Nightmare Despair

Chapter 71 Keeping Silent
Let them fight amongst themselves.

They come, the security.

As long as the monster isn't ridiculously strong, in this relatively enclosed area with the lights on, it actually becomes Zhou Kai's home turf.

"It's better to start exploring than to run into that guy out there."

Gripping his longsword, Zhou Kai reached into his trouser pocket; the gun was still there.

He has a sword for close combat and a gun for medium and close range; now he has both long and short weapons... or maybe not. Although this isn't the first time Zhou Kai has handled a gun, he hasn't actually fired one yet.

If you take it out, you'll probably just make a noise.

If you really want to use a gun as a secondary weapon, you'll have to put in some effort and level up your marksmanship skills.

Does Xishan City have a shooting range?
Go back and ask Fischl; maybe their circle knows something special.

Hey.

After confirming that the interior of the mansion was completely dark, Zhou Kai raised his free hand and snapped his fingers.

A crisp sound echoed in the empty hall, and the oil lamp hanging on his lower back slowly lit up, its brightness settling perfectly within his desired range.

The gift of the morning star is truly useful.

The oil lamp possessed a strange power, capable of ignoring the laws of physics, penetrating Zhou Kai's flesh and blood, and projecting its light onto him.

In this way, one of his hands will not be occupied, which is crucial for his quick reaction in the event of sudden danger.

The warm, yellowish light flowed forward like a babbling brook, finally bringing a brief glimmer of light to the mansion after years of darkness.

The furnishings in the hall, and the places with writing on them, all came into Zhou Kai's view.

The building materials of the mansion are different from the wood commonly used in other buildings in the town. It seems to be a kind of rough and hard stone, and therefore... the windows are very restricted, all of them are narrow and thin strip windows, which are now completely blocked by heavy curtains and wooden boards.

"During the nightmare, did someone use this place as a base?"

Looking around, Zhou Kai did indeed see similar signs.

For example, the banquet and dance area that should have been carpeted upon entering has now had all its furnishings removed, revealing the stone slabs underneath, which are piled with a lot of messy clutter.

Two spiral staircases rise from the boundary of the banquet and dance area, spiraling all the way to the second floor. In the very middle of the two staircases, there are several tables and cabinets.

Zhou Kai ignored the clutter and walked towards the table.

Just as the mission prompt indicated, there were several brand-new sheets of paper on the table... Even though they were mixed in with the old papers, you could immediately tell the difference at a glance.

The mansion was eerily quiet; Zhou Kai could even hear the crackling of the oil lamp wick burning.

"However, we still cannot be careless."

Zhou Kai flipped through the letter quickly, his gaze sweeping over the handwritten words.

The dense fog has trapped us for fifteen days, completely cutting off all supplies, mail, and transportation... We even wonder if the town is still in the same world.

Mr. Kaylan from the church comes to town every few days, escorted by his guards. They stay at the mansion... Honestly, if it weren't for Mr. Kaylan and his men, we would have given up long ago.

[...Have you heard? Sullivan Augustus committed suicide at home. When the priests found his house, his body was already rotting... As an invited outsider, he shouldn't have died so young.]

Zhou Kai reads extremely fast; he can finish reading several sheets of paper in less than half a minute.

On the twenty-seventh day, the resident on the fourth floor descended into hysterical madness, shouting: "The nightmare has arrived! You and I will pay for our sins in endless despair! What a joke! We are the chosen ones of twilight; the saint has taken away our sins. What sins have we committed?"

On the thirtieth day, Mr. Westchester led a guard into the thick fog, and we watched from high above as the torchlight receded and disappeared... They would never return.

[Crazy woman, we kept her out. She should have died long ago with her daughter!]

They're back...

The nightmare has arrived.

The last words were bloody, the pen tip even piercing the paper, suggesting the writer had endured immense fear.

[You have come into contact with some past events that shouldn't exist. Mysticism experience points +1]

Zhou Kai frowned, put down the letter, glanced at the panel, and saw that the progress of his occult studies had reached 1/25.

