Free Web NovelChapter 75: Phase 61 - ’Open The Door’ System
The room remained a tomb of cold air and stagnant silence as I stared into the glowing abyss of the laptop screen. The blue light washed over my face, highlighting the grime on my skin and the exhaustion etched into my features. The terminal didn’t just output data; it outputted a hierarchy of survival.
My eyes were constantly hovering on the data, tracking the success rates and the casualties of a game I was still trying to comprehend.
Long story short, I had done it.
I successfully obtained the list of players who succeeded and those who didn’t during the first ever trial. It was a digital ledger of human utility, categorized with a clinical indifference that made my stomach churn.
"Wasn’t this the libido experiment?" Velvet asked, her voice a low, melodic hum that vibrated through the Share-Lock before it even hit the air.
Her eyes flickered toward the screen, reflecting the scrolling list. I could feel her curiosity through the link—not a warm, human interest, but the sharp, piercing inquisitiveness of a detective looking at a crime scene.
"I guess. Yes," I replied, my voice sounding hollow in the small room.
"At least reply with some kind of enthusiasm," she remarked, her face remaining a mask of deadpan composure.
I glanced at her, feeling the dry irony of the situation.
Who would be enthusiastic while trapped with a deadpan starlet detective in a concrete box? The weight of her personality was as heavy as the atmosphere itself.
Ah yes. Uwu! I’m so enthusiastic for this! Can’t you see?! Mwhehehe. Teehee~!
"Ugh, I hate the fact I can read your mind," she muttered, the Share-Lock broadcasting a wave of mild irritation into my cerebral cortex.
"This may be useful though," I thought, though I knew she’d catch it instantly.
The ability to bypass verbal communication was a tactical advantage, even if it felt like a total violation of my internal privacy. By that, I mean all of my private stuff.
"Right... perhaps," she said aloud.
"What do you mean by perhaps?"
She didn’t say anything further, or at least, she didn’t say anything here in the physical room. I felt the information being withheld, a deliberate wall being erected in the mental link. I see.
She was playing a deeper game, one that involved variables I hadn’t yet accounted for.
Anyway...
If you ever wonder why we often shifted between calling the entities in charge "Game Master" and "Admin," the answer is simple. It was a filter.
We used the terminology to categorize which one could get exposed or not, which layer of the system we were currently hacking or interacting with.
The Admin was the hardware. Encrypted as algorithms. freewebnσvel.cøm
The Game Master was the story. the psychological pressure.
"You really said that in a monologue," Velvet noted, her eyes narrowing.
Shut the fuck up. Kill—
I didn’t get to finish the thought.
All of a sudden, Velvet moved with a speed that defied her graceful frame. Her hand slammed over my mouth, her palm smelling of cold metal and sterile soap.
"Stop breathing," she commanded in a whisper that was barely a vibration.
What? Before I could protest, she grabbed the strap of my bag and hauled me off the bed. She dragged my body like a hostage, her grip unyielding as she forced us both into the narrow, dust-choked gap beneath the spring bed. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
The iron frame groaned above us, a sharp, metallic warning.
"Open the door."
BEEP BEEP!
The sound was clinical and high-pitched.
That voice...
it sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"So, they are still inside," a faint voice drifted into the room.
It was eerily familiar—the silver-violet haired girl.
The girl who had looked at me with that terrifyingly friendly smile earlier.
I lay frozen against the floorboards, the taste of dust in my mouth.
Soon after, we heard the rhythmic click of her feet stepping away from the room, the sound fading into the distance of the corridor.
I waited for the "Open the door" command to sound again, but the silence returned, heavier than before. Only then did Velvet’s explanation begin to filter through the Share-Lock, bypassing our ears entirely.
"This ’Open the door’ system is lowkey annoying," she projected, her thoughts sharp and analytical.
She remained pressed against me in the cramped space, making me intensely uncomfortable with her chest against my back and her breath ghosting over my neck. In the "1%" of her sensory burden that I was carrying, the proximity felt like a live wire.
"I just noticed something after several failed attempts," she continued.
"If two players are in the room, they are allowed to say ’Open the door,’ and the door closes right after. Locked. It’s a proximity-based logic gate."
Heh. When did you test it? I asked through the link.
"Doesn’t matter. Anyway... what happened before that? Basically, this sensory system is so stupid."
Stupid?
"Yes. It only allows two people to say that line, but if there is an intruder, so long as there aren’t two people active in the system’s recognition field, they may just enter and do whatever they want. It’s a flaw in the occupancy sensor. Or else, you may consider that people here don’t even know how it works."
So, that girl earlier...
"Yes, Mayo. She knew, and it’s weird. Who the hell do you think she is? Some random player? Have you checked whether she is one using the radar?"
It wasn’t like I never checked. I did during our first encounter.
The player radar was there, visible on the device interface.
But her face... she was so calm, so friendly even after doing that indecent thing.
"DOING WHAT? Mayo, why the fuck didn’t you tell me this?"
Velvet’s mental voice spiked with a rare flash of genuine alarm.
We got no time, that’s why. Should we get out? You are suffocating me, bitch.
"Call me that again and I will haunt you in your sleep."
Fair enough.
We crawled out from under the bed, the dust clinging to our clothes like a grey shroud. I brushed off the laptop and opened the screen, the data still waiting for me.
I needed to see the names.
I needed to see who else was trapped in this "Libido Experiment."
