Wang Yue prepared to take the water route.
Since the Elephant Man Set was a fully enclosed suit, she no longer felt any psychological repulsion toward the grime.
Watching this unfold, Lulu’anna let out a cold snort.
“Hmph. Leaving already?”
She hadn’t expected Wang Yue to actually conquer The Horror Almshouse. Her luck was simply too good—first finding all three components of the Lantern in quick succession, and then immediately stumbling upon the Elephant Man Set. She had gathered every single element required to escape through the sewers.
Though Lulu’anna felt indignant, as a game designer who wasn’t quite “dog” enough to cheat, she couldn’t bring herself to use underhanded tactics to harass her player.
“Count yourself lucky,” she muttered.
Still, she had seen plenty of Wang Yue’s pathetic, disheveled states throughout the trial, which left her reasonably satisfied.
Wang Yue returned to the washroom, her mind drifting to how she should negotiate with Lulu’anna once she got out, and whether she should report this to their teacher. She felt like her frequency of “tattling” had been a bit high lately.
She jumped into the sewer, wading through the water.
It seemed Lulu’anna herself was a bit of a neat freak; the sewers weren’t filled with actual filth, just a layer of slightly murky water.
Wang Yue reached the end of the path and stopped before a wall of gray fog, recognizing it as the exit.
Stepping through that fog would return her to the real world and end this bizarre journey.
Yet, just as she was about to leave, she hesitated. A sense of incompletion gnawed at her, as if there were loose threads still dangling in the dark.
Wait, what’s this?
She noticed a glint beneath her feet and bent over to retrieve a ring from the wastewater.
The moment she saw it, several clues flashed through her mind and clicked into place: the snapped rope outside the sewer, the indentation on the Director’s finger, the strangely humanoid shape of the Shadow Crawler…
“The ring belongs to the Almshouse Director. He has a mark on his finger where a ring used to be… The Shadow Crawler is a person—judging by the size, a child. The ring must have fallen into the sewer, and that bastard Director forced a young orphan to go down and fetch it. He tied a rope around the kid’s waist to pull him back if something went wrong… but the poor kid drowned down here. When they tried to pull him out, the rope snapped. The poor thing died in the dark and turned into that monster. The crawler’s ‘tail’ is actually the half-length of snapped rope still tied to his waist.”
As Wang Yue pieced the tragedy together, a weight settled in her chest.
She didn’t leave. Instead, she turned back.
She was going to return the ring to the Director and see how he reacted.
Returning to the office, she placed the ring on the desk.
The Director’s face twisted in disgust. He didn’t touch it directly, instead producing a handkerchief to wrap it up as if it were contaminated. He looked up at her, his eyes cold.
“How much do you want?”
Wang Yue shook her head.
The Director looked at her as if she were a complete idiot.
Wang Yue understood then. This piece of trash felt zero guilt over the child’s death; he simply thought she was a naive “good samaritan” for not charging a retrieval fee, thinking he’d made a profit.
She delivered a swift kick that sent the Director flying out of his chair.
“You should at least say thank you.”
Leaving that sentence behind, she walked out of the office.
She moved from the Main Workshop to the Long-house Dormitory to search for more clues.
The unburned front section of the building was dark and oppressive. Her light flickered over a row of doors, occasionally revealing the sparse furnishings within.
Several inmates who looked mentally unstable stared at Wang Yue as she passed, their eyes wide and their expressions eerie.
However, after she picked up a newly-spawned crowbar—the “Holy Sword of Physics”—the inmates suddenly became much more polite, tucking away their frightening faces.
In addition to the crowbar, she found a small key. Its shape suggested it wasn’t for a door, but rather for a desk drawer.
Returning to the office, she used the small key to open the drawer, finding a bottle of disinfectant and several documents.
Recommendations from the White Lead Town Hall Regarding the Admission of Mental Patients, Proposal for the Sheltering of the Mentally Ill by Lady Nightingale, Research Report on Deformities Caused by Lead Poisoning…
The sight of the disinfectant reminded Wang Yue of the Pressure Sprayer she had found in previous runs. The two were clearly meant to be combined. Along with the small key, these three components formed a crucial tool: the Disinfectant Sprayer.
What was the sprayer for?
After some thought, she realized it must be for dealing with the Blood-Red Slime Mold in the warehouse.
The food in the warehouse had rotted and become a paradise for slime mold while the children and elderly of the Almshouse starved every day. Is this what Lulu’anna is trying to express? Wang Yue wondered.
With both the Disinfectant Sprayer and the crowbar, she could open the tunnel in the warehouse. She prepared to give it a try.
Just as she was about to leave the office, she was blocked by the Female Ghost. After a “friendly greeting” between acquaintances, Wang Yue was sent back to the graveyard.
Another round began.
This round was supposed to be about the Disinfectant Sprayer, but she happened to collect all the pieces of the Holy Statue first. Sorry, Miss Ghost.
Facing the Female Ghost, Wang Yue brandished the statue. The ghost let out a piercing shriek as holy light erupted from her form, purifying her.
In the beam of light descending from above, Wang Yue saw the girl’s true face. She was a teenager, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, gaunt and sallow. Her eyes were sunken, her spine was severely curved, and her limbs were deformed.
After the ghost was purified, a ball of white light guided Wang Yue to the front gate key.
