I Woke Up As An Old Hag, And Two Hot Beasts Think I'm Crazy のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

"Play it again," Skylar said, voice tighter than she meant it to be.Reyna tapped the screen without argument, and the grainy footage looped a second time — the glowing apartment building, the mid-forties woman in the doorway, that unnervingly calm, knowing stare directly into the hidden camera."Pause it. Right there." Skylar leaned closer, studying the frozen face with a kind of horrified fascination. The jaw was hers. The stubborn set of the mouth was unmistakably hers. But the eyes held something Skylar had never seen in her own reflection — a tiredness that went bone-deep, something that looked less like exhaustion and more like grief worn smooth from repetition."She looks like she's been through this before," Corin said quietly, echoing the thought before Skylar could voice it."She looks like she's been through this a lot of times before," Zane added grimly.Skylar straightened, arms crossed, trying to force her racing thoughts into something resembling order. "Okay. Let's be

The walls didn't just crack. They screamed.A high, grinding shriek of splintering crystal tore through the apartment, violet light spilling out in jagged fractures across the ceiling, and the older woman staggered, one hand pressed to her own chest like something inside her was tearing loose."You need to leave," she gasped. "Now, before this fragment collapses—""Not until you finish!" Skylar grabbed for her arm, some desperate instinct refusing to let this chance slip away unfinished. "Watch them die — what does that mean, who dies, how do I stop it—""I don't know how to stop it!" The woman's composure finally broke entirely, years of careful weariness cracking into raw, undisguised fear. "That's the point, Skylar. Seven times I tried something different. Seven times it still happened. I don't have the answer. I only have the warning."Zane stepped forward, shadows lashing protectively around the three of them as another section of crystalline wall shattered, glowing shards rainin

"Define 'already inside,'" Skylar whispered, flattening herself against a crumbling wall as they crept closer to the outpost."Someone with a strong enough Rift signature to make the whole building glow," Zane murmured back, shadows thinning into something quieter, more like smoke than blade, better suited to sneaking than fighting. "Not Consortium. Their tech doesn't put off energy like that.""So either something mutated got in first," Corin said, "or something worse did.""Comforting options as always," Skylar muttered.They approached the outpost from the side, avoiding the main entrance where two Consortium guards lay slumped against the wall — unconscious, Skylar noted with relief as Corin quickly checked their pulses, not dead."Whoever did this wasn't trying to kill anyone," Corin said, straightening. "These wounds are precise. Non-lethal.""That's either very reassuring or very ominous," Skylar said. "I can't decide which."They slipped through a side entrance left ajar, the

The shape hit the ground four kilometers away, but Skylar felt the impact through her own feet, the entire parking structure groaning around them as a shockwave rippled outward across the broken city."That," Zane said, already on his feet, shadows spreading wide and alert, "was not a Blood Beast."[System: Entity classification — Rift Herald. Threat level: Catastrophic.]"Catastrophic," Skylar repeated, scrambling upright despite her protesting legs. "We haven't even hit severe on the scale of things trying to kill us today. What's above severe?""That," Corin said grimly, staring toward the distant plume of violet dust rising against the darkened sky.[System: Rift Heralds precede major Nexus collapse events. Their presence indicates the primary Rift is destabilizing faster than projected.]"Faster than projected by how much?" Skylar asked, though some sick, sinking part of her already suspected the answer wouldn't be comforting.[System: Original projection — 3 days from Rift Event

The crystalline growth spread fast, spidering out from the scorched circle in sharp, deliberate lines that looked less like natural formation and more like something being written."Get back," Zane said, already pulling Skylar away from the expanding pattern, shadows rising defensively around them."Wait." Corin held up a hand, studying the crystal with a frown instead of retreating. "It's not attacking. Look at the shape."Skylar looked. The violet lines weren't spreading randomly — they were forming something. Symbols, maybe, or letters in a language her eyes couldn't quite parse, arranging themselves across the cracked pavement in careful, patient rows.[System: Anomaly identified. Residual data fragment — Herald origin.]"It left something behind," Skylar said slowly. "On purpose."[System: Confirmed. Fragment contains partial historical record. Access requires direct physical contact.]"Of course it does," Skylar muttered. "Nothing today can just be read. Everything requires me t