Chapter 79: Theology and Medicine |
Bai Mu switched off the night vision mode and turned to walk toward the Administration Building.
"That black fog obviously can't be dealt with using conventional methods. I definitely need to find some mechanism inside the asylum, figure out a way to exorcise the vengeful spirits or something similar, before I can get out of here."
"There might be ghosts inside that are invisible to the naked eye." Bai Mu looked at the Camcorder in his hand. "So this Camcorder is the key item? I only have one pair of spare batteries, which means I can use the night vision mode for twenty minutes at most. Looks like I need to conserve power."
"Unless absolutely necessary, I should avoid making a lot of noise. After all, there are supernatural elements in this Script, and I don't know what triggers their attacks. However, comparing it to the Death Trek, the ghosts in a D-grade Script shouldn't be entirely invincible."
"Anyway, for now, all I can do is head inside and take a look."
Muttering to himself, Bai Mu arrived at the base of the scaffolding.
He hung the Camcorder around his neck, gripped the freezing iron pipes with both hands, and began to climb.
He quickly reached the height of the second floor. Stepping onto the wooden planks laid out on the scaffolding, he inched along the edge of the wall until he reached a room's window.
Peering inside, he saw a messy study. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, but it looked as though someone had violently yanked it. The lampshade and bulbs dangled precariously by a thread, with red and blue plastic wires exposed to the air.
There was no one in the room, but Bai Mu could smell the distinct tang of blood. Dried crimson stains splattered the floor and walls.
"Did someone fight in here? Or was this a scene of torture?" Bai Mu climbed through the window and slipped into the empty room.
Just as he was about to inspect the room's clues up close, the glowing lightbulb suddenly emitted a buzzing crackle of electricity. In a flash, it short-circuited and plunged the room into darkness.
Bai Mu was abruptly enveloped in pitch black. What a coincidence that the bulb shorted out the very moment he stepped inside.
Yet, he did not see a single silhouette. Suspecting that something invisible was playing tricks on him, he smoothly raised the Camcorder and activated the night vision mode to scan the entire room.
The glowing screen remained completely empty. It seemed he had simply triggered a scripted event while progressing through the area.
He glanced out the window. The swirling black fog outside was perfectly clear, indicating that the Camcorder was functioning normally. There was simply nothing invisible lurking in the room.
"Does this mean it's testing a Player's courage?" After pondering for a moment, Bai Mu turned off the device.
Wasting the Camcorder's battery in the dark might allow someone to see their surroundings and gain a sense of security, but if he wanted to complete that optional quest, excessively draining the power was obviously a bad idea.
He highly doubted an asylum would casually stock spare batteries for a professional media Camcorder. Since he lacked any charging methods in his skills or inventory, those twenty minutes were effectively his only available recording time.
Paradise wouldn't design an impossible quest. Working backward from that logic, twenty minutes of recording time had to be enough to capture all the necessary evidence, likely with a bit of a buffer left over.
Calming down and thinking it through made it obvious: this power outage event was actually a subtle hint. It warned the Players that the dark corners of the asylum weren't inherently deadly, meaning they didn't need to hold up the Camcorder every single second, darting their eyes around like thieves in the night.
Bai Mu strolled casually through the pitch-black room. Although the power was out, a faint wash of moonlight and distant streetlamps filtered in through the window. After a brief period of adjustment, he could see the room's contents quite clearly.
First, he checked the exit. The toppled bookshelf hadn't completely blocked the doorway; it just leaned at an angle, splitting the opening into an upper and lower space.
Poking his head out the door, he looked into the unlit hallway. Both ends of the corridor were jammed with a chaotic jumble of objects—bookshelves, cabinets, hospital beds, and wheelchairs. A massive pile of debris had been discarded on either side, as if someone had deliberately barricaded the path.
Although it was blocked tightly, Bai Mu wasn't without options to clear a way.
If he used his Charger's Crash skill against the barricaded corridor, he could smash right through the obstacles. The impact was strong enough to collapse walls, but it would create a deafening noise. In this deathly silent asylum, such a racket would draw as much attention as a roaring tsunami.
Given his Script-assigned identity as a professional Reporter, there was no way he could clear the debris by hand—even a burly manual laborer would struggle. Therefore, another path had been left above his head: an air ventilation duct. By crawling through it, he could escape this starting area.
This was the intended route, the safe option. Forcing a path with his skills might provide a shortcut, but it would likely trigger a rapid spike in the Script's difficulty. Since Bai Mu hadn't yet scouted the asylum or gauged the strength of his enemies, he didn't want to take unnecessary risks.
He wasn't in a rush to leave through the vents. After checking the situation outside the room, he resumed his search inside.
He picked up the fallen books to examine them. Since his English proficiency had improved, he could easily read the titles. They weren't related to psychology or psychiatry; the vast majority focused on theology and medicine.
There were texts on God and faith, human anatomy and organ function, along with a few philosophy books scattered in the mix.
The open theological books featured illustrations of crosses and angels, while the medical journals displayed stark, graphic diagrams of skeletons and hearts.
Bai Mu then studied the bloodstains. The splatters were chaotic. If someone had been tied up before being attacked, the blood wouldn't be this messy. He could reconstruct the scene in his mind: a struggle had broken out here, likely involving a sharp weapon that left blood spraying everywhere as the victim was stabbed.
Drag marks streaked across the floor, suggesting the loser had been hauled away somewhere else, presumably as a corpse.
'Were the hallways outside barricaded to prevent anyone from getting through?'
'Did a riot break out in the asylum?'
'Are there two or more opposing factions?'
Bai Mu organized the information he had gathered in his mind. The Script's introduction mentioned that inhumane experiments had taken place in this asylum. Judging from the books he had discovered, these experiments seemed tied to some form of sacrificial ritual.
That black fog outside might just be the byproduct of those very sacrifices.
He had a feeling there were still living people in this place. The owner of this office was likely someone who knew the truth—a fanatic obsessed with medicine and theology, possibly a priest or a nun.
'If I find this person, I'll probably figure out exactly what happened in this asylum.'
Bai Mu closed a human anatomy book, his next objective firmly decided.
He walked out of the administrative office, gave a light leap, grabbed the edge of the ventilation duct, and pulled himself inside.
He crawled forward through the narrow shaft and soon spotted a patch of light up ahead.
Dropping down from the vent, he landed in a spacious, brightly lit area.
He was currently on the second floor, with the first-floor lobby stretching out below him. Scattered everywhere were overturned wooden benches, and beside these benches lay several corpses. To Bai Mu's surprise, the bodies were not patients in hospital gowns, but fully armed soldiers.