Artifact Report

Chapter 328 Kim Seol-ri: The Detective Can't Leave the Toilet

Why did Kim Seol-ri know at a glance that the shop assistant had been murdered?

How did she know that the shop assistant hadn't died in an accident, hadn't died of natural causes, and hadn't been born with a tragic death appearance, but was just being lazy and dozing off?
The answer is simple.

Jin Xueli stared at the shop assistant's corpse—no, it shouldn't be called a corpse, but she hadn't yet figured out how to describe a conceptual entity—and even wondered if she had been tricked.

A small red alarm bell is suspended above the "corpse," casting a red glow in all directions; a ring of bright white LED text is displayed on the alarm bell, swirling around and causing the red glow to flicker uneasily.

Just as Jin Xueli pushed open the door, the white text around the alarm bell translated into human language:

Unfortunately, I have been murdered.

Died at the age of 3.5, unmarried.

"The murderer is..."

"Wait a moment, I'll be right back."

So who is the murderer?! Kim Seol-ri couldn't help but exclaim in her heart.

Also, what does "I'll be right back in a moment" mean? Do we need to keep you in suspense here?

What's with this alarm? Is it some kind of physiological function? Does it pop up as soon as someone dies?
They could have left a death message, but the four sentences they left were almost entirely nonsense. Truly befitting the unpredictable thinking of the inhabitants of the nest.

It was a coincidence that after the clerk's body fell to the ground, the red light of the alarm was blocked by the cash register and the cabinet; Jin Xueli had been playing in the store for a long time and only now realized that there was not only a dead person behind the cash register, but the dead person was also constantly issuing alarms.

Of course, calling it a dead "person" is an overuse of the word "person".

How to describe it?
In the few seconds before she started feeling nauseous, Kim Seol-ri quickly glanced at the dead employee.

Although it died at the age of 3.5, it looked like a young man in his twenties or thirties with four narrow, long faces.

She counted them, and there were indeed four.

Thank goodness she has a narrow and long face, Jin Xueli thought. If she had a wide face, she would have to squeeze into the front, back, left, and right sides of the same head. How could she possibly fit in there?
The left cheekbone of one face is right next to the right cheekbone of the next face; there are four narrow and long chins that wrap around the neck, like... like four open fleshy petals.

The shop assistant's neck and body looked like some kind of long worm crawling out of open flesh, and as it crawled, it grew limbs and hands and feet.

It was wearing a green and white vest, which was probably an employee uniform. Besides the words "Nest Persistence" written on it, it also had a name tag pinned to it in a proper manner. As for how to read the tangled and twisted ink blots on the name tag, Jin Xueli had no idea.

From between the open vests, a high stool, like a mushroom, sprouted from the clerk's chest.

This... is a murder method that also serves as the murder weapon.

It seems that some unknown person—some resident—forcefully shoved the chair the cashier was sitting on into the cashier's chest.

That was brutal; it must have been a revenge killing. Hmm, there don't seem to be any signs of a struggle at the scene...

Wait a minute. Jin Xueli slapped her forehead hard.

What is she doing?

She's not someone who's watched too many movies or read too many novels, why would she play detective games?

Regardless of how she was killed by the bar chair, she is now the prime suspect and the first person to discover her, especially since she is a human—if we don't hurry up and run, what if we get caught by other residents?
This is the second time tonight that she has been thinking about the same question: Is there a police station in the lair?
...Whether or not there is an NSPD, she cannot linger any longer.

However, before escaping the murder scene, Kim Seol-ri has one thing she must figure out: how to get the original solution.

The cashier must be able to control those six gas pumps outside from her computer... She should find a way to turn on one of the pumps, fill her portable water bottle with the undiluted solution, and then run away.

But to access the computer, you have to move the employee's body away first.

It was positioned right between Jin Xueli and the computer, its lower body bent and stacked under the cash register counter like origami. The space behind the counter was narrow, and since it was quite a large, humanoid creature, once it fell to the ground, there wasn't much space left for it to stand.

Jin Xueli sighed. There was no other way but to drag her out…

But it's not really appropriate to just throw it on the ground like that... Ah, there's an employee restroom behind here, so I'll just drag it into the restroom.

She bent down, covering her hands with her sleeve; the closer she got to the clerk's body, the more philosophical her questions about her life became: Where am I? What was the purpose of my birth?
Why is there a part of my life about moving the bodies of residents?
When you get closer, the dizzying feeling of your perception being at odds with reality becomes even stronger.

Each of the shop assistant's four faces, even when viewed individually, deviates slightly from a human face—so slightly that without careful observation, one can't quite explain why they feel vaguely uncomfortable.

For example, on one face, only the inner and outer corners of the eyes are reversed; the inner corners of the eyes point towards the temples, while the outer corners of the eyes point towards each other.

There was another face, right in the corner of her eye, constantly pressing hard against her nerves.

Jin Xueli glanced at it several times subconsciously, but she couldn't understand why it looked so unpleasant—until she grabbed the shop assistant's ankle and dragged her out, and when she looked up, she realized that the nostrils on that face were actually integrated into one.

There was only an empty black hole, without a columella.

