Chapter 20: Hidden Areas

Whoosh, whoosh.

This downpour shows no signs of stopping, likely to continue until the incident ends.

On the muddy mountain road.

A black-haired woman in a red dress seems to completely disregard the torrential rain, heading towards an abandoned tile house.

When she reaches the front door of the tile house...

Swoosh! A kitchen knife is in her hand, her whole body on alert as she walks into the room.

Seemingly possessing some night vision ability, she can see everything clearly in the pitch-black tile house.

Diligently searching every corner of the tile house, always ready to strike at any enemy that blocks her path with her kitchen knife.

After a thorough check to ensure there's no danger.

She returns to the lobby, squats beside Han Dong, whose throat has been slit, and whispers into his ear:

"They are gone."

All the while...

A large number of fungal filaments, or hyphae, grow from Han Dong's neck, reconnecting with his body.

[Head Detached Experiment]

On the first night of arriving at the scene of the incident, Han Dong secretly conducted this 'experiment' in his room - using a small sharp knife he bought to make a small cut into the neck area.

The 'Faceless Skull' can quickly grow fungal filaments (tentacles) that connect the wound and heal rapidly.

Of course, such wound connection only works between the skull and the body, and it doesn't work for other parts.

This is because Han Dong's true body is only this 'Faceless Skull' that occupies 100 load value points.

The insignificant physical body of Valen.Nicholas is just temporarily borrowed.

As long as the skull or the cell clump is not damaged, Han Dong will not die.

Utilizing this characteristic, combined with the data he collected and the unexpected 'side event',

On the third day, Han Dong, who didn't set foot outside, devoted a lot of mental effort to set up a very complex [Trap].

This trap requires a substantial amount of 'gears' to maintain.

If any 'gear' is missing, loose, or failed to rotate at the right time, it will cause a problem with the whole trap.

The most crucial 'gear' is ['Possessed' Chen Li].

Unexpectedly for Han Dong, this gear Chen Li was even more special than he had imagined... Chen Li's special traits made the trap more stable.

Then, the most crucial part of this plan was just successfully realized.

Having confirmed that 'Arkman' is indeed the evil spirit, Han Dong immediately had Chen Li commence action.

Chen Li, disguised as an evil spirit, actively chased after Edward and Monica.

This lead Edward to mistakenly believe that the evil spirit was after him.

Edward, who is very familiar with the 'hidden' rule, is bound to kill the blonde woman to buy time… even if Edward doesn't kill her, Chen Li would do it herself.

The reason for doing so is to align the timing of the death of the blonde woman, Monica, precisely with Han Dong's 'suicide'.

Han Dong has already received information about the 'kill limit' from Arkman. Once a member of the small team dies, Arkman will receive a corresponding message.

Therefore, the evil spirit absolutely won't suspect anything about Han Dong's suicide.

........

Reconnecting the head back to the body.

Han Dong takes a deep breath, revealing a rare smile:

"Finally, we have come this far!

My guess was right. The evil spirit indeed has restrictions… and the most fundamental restriction of all is time.

However, such restrictions will gradually weaken in the last few hours and may even disappear entirely.

We have got to get back to the bungalow… Let's go."

Han Dong, leaning against the wall, slowly gets up.

He prepares to take advantage of the evil spirit's limited killing time, to return to the bungalow safely, join the plot characters, and execute the final plan.

Who knows, Chen Li stands in the doorway of the tile house's bedroom. She extends her arm and points to a certain place.

It seems that when she entered the house to confirm whether the 'evil spirit' was there, she accidentally discovered something.

"An underground tunnel!?"

Moving away the old wooden bed pointed out by Chen Li, lifting the carpet beneath.

Reveals a dark, deep tunnel.

"Seven and a half hours until the event ends... only Edward and I survived.

The evil spirit's 'killing intervals' should not be too short, at least it should be more than three hours.

Chen Li, let us go take a look."

Intuition.

"There might be an unexpected gain down there... if there is nothing, it's still early enough to rush back to the bungalow."

Under the situation where time is permitting.

Han Dong, stepping on the damp stairs, heads towards this mysterious cellar discovered unexpectedly under the light of the flashlight.

"Let me take the lead."

During the downward journey, Chen Li, holding the kitchen knife, takes the lead in front of Han Dong, just in case there's any danger in the cellar... It has a certain 'protective' feeling to it.

Moss, rodents, foul stenches.

When Han Dong steps off the last stair, a familiar system sound transmits:

"Hidden area discovered-[Corruption Basement]"

"Please search for clues in this area to trigger the corresponding event... Time limit is 15 minutes."

"Another unexpected gain!"

Han Dong's mouth corners lift, revealing an excited smile.

The first time was due to activating a 'side event' from a conversation with plot characters; this time it is the discovery of a hidden area. What the actual gain will be is still unknown; it still depends on finding the clues.

Taking about ten minutes to carefully explore the cellar.

In a corner of the wall where there are traces of disturbed soil, a notebook was dug out.

It records in a hurried Jiuzhou language the episode of - 'plague-ravaged, causing the local tourist attractions to forcibly relocate, [Prince's Hill] area turned into a desolate hillside.'

"The relocation of the scenic spots, all the farm houses are abandoned, even the villages and farmhouses are also abandoned... So a plague incident once happened here?"

Chen Li at one side says: "My younger brother and I are not residents of Prince's Hill. We only knew that a plague once broke out and the area was desolate and uninhabited. We intentionally found an abandoned farm house to pretend to live there, to bait Wang Po Couple."

"Hmm…"

Han Dong continues reading the diary.

The latter part records the internal events of this house of five - the process of the family slowly waiting for death due to plague infection. When the reading was done, a family photo drops out.

『Hidden event activated-[Plague House]』

Requirement: Kill plague entities×5

Reward: One Fate Item (match host level)

As soon as the system prompt ended... there is a large amount of soil loosening in the basement area. Rotting arms full of pores stretch out from the soil, crawling up slowly quite a sight.

Five plague entities crawl out of the ground, corresponding perfectly to the five people in the family photo.

They have long since died, driven by the plague and the power of the 'Fate Space' they resurface, no longer part of the human category, they are just a group of hyphae-driven unconscious life forms.

"Han Dong… leave these guys to me."

"Okay."

Han Dong is not in the state to fight these plague entities at the moment, regardless of whether he will be killed or not, being infected would be troublesome.

Of course, Han Dong will not just stand by.

In his backpack, there are some 'special tools' bought in the countryside before the event started.

Two bottles of cheap inferior spirits with extremely high alcohol content, and several inexpensive plastic lighters.