Hidden Rules
"Nnngh…"
The short-haired woman trembled violently. With every shudder of her body, clear fluids spilled from between her legs. Semen coated her from head to toe, spattering across skin already slick with her own arousal. He had finished inside her womb more than ten times and pulled out to paint her exterior just as many. She looked as if she had been showered in it.
After the final climax, he turned away.
Praise that wasn't really praise.
I'm not dying. It's fine.
Even if he wanted to die, this body wouldn't let him.
"Thanks for the good time, ma'am. I'll be back for more."
He waved at the woman's mother and headed home, leaving his daily onahole tied to the tree as he ran.
My head's killing me.
The surrounding buildings shimmered like hallucinations. If he let his mind slip even a little, he felt as though he would be pulled straight into one of them. Clutching his head, he pushed into Building 101.
"You crazy bastard. What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Kim Hana had been waiting at the front door. She seized him by the collar.
"You don't want to get out of this anomaly?"
He caught her arm and pulled it down. He had plenty to say himself.
"You already handled all the ordinary stuff."
To get out, they had to focus on things no one had tried yet. Eating, sleeping, and taking a shit would never be enough to escape an anomaly from the inside.
"The escape routes belong to the anomalies. Survival alone isn't enough."
Dying over and over, pushing forward each time — that was the only way to walk out of this insane place alive.
"Ugh…"
The persuasion worked. Kim Hana lowered her eyes and nodded.
"I'll draw all the aggro. You just back me up from the side."
"Ugh… fine. If that's how we get out of here."
They went home together. He wondered how he would die this time. His knees trembled with fear, but he didn't let it show. The mess he made was his to clean up.
"What about dinner?"
"I'll shower and come down."
Kim Hana's mother left in the evening and came back at dawn — nothing sordid, just a night shift at a logistics center. When her mother was out, he could enter her place freely.
"Ugh… I'm going first!"
Her anger had cooled enough that she finally registered the state of his body. Her face flushed crimson as she bolted up the stairs.
"I should head up and wash too."
What would dinner be? He had pounded away until his balls were bone-dry, and now he was starving. Gripping the railing, he climbed the stairs slowly.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
A steady knocking against a window. He fought down the urge to look. Turning his head never led to anything good. The moment he drew the apartment residents' attention, the pushback had come right away. This anomaly was a high-difficulty one.
He reached the second floor, then passed the landing between the second and third.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The window-knocking came from behind him now.
It's following me.
Whatever it was, it was tailing him.
This rule wasn't in the book.
A rule never listed in the rulebook. His reckless stunt had drawn the anomaly's eye.
What do I do?
His eyes darted. First priority: figure out how to survive the situation he was in right now.
He passed the fourth floor, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. It was still following. A serious level of obsession. It looked ready to trail him all the way home.
He reached the end of the fifteenth floor — the top of this apartment. There was no floor above it. Stairs existed, and elevator buttons existed, but you were not supposed to go any higher.
Alright. Stay calm.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He mimed punching in the front-door passcode.
"Ah, right. I still need to buy something."
He acted as if he had only just remembered.
"Ah, shit. No choice. Gotta go back down."
He hit the elevator button. By bending the elevator rule, he would leave the building instead of going home and wait outside until the aggro cooled off.
Ding—
The elevator arrived. He stepped straight in and jammed the close button.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Before the doors sealed, a window on the emergency stairwell cracked open a sliver.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Black footprints bloomed across the floor.
Clickclickclickclick.
The footsteps accelerated. The doors were closing far too slowly. He thought he was dead — and then:
Thoom.
The doors shut before the anomaly could reach him.
"Haaaah. Thought I was done for."
He collapsed inside the elevator, heart hammering. For a second he had genuinely believed that was the end.
"Mirror's fine."
He checked the reflection. It matched his naked body exactly.
He soothed a thoroughly pissed-off Hana. The moment the elevator hit the first floor, he stepped straight outside and killed time circling the area.
Fuck. New rule to add.
He wrote it into his notebook.
12. If you determine that something is following you, do not head straight home.
Climb all the way to the top of the 15th floor and pretend to open your front door. Then act like you forgot something, take the elevator down to the 1st floor. Once the aggro drops, return home.
