Chapter 12 Temporary Teammate

Back on the third floor, Suren listened as the sounds from downstairs abruptly ceased.

No gurgling of blood, no gunshots, no bizarre monster noises.

Suren breathed a sigh of relief, thoughtful.

In an instant, something clicked in his mind: "Generally speaking, the time flow in a cursed space is the same as the outside world. 'Blind Detective' Bill must have been here for a few months. With his brain-filling frequency just now, there's no way he could have survived this long. So what I saw just now probably wasn't a living person..."

He also confirmed that a spatial rule he had previously deduced was correct: after a person dies, the monsters born of terror disappear, and the space returns to its original state.

Otherwise, when he was first pulled in, there wouldn't have been any monsters on the second or third floors, and there wouldn't have been any signs of fighting. That was clearly wrong.

As he expected, this was a trigger-based plot!

It only happened when outsiders entered.

Fortunately, the monster didn't chase him, otherwise Suren felt he would have died on the spot.

"Looks like I have to go down again..."

There were still some doubts in his mind that hadn't been resolved. Although it was dangerous, Suren still planned to go down again.

After all, if he wanted to get out, he couldn't avoid the second floor of the hospital.

He listened carefully for a while, but didn't hear any movement.

Suren cautiously went down again.

Then, he saw the exact same scene as before.

'Blind Detective' Bill was sitting in front of a clinic room, blood flowing beneath him.

Suren's eyes narrowed slightly: "The plot rewound? As expected, it's that blind detective's dying regret..."

.......

The old cowboy discovered Suren again and asked the same question: "Are you human?"

"Yes."

Suren responded with the same words.

He originally wanted to use the Eyes of Omniscience to appraise what mysteries were on the second floor and to see what state the blind man was in. But the moment his gaze fell on him, the blind man seemed to sense something and suddenly drew his gun!

Suren's pupils shrank violently.

As a "firearms expert," he could tell from the man's subtle body movements that he was about to draw his gun. Without hesitation, he scrambled back up the stairs.

Almost at the same time, a gunshot rang out, and a bullet grazed his thigh.

If he hadn't dodged in time, that shot could have taken half his life.

Back in the third-floor corridor, the second floor returned to silence once more.

Suren let out a long breath and sighed, "A gun master is ridiculously strong. The gap is still a bit too big..."

It wasn't too surprising that Bill could shoot a gun.

Suren would have done the same himself. In such a bizarre hospital, it was unlikely to encounter another human, especially with such strange, probing gazes.

He had stood so close to the stairs just now to guard against that.

However, although he had been injured a bit on this trip down, he had confirmed a few things.

The moment he had appraised Bill, the words [Soul Manifestation] appeared above his head, not [Human].

Biologically speaking, he was already dead.

But in this space, he was alive in a way that was similar to an NPC.

.......

"What happened on the second floor should be a recreation of the blind man's final moments..."

Suren took out some potion and treated the graze on his thigh, quickly analyzing the situation in his mind.

If it weren't for that brain-filling blind man, he should have been able to go down to the second floor and find the files easily.

Now that there was such a guy, as soon as he went down, he would have to face the high-level mutated monster that the guy filled his brain with.

Prevent him from overthinking?

The most effective way was to kill him.

But... Suren was now certain that Bill was ridiculously strong.

He had only glanced at him, and he had already been shot.

Suren felt that if he had even the slightest intention of killing him, he would be greeted with a hail of bullets as soon as he went down the stairs.

The kill plan was immediately abandoned!

"However... the monster only appeared after such a long conversation the first time, probably because his attention was on me at the time. As long as I can distract him and explain the situation to him in time, I might be able to prevent the mutated monster from appearing..."

Suren thought of the key and decided to go down again.

He took a deep breath, telling himself not to show any hostility or do anything that could be misunderstood.

Then he walked down the stairs again and, sure enough, saw the old cowboy bleeding on the bench again.

.......

Bill discovered him at once, asking the same question for the third time: "Are you human?"

Suren replied, "Yes."

Then the same conversation unfolded again, with Bill trying to probe Suren's origins.

This time, he didn't hide his method, saying directly, "I've discovered the rules of this cursed space. The monsters here are actually the things that are manifested from our minds. As long as we control what we think about, the monsters won't appear."

Since the other party was already dead, he didn't think there was any need to hide the information.

Moreover, a gun master who didn't show any malice might not be an enemy in this bizarre cursed space, but a great help.

