area51novel Page 123
Page 123
After walking a distance, Fujiwara Chika said with a somewhat meaningful expression.
Are you worried about Utsunomiya-kun?
"Yes."
To Fujiwara Chika's surprise, Shinomiya Kaguya readily admitted it, then added in a calm tone.
“I need him to help me get the student council president position and help me win this election. If he dies before that, I will be very upset.”
"is it?"
Fujiwara Chika appeared noncommittal, but in her heart, she had already seen through Shinomiya Kaguya's stubbornness.
During the last Ajin instance, when Kaguya Shinomiya was in her mentally exhausted "idiot Kaguya" state, she took out that purple-quality ring and asked Asuna to take it to help Utsunomiya.
In that state, would Kaguya Shinomiya consider that if Utsunomiya died, she would be unable to be elected student council president?
Ultimately, given Kaguya Shinomiya's usual rational to the point of being cold-blooded, she hadn't even discussed with Kaguya and Hayasaka what precautions they should take now that Utsunomiya knew their player identities, such as finding something on him to ensure he wouldn't reveal their identities.
This is enough to prove that in Kaguya Shinomiya's heart, Utsunomiya is a different person. When it comes to things related to Utsunomiya, she is not rational, but emotional.
Just thinking about the possible developments in the future...
Fujiwara Chika, the fun-loving person, is incredibly excited.
……
Wednesday morning, at Asagiri's house.
[Player Utsunomiya Asagiri, now entering the instance]
[The location of this instance is: Giant Mountain Mental Hospital (Since you already know the information about this mental hospital, the real name of the instance location is displayed; from the perspective of ordinary players, it will be ?? Mental Hospital)]
[This instance has no time limit.]
The objective of this "player's" mission is: to escape from Giant Mountain Mental Hospital.
[Public notice for this instance: Please remain quiet and do not attract the attention of the "mentally ill person"]
[Special Note for this instance: The caregiver Hoddle Franklin is located in Area C on the second basement level. If he moves to another area, you will receive a notification via the mobile app.]
After the thick, dark red mist in front of her dissipated, Asagiri immediately confirmed that Asuna Yuuki and the others were right beside her before she began to observe the area where the four members of the team were located.
It looked like the kitchen of a restaurant, with large stains on the metal stove, and oil and thick blood congealed on the floor, emitting an unpleasant stench. Flies buzzed around the stains in the dimly lit room.
"what……"
Yuuki Asuna, who has a slight case of mysophobia, raised her hand to cover her mouth and nose, stared at the room in front of her with suspicion, looked at Asagiri beside her, and said in a low voice.
"This... seems a little different from when we came last time..."
"This might be underground."
Asagiri glanced around the room where everyone was and found that apart from the ventilation vents at the top and a metal door, there was no other way out of the room.
Kotoko Iwanaga walked to the metal stove and observed the black and red stains that had solidified on it. Then she opened the metal pot lid on the gas stove, and an even stronger stench instantly filled the entire room.
"Oh... so that's what it was for..."
Kotoko Iwanaga observed carefully for a few seconds, then calmly turned her head to look at Asagiri and the others standing there, and said with a smile.
"There is a boiled human head in here."
"Forehead……"
Kato Megumi asked cautiously.
"Necro, aren't you being a little too calm?"
"Oh, it's alright, it's not anything scary."
Kotoko Iwanaga replied nonchalantly, her face still bearing a relaxed smile.
"There's nothing strange attached to this human head. It's just an ordinary, half-cooked human head with rotting flesh. It's not going to jump up and bite me, so what's there to be afraid of?"
"Should I say you're brave, or just unusual..."
Just as Kato Megumi was saying this, she saw Asagiri walk up to the metal pot, looking at the half-cooked human head inside, and say thoughtfully.
"Hmm...that's strange. There are seasonings right next to it, why not put them in?"
"what?"
Asuna Yuuki frowned slightly, unsure of how to respond.
"Is this... something we should be focusing on?"
"Of course, if someone can't even cook, it means their skills are mediocre."
Asagiri carefully examined the human head inside the metal pot, her expression very serious.
"The man's face was peeled off, and there was a lot of blood on the ground and stove. The amount of bleeding and the shape of the bloodstains indicated that his limbs had been brutally severed, and it was not just the blood of one person."
At this point, Asagiri took out her rope dart and gently poked at the head inside the metal pot, observing the uneven, not even flat, slanted cut below, and said calmly.