If this information is indeed unusual, then Zhou Kai can only think in the most terrifying direction.

They're back... referring to the guard that Westchester Soraka took with him.

When they went out, they were still people, the apologists of the Limpenes Church, but what happened after they came back?

The letter ends abruptly here, as if foreshadowing the writer's unfortunate end.

Zhou Kai shook his head, exploring the other rooms on the floor while pondering the information that could be gleaned from the letter.

"Sullivan? He's the biologist the owner of room 777 mentioned, right? He's dead."

"As for the so-called crazy woman..."

Zhou Kai's heart skipped a beat. This was the second record he had seen that showed strong malice towards a woman.

The previous one was the notes from the neighbor's child at number 777. The notes said, "...They say Elizabeth is a slut..."

Could the madwoman be Elizabeth? And her daughter… Evelyn…?

A sharp pain.

A sudden phantom pain shot through Zhou Kai's frontal lobe, as if something had pierced it, preventing him from continuing to think.

"Okay, I don't want to think about it anymore..."

Don't you really want to?

of course not.

However, this sudden, sharp pain had already confirmed the possible answer for Zhou Kai.

To avoid bringing trouble upon himself, Zhou Kai temporarily set aside the issue and continued his research.

In the far right corner of the first floor, Zhou Kai found the only locked room. The latch was brand new, and a faint light shone from the keyhole.

This is clearly implying to Zhou Kai that he must find the key to enter this valuable room.

As a puzzle enthusiast, Zhou Kai has always had his own set of methods for opening doors.

After fiddling around for a while, he inserted the blade of his longsword into the gap between the door panel and the door frame, and then pried it open with force.

There was a crisp cracking sound.

The lower hinges of the wooden door were scrapped, followed by the upper hinges.

With the same click, it was declared unusable.

"Puzzle solved! Door opened successfully!"

Zhou Kai removed the door panel and swaggered inside.

The entire puzzle-solving process took less than fifty seconds.

……

The furnishings inside were all new, well-maintained, and in perfect condition... This gave Zhou Kai the illusion that he was not in a nightmare, but in a hotel with a modern Western interior design.

"What kind of trick are you playing?"

Zhou Kai reached into the talisman in his pocket with his free hand, and only after confirming that there was nothing wrong with the talisman did he step forward to examine it.

The residents of Soraka town all seem to be cultured people, just like Zhou Kai. To this day, every house he has visited has more or less a desk and bookshelf.

The same is true here.

Directly in front of Zhou Kai was a bookshelf the size of a wall, filled with books. Some of the books had larger prints, making them easily recognizable as classic literature and historical texts.

The owner of these books must have been a very refined person, well-versed in the art of display, as the arrangement of the books was quite particular.

But being too particular can lead to a problem... if a book appears where it shouldn't be, it will stand out conspicuously.

For example, the red book with "Silence" written on its spine.

Zhou Kai subconsciously stepped forward and pulled the bright red book from where it didn't belong.

The moment he touched the book, the Moonlit Orchid Amulet on his chest began to release intense heat.

Zhou Kai's mind cleared instantly. He looked at the book in his hand in surprise and found that he had completely lost the memory of picking up the book.

Too strange……

This feeling is somewhat familiar.

Zhou Kai shoved the book back onto the shelf, his eyes wary, not intending to touch it again.

But for some reason, the temperature emitted by the Moonlit Orchid never dropped.

"Something's not right, there's something there..."

Zhou Kai suddenly turned around.

His pupils shrank to the size of pinpoints in an instant.

"They said: We must keep our mouths shut..."

"They demanded: We must stand by and watch..."

"They think: We are all beneficiaries..."

A creature with a face as large as dough stood elegantly behind Zhou Kai, leaning slightly forward, its supple face drooping down, trembling slightly like jelly.

As if it didn't see Zhou Kai, it stretched out its slender, long fingers and slowly pushed the book titled "Silence" back.

(End of this chapter)