen frequently before, although her palms were somewhat cool, showed no abnormalities.

On the contrary, Li Huiyuan’s eyes were bright and clear, filled with a steadfast light, resembling an unyielding rock in a torrent.

Lin Yi’s heart shivered.

Li Huiyuan had seen the Convenience Store, so the hope that had been fading was suddenly recovered at this moment and even intensified, transforming into a powerful will to survive.

In the words of their homeroom teacher... did she now possess an unshakeable, steel-like resolve?

Lin Yi was stunned, feeling rather dreamy. Now even Li Huiyuan was becoming elusive to him; could this be the powerful resolve born from a desperate situation?

"Old Lin! Old Lin!"

At this moment, Wei Liang’s voice suddenly rang out from behind Lin Yi.

"Huh? Liangzi?"

Lin Yi was taken aback, about to turn around and scold him when a chilling sensation surged up from the bottom of his heart—[Do not turn back]!

"Li Huiyuan! Li Huiyuan!! Hey, wait for me!" Noticing that Lin Yi was unmoved, the voice then called out to Li Huiyuan.

"Don’t look back!" Lin Yi shouted, gripping Li Huiyuan’s hand firmly and forcefully interrupting her "casting spells," regardless of whether it affected her or not.

One after the other, they rushed towards the Convenience Store, and just as they arrived at the front of it, the incandescent light behind them went out.

Yet, Lin Yi’s brows were knitted tightly, seemingly trapped in some perplexity.

"Classmate Lin... shall we go in now?" Li Huiyuan asked.

The door of the Convenience Store was an ordinary outward-opening wooden door. One door was open with a sign hanging that read ’Open for Business’, while the other stood against a rack of shelves displaying various snacks.

The light inside the Convenience Store flickered dimly, drifting out from the entrance like a spray of orange juice mist, shading an area with a dull and dark ambiance.

Lin Yi and Li Huiyuan were now standing within this domain...

This area felt to Lin Yi like a zone formed by a street lamp in thick fog; however, although the zone existed, it did not provide him with any sense of security.

"It seems there’s a problem... but what could it be?"

Lin Yi looked at the items in the Convenience Store, always feeling that something was not quite right.

It was that kind of contradictory and awkward feeling "... feels like there is no problem yet it seems there is, feels like there is a problem but again it seems there isn’t."

"First enter the Convenience Store and get the Student Souvenir Coin sorted," Lin Yi said in a deep voice.

They had no way back, they could only move forward.

Moreover, not only did Li Huiyuan need to find the Student Souvenir Coin, but he also had to purchase at least one item from the Convenience Store and take it with him.

Strangely enough, although the door of the Convenience Store was wide open and it emanated an orange-yellow mist from inside out, when looking into the interior of the Convenience Store from outside, one could see nothing but the pervasive orange-yellow color.

Lin Yi glanced at the snacks on the shelf, hesitated for a moment, then picked up a roll of biscuits and, with Li Huiyuan, stepped over the threshold of the Convenience Store.

When they traversed the light screen, Lin Yi did not experience any abnormal sensations. It felt just as ordinary as crossing a layer of air.

But his vision underwent some changes.

Passing through the door of the Convenience Store was like squirming out from a thick and dense layer of cotton - his vision suddenly became clearer.

Lin Yi was stunned by the scene before him, and even Li Huiyuan, who followed him out of the mist, subconsciously gaped.

"This...?"

"Is this the Convenience Store...?"

The Convenience Store in front of them was completely unlike any cafeteria Convenience Store they had imagined. It had an indescribable strangeness.

First was its space; it was large, but indescribably so.

In front of Lin Yi there were rows of shelves scattered with some items, but... these shelves seemed endless.

The end of his sight was a pitch-black point that even the light could not reach.

On both sides were shelves, also endless.

Lin Yi felt as if they had entered a shelter brimming with supplies.

Or rather, this place resembled a round arched air-raid shelter tunnel, with old incandescent lights hanging from above, shedding dim yellow light, covering one area after another with illumination.

Lin Yi’s heart thudded uncontrollably.

The Teaching Building’s bomb-proof glass, the Convenience Store resembling an air-raid shelter, the City Wall-like Gymnasium, the fortress-like Cafeteria...

This... damn it...

Leaving aside the issue of layers, S City College in the real layer, seemed to have big problems!

Moreover, the air in the Convenience Store seemed somewhat murky, and the light was filled with fine particles of dust, this made Lin Yi feel more convinced about his own conjecture.

But at the same time, it also gave him a dream-like sense of unreality.

Who would have thought that he and Li Huiyuan were just in the Student Cafeteria and after passing through a door, they entered a shelter-like "Convenience Store"...

From a realistic perspective, there absolutely wasn’t such a path within the passages leaving the Cafeteria.

"The Convenience Store must be located in some layer, or perhaps within a crease between layers..." Lin Yi speculated.

He slowly took a breath, letting some of the murky air enter his lungs, circulate inside, and slowly exhaled in order to make his thoughts clearer...

Then, he couldn’t help but look back.

Behind him, the door still stood, but it was eerily positioned right behind him, much like Doraemon’s Anywhere Door.

Unlike in the Student Cafeteria where he couldn’t see past the door into the Convenience Store, now from inside the Convenience Store, he could see the outside world, just like one-way glass.