"The head wasn't cleanly severed, but rather it was roughly cut off using something like a saw. The perpetrator's method was unprofessional; they might have lacked experience, or they might simply have been completely indifferent."
"His face was peeled off..."
Upon hearing Asagiri's words, Asuna Yuuki seemed to be deep in thought.
"A blood-faced caregiver... a head with its face peeled off... could this be... the head of a caregiver at the Giant Mountain Mental Hospital?"
63
Chapter 63 The emaciated monster.
"It's possible."
Asagiri put the lid back on the metal pot to prevent the nauseating smell from escaping before speaking calmly.
"I don't know if any other players participated in this instance, but as is our usual practice, let's share the special tips that everyone received first."
"it is good."
This is where the advantage of a high-level player team lies. In the last demi-human dungeon, all four of them achieved an S+ rating, so they can still get four different special hints in this dungeon.
The purpose of the special prompts provided by the system is not to reduce the difficulty of clearing the dungeon, but to allow advanced players to save time, quickly determine the general situation of the dungeon without having to carefully explore information, and thus complete some more difficult hidden tasks.
Kato Megumi's special hint is: "There are many dangerous traps inside the mental hospital, please be cautious at all times." Yuuki Asuna's special hint is: "Mental patients are difficult to completely eliminate." Iwanaga Kotoko's special hint is: "Some seemingly harmless spirits actually harbor malice. In this dungeon, there are no friendly spirits that will absolutely not harm the player."
"A mental hospital with dangerous facilities? Is this really a mental hospital...?"
After exchanging the special hints they had received, Kotoko Iwanaga, the team's strategist, began her analysis.
"Mental patients are hard to kill... If that's the case, mental patients might be similar to the floating corpse evil spirits in that hotel instance, evil spirits that cannot be eliminated unless their root is eradicated. Of course, it's also possible that mental patients are not evil spirits, but rather have a special constitution with extremely strong survival ability, like demi-humans."
Kotoko Iwanaga paused briefly at this point before continuing.
"The special hint I received states that there are no friendly ghosts that will never harm players, and conversely, there are no ghosts that are absolutely hostile to players. Some seemingly harmless ghosts actually harbor malice. Is this telling us that we can obtain information through negotiation, but we should be wary of sudden attacks from ghosts...?"
Upon hearing Kotoko Iwanaga's analysis, Asagiri responded calmly.
"Based on the special hint you received, and combined with the special hint I received, Old Huo is definitely considered a ghost. However, according to the system's assessment, he might also harm players. This means that this instance is in the same location as the newbie instance for me and Violet, but it has changed for some reason."
“When we came last time, we didn’t see any mental patients.”
Asuna Yuuki frowned slightly, carefully recalling the situation of that newbie dungeon, and murmured to herself.
"Judging from the caregivers' behavior in persuading us to leave the room, they knew there was danger in this hospital and had a certain degree of goodwill towards the players. The public warning also cautioned the players not to attract the attention of the mental patients. So the caregivers and the mental patients... are definitely not on the same side. And if we assume that the head belonged to one of the caregivers, who would do such a cruel thing as cutting off the caregivers' heads, peeling off their faces, and boiling them in a pot? It could only be the mental patients, right?"
"The Giant Mountain Mental Hospital is in the same world as the hotel instance we encountered. The Blackwatch group went to the hotel. Is it possible that we'll run into them here?"
Hearing Kato Megumi's question, Asagiri nodded slightly.
"It's hard to say, but what we can be sure of is that Blackwatch is not just a simple military force. They have been exposed to the supernatural and have relevant experience in dealing with supernatural events. They must possess some kind of supernatural power that can combat the supernatural."
Just as Asuna Yuuki finished speaking, Kotoko Iwanaga suddenly seemed to sense something, her expression changed, and she lowered her voice to remind her.
“Something strange is approaching here.”
The four members of the team have already checked the room, which is like a kitchen, and there is no place in the room where four people can hide.
Without hesitation, Kato Megumi immediately reached out and touched Asagiri, Yuuki Asuna, and Iwanaga Kotoko. After applying the effect of reducing their presence to the three of them, she also activated her exclusive talent and entered a state of reducing her presence.
"Shhhhh~"
Less than two seconds later, a series of awkward and off-key whistles came from outside the door, growing louder as they approached.
"boom!!!"