Why wasn't this rule already in there? Because I pulled aggro?
He licked his lips. That was probably it. The aggro had provoked a response from the anomaly.
But none of the advance team ever did something like this?
Among the missing were Management Bureau agents. Curious, seasoned Bureau agents who followed the rulebook to the letter — and still died without discovering the hidden rules?
No way.
The rulebooks of the previous victims were sleeping somewhere in this place. Finding those rulebooks was priority one.
"Aggro's gone."
Thirty minutes later, he stepped back through the shared entrance. No footsteps. He took the stairs to the third floor — Unit 303, Kim Hana's place.
"Hana. Do you know which units the people who got here before me were living in?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just curious."
The rulebook never said you couldn't enter other people's homes. Either it was too obvious to bother writing down — or there was another reason.
Fuck, this is nerve-wracking.
What would happen if he forced a door open and walked in? He'd draw even more attention and "praise" than outdoor sex in the apartment complex park.
But I don't exactly have a choice.
To escape an anomaly, you had to try the things no one had tried. Escape routes inside anomalies were always hidden in the most secret places.
"Alright. I'll post it on the gallery."
They finished eating. While he started on the dishes, he read what she had written.
102, 301, 304, 404, 1505, 703, 1203…
Jotted down from memory, with no real order. He debated which unit to hit first.
First floor is visible to the anomaly. Save that for later.
Anything close to ground level felt wrong, so he skipped it. For similar reasons, anything below the fifth floor made him reluctant to move. An anomaly climbing the outer walls might spot him on the lower floors.
Maybe start with 703.
Same general height range, but high enough. He'd head to 703, pick the lock, and go in.
"Thanks for the meal. Starting tomorrow, I'll actually help out. Don't sulk."
"Fine."
Kim Hana's puffed cheeks deflated a little. Tomorrow he would pace himself a bit when he went after the anomalies. Not that he could promise not to fuck them at all.
"Night. See you in the morning."
"Yeah."
They said their goodbyes and parted. Instead of going straight home, he headed for Unit 703.
Bang.
A pistol shot shattered the door lock. He forced his way inside. Traces of someone who had lived there remained.
"Found it. A lead."
A clue he hadn't seen in 503. He picked up a tablet PC lying in the corner.
Nothing else.
Aside from the tablet, the room was bare — as empty of furniture as his own.
Get back before the anomaly shows up.
This was the anomaly's territory. It would already know someone had forced a door open. He returned to 503 before it could appear.
"Hooo. It's powering on."
It should have been dead for ages without a battery, yet it hadn't broken. Ten minutes later, the screen lit up.
Fucking hell. Got blackout drunk, was stumbling home, and got kidnapped. Walked into some apartment I've never seen and something's off about the whole place. Some weird woman comes up and shoves a rulebook at me. Phone doesn't work. Can't reach family or the cops.
The very first line was pure profanity. He would have cursed too. One moment of clarity, and you were already inside an anomaly.
The woman in 303 brings me food, so at least I can eat. She looks a little gloomy, but she seems like a good person.
There was a note about Hana, too.
Break the rules and you die? Bullshit. Ghosts and people are the same — beat the hell out of them and they listen. First I'm gonna thrash that convenience store clerk and put him in his place.
A few free meals from Hana had apparently restored his nerve. Emboldened, he charged the convenience store.
Help me. Everyone here is seriously wrong. It's not just the people — the whole atmosphere is wrong. I walked into the convenience store, grabbed every food item I could reach, and dumped it all on the counter. They don't take cards. They take body parts. They tore off my right arm. Barely made it back alive.
He had staggered home with nothing but his life. The price of recklessness had been far too high.
"So the currency at the convenience store is body parts."
Good thing he had never gone in on a whim. The moment you set something on the counter, the transaction started on its own.
Warning. Newlyweds. Never. Ever. Antagonize. Them.
That was the last entry. Nothing more had been written.
"A rule that wasn't in the rulebook."
A decent haul, all things considered. He organized the new information in his notebook.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
And the newlyweds the rulebook mentioned were standing right outside his front door the next morning.