Rhodes Island does not exist.

The professor flipped the switch labeled R3.

However, his actions did not cause any disturbance in the corridor.

"Ok?"

The doctor waited a few more seconds, but there was still no sound.

The door to room number three seemed to refuse to respond to commands from the control room.

"Is the door broken?" the doctor wondered to himself.

"Click-clack, click-clack."

But then the door started making noise.

It's less of a noise and more of a malfunction sound.

"It really is broken."

Standing at the door of the control room, the doctor saw the two doors of room number three that were trying to close and making a clicking sound.

It's like a scene that often appears in low-budget science fiction movies.

Sparks crackled and popped, the hinges creaked and groaned, but the door remained firmly shut.

"In the first place, we shouldn't have expected anything normal in this building..." The doctor shook his head and sighed.

What else could he do?

It's impossible for me to become a construction worker at Rhodes Island and fix this electronically controlled door now.

Moreover, this room is just a morgue, located on the remote third floor, so leaving the door open won't have any impact.

A great deal of wishful thinking began to permeate the PhD student's thought process.

So, the doctor was finally persuaded.

He was convinced by himself.

After all, it's not worth spending energy on this kind of thing. Besides, the premise of spending energy is that he knows how to spend his energy.

He didn't even know how to fix the door, let alone what to do next.

Since that's the case, let's just leave it there.

It doesn't matter if it's not turned off.

Just leave it there.

-

Thank you segment.

Thank you, Mami-senpai, for starting with a potato-shaped dagger. Thank you.

Chapter 58, Chapter 57: The Shadow Under the Lamp

By flipping the R4 switch upwards, the doctor opened the door to room number four.

The door opened.

There was no wailing noise, no sparks flying like in a low-budget sci-fi film.

The door to room number four slid open to both sides as usual.

And the lights were on in the room.

"Where is this... ah."

Standing at the door of room number four, the doctor immediately understood the function of the room.

The room was filled with all sorts of utensils and medical equipment. Although the utensils were completely empty, they at least proved the value of the room when it existed.

"Apart from these, there's nothing else here. It seems safe." The doctor pondered, preparing to return to the control room to close the door to room number four and to begin his raid on the first two rooms.

But for some reason, just as the doctor turned around, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a figure in the room out of the corner of his eye. He immediately turned back, but the figure had vanished.

The figure's appearance was unclear, and its height and build could only be determined to be within the range of a normal person. The rest of the information could not be confirmed because the doctor only saw its shadow for a moment.

Even so, he was certain that he had just seen someone appear in his field of vision.

Close the door, or go in?

A soul-searching question arose in my mind.

Could there be some kind of trap in this room?

Why is its light always on from the beginning?

That figure—who is he?

Before the doctor could finish sorting out his thoughts, another figure appeared in his sight.

This time, the doctor saw it clearly.

It's not peripheral vision, not hallucination, but facing it head-on.

His eyes clearly captured the image of the second figure. Unlike the first one, this time it was a woman.

The woman's figure seemed to be holding something in her hand. Then she put the item into a pile of cardboard boxes on the ground and disappeared.

As for the cardboard box—it was open, but there was nothing inside except empty bottles. From the doctor's perspective, the woman hadn't put anything in either.

Then, immediately afterward, a third figure appeared.

It was a man in a lab coat standing less than five meters away from the doctor, pointing with his hands as if giving orders to the work inside.

"I think we should just close this place down."

The doctor took a deep breath, preparing to turn around and go back to the room he had just left, to restore the door of room number four to how it looked when he arrived.

However, just as the Doctor took a step away from his original spot, the commanding shadow suddenly turned around and faced the Doctor with a blurry face.

At the same time, the other two figures that had just disappeared reappeared in the room, and like the commanding shadow, turned their heads toward the doctor.

Gaze.

Although the Doctor couldn't even see their eyes, he felt their gaze upon him.

Countless eyes.

Then the fourth phantom appeared, and then the fifth phantom appeared.

Sixth, seventh.

Next comes 80, 90, and 10.

Shadows in various working postures emerged one after another in the room like bamboo shoots after a rain, tacitly casting their silent and faceless gazes at the doctor outside the door.

