016
1242 Words
"How's your nose?" Phedra Henry asked with concern.
Ika snorted. "Still the same. I can't smell blood. My nose is allergic."
Ika sidestepped a puddle of blood on the floor, leaned over, and let Phedra Henry enter the house first. "Don't throw up," he warned.
Phedra Henry didn't understand what Ika meant, but as soon as he saw the scene inside, he understood.
On the first night, a safe house had been attacked by demons. People were confused as to why that safe house was invalidated. The villagers checked and concluded it was because the number of people had exceeded the allowed limit.
At their feet, the wooden floor was soaked in blood.
Human blood flowed from the house out into the street, just as the village chief had described: “blood running like a river.”
The crime scene was brutal. Eleven sheets of human skin were hung on the drying rack, and chunks of flesh were cut into pieces on the table.
The blood on the floor had already dried, dyeing the whole house red. The walls were splattered with blood as well.
The estimated time of death was probably around midnight last night.
Phedra Henry’s stomach churned. Fortunately, he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet—otherwise, he might have thrown up right there.
He closed his eyes to steady himself, then looked around at the four walls. “There aren’t any fingerprints on the walls.”
Ika nodded. “The furniture isn’t damaged, either. There are no signs of a struggle. That means these people didn’t resist.”
Dante trembled with fear. “They didn’t fight back? The devil did all this…”
Phedra Henry and Ika exchanged a glance. No one said anything more.
The four of them left the house together.
After walking a while, Ika said, “I didn’t expect you not to throw up.”
Phedra Henry didn’t reply.
Dante and Baldwin exchanged glances and glanced at Phedra Henry.
Baldwin exclaimed, “Mr. Phedra is really tough.”
Ika smirked. “The other two threw up their whole breakfast just now.”
Dante coughed. “I’ve never seen such a brutal murder before. My legs are still shaking.”
Ika added, “So that means Mr. Phedra must have seen things like this before, so he’s not scared?”
Phedra Henry gave Ika a look. “Do you know where No. 3 is?”
Seeing that he still didn’t react to his words, Ika couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward. “I don’t know.”
Phedra Henry shook his head in disappointment. He was hungry and needed to finish breakfast. Beatrix Henry was in the same house as him, so he decided to find him later.
After eating breakfast, Phedra Henry went upstairs and sat in his room for a long time, still feeling there was something unclear about the case.
He went downstairs in a daze and saw Dante and Baldwin huddled together, so he asked them to come out and greet the villagers with him.
Baldwin was timid. So many people had died in one night that he didn’t dare leave the house. “It’s fine as long as we stay in the safe house. The mission is just to survive for seven days, right?”
“You think you’ll be safe just by staying in a safe house?” Phedra Henry asked.
Baldwin looked pale. “This is called a safe house!”
“But yesterday, someone still died in a safe house,” Phedra Henry reminded him.
Baldwin thought for a moment. “That was because they exceeded the population limit.”
Phedra Henry pressed, “Don’t you think it’s a bit too coincidental?”
Dante, who had been listening, suddenly spoke up. “You mean the safe houses?”
Phedra Henry nodded.
Dante muttered, “It is odd. All the safe houses in the village are numbered exactly according to each family’s population, so why are there exactly ten vacant houses for us? And if we hadn’t gotten lost, we wouldn’t have ended up in this remote mountain village at all…”
Baldwin’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?”
Phedra Henry replied, “There’s no point in just waiting around. We have to figure it out ourselves.”
Dante pulled Baldwin up from his chair. “Let’s go. I’m going with you. What are you so scared of?”
Baldwin clutched his hands together. “You, you…”
But Dante ignored him, grabbing the back of Baldwin’s shirt and dragging him along.
“Let’s go,” said Dante.
Phedra Henry sighed. “…Okay.”
The three of them went out together to ask the villagers about the location of the ancient coffin. As soon as the villagers heard them mention the coffin, their expressions changed immediately.
“Why are you asking about the coffin?”
Phedra Henry answered, “We’re university students. The purpose of our trip is to study the ruins of ancient shrines—like the mountain god’s shrine here. Our car broke down, and if we’re missing for a few days, our school will know. Yesterday, we heard that this village was haunted and wanted to see it for ourselves.”
The villagers stared at him with wide eyes. “Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?”
Phedra Henry smiled. “It’s scary at night, but during the day it’s fine. You’d have to be crazy to do anything to yourself.”
The villagers were at a loss for words. “What are you saying?”
Phedra Henry just smiled, his eyes shining.
One villager looked at him for a long time before commenting, “Your skin is so white, it’s almost glowing. Students are really different.”
Phedra Henry raised his arm across his face and pinched his own cheek.
The villagers stared at him intently, then realized they were being too obvious.
Just then, Phedra Henry spotted the village chief in the distance and put his hand down.
“What are you doing here?” the village chief asked, standing with his cane, giving the villagers a look. “Why haven’t you gone to the fields yet?”
The villager answered quickly and ran off with his hoe.
Phedra Henry found it more difficult to talk to the village chief than the others, so he simply bowed and left.
As they continued walking, Dante said, “I think that NPC guy was annoyed by you. Why not just ask for directions down the mountain?”
Phedra Henry replied, “In games, if you leave the designated mission area, can you still complete the quest?”
Dante said, “We’ve asked so many people, but nobody’s given us a straight answer. What do we do now?”
Phedra Henry thought for a moment. “It’s strange. This village isn’t that big. Why can’t we find the coffin?”
Baldwin, exhausted, squatted down to rest. “The coffin was dug up late last year. Maybe the villagers moved it somewhere else.”
As soon as he finished speaking, his eyes lit up.
Dante slapped his own forehead. “We’ve just assumed the coffin is still where it was. Maybe we’ve been going around in circles.”
Phedra Henry said, “But it’s not just about moving it. I feel like that villager just now was acting strange, too.”
Baldwin, who was massaging his knees, immediately stood up. “Me too! That look was… strange.”
- Writer
