Puchi!
I had no idea how much time had passed. minutes, hours, maybe longer. It all blurred together as I kept stabbing the mummified things that swarmed me.
Each time the knife sank into one of their brittle skulls, they crumpled like dried paper, collapsing without a sound. But no matter how many I brought down, more kept crawling out of the dark, their hollow eyes locked onto me.
If not for the Dreamwalker holding most of them in place, I wouldn't have been able to make it.
But at the same time...
Puchi!
I noticed that it was starting to get easier and easier for me to kill the mummies.
The resistance that had appeared in the first few kills started to fade, and the knife started to sharpen. Each stab required less force, and the more I stabbed, the faster I became.
Puchi! Puchi!
Desiccated blood sprayed across my face and arms with every strike, a dry iron smell lingering in the air as a result. Ignoring the smell, I kept stabbing, the knife sinking into brittle flesh that crumbled under the pressure.
I felt tired, my lungs burning.
However, I knew that I had to keep going.
I couldn't stop.
'I can feel that the knife is getting stronger. I should take advantage of this opportunity to make it grow.'
Another opportunity like this wouldn't come by often. I needed to make full use of it to grow the knife so that I would be able to handle situations like this better. And in order to maximise my current situation, I decided to retrieve Mr. Huggs from my bag and place it on the floor, noticing a clear slowing down of the mummies.
This made things a lot easier for me as I began stabbing even more mummies, their bodies falling before me as each stab became smoother and smoother.
More blood continued to spurt all over my face, but by this point, I no longer cared and continued to stab.
The knife grew with each mummy that I took, and I immersed myself in the killing.
So much so that by the time Kyle and the others had come back, I had killed most of the mummies, the Dreamwalker fading right before they appeared.
"You..."
Kyle stared at me, his face frozen in shock. The others mirrored him, their eyes wide, lips slightly parted, and expressions caught between shock and confusion.
I followed their gaze and looked down.
The knife in my hand was slick with dried, black blood. Around me, the ground was littered with mangled corpses, each with a certain stab wound.
No wonder they were looking at me like that.
"...It took you a while to get here."
I wiped the blood off the knife with my pants.
I was already all dirty, so it no longer mattered to me, but my actions appeared to have caused their expression to stiffen further.
I could only inwardly shake my head.
But then...
"What happened to you? This... I..."
Kyle looked around, his face at a total loss. He couldn't make heads or tails of what had happened.
I couldn't blame him.
I wasn't like this before.
But at the same time...
"What do you mean, what happened to me? A bunch of monsters came in, and I fought back. Did you expect me to run?"
"Yes, actually..."
I shook my head, and they pointed at all the windows.
"I tried, but look around you. Do you think I would've been able to run when I was surrounded from all sides?"
"No, you're right, but..."
"The monsters weren't that strong. I just got onto the stairs so that I wouldn't be surrounded. Everything was easy from there."
"...Oh."
I had never seen Kyle look so speechless before. Let alone Zoey, who was struggling to find any words as she looked at the numerous corpses with a blank expression, mumbling things like, 'This really...? No, this makes no sense.'
Then...
"Raymond."
Kyle whispered, his face still turned towards me.
"...Didn't you say you didn't detect anything? How come—"
"I really didn't feel anything." A man with deep red eyes replied, his gaze wandering all over the place as his eyes desperately scanned the surroundings. "The entire time... No, even now, I don't feel anything at all. It's strange. How does this make sense?"
He eventually turned to look at me.
"Did you feel anything besides these creatures? Did the anomaly come for you...? No, wait... that wouldn't make sense. Why would it come to you and not us?"
That was an answer that I also wanted to know.
Why did it just come for me, and not them? Clearly, it stated that the monster went for those who made the most sound.
I knew this well because I had seen it on the wall, and I had tested this.
'It really does only come for those that make sounds, and yet... At this very moment, it doesn't appear to be showing up.'
Why?
Why was that?
Suddenly thinking of something, Zoey raised her head.
"If you think about it, one of the criteria that we saw when we were studying this anomaly, it likes to attack those who are in single houses by themselves. Maybe that's why it targeted him."
"...Oh, that makes sense."
The others had looks of enlightenment after hearing Zoey's words. However, the only one that seemed unconvinced by them appeared to be Kyle, who lowered his head and pressed his fist against his mouth.
Eventually, he shook his head.
"No, I don't think that's the case."
Kyle's tone was strangely dry.
"If that were the case, the scout shouldn't have died. He managed to get out of the house, looking at his footsteps outside and all the clues in the forest. In the end, it had no real influence. I believe that the rules only apply to the upper world. Not this world. The rules in this world are different."
Eventually, Kyle turned his attention towards me, his brows furrowed tightly.
"Are you hiding something from me?"
"Hiding something?"
I raised my brow, completely taken aback by his words. I was hiding something, but...
"This feels weird. Taking everything into account, it almost feels like you were being targeted. Could it be because it deemed you to be the weakest? Or..."
Targeted...?
I...
"....."
A low, steady ringing pulsed in my ears, drowning out Kyle's voice. His mouth moved, his expression serious, but the words never reached me. Somewhere halfway through, everything he said turned into static, and my mind just… emptied.
'It almost feels like you were being targeted...'
Replaying Kyle's words in my mind, I felt the air leave my lungs as I was suddenly reminded of a certain notification.
[You have been haunted]
My heart pressed tightly against my chest, drumming loudly as I felt its increasing rhythm inside my mind.
Ba... Thump! Ba... Thump!
I thought about everything that had happened so far.
About the poem that had appeared on the wall. Of all the things that I had overlooked. Why would the poem appear on the wall like that...?
Thinking about it, it almost felt as though the poem had been deliberately placed there.
As though... someone was waiting for me to read it.
It... wanted me to read it.
As if it were aware that me reading it would allow it to find me.
But it failed.
I took the glasses off before it could fully spot me.
It then tried to lure me with the voices, but even that failed.
In the end, it resorted to attacking me with all the weird mummies.
Or... Was that really the case?
"Oh..."
I suddenly came to a realization as my shoulders relaxed and my eyes closed.
"Clever. Really clever."
"What?"
"Did you figure something out?"
Hearing the others speak, I tuned them out as everything started to piece itself together inside my mind
'I've been naive. Stupid... I've made the grave mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the anomaly, thinking it was some mindless creature that followed patterns. But that isn't the case at all.'
The anomaly.
It was far from stupid. It was smart.
Very smart.
To the point where it had purposely sent over the monsters in order to trigger the trap, forcing Kyle and the others to return, and as a result, finally managed to get me to talk. Its game began the moment the others left the house, and I was left all alone.
It had all... been within its calculations.
Everything.
And as I opened my eyes, I saw the faces of Kyle and the others freeze.
At the same time, something cold brushed against my neck.
It was behind me, wasn't it?
I took a deep breath.
The Twisted Man.