Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 299 298 Concept Pollution
They inserted mushrooms into the bodies of those vortex people? What kind of operation is this?
Klein was full of questions, but through Fors's account, he quickly learned what had happened at the Black Vortex Town Hospital.

The pregnant woman's placenta grew into countless human placentas covering the mountains and fields...

Just imagining that scene made Klein shudder. He rubbed the goosebumps on his hands and asked:

"Those pregnant women in the hospital should be chasing after the placenta that grows out of the pregnant women's bodies. There hasn't been much movement so far, so it seems we're safe now?"

Klein's commotion was huge; almost half of the hospital's first floor was ablaze by Anderson's flames. This included the placental mushrooms that kept growing from the director's office. Now, unless the director performs another "dissection"—no, "midwifery"—those placental mushrooms should only be found on those vortex people.

"It can't be said to be safe, can it? You tell me, our fortune teller. Anyway, let's do a divination first."

Anderson opened his eyes and said lazily.

The phrase "to have one's fortune told" originated from Emperor Roselle of the Republic of Intis. Legend has it that in his later years, Emperor Roselle deeply resented those who used magic tricks, especially those who used the guise of prophecy and divination to swindle and deceive people. He likened such people to "fortune tellers." Therefore, "to have one's fortune told" is a rather derogatory term, specifically referring to those fake "fortune tellers" who have little ability and make up stories.

Even today, there are still places in the Republic of Intis where the strange custom of "fortune tellers and dogs" is not allowed to enter.

Klein's lips twitched. He had gotten somewhat used to Anderson Hood, the self-proclaimed strongest hunter in the Mist Sea and a Sequence 5, whose mouth was rather hateful.

He seriously tossed a coin, performed a simple divination, and then took out a pendulum from his pocket, wrapped it around his wrist, and performed a pendulum divination.

After confirming the results of two divinations, Klein, now seated back in the somewhat leaky room, said to Anderson and Fors, "There's no major danger. Tonight's danger should be concentrated on what we just experienced."

"call……"

Fors breathed a sigh of relief, his eyelids drooping, looking like a student who had finally mustered the energy to finish the exam and could now collapse and fall into a deep sleep.

"However, we must also be aware that divination is not omnipotent, and there are many interpretations of the results of divination. The statement that there is no great danger may only mean that there is no great danger if we respond correctly. But if we do not respond correctly, then the danger will come all at once and clear us out of the examination room."

After saying these words, Klein felt a faint cracking sound coming from inside his body.

Klein realized that his Diviner's Potion had been digested.

“You’re the professional, I’ll listen to you.” Anderson noticed Klein’s surprised and somewhat disappointed expression, but surprisingly, he didn’t say much more, just smiled at Klein: “How about I keep watch for the first half of the night, and you and Ms. Wall keep watch for the second half?”

After this round of chase, their mental state had dropped considerably, and they were in really bad shape.

Currently, Anderson Hood, who is in the best condition, is still the one with the highest rank.

"it is good."

Neither Klein nor Fors intended to be defiant.

Before the vigil, they set up altars in their respective corners. Klein prayed once again to "the Crimson Lord, the Mother of the Secrets" and received a certain degree of protection from the "Secrets." Fors prayed to "Pale Death" and "Eternal Sleep" and received the ritual effect of suppressing spirituality and restraining life force.

The two rituals were established separately and then overlapped, providing multiple layers of protection, which had no downsides and only brought benefits in this strange town.

As for Anderson, who was only slightly proficient in ritual magic and whose abilities were severely limited by his own methods, he leisurely dismantled some dry wood in the room, lit it with his spiritual power, and then lit a fire in the seemingly abandoned, somewhat leaky house.

The temperature and brightness of the flames seemed to dispel the chill and dampness of the room. They weren't too worried about attracting any monsters after lighting the fire, as the ritual magic effects belonging to "death" and "secrecy" would completely mask the life force brought by all the living people.

At this moment, the sound of rain outside the window showed no sign of stopping; on the contrary, it grew louder and louder, giving the feeling of a mountain collapsing and a tsunami crashing.

After setting up the ceremony and taking double precautions, Klein and Fors, who had been on edge the whole way, quickly fell asleep in a dry corner and regained their spirituality.

Anderson casually picked up a charred stick from the ground and started drawing simple sketches on it to pass the time.

At this moment, there was no human voice, only the sound of pouring rain, howling wind, and crackling wood burning in the corner of the house.

Klein quickly fell asleep, but unknowingly, his somewhat dazed spirit seemed to detach from his body, following some strange attraction, as if it wanted to pass through the layers of the real world and the spirit world, and drift towards a region above the spirit world.

There was a gray-white mist there, and a magnificent palace stood within the gray-white mist.

"His connection with Source Castle has strengthened, probably because the potion has been fully digested."

In his dazed state, Klein seemed to hear a familiar voice, which seemed to penetrate through layers of barriers and reach his ears.

who is it……

So familiar...

"Zun Zun Bao is really restless. Ah, can't He just die first? Anyway, as long as the Lord of Mysteries is born, He will definitely win after thousands of years. Can't He have a little 'willingness' and stop making such a fuss all the time? He'll only behave when God and the Fallen Mother Goddess catch him, right? Ah, is this what they mean by only being obedient when hung on the wall?"

Klein instinctively frowned; his brain, already a jumbled mess, couldn't process the words and sentences in that long passage.

"He must have seen the ripples of fate, and therefore had to do some things and try things that hindered us... Tang, after all, He is the master of the Source Castle. We can control Him for now, but we still cannot truly replace Him."

A voice that Klein remembered vividly came from an even more ethereal place.

Don?
Klein's brow furrowed even more deeply.

And speaking of that "Tang" voice... it seemed like he had just heard it not long ago...