...Really, how did things suddenly turn out like this?

While dragging the body, which was covered by a high stool, Jin Xueli had to keep an eye on the outside of the store and be careful not to knock over anything. By the time she finally dragged the body to the bathroom door, she was covered in sweat. But when she pressed the doorknob, she found that the bathroom door was locked.

"Eh?"

As if to prevent the bathroom door from changing its mind, she tried again. The bathroom door remained unyielding.

"Why is the toilet locked? Are they not letting guests use it? Oh, come to think of it, do residents even need to use the toilet..."

She shook her head hard, forcing herself to refocus.

"The key, the key to the toilet door must be here... Hmm, could it be at the cashier?" A hand gently tapped her ankle.

Jin Xueli lowered her head.

The shop assistant removed her hand from her ankle and pointed to her waist.

Jin Xueli followed its finger and looked down, and sure enough, she could vaguely see a bunch of keys under the edge of the vest.

Ah, that's great.

Um... wait a minute—

The right thing to say now isn't thank you—

Jin Xueli stumbled back a few steps, her voice rising involuntarily: "You...you're not dead?"

The shop assistant's body lay motionless on the ground.

The words on the alarm bell were still spinning in circles: "I have unfortunately been murdered," "I have unfortunately been murdered"; red light flashed past her eyes in bursts, making her nerves tense.

After waiting for several minutes, the employee's body did indeed appear to be just a corpse.

Since the other party is a resident... perhaps this is a residual neurological reaction after death, which is also normal?

Jin Xueli took out a hammer, held it upside down, and used the hammer handle to lift the shop assistant's vest, only to find that there was indeed just a bunch of keys underneath, not a trap.

Even after tapping each of the four faces with a hammer, the shop assistant's corpse did not protest or cry out in pain.

She mustered her courage, took the key, unlocked the door, and stood by the wall. She then used a hammer to push open the bathroom door—as long as one didn't see the corpse on the floor, everything was almost peaceful and serene.

“Well, then please come in,” Kim Seol-ri said to the corpse. “Can you walk by yourself?”

Of course, a corpse cannot walk.

The question, "Does a corpse mean it can point to its own waist?" belongs to the category of questions in the nest that are meaningless to ask.

Jin Xueli just wanted to get the original solution as soon as possible and escape from the crime scene. She didn't care about the luxuries and grabbed the corpse by the ankle, dragging it little by little into the toilet.

The toilet was a single, narrow room, and for some reason, a cloth was covering the mirror—no matter how curious she was, she knew she absolutely could not lift the cloth to take a peek.

She dragged the corpse, which in turn dragged the chair, which was heavy and difficult to handle. It took her a lot of effort to finally get the corpse to the wall. As Jin Xueli put the key in her pocket and was about to leave, she noticed a notice written in both human language and the Nest script posted behind the bathroom door.

Notes
Recently, hunters have been frequently seen lurking around the area, stealing goods from the store, rummaging through gas pumps, and leaving behind a strong stench of human waste, causing great distress to customers.

"Why are you making us sound like raccoons..." Kim Seol-ri muttered.

To ensure a pleasant and comfortable service environment, please do not feed the hunters, do not leave trash or expired goods outdoors, and do not give them any opportunity to approach gas pumps or convenience stores, so as to prevent them from nesting there.

Could it be——

Upon reading this, Jin Xueli suddenly twisted her body.

In that instant, she had already completely fabricated a scenario in her mind: the shop assistant wasn't dead, it was all a trap to lure her in, and if she turned around, she would find it standing right behind her...

But the shop assistant was still completely dead.

It lay by the wall, four faces—she could only see three—each facing a different direction, seemingly confused and melancholy, not understanding why it had died.

Jin Xueli steadied her breathing, and while reading the notice, she kept glancing at the shop assistant.

Our company has requested that our regular customers join our staff in driving away and eliminating the hunters.

No matter who it is, once they spot the hunter, all they need to do is shout, and the surrounding regulars will immediately gather to help.

It is said that the hunters who often roam around belong to the same faction, and killing one of them will serve as a warning to others.

Please keep up the good work, and thank you for your cooperation.

So... isn't it fortunate that the shop assistant was murdered?

Was it done by the hunter in self-defense? But that doesn't make sense, hunters can't kill residents... Wait, is it considered dead?
No, no, don't get distracted. Who killed the clerk is no longer important. The important thing is that this convenience store is definitely not safe and we can't stay there for long.

It's a real shame. She was planning to steal something from the store, but now she has to grab the serum and run—the "Nest Persistence" company was right; this hunter really did want to steal.

Forget it, let's get out of here quickly.

As Jin Xueli opened the bathroom door, she heard a familiar "ding-a-ling" sound.

She reacted a moment later and abruptly stopped; blood rushed to her head, and a burst of cold sweat followed by hot sweat erupted on her back.

...Someone came in.

No... a resident has come in.

"Huh? Are you in the bathroom?"

A greasy, cheerful voice rang out from the direction of the cashier, the words drifting towards the restroom. "Hurry up and come out, I need to talk to you, don't keep the customers waiting."

(End of this chapter)