They remained still, simply maintaining their work, doing nothing but quietly watching the doctor.

The doctor, of course, dared not move an inch.

His breathing even stopped unconsciously.

At that moment, he had only one question on his mind.

What are these shadows planning to do?

For him, such a scene was far more terrifying than a bunch of weird things being slapped in the face.

Because he simply couldn't figure out the other party's intentions.

Are they enemies or friends? Or neither?

The doctor dared not make any rash judgments or take any unnecessary actions, for fear of disturbing something again.

The two sides remained deadlocked.

Until the sound of water droplets hitting the ground was heard.

Where is the sound of water coming from?

In this highly tense environment, the doctor, with his keen senses, almost reflexively turned his head toward the direction from which the sound of dripping water came.

But it wasn't until after he had done it that he realized what he had just done.

To put it simply, he sneezed during the game of "Red Light, Green Light".

"Oops."

The doctor immediately turned his head back to room number four, but it was too late.

The figures that were just in the room are now melting into mud and collapsing into mist, like ice cream under high temperature, and spreading throughout the room like a virus outbreak.

"What is this thing?!"

Despite his inability to comprehend the scene unfolding in the room, the remaining rationality within the doctor propelled his legs to the control room's switches.

"Snapped!"

Without hesitation, I forcefully flipped the R4 switch down, and the two heavy metal doors began to slowly close together with a natural friction sound.

Rhodes Island is a place driven by rules.

The doctor already understood this.

From the prohibition on names to the trap in the collector's room and the scene in room four just now, he has been constantly reminded of this point.

While not every room has rules, and not all rules are discovered, if someone knows the rules and chooses not to follow them, then even if they die, they cannot blame anyone.

"boom."

The gate was successfully closed.

Fortunately, the door to room number four didn't malfunction as frequently as the door to room number three; otherwise, who knows what might have happened.

The Doctor leaned out to check the situation in the corridor, and only after confirming that all the Shadows in Room 4 had been trapped inside did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Let those unknown shadows stay locked in the room. As for who will come to open it again later, that's none of my business... No, I really can't do that."

After a moment's thought, the doctor decided that as the pioneering explorer, he should leave some conspicuous mark here. After all, he was the one who triggered the trap, and it would be too irresponsible not to give any warning.

So he bent down and picked up a small piece of broken tile from the ground, then prepared to carve some words next to the switch on the wall as a reminder.

Although the lighting in the control room was slightly poor due to the damaged lights, if the text on the central control buttons could be seen, then the engravings next to them should also be visible.

Thinking this, the doctor held the piece of gravel in his hand, then moved his hand below the R4 switch and engraved a bold exclamation mark.

Using the exclamation mark as a symbol of danger is a common practice across many cultures, so even those with different languages ​​should be able to understand it.

-

Thank you segment.

Thanks for the spicy snacks, thank you.

Chapter 59, Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Crimson Soul Flickering Like a Ghost Lantern

There are two rooms remaining.

However, the export situation remains unknown.

The exit on the third floor must be located in one of the rooms, number one or number two, but which one it is depends on luck.

Moreover, more important than that is how to deal with the strange things that might exist in those two rooms.

I still vividly remember the knocking sounds I heard from both sides as I walked down the corridor; those must have been the strange creatures locked inside hearing the Doctor's footsteps.

"It's time to take a gamble."

The doctor placed his finger on the switch labeled R2, ready to push it up at any moment.

He is very nervous now.

So nervous that it felt like I was hallucinating.

—In that brief moment, he saw the room brightly lit, packed with people, a group of doctors in white coats each performing their duties, the atmosphere harmonious and friendly.

But it only lasted for a moment, and he didn't even realize what the scene was.

If we calculate based on 60 frames per second, the scene he glimpsed probably only lasted for one frame.

"Really... what am I afraid of?"

The doctor shook his head, while gripping the pickaxe in his hand tightly.

For some reason, he could calmly lead the huge monster into the trap when he was on the tenth floor, and he could fearlessly face the jagged arm when he came down in the elevator, but he suddenly became afraid when he was about to open the door to that unknown room.