Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 313, Chapter 312: Real or Fake?
On their way out, Fors and Klein spotted Anderson, whom they hadn't seen before.

This hunter, who seemed a bit eccentric and often boasted about his bad luck, was standing under a crooked tree. Hearing footsteps, he raised his head, paused slightly when he saw Klein and Fors, then smiled at them.

It was a perfectly normal smile, yet there was something strange about it, something Klein couldn't quite put his finger on, that made it eerie.

"Mr. Hood, are you alright?"

Fors was the first to greet Anderson, who walked towards them with a perfectly normal smile on his face.

“I thought you would die in that natural disaster. To see you here, I have to say you’re really lucky…” He changed the subject again, “How did you manage to destroy this forest like this?”

"A spell from a ritual magic was used."

Fors said very sincerely, "It's recorded on page twenty-seven of the book 'The Basic Applications of Ritual Magic'..."

Klein pulled Fors to his aid just in time.

Father, in this situation, even if you're speaking in Rune, don't do it. The ritual magic might not be finished yet, and if you do, we'll all get struck by lightning.

"Oh, a spell."

Anderson looked thoughtful. "In that case, let's get out of here quickly while those things are destroyed and the anomaly is resolved."

"Oh, good."

They didn't bother with further pleasantries, after all, no one knew if everything on this road was completely dead. If they were to fall back into the conceptual pollution of being dominated by the "vortex," Fors wasn't sure if reciting that incantation again would allow him to "shatter the darkness with thunder" once more and escape that almost certain death situation.

Klein flicked a coin to divine whether the upcoming events would go smoothly, and as expected, they did not.

In this situation, the next step is to run out from here. It would be a miracle if everything went smoothly.

After silently complaining to himself, Klein glanced almost imperceptibly at Anderson, who was leading the group.

The smile of this candidate, who called himself an unlucky hunter, when they first met made Klein's hair stand on end.

But upon closer inspection, Klein could not perceive the chill that seemed to seep from his very bones, as if it were all just his imagination.

But Klein was a diviner, and the kind of diviner who had just digested the potion. In matters like this, he preferred to believe it rather than not. Maybe it was just a premonition from his spiritual intuition.

After a divination for safety last night, Klein prepared to flip a coin again, silently reciting in his mind:

"This person is not Anderson Hood..."

"This person is not Anderson Hood..."

Anderson Hood's appearance was rather abrupt.

How did a hunter who was thrown in the opposite direction from Fors, and who was almost thrown into Black Vortex Town along with Klein, manage to get ahead of Klein, who was riding the wind to the mountain, and Fors, who was already on the mountain?

While this could be explained by coincidence, by Anderson encountering other things, or by his Sequence ability happening only once, Klein felt it couldn't be that simple.

especially……

Klein flicked the coin in his hand, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Anderson across from him. Anderson had turned his head slightly at some point, and his bright green eyes were staring straight at him without any emotion.

It's like watching a prey that's about to be eaten.

Klein resisted the urge to draw his gun and blow the hunter's head off. As the coin fell, Anderson smiled and asked, "What's wrong, our fortune teller?"

"You look terrible. Are you about to leave? Is there something wrong with the road ahead?"

Klein caught the coin, and looking at Anderson's smile, his face turned pale.

Yes, it's that smile.

Anderson's smile had a strange familiarity to Klein, yet he couldn't quite place where he'd seen it before.

It was in...a dream...

Klein was momentarily stunned; he remembered seeing that smile somewhere before.

In St. Peter's Hospital, after reading the diary left by a member of the Secret Order and being spiritually impacted by the divine power of Riel Bieber, Klein had a series of unsettling dreams. The three corpses that were hanging and walking in the hospital corridor, and were later confirmed to be dead, all had almost identical smiles!

But his divination results told him unequivocally that the person in front of him was Anderson Hood, and that it was indeed him.

"Divination is not a panacea, and the results of divination can be misleading."

Klein recalled the rules for fortune tellers that he had compiled.

He looked at Anderson, then slowly shook his head at him, feigning composure and showing no particular sign of distress: "There is indeed danger ahead, but it should be one we can handle."

"is it?"

Anderson looked away, a slight smile playing on his lips, and gazed ahead.

Klein's palms were sweating. "This guy isn't Anderson Hood."

Or rather, he's wearing Anderson Hood's skin, but inside he's just like those monsters corrupted by the vortex—a monster in his own right.

But why does this monster give him the same feeling as the corpses in his dreams?

Anderson Hood, turned into a secret puppet?

Or perhaps, everyone in this entire town is a secret puppet?

Klein's tense heart relaxed a little at this conjecture. Yes, this was just an "examination room" after all. As Miskatonic University had access to the "diviner" pathway, it was perfectly normal for them to have high-ranking diviners and high-ranking puppet masters to control the NPCs in the examination room.

This is the Secret Puppet Town in the exam room, not the real Secret Puppet Town, so what's the panic?
Despite saying that, Klein still felt the pressure.

Fors clearly hadn't realized the seriousness of the problem. Although they appeared to be walking straight ahead and about to leave the town, led by Anderson, the surrounding vegetation was gradually becoming more lush.

They were about to leave the normal area, which had been cleaved clean by wrinkles, and step into the forest polluted by the vortex.

Klein was on edge; this monster disguised as Anderson wanted to lure them back into the contaminated area and leave them there.