Klein struggled to wake up, but his spirit soared higher and higher, seemingly about to touch the grayish-white mist. Unconsciously, he ascended above the mist. "If I can't beat them, I can't beat them. Mysterious Servant, Time Worm Potion, the spiritual remnants of the Heavenly Venerable Fusheng Xuanhuang within the uniqueness of 'Error' and 'Fool' have been countered and worn down... Ah, that's understandable, it's normal to be anxious. After all, the Heavenly Venerable certainly wouldn't want to see a 'Fool' ascend under these circumstances..."

It was another long string of strange terms, but Klein's intuition told him that the meanings these terms represented seemed to be very important to him.

Klein subconsciously tried to remember the words in those words. Unconsciously, his spirit rapidly approached the gray fog. But just as Klein's spirit was about to pass through the gray fog and reach the magnificent palace above it, he regained consciousness when someone grabbed his hand.

Tang raised an eyebrow slightly as he watched Klein's spirit body, which had been amplified by its extraordinary properties and digested by the Diviner's potion, and which was affected by the Celestial Venerable's spiritual will due to the aura of gray mist. He wasn't particularly surprised by this scene.

Zun Zun Bao's takeout has arrived...

Tang took out a semi-transparent "Fool" mask from the system space, which had half a twisted line and half a pupilless eye.

"Klein, sweet dreams."

Sorry, it seems you won't be able to get this takeout, Zun Zun Bao.

Klein stared blankly at Tang, who was wearing the "Fool" mask. He had just uttered the word "you" when his spirit body plummeted violently. His body, mind, and spirit were instantly grafted together, becoming seamless. He would no longer easily leave his body in the dream and wander into the spirit world.

At the same time, Tang fooled the very small portion of the Heavenly Venerable's remaining knowledge and processed what Klein heard and saw accordingly to ensure that the other party would not hear things he shouldn't hear or know things he shouldn't know due to his lower level or the fact that his anchor point had not yet been formed, thus causing him to have a mental breakdown and die out of control.

Mr. "Mistake," seated in the magnificent palace atop the gray mist, simultaneously deceived the rules, causing the concept of "Fool" Klein to transform into "Mistake" himself in a short period of time, thereby deceiving the Celestial Venerable.

Mr. "Mistake" was quite adept at deceiving the Celestial.

Silent all night.

Apart from the vortex-like creatures that seemed to crawl by outside when Anderson was on watch, and the strange wriggling sounds that could be heard outside the door when Fors and Klein were on watch, nothing else happened.

When Klein woke up in the middle of the night, he felt like he had had a strange dream. He felt that it was important, but he subconsciously ignored the fact that as a fortune teller, there was no such thing as something he had done but couldn't remember, nor did he use dream divination or other methods to recall it.

Klein rather easily overlooked the relevant issues.

Fors, Anderson, and the others naturally had no way of knowing what had happened the night before.

The next day, after the few people had recovered their spirituality and stabilized their mental values ​​above 90, they packed up and prepared to leave the abandoned house.

Late last night, Klein had roughly translated the contents of the tattered notebook he found in the church, but there wasn't much useful information in it.

"The most important point is that we know that this town was not originally built for human habitation. It should be the town of the 'stars' that the priest believed in. The people who live here are children of the stars and the sea."

“But I felt that the people here, when we saw them yesterday, were almost no different from humans. They didn’t seem like monsters, nor did they seem like children of the stars and the ocean,” Fors said after a moment of thought.

Klein calmly said, "Judging from this priest's work log, the people in this town have been almost normal for the past sixty years. But there is a key point here. You see, 'Every sixty years, the vortex will appear, and at that time, the children of the stars and the children of the sea who are lost here will awaken and return to the embrace of the Lord.'"

He glanced at Fors and Anderson and slowly said, "I suspect that the people in this town who usually seem normal will become more and more like monsters as they get closer to this point, or rather, the closer they get to this point. And it doesn't matter whether the people in this town are the children of the stars and the sea, or even objects that don't have any spirit, they will all become part of the monster."

“That certainly seems to be the case.” Anderson said thoughtfully, looking at Klein. “You figured that out from the text on the station signs when we first arrived?”

"That's part of the reason."

Klein nodded, making no attempt to hide anything, and said sincerely, "In a town where even the writing system is distorted, I don't believe that those ancient Hermes are the so-called 'children of the stars and the sea.' Besides, look..."

He pointed to the sky not far away.

The sky was even more gloomy than yesterday, with low-hanging clouds, stronger winds, and heavier rain, as if these things wanted to submerge the entire Black Vortex Town. But not far away in the sky, a huge vortex had already formed. It was upside down in the sky, stirring up the surrounding clouds, wind, and rain, causing them to be continuously sucked into the huge vortex.

"I don't think that kind of thing is 'the child of the stars and the sea' either."

In other words, this is a large-scale, contaminated examination room.

Moreover, this pollution is not only spiritual pollution, turning people into monsters. The things that cause these things are also constantly infecting all the concepts around them, from words to weather, from locals to outsiders, without exception they will be polluted.

This situation, where both humans and non-humans are constantly affected by the concept of "vortex," is clearly not normal; it's not an exam where you can easily pass by simply fighting monsters and finding items.

Anderson had obviously thought of this, and couldn't help but sigh again.

"What bad luck."

Why did he have to be randomly assigned this item?

Tang, who had secretly cheated, quietly put away his finger that was amplifying the probability of a certain event, turning it into a "fixed number".

System: 'Oh, well…'

Nicola straightened his black silk hat. Well, this matter shouldn't have anything to do with him.

In conclusion, the final interpretation right belongs to Miskatonic University.

If you say it's random, then it is random. How can a machine cheat, right?

(End of this chapter)