"Alright, follow me! First stop on our grand tour: the school. Main attraction: the twisted monster in the toilets."
Alan, fully embracing his role as their unhinged tour guide, waved for Bruce and Oliver to follow him toward the dilapidated school building. The two heroes, however, remained deeply skeptical of his previous, rambling explanation of Silent Hill's secrets.
After exchanging a quick, meaningful glance, Bruce whispered to Oliver, "New plan. We find one of the locals, capture them for interrogation, and get out of here as soon as we have the Blade of Redemption."
"Sounds good to me," Oliver agreed, his senses on high alert. As an archer, his perception was extraordinarily keen, and ever since the ash started falling, a profound sense of unease had settled over him. He could see that the road they had taken into town no longer existed. In its place was a sheer, bottomless cliff. Escape was not going to be simple. Standing on the far side of that chasm, barely visible through the fog, was the solitary figure of a woman in white, her long hair obscuring her face.
The abandoned school was a monument to decay. Its walls were stained with rust-brown streaks, and the air was thick with the cloying smell of rot. Alan, however, treated it like a haunted house at an amusement park, kicking open every door he saw and rummaging through the empty classrooms like a cheerful looter.
"I just love monsters," he said happily to himself. And why wouldn't I? They're all just cute little walking bags of experience points.
Meanwhile, in the town's hidden church—the only sanctuary safe from the influence of the Otherworld—the cultists had already detected the intruders. The news was immediately brought to their leader, Christabella.
Dressed in a simple black robe, the elderly matriarch listened to the report, her wrinkled face a mask of calm dignity. To her, they were not invaders, but simply more poor souls trapped in the timeless nightmare of Silent Hill.
"Warriors from the League of Assassins?" she mused, her hand closing around an ancient dagger hidden in her sleeve. She understood at once. "Prepare to welcome our guests."
"Yes, Leader!"
The cultists moved with grim purpose. After years of research, they knew that anyone who died in Silent Hill was doomed to be reborn as a monster in the Otherworld. The only way to break the curse was to kill its source, Alessa, with the Blade of Redemption.
"Found it."
Alan pushed open the door to a grimy toilet stall. Inside, a desiccated corpse was bound with barbed wire in a twisted, agonizing posture. Scrawled on the wall behind it was a line of text.
Alan tilted his head, examining the words. "You jump, I jump," he read aloud, then offered his own unique translation. "If you dare, then I dare."
"It's a line from a movie," Oliver corrected, his voice flat with exhaustion.
Being corrected by his teammate didn't faze Alan in the slightest. He refused to admit he was wrong.
"What good is a dead body?" Bruce asked, pinching his nose against the foul stench.
"None at all," Alan replied cheerfully. "He was a perverted janitor who messed with the demigod girl. I just wanted to stop by and check in on him."
If you believe a madman, you become one yourself. Bruce gave Oliver a look. It was time to ditch their guide.
"Bat! Green Arrow! Don't leave yet!" Alan called after them, his expression lighting up. "Do you want to see something exciting? The long-legged nurses are a must-see attraction! You'll regret it for the rest of your life if you miss them!"
"Alan, can you please stop fooling around?" Bruce said, his voice hard. "We are in a hostile, unknown environment. We need to complete the mission and escape, not waste time."
For a fleeting moment, Alan's expression turned serious. He changed his tone, his voice uncharacteristically grave. "Bat, we're trapped here. We can't leave Silent Hill without the girl's permission. Don't you think I'm anxious?"
Hearing this, Bruce felt a pang of guilt, thinking perhaps he had misjudged him.
"Just kidding!" Alan chirped, his manic grin returning in an instant. "I'm not in a hurry at all!"
Bruce took a slow, deep breath, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly his knuckles turned white. He wished he could chop Alan into meat paste.
"What's happening to the walls?" Oliver asked suddenly, his eyes wide.
A black and red, mold-like substance was spreading rapidly across the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, a living corrosion that seemed to peel back the skin of reality.
The Otherworld had arrived.
The sight forced Bruce and Oliver to reconsider Alan's words. The real world, the Fog World, the Otherworld… were they truly trapped?
Bang!
The door of the toilet stall flew open. The wired corpse, now hideously reanimated, crawled toward them.
"The Twisted Monster," Alan commented casually. "The thorns and wires are wrapped so that every movement causes tearing pain. I have to say, the artistic value is quite high. A masterpiece of pain."
The monster hissed, its pale tongue flicking out. It was not particularly dangerous, but it was deeply unsettling.
Shing.
Alan drew his sword. In a single, fluid motion, the monster's head was separated from its body.
[TWISTED MONSTER KILLED. +150 EXP]
"Any monster that covets my body must die," Alan declared, sheathing his sword. The speed and precision of the kill were breathtaking. Bruce had to admit he wasn't sure he could have done it so smoothly. Is this really what a madman can do? he thought. I feel like I'm worse than a psychopath.
Skitter…
A strange, cockroach-like insect crawled out from a crack in the wall.
Splat!
[CORPSE BUG KILLED. +10 EXP]
Alan stomped on it without a second thought. There was a saying among the survivors of Silent Hill: if you see one Corpse Bug, kill it, then run. Because where there is one, a swarm is sure to follow.
"Bat, Green Arrow, run!" Alan shouted, but he made no move to follow. Instead, he drew his sword and charged toward the tide of insects now pouring from the walls.
With every slash of his sword, a stream of experience points flooded his vision. It was exhilarating. Of course, he'd told them to run. He wanted all the experience for himself.
[ENOUGH EXPERIENCE. CURRENT THIEF LEVEL: 31]
He had killed nearly a hundred of the creatures with just a few swings.
"Alan, let's go!" Bruce yelled as he and Oliver broke through the door.
But Alan, lost in the joy of his rapidly increasing power, ignored them completely. He raised his sword and lowered it, again and again, a whirlwind of flashing steel. In moments, the floor was thick with the twitching bodies of the slain insects. But for every one he killed, ten more seemed to take its place.
No matter how fast he moved, he couldn't fight the sheer numbers. The tide of bugs surged forward, burying him completely.
[ENOUGH EXPERIENCE. CURRENT THIEF LEVEL: 50]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: BLADE DANCE]
[BLADE DANCE: Unleash twelve sword shadows in an omnidirectional attack. Damage is based on the [SHADOW BLADE] skill.]
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