They appeared to be walking in a straight line, but if you looked back, their route had unknowingly deviated, and they were unknowingly heading towards Black Vortex Town, about to return to Black Vortex Town once again.

This is the conceptual pollution of the "vortex," which will bind everything in the entire Black Vortex Town, preventing anything from leaving. This thing...

As Anderson stepped into the boundary between the scorched earth and the lush vegetation, he turned slightly to the side, glancing at Klein and Fors out of the corner of his eye.

Klein's pupils dilated slightly at that eerie gaze, which held a hint of amusement and deep malice. He grabbed Fors's shoulder and pulled her back, preventing her from stepping into the contaminated area, still affected and confused.

"Moretti?"

"There's something wrong with Anderson."

Upon hearing this, Anderson turned his head completely.

"What are you talking about?" He gave Klein a seemingly ordinary smile and said, "Stop joking around, we're about to leave here."

"If we stay here any longer, none of us might be able to leave."

“Even if you leave here, you won’t be able to pass the exam; you don’t have enough records,” Klein said quickly, staring intently at Anderson. “If you go out like this, I think Mr. Hood won’t be able to pass the exam.”

Anderson's smile dipped slightly. "Oh, this?"

He shrugged. "I'm just here to make up the numbers. Even if I give up, it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

“Of course, no problem.” Klein did not continue as Anderson had suggested, but directly acknowledged the possibility that Anderson had mentioned.

"Then let's..."

"Where's your bracelet?" Klein stared at Anderson in front of him and asked, word by word, "Where did your bracelet go?"

The wristband with twelve links is their means of checking their progress on the exam and leaving the exam room after entering; it's something they can't possibly lose.

Besides the possibility that a high-ranking person might have tried to steal it, there is another possibility that it was lost.

The holder is dead, so there is no need for the bracelet to exist.

Fors realized this as well. She looked at Anderson in front of her with shock and surprise, followed by deep fear.

She then realized that this was very likely a monster that could disguise itself as someone else.

"Ah, now that you mention it..."

Anderson glanced at his wrist; indeed, the bracelet made by the Nikolai Time Worm was no longer there.

Indeed, the bracelet disappeared when Anderson faced Tang Shenhua's biological form and was reduced to a pile of rotten flesh, so it couldn't possibly be on him.

In response, Anderson could only slowly grin and say sincerely, "Okay, since you've noticed, I have to admit that I'm not really."

"No, you should be real."

Klein said, pausing between sentences, "To be precise, the real Anderson Hood should have been removed from the exam room for unknown reasons, and what's active now is probably his body."

A common problem in professional ritual magic level exams is that candidates experience a significant decline in their mental state after taking the exam.

Even worse, after they finish the second round of exams, they are directly taken to St. Peter's Hospital for long-term mental treatment. Although the existence of the mental value defense line makes it unlikely that these extraordinary individuals will die suddenly in the examination room and turn into monsters, sometimes, the mental and psychological trauma caused by seeing things they should not have seen is difficult to determine through the mental value assessment.

For example, they saw things that caused physical discomfort and permanently disqualified them from donating corneas...

This is enough to show that even if there are certain security mechanisms, someone who suffers psychological trauma in the examination room can still be removed from the examination room.

On the other hand, regarding the various sequelae caused by the psychological trauma of the test takers, according to the information Klein knows, there are currently no cases of people being sent to St. Peter's Hospital with missing limbs because of this exam.

This is enough to prove that when the candidates are cleared out of the examination room, their consciousness is also cleared out. Although the operating principle of these examination rooms is unknown, Klein is now certain that the bodies of these candidates who are cleared out can still move around in the examination room.

Perhaps, the bodies of these test-takers will gradually become part of the monster NPCs in the examination hall.

The monster in front of them, named "Anderson Hood," has memories of the events he experienced after entering this examination room. Unless they were already familiar with each other beforehand, they should not be able to find out each other's questions through question and answer.

"You got it right, as expected of our fortune teller."

Anderson's eyes widened, and as he spoke, he couldn't help but clap his hands to express his surprise.

However, the smile and malice in Anderson's eyes were clearly and almost unequivocally displayed to them.

"It seems I can't fool you after all. Hmm, should I let you go..."

He frowned slightly, looking somewhat troubled, but the frown quickly eased.

"Alright alright."

Anderson sighed, and then Klein and Fors saw the monster disguised as Anderson smile at them.

That smile was so radiant, yet so... sinister and eerie.

Behind him, a large number of people slowly emerged from the lush forest.

They were all like Anderson Hood, with eerie smiles on their faces and heads tilted as if their heads might fall off at any moment and crash to the ground.

Anderson smiled as he looked at Klein and Fors, who were watching them warily, his mouth stretched to its widest extent.

"Since I can't fool you with this method..."

"Then, look at them..."

"Will they let you leave the center of the vortex?"

After saying that, the "Andersons" with eerie smiles on their faces pounced on them.

"Leodorus—!"

At Klein's signal, Fors shouted these words to the sky with all her might.

As if something strange had been activated, the sky, which had been almost cloudless just moments before, was now pouring rain. A massive bolt of lightning, ripped through the sky and illuminated the entire expanse, struck directly at the location where Fors and Klein were.

I'll chop you bastards to pieces!
(End of this chapter)