After Mari collected the second piece of evidence, she had to make her way back outside through the wire trap. She needed to be extremely careful, but getting through the wires from the opposite side was proving more strenuous than expected.

  Putting one foot down outside, the caretaker found her leg shaking without a proper reason besides stress.

  “Calm down… Calm down…”

  She muttered to herself, doing her best to control her breathing and calm her beating heart… Mari was able to make it through without activating the trap. She looked around in a hurry, but spotted nothing worrying.

  Thus, she decided to head in a direction completely different from that her pursuer had taken. She would rather not have to be anywhere close to them.

  Walking and walking, going from tree to tree for cover, Mari soon found herself faced with a tree much larger than the other. The humongous piece of nature slowly appeared within her vision through the fog.

  Its trunk was at least three times as thick as that of its brethren, and its roots spread outward, visible as they stuck out of the ground, creating some sort of reverse crown buried into the soil.

  Being that this was clearly a point of interest, Mari circled the tree–Only to find nothing at all. It was possible that not all special spots held a piece of evidence, but the caretaker continued to look around just in case.

  Doing so until she slid off the side of a root, and fell into a dark pit in between the exposed roots. She landed on her backside, which was far from pleasant, but was otherwise unhurt… Caught in darkness, she lit her lantern up, revealing her surroundings to actually be a concealed room carved into the dirt.

  The surfaces were covered in tangled roots. It seemed like someone had once been living here–At least, she supposed that this was the story the nightmare was going for by creating such a place.

  More importantly, there was yet another torn piece of a newspaper nailed to the wall. Apart from this, the room was completely bare. Mari moved closer to it, shining her lantern forward.

  [MACABRE DISCOVERY. HOPE SHATTERED:

  Awful news for the family of the vanished girls. Following reports of a growing stench permeating Harvey’s Diner—Authorities discovered a hole in the diner’s wall hidden behind a heavy piece of furniture.

  All five corpses of the missing girls were found stashed within it. Reports say that they died the very same day they went missing—Owner officially taken into custody, still denies any responsibility.

  Investigation still ongoing—]

  You have found: 3/7 pieces of evidence

  This piece was less legible than the previous ones, but what could be read was bone-chilling. All of the pieces of evidence had clearly been about the same event so far. The bizarre disappearance of five young girls inside one of those diners, using automaton entertainers.

  These are incredibly popular these days. In big cities, you could often find several of them competing with one another. The story Mari was discovering was one she did not know whether was actually true or a fabrication of the nightmare.

  Nonetheless, such a story did not feel good to read. Especially when it seemed like the events described could have easily been avoided had the victims actually been watched over. Allowing young children to just wander off and be lured away by mascots that shouldn’t even be around at all was an utterly awful example of negligence on the part of the diner itself–Though Mari wondered where the parents of these girls had been in the first place…

  The caretaker climbed out of the hole, careful to check the surroundings before fully pulling herself out.

  Just as she did so, she spotted a distant shadow in the mist. The silhouette was moving at an oddly consistent walking pace.

  Mari was only able to notice the figure because of the shape of their self being so abundantly large… Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have spotted anything.

  Fortunately, the hunter was not heading in this direction, walking straight toward somewhere else.

  Mari feared that the tracker would come here next since they seemed interested in trapping points of interest. So once the coast seemed clear, she crawled out and quickly moved away from the pursuer–She did not know why this person was here now when they had been going elsewhere entirely earlier.

  The way they moved was bizarre. They would have had to make a sudden turn to end up here at this point in time.

  Regardless, Mari continued to move.

  She walked for what felt like thirty minutes, only running into utterly empty structures whilst doing so–Until she found another building resembling a diner. This one was in a much better state, however.

  The inside was silent, but not empty. Tables were everywhere, and it looked like they had been prepared in advance to receive plenty of customers.

  Mari explored the dining area, a lounge for employees, the kitchen, and even an office… But it was inside a room filled with automaton parts and mascot costumes that she found the fourth piece of evidence.

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  It was stabbed with a bloody knife into a piece of fabric intended to go over the metallic head of an automaton mascot… It seemed like this particular mascot was meant to be some kind of badger.

  [INVESTIGATION SEES NO PROGRESS AFTER A WEEK:

  Despite the discovery of several pieces of evidence, no culprit has been narrowed down by authorities, inciting the ire of the families of the victims—The mysterious automaton mascot was found inactive inside the diner’s backroom—

  —The unknown character was found to be a holdover from a previous failed business of the diner’s owner. An automaton supposedly intended to double as a suit to be worn by performers to give the illusion of an advanced machine.