The metal door was kicked open with a single kick. Faced with this sudden loud noise, not only did Iwanaga Kotoko and Asagiri, who had extraordinary mental fortitude, not even Yuuki Asuna and Kato Megumi react. After all, they had experienced so many dungeons and had prepared themselves in advance, so they were not easily frightened by this noise.
After the door was kicked open, a man who was skin and bones, with messy and dirty long hair and beard, wearing only a pair of tattered shorts, without clothes or shoes, and whose upper body and face were covered in blood, slowly stepped into the room.
In his right hand he held a blood-stained serrated longsword, while in his left hand he held a human head whose face had been peeled off and was still dripping blood.
"It's time to cook again..."
The gaunt man, carrying the head, muttered excitedly to himself as he walked to the metal pot, put down the serrated dagger in his hand, and lifted the lid with his right hand.
Seeing that he hadn't noticed their presence at all, Kato Megumi breathed a sigh of relief. But then she noticed that the half-cooked human head that had been in the metal pot had disappeared without her noticing.
"Wow."
The gaunt man threw the head he was carrying into the metal pot, followed by a soft splashing sound, which made Asagiri and Kotoko Iwanaga feel even more strange.
Both of them had just examined the inside of the metal pot, which contained no water at all, only a half-cooked head. Now, not only had the head disappeared, but water had also inexplicably appeared inside the metal pot, even though the gaunt man hadn't added any water.
Furthermore, the gaunt man was doing something so horrific, yet he kept whistling with an excited and expectant expression on his face—this scene…
Isn't that a bit too bizarre?
"Pap, tap, tap..."
The gaunt man turned the gas knob on the metal stove a few times, but no flame ignited.
"Damn!"
The gaunt man cursed, staring at the human head inside the metal pot. His bloodshot eyes revealed a hungry wolf-like drooling desire. Then he did something that made Yuuki Asuna and Kato Megumi feel extremely nauseous.
He stretched out his filthy hands, picked up the human head, then opened his mouth wide, revealing two rows of disgusting teeth, and was about to bite into the head.
"Violet, get started."
The moment Asagiri called out her code name, Asuna Yuuki drew her rapier, its gleaming blade radiating a brilliant light that illuminated the previously dim kitchen.
"Sword Technique: Piercing Light!"
The brilliance within the crystal gathered at the tip of the sword, and before the gaunt man could react, it had already accurately struck his brow.
"Boom, boom..."
The severed head the gaunt man was holding fell to the ground with two muffled thuds, and his body leaned back, staggering several steps until his lower back hit a metal table.
"what……"
The emaciated man did not die. Instead, he squeezed out a strange sound from his throat, and large patches of skin began to peel off, staining his entire body red with blood. His elbows, knees, collarbones, shoulders, and other parts, which were already very prominent due to his thinness, immediately swelled up, as if the bones inside were about to pierce through the thin skin.
He crouched low like a wild beast. The hole in his brow, where Asuna Yuuki had stabbed him, hadn't disappeared, nor was any blood flowing. Only his vertebrae bulged out one by one. He looked like...
"Wow, you can even activate Spinosaurus form?"
Seeing the gaunt man transformed into this monstrous, blood-stained figure, Asagiri couldn't help but exclaim in admiration. Then, the familiar black gun-shaped summoner appeared in her hand, and she pointed the muzzle at her temple, her eyes turning dark gold. Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.
"Human Asura".
At the same time that the human-like Shura appeared, a ball of black particles also condensed in front of Kotoko Iwanaga, forming a black humanoid shape that was slightly smaller than the human-like Shura. Together with the human-like Shura, they directly pinned the gaunt man who had transformed into a monstrous evil spirit to the ground.
"boom!"
The force exerted by the human demon and the black humanoid was so great that it even caused several cracks to appear on the hard tile floor. However, the gaunt man seemed to feel no pain. The sound of bones grinding together inside his body was so acrid that it made your teeth ache. He raised his blood-stained, messy face, looked at Asagiri and the others standing there, and let out a strange laugh.
"You're not getting out, hahahaha!"
"Like to laugh?"
Asagiri walked over, squatted down in front of the gaunt man, a kind smile on her face, and slowly pierced the man's skull with the rope dart in her hand. But the man's laughter did not stop; instead, it became more and more manic.
"Oh my, you don't feel any pain? That's interesting."
Seeing the gaunt man's condition, Asagiri plunged all the rope darts into his head. The gaunt man's body twitched twice before turning into a pool of dark red blood that spread across the ground and eventually disappeared.
"Shouldn't we interrogate him a bit? Maybe we can get some information."
"impossible."