Old days, dice and investigator's manual

Chapter 133 Reason Immunity

Mr. Schuster:

I should have listened to you and not done those stupid attempts.

My hands are shaking. I'm trying my best to make this letter legible, but whether it will even reach you is another question. I've been carrying it with me all this time. I don't know if it will disappear on the way, or if there will be nothing left on the paper. But I have to write it down and tell you what happened.

I prepared for that ceremony for a year. I thought I was well-prepared and understood the meaning of those warnings. I should have respected those warnings, that they should not be opened or touched. But I treated those words as clichés to scare laymen.

I don't know how to describe the ceremony. It was so normal, without any mistakes. I completed every step according to the requirements, recited the prayers, drew the incantations correctly, and made all the necessary preparations.

But nothing happened. I waited all night, and nothing happened.

I thought I had failed. Really, I wish there was nothing at all.

But I succeeded, I just happened to succeed. It just hadn't shown itself yet; it was waiting for me to discover it, waiting for me to think everything was fine, waiting for me to start to realize that those rituals were nothing but a farce.

Then it came, Schuster.

I don't know what it is, but it's always been there—in the corner of the wall, on the ceiling, in the teacup. When I close my eyes, it's right inside my eyelid; when I open my eyes, it's embedded in the corner of my eye.

In my dream, there was a face pressed against me, so close that I couldn't tell if it was a dream or if I saw it with my eyes closed.

When I look in the mirror, the person in the mirror is no longer me. It is wearing my clothes, standing in my place, and making my expression, but it is not me.

I tried to drive it away, tried purifying spells, tried holy water, tried burning incense and bleeding, tried re-performing the reverse ritual, but nothing worked. I tried to get away from it, ran into the street, ran into crowded places, but it was no use; wherever I ran, it was there.

I don't know what else it will do to me, nor do I know what it wants. I only know that it is still getting closer, that it is everywhere, that it must be waiting, that it has been waiting, waiting for me to admit that I have seen it, waiting for me to admit that it is there, waiting for me to speak.

I can't, I absolutely can't do that.

Schuster, you told me I shouldn't have touched that power, but I didn't listen to you. Now I know I was wrong, I was really wrong. You have to save me, you must save me.

I know you can do it. You've seen more, you know which doors shouldn't be opened. You have to teach me how to close the door I've opened.

I will come to find you. I don't know how to find you yet, but I will find you. You must help me when that happens.

If I can no longer speak normally by then, if I look abnormal, please still recognize me. It's still me, it should still be me.

Because it's here, it's watching me write this letter right now. I know it's watching, it won't let me stop writing, you understand what it is, you understand what it wants.

So I've finished writing. I'll come. I'll come to find you. You have to let me in. It doesn't want me to come to you. It keeps hindering me. You have to wait for me. You must wait for me.

But if I have already arrived by the time you read this letter, please, do not let it in.

The face was sensually present, hanging right in front of him, but another judgment told him that it didn't exist, it wasn't here, he hadn't seen it.

Two conflicting judgments intertwined and pulled at each other, causing his vision to blur for a moment.

The face moved a little closer, and a deeper color seeped from the edges of the dark red outline, like liquid flowing down.

He began to feel that his memories were also somewhat off. He remembered investigating the massacre scene at the nursing home, remembered pushing open this door, and then—

Has it always been here? I saw it the moment I opened the door?

No, there was nothing there at that time—but why is it always here in my memory, in this room, in front of me?

When did it appear? No, did it only appear when the door was opened? Or was it earlier—

Isaac's thoughts became increasingly confused, and that face seemed to be invading his memory, like a hallucination, making the past blurry and uncertain.

"Tsk tsk, this is rare. Looks like I'll have to use a rationality exemption."

The sense of stability brought by the unfolding of the testing area arrived before Carlo's voice. A phantom appeared, and Isaac tried to divert his attention, only to see that this time there was only a phantom of a die.

And—a six-sided die?

The die spins, stops, and shows a 3.

"Three points, that's a bit of a waste, but Asa, you're quite rational and can afford to squander them."

As the illusory image of the dice dissipated, Isaac felt a sharp pain in his head, as if something had pierced his skull from the inside.

The pain spread rapidly, overshadowing the blurriness caused by the previous conflict; the face before him began to fade, its shape dissolving.

o

The flame burned down to its end again, and he let go. The match fell to the ground and went out, plunging the room back into darkness.

But this time, the tinnitus subsided. Isaac fumbled for a third match, struck it, and the flame flared up again. The face was no longer in front of him.

The dark red smear marks on the walls were still there, but they no longer writhed like before; they were just dried stains. The ceiling was empty and there was nothing unusual about it.

He looked around, reached for the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled.

The door opened smoothly, and light streamed in from the corridor, seemingly indicating that everything had truly returned to normal.

After confirming that no one was in the corridor, Isaac decided to leave the eerie room, closed the door, and flicked out the fire with a match.

"Boss, what happened?" he asked in a low voice. "Just now—"

That strange thing, and the concept of sanity immunity, are both questions I want to ask.

"Let's talk about them one by one. First, let's talk about rationality exemption. This is considered an employee benefit. Letting employees go crazy or become stupid under your nose is a sign of the boss's incompetence, so I have preventative measures in this regard."

"Rationality-related checks are different from normal checks. When faced with certain things, you may not even have the opportunity to ask me for support. So, the rationality exemption is triggered directly on me when a contracted employee is seriously mentally unstable."

"As for how it works, it temporarily deducts a portion from your sanity to offset the mental erosion, so it's more appropriate to call it an immunity."

"The exemption uses a six-sided die. The number rolled is deducted from your sanity as the cost of the exemption. After that, as long as you don't dwell on it or scare yourself, your sanity will return to its original level. The exact time required depends on the individual."