  Attention is placed on the owner and employees of the establishment, in particular—The only worker we were able to get a statement from said:

  “I don’t know anything. I wasn’t even present on the day of the disappearances”]

  You have found: 4/7 pieces of evidence

  Mari wasn’t certain she understood the significance of this particular piece of evidence since it didn’t seem like much evidence at all. The previous pieces she had found had already strongly implied that both a costume and this ‘mystery automaton’ had been used to lure the girls away.

  The caretaker presumed that she had just found the papers in the wrong order of events… But she was starting to notice something off about how these newspapers were structured. There was something off about how the subject would sometimes shift drastically despite the unreadable portions being rather small, so nothing much separated one topic from another.

  Regardless, Mari had to keep going–She heard the diner’s room open.

  It squeaked loudly before being shut and seemingly barricaded, as the sound of a table being dragged across the ground loudly resounded throughout the entire building. She felt her heart beating fast once more.

  Unless her pursuer was being very meticulous just in case… Then what had just happened was confirmation that the tracker was well aware that their prey was inside this structure with them.

  Mari needed to think quickly.

  As quietly as possible, she looked around the storage room, soon spotting another door leading into another room. Without hesitation, she went inside this room, finding herself in what seemed like a dead-end filled with damaged automaton parts and torn costumes for the machine entertainers.

  Closing the door, she lit her lantern to see better. On the ceiling, there was some sort of grate that seemed to have empty space behind it.

  The sound of footsteps and doors being opened hurried Mari, who latched the lantern to her waist, and flexed her lithe and flexible physique to hoist herself up to the gate using the shelves as support.

  Although in a hurry, she understood well that her pursuer would look into this room eventually, and when they did, if anything was suspicious, they might be able to intercept her.

  Thus, Mari carefully removed the grate, not letting it drop, as she bent her limbs and back to slither into the tight space in the ceiling.

  She had no clue what this space was, or even what its purpose may be, but it was her best chance to get out of this structure with her life.

  She did her best to put the grate back in place, her palms sweaty as she feared that it would just come right off, crash into the ground and alert the stalker.

  It stayed in place… For now.

  The caretaker was thankful for her thin body in this situation, as it allowed her to move around in this literal crawl space with relative ease. The steel tunnels were a bit maze-like, but Mari could feel a breeze. By heading for where it was coming from, she found herself looking through another grate, this one giving a view into the foggy forest.

  She almost muttered something to thank the gods, but kept quiet, slowly beginning to undo this grate as well–This was then that she realised that all sounds had stopped inside the building. Everything was dead silent at the moment.

  Until steel screamed and a loud boom shook the iron tunnels she was in.

  Mari had no idea what was happening, but the sound was getting closer and closer by the second. She hurriedly opened the grate and nearly threw herself down to the ground, but spread her legs at the last moment, pressing them against the walls, stopping herself just short…

  The ground beneath was absolutely covered in the same bear traps as she had seen before–It seemed like her hunter had noticed this exit from outside ahead of time and prepared accordingly.

  Mari looked behind. Now she knew what the sound was at its source became visible.

  Sticking out from the bottom of the steel tunnels, coming in and out, closer every single time was a blade. Like a shark's fin popping out of the water.

  The hunter had figured out where the prey was, but instead of following into the tight space where catching up was unlikely, they were going for a simpler solution.

  “Damnit…’

  Mari cursed under her breath, but did not give up. She held onto the grate and decided to go up instead of down. The structure had a flat roof, and it was nearby. Mari was able to climb on top of it, then she dropped the grate onto one of the bear traps, causing it to snap shut absurdly loudly.

  Then, the caretaker made herself small, lying flat on the roof without budging a muscle.

  She heard steps in the grass. Her pursuer was nearby, seemingly inspecting the bear traps…

  The plan was simple: Bait the stalker into believing that she had activated one trap with the grate, then jumped down, and successfully avoided the other traps before taking off running into the forest.

  Mari only needed to pray that the pursuer would buy into this, and it sounded like they did. Their steps in the grass grew distant until she could no longer hear them… Regardless, the caretaker stood still for a long while, gathering herself.

  Sitting up, she glanced to the side.

  Two purple eyes were staring directly at her, a silhouette halfway over the edge of the roof, one foot already over it.

  Mari’s face grew ugly.

  Her stalker had only pretended to leave, and judging by their lack of any sort of shoes or boots… They had taken them off to return silently, gone around to the front of the structure, and then began climbing over in total silence.

  The young woman swallowed her saliva. For a moment, it was like time had frozen.

  What was she supposed to do in this situation?

  Time unfroze when Mari suddenly stood up, doing so quickly that she almost felt dizzy. At the time, the shadowy figure finished climbing over, doing so in a manner that seemed strangely tactical before pulling out a dagger and running at the prey.

  There was only one way out.

  Mari ran and jumped off the structure, feeling weightless as she acted without thinking…