Anime Crossover: Tokyo Reincarnation Game — Chapter 26

Chapter 26: The Girl in the Western-Style DressYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

“The general dungeon hints and the special hints are completely different…” Yuuki Asuna murmured, tapping her chin as she analyzed the screen. “The discrepancy has to be tied to the gap in our combat strength. According to the app’s threat assessment, if I were to fight an Evil Spirit right now, my chances of survival are practically zero. But your stats are high enough to eliminate a single Evil Spirit on your own, so it fed us different survival parameters. This app is surprisingly user-friendly in its cruelty. As for the special hint…”

Before she could finish her deduction, Asagiri reached out and unceremoniously grabbed her bare, delicate feet.

The sudden ambush caused Asuna to freeze, her breath catching in her throat before a fierce blush rapidly conquered her entire face. “You… why did you just grab my feet?!”

“Wrapping them,” Asagiri replied, his voice completely devoid of shame. He had smoothly shifted from his usual unhinged abstract mode into the cold, calculating mindset of a veteran Player. “I’m applying athletic tape and bandages.”

He placed her feet securely on his lap, tearing open a roll of medical tape with practiced ease. “Professional athletes use this method to stabilize their ankles before a high-intensity match. It drastically reduces the risk of sprains during sudden evasive maneuvers. The app’s rules explicitly forbid bringing defensive gear or armor into the dungeon, but basic medical supplies used for joint stabilization shouldn’t trigger the penalty.”

“Oh… I see…” Asuna raised a hand, nervously smoothing down her chestnut hair. Watching Asagiri carefully bind her ankles, his large hands moving with surprising gentleness, the crimson hue on her cheeks only deepened. She lowered her gaze, her voice dropping into a soft, apologetic murmur. “Sorry… I just thought… I thought you were getting some strange ideas about me, and that’s why…”

“No need to apologize,” Asagiri said, not looking up from his work. “If you assume I’m doing this prep work purely out of lust, you’d be wronging me. But if you assume I’m doing this out of absolute, sterile rationality with zero lewd thoughts whatsoever, then you are vastly overestimating my moral compass.”

“You… you absolute…” Asuna’s ears burned a bright, furious red. She gritted her teeth, her voice trembling between embarrassment and disbelief. “Pervert… to casually admit you’re having those kinds of thoughts while touching a girl’s feet… You really are the worst kind of pervert…”

“Don’t make false accusations,” Asagiri chuckled dryly, securing the final layer of tape. “It’s not just any girl. It is specifically because I am touching Yuuki-san that my basic human nature acts up. The necessary qualifier for these thoughts is you.”

Asuna ducked her head, offering only a tiny, barely audible “Mm” in response. Outwardly, she tried to maintain her composure, but internally, her cheeks were scalding hot, and she felt like a steaming kettle about to whistle.

Direct hit. Asagiri’s deadpan honesty was a terrifying weapon.

[Player Utsunomiya Asagiri, preparing to enter the dungeon]

[Countdown: 10, 9, 8… 1, 0]

The moment the timer hit zero, a thick, suffocating tide of dark red mist flooded Asagiri’s vision. By the time the bloody fog dissipated, the familiar surroundings of the real world had been entirely replaced by the opulent, dimly lit interior of a high-end hotel suite.

Asagiri immediately checked Asuna’s ankles. The athletic tape and bandages were still perfectly intact. Just as he had theorized, preventative medical wrapping bypassed the system’s ban on defensive armor. It was a logical loophole; after all, a Player’s ability to anticipate physical strain and carefully prepare for it was a valid metric of their survival capability.

With that confirmed, Asagiri swept his cold gaze across the room. Aside from himself and Asuna, three other Players had been pulled into this instance.

The first was a young man dressed in an expensive, tailored suit. He sported slicked-back hair, a loosened silk tie, and a generically handsome face marred by a distinct air of superiority. Clinging to his arm, leaning against him with practiced intimacy, was a young woman wearing heavy, glamorous makeup.

Judging by their physical proximity and relaxed body language around each other, Asagiri and Asuna instantly deduced that the Suit Man and the Makeup Woman were an established team who knew each other prior to the teleportation.

The final Player, however, stood out entirely.

‘That is…’and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

She was incredibly petite, standing at roughly 1.5 meters tall. She was dressed in an immaculate, frilled white Victorian-style dress, paired with pristine white stockings and exquisite little leather shoes. A white beret sat neatly on her head, and her small hands rested lightly on the grip of an elegant walking cane.

The most glaring anomaly was her face. The app’s rules strictly stated that Players could not use real-world items to disguise their identities upon entering a dungeon. Yet, this girl wore a luxurious, masquerade-style white half-mask that completely concealed the upper half of her face.

A little girl… she has to be, right?

Noticing the collective stares of the room, the petite girl didn’t show a single ounce of intimidation. Instead, she elegantly pinched the edges of her white skirt with one hand and dipped into a flawless, aristocratic curtsy.

“Good evening, everyone,” she greeted, her voice soft, melodic, and laced with a faint, polite smile.

The Suit Man frowned, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her. “Hey. That mask you’re wearing, and that cane. Are those system equipment?”

The girl didn’t bother hiding it. She simply nodded, the smile never leaving her lips.

“Hmph. Entering your second dungeon and you already have two pieces of equipment,” the Suit Man scoffed, crossing his arms. “Looks like you managed to score a decent rating in the novice dungeon.”

Watching the Suit Man dismiss the girl’s gear so easily, Asagiri and Asuna exchanged a brief, silent glance. They both realized the exact same thing: this arrogant guy had no idea about the system’s darkest hidden rule. He didn’t know that if you murdered another Player and stole their smartphone, you could randomly extract one of their items or pieces of equipment.

It was an understandable blind spot. Asagiri had only verified this brutal mechanic in the novice dungeon by slaughtering a Player who had already cleared their objective, looting their phone in the aftermath.

While other Players had undoubtedly committed murder during the novice trials, very few possessed the sheer psychopathy and analytical detachment required to discover the loot extraction mechanic. At this current stage of the game, Asagiri and Asuna might be the only two people alive who knew how to harvest the dead.

After all, triggering the hidden rule required a ridiculous sequence of events: First, obtain a victim’s phone. Second, the victim must have already completed their main objective and officially promoted from a Novice to a Formal Player. Finally, the killer had to manually open the sinister eye-icon app on the stolen device to claim the prize.

Pulling that off in the chaotic panic of a novice dungeon was nearly impossible—let alone having the twisted presence of mind to test the theory in the first place.

“Tch… a little girl, and two brats who look like high school students?” The Suit Man swept his gaze over Asuna and Asagiri, his condescension practically dripping from his words. He puffed out his chest, speaking in a commanding baritone. “I’ll be direct with you all. In this dungeon, you will follow my orders. Whatever I tell you to do, you do it without question, and I will graciously lead you to a clear.”

Hearing this absurd declaration, the masked girl in the white dress tilted her head, her tone dripping with polite amusement. “Follow your orders? We are all equal Players here. Why on earth should we do that?”

“Hmph, isn’t it obvious? Because my abilities are vastly superior to yours.” The Suit Man sneered, his ego inflating by the second. “I forgot to mention… back in my novice dungeon…”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“I received a high-level clearance rating of B+.”You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.