Special Rule

Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil

Teen furrows his brows tightly as he stares intensely at the opened elevator Four.

Instead of entering, he murmurs, “this doesn’t make sense…”

His instincts are blaring alarms, but he can’t tell what is out of place.

Why is elevator Four here anyway? Below the 9th floor? Suddenly, he realises that they have never considered this matter──What is the significance of the floors on which there are elevators?

Elevator One is stopped on the topmost 36th floor.

Elevator Two is stopped on the 24th.

Elevator Three, the 20th.

Elevator Four, the 6th or 7th.

Cargo elevator One, the 9th.

Cargo elevator Two, is in the hands of those Cannibals, but presumably, they can just treat it as parked on the 17th, since they couldn’t possibly invade the Cannibals’ turf, so it can only be encountered on the 17th floor.

There doesn’t seem to be a common pattern to where these elevators are, but the fact that elevator Four is parked beneath the 9th floor, is definitely bothering Teen.

It is, so far, the only elevator to be parked under the 9th floor.

He turns around to look down towards the ground, where the floor was littered with broken glass and other sharp instruments. He can still feel his feet aching.

Thinking for a while, and knitting his brows, he turns to Fei to ask, “have you realised something?”

“What?” Fei has no idea, asking in turn, “what do you mean?”

“The elevators,” Teen tells her, or possibly, is just mumbling to himself, “is it possible to work out the whereabouts of the survivors and those who perished through the floors on which they are parked on?”

“Work out how?” Fei asks, “they couldn’t all have taken elevators, especially after they realise the elevators are faulty. We are taking them because we need to figure out where they lead us to…”

“… Right, that’s right, none of them would ever take the elevator!” Teen proclaims, “unless they want to leave! Because the stairs have collapsed past the 9th floor! The elevator is their only choice!”

Fei is furrowing her brows and asks, “what are you trying to say?”

Teen says, “I’m trying to say, that isn’t it suspicious, where this elevator, elevator Four, is parked?”

Fei remains silent.

Teen explains more clearly, “there is danger on this floor itself, which is different from all the floors on which we discovered new elevators. It might be a coincidence, but I believe it is more likely, that… the situation beneath the 9th floor, is different to how it is from the upper floors.”

Fei is stunned, falling into thought.

Not just because of this Nightmare, but also… the phrase ‘the upper floors.’ She is feeling like she has experienced all this before – a déjà vu, but of the Nightmare itself, corresponding with the Tower outside. It’s a building as well, with escape being the only goal.

One, downwards; one, nominally upwards.

She can’t help but start wondering once more, if the rumours regarding the exit of the Tower being located on the bottom floor could be true. Is the exit really not on the upper floors?

That is why Missiontakers of those upper floors have never managed to work out, who the Missiontaker that ‘successfully left the Tower’ in the earliest rumour was.

Fei’s silence isn’t hampering Teen’s thoughts at all. In fact, he is immersed in his analysis now, “this building, can be divided into four stages.
Stage one, with floors of leading digit 3. These ones are safe, but contain no clues save for the little girl; she is quite the walking trove of clues herself.
Stage two, with floors of leading digit 2. Janitors have taken over here, but stay away from them, and it is still generally safe. There are also two elevators to be found. In other words, this is the place to collect information en masse.
Stage three, with floors of leading digit 1, The Renovators and Cannibals have taken over here. It’s dangerous, but also contains the absolute safe zone of the 16th floor. From the floors of this stage we’ve been to so far, clues regarding this building are abundant.
Stage four, the single-digit floors from the 9th floor and down. Stairs are inaccessible here, which means trying our luck with the elevators is the only means of exploration.
I agree with that guy on the suggestion that it may not be possible to leave this building after all. We can only resolve it from within.”

Here, Teen can’t help but pause.

He doesn’t buy any of those baseless rumours of the bottom floor of the Tower himself; this is all in spite of him having followed Suits here… Maybe, it was simply to try their luck.

Though, when he said that last sentence, he also couldn’t help but digress──what if, it was also not possible, to leave the Tower itself?

They’re in the Nightmare, and as soon as they resolve it with an Ending, then it will end, and they will have ‘escaped’ the building.

But what about the Tower?

Could there possibly also be some kind of ‘Nightmare’ they can resolve within the Tower?

… The Ultimate Nightmare?

He is quiet for a moment, but then he derisively chuckles.

After that he continues analysing the Nightmare at hand, “so the problem now is, Stages 1, 2 and 3 had increasing levels of risk… So, could Stage 4 have a decreasing level of risk instead?
And yet, there is one elevator here… When, in fact, we have only ever found elevators on floors that are themselves without danger… The circumstances are different now.”

“There is also cargo elevator One,” Fei adds to the analysis, “which is on the 9th floor exactly.”

Teen nods and continues, “yeah. That’s how it is… Which makes the blocked floors under the 9th floor all the more suspicious,” he stares at the doors to elevators Three and Four for a moment, and says, “I suspect, we’re trapped.”

Fei is surprised to hear that, not managing to logically follow the leap. She ponders it for a short while before asking, “you mean, the floors under the 9th are a trap?”

“If it was safe below the 9th floor, or, at least, if the dangers were not any greater, then why would the survivors have stopped on the 16th floor? There are over a dozen of them. They could have forced their way through whatever.
We have zero information on what is on the 9th floor and below. We don’t even have a clue what might have happened here…”

Fei knits her brows and interrupts him, “but… what has that got to do with us getting trapped?”

Teen said they’re trapped, but Fei looks at those two elevators as well, and wants to say they can just leave if they need to.

Unless…

Fei suddenly blurts out, “so what you’re saying, is that we can’t leave here, because, under the 9th floor, besides this marginally ‘safe’ floor, the rest are all landmines?!”

She is shocked by her own conclusion.

Mystic is also speaking up for once, “but then we can just take the elevator…”

“The elevator would not carry us out!” Teen proclaims, “think about it! Why is elevator Four parked on this floor alone?! Someone must have arrived on this floor, just like us, but they could not continue descending!
They’ve reached all the way here, there is no way they would randomly stop on this floor! But there is nobody – not even a corpse – on this floor! Elevator Four is still right here! How could that possibly be?
Don’t tell me NE just set it up that way; NE does not set things up for no reason at all!
I was wondering the whole time why the elevators ended up on the floors they did. Why they can only possibly go to some set floors. Why the survivors treat the elevators with much harsher suspicion than they should…
What if, someone, or something, is lurking behind the scenes, controlling the elevators themselves?”

Fei’s lips are trembling at the suggestion, wondering, “there’s… someone, under the 9th floor… controlling where the elevators go? What, what in the world, why?”

“Who knows?” Teen has a malicious smirk on, as he speculates, “they might just be another group of madmen, who are amused by all this?”

Fei falls silent.

They are in a terrible predicament.