Hearing this, a shocked expression appeared on Bill's face.

He frowned, seemingly thinking.

A moment later, the blind man, known as a great detective, easily understood the key point: "No wonder, I thought the monsters that appeared looked familiar. So that's how it is."

The two chatted for a few more sentences, and Suren, seeing that no monster had appeared, guessed that the blind detective had probably controlled some of his terrifying thoughts.

Obviously, Bill hadn't realized that he was already dead.

Suren planned to recruit him as a temporary teammate and said, "Mr. Bill, I've heard of your great name. I think that if we want to get out of this cursed space, it's best to look for clues that can help us escape."

Bill nodded without hesitation: "Mm. I just happen to need an assistant."

Suren hadn't expected that Bill himself had already thought of a way to break this cursed space.

The old cowboy directly stated his opinion: "There are three common methods to break a space. First, kill the source of the curse that created the cursed space; second, find the cursed object; third, create an energy fluctuation that the space can't withstand and forcibly break it open. But this space is a bit special. It absorbs 'people who are aware of its existence'. So, I suspect that the 'source of the curse' may not be a physical object, but something like a spiritual entity, such as some kind of 'resentment'. The 'rule that evil thoughts materialize' that you discovered also confirms my guess. I'm almost certain now that the source of the curse in this space is likely to be a very powerful existence!"

Very powerful?

Suren frowned when he heard the gun master say this.

Things were much more troublesome than he had expected.

His understanding of the cursed space was far inferior to Bill's. Many things were blind spots in his knowledge, and he hadn't expected that there were so many nuances to breaking a cursed space.

Now that he heard this, the option of going head-to-head with the Boss was immediately eliminated.

There was no need to gamble on the odds. It was highly likely that he would die the moment he met it before he even had time to appraise it.

The option with the highest chance of survival seemed to be only finding the name of that "resentful master" and reciting it.

Suren hadn't expected that Bill would have the same idea as him.

Bill continued, "From the current clues, the specifications of this cursed space are probably extremely high. The 'source of the curse' ability is probably beyond what we can withstand. So, rashly looking for it will be very dangerous."

After a pause, he continued, "And I've learned some special methods from some old wasteland hunters to deal with this type of 'resentment'. Perhaps we don't have to confront it directly."

Suren asked, "What methods?"

Bill said, "First, find a powerful cursed object that can restrain ghost-type creatures, such as the Carter family's [Holy Cross]. I don't have that, and I don't think you have it either; second, use alchemical bullets, such as 'Silver' or 'Evil-Breaking'; third, an exorcism alchemical ritual; fourth, recite its name... Different situations call for different methods, and I'm not sure which one will work. But the first three require us to face that ghost-type creature head-on. Unless absolutely necessary, it's best not to try. We can try the fourth one first. Find the name of the 'resentful master' in the hospital, and then recite it. Perhaps we can break the resentment and leave directly..."

Suren felt that he had learned a lot. So there were so many tricks to this.

This was the experience gained at the cost of countless lives. People who came from "Umbrella Organization" lived up to their name.

........

After discussing a strategy, Suren and Bill began searching for clues in various clinic rooms.

Suren was on guard the whole time for monsters that might suddenly appear, but he found that his worries were unnecessary. He was also surprised that the blind detective Bill could perfectly control himself from overthinking.

Without the interference of monsters, they quickly found a special room: the director's office.

Without wasting any time, Bill's detective skills allowed them to quickly find a safe behind a mural on the wall.

Suren originally thought that the safe would be troublesome, but he didn't expect the old cowboy to fiddle with the stethoscope and master key for a while and open it easily.

A detective was indeed a jack-of-all-trades, knowing and being proficient in everything.

There were no valuables in the safe, just a dense pile of notebooks.

Suren casually picked one up and immediately realized that they had found the right clue!

The notebooks recorded experimental diaries for something called "Living Corpse Research." He easily saw the name of the person who signed them. Almost every diary was signed: Tiermido M. Chekhov.

Suren casually flipped through a few pages and saw that the notes were filled with various dense data, rune knowledge, alchemical knowledge... The content was too high-end, and he couldn't even understand most of it.

In an instant, Suren realized that the diary was invaluable.

Then, without looking closely, he put them all into his storage ring.

According to the nature of horror plots, his intuition told Suren that discovering such a key clue would probably trigger some chain reaction.

Sure enough, the moment he put away the notes, there was a sudden abnormal movement at the door of the director's office.