[samanatha Outfit Set]
In the storage is a cheerleader uniform.
"Uh, what's the use of this reward?"
Asa was speechless; giving a sexy outfit as a Favorability reward was truly something else.
Next was [Ancient Feathered Serpent Ceramic Statue Fragment].
This was a fragment of a ceramic statue. The system introduction stated: Based on this fragment, Asa could catch a glimpse of a scene in the future.
But it was only a single scene, lasting for one frame, and viewed from a third-person perspective.
This future refers to events occurring within 24 hours, and the scene seen is not an unchangeable future.
The system prompted that the fragment could only be used once per day, and there was a limit to the total number of uses.
After being used up, the fragment would be rendered useless; to use it again, it would need to be recharged by the Feathered Serpent.
Oh my, the Feathered Serpent has even appeared.
Asa twitched the corner of his mouth; the small annotation information was so massive.
Furthermore, there are 5 fragments in total; collecting them all would yield a Feathered Serpent ceramic figurine.
But Asa looked at samanatha before him. In this game, she was the only one who had gained the system's recognition. Where was Asa supposed to go to unlock more fragments?
One could only say it was worthy of being a character reward from a fantasy worldview. Although limited in uses, this was the first time Asa had obtained a prophetic item.
Asa was even more looking forward to the rewards at the Unwavering level!
Uh, never mind, let's look forward to the cheerleader outfit first.
For the prophetic item that could only be used once a day, Asa did a quick test.
"Thump!"
A scene suddenly appeared before his eyes, freezing for a second before rapidly disappearing.
Seeing the scene from within the next 24 hours, Asa was stunned.
He didn't expect that the thing he had just been thinking about in his heart would be used so quickly...
Glancing at samanatha beside him, Asa claimed the Trust-level reward:
[Congratulations on obtaining a New World Ticket (Random)!]
Holy crap, this is good stuff!
Another New World ticket, even if it was just a random version!
Asa put it away first; he would consider heading to a new world after this incident ended and he figured out the situation in this world.
By the way, could it be that the first Trust reward for every world is a ticket?
Then it was time to start heading to Night City in 2077!
After claiming all the rewards, Asa brought along Christopher, whom he had found. The bespectacled man also breathed a sigh of relief for having escaped death.
On the way back, to accommodate the pace of the two ordinary people, Asa deliberately slowed down his ascent up the mountain.
"Where did you get that gun?"
"Picked it up off the ground."
The journey continued with such boring dialogue.
"After we left, nothing happened, right?"
Asa sighed, his eyes filled with regret: "Ashley is dead; it was that monster from just a moment ago."
"What!"
"Ashley is dead?"
Both of them were shocked upon hearing this, yet they couldn't believe it.
samanatha covered her forehead, and Christopher remained silent.
A moment later, samanatha asked: "What exactly was that thing? Was it an animal or a human? Why did it attack us?"
"It is neither an animal nor a human."
Asa turned his head, looked at the two, and solemnly said:
"It is a Wendigo."
As soon as the word Wendigo was uttered, a gust of wind swept through the mountain cemetery, chilling both of them to the bone.
"Uh, what is a Wendigo?"
"A type of monster, transformed from humans who have eaten the corpses of their own kind. They love the cold and fear fire. They have strong camouflage abilities, can hide in the environment, and lure and mimic human voices."
Asa took a photo out from his bosom; the pale monster on the black-and-white photo looked terrifying.
"I found this at the Sanatorium down the mountain. Half a century ago, this was a mining area. After an earthquake, the mine shafts collapsed, trapping many miners inside. To survive, these miners chose to eat the corpses of their companions, thus becoming cursed and transforming into Wendigos."
The continuous words "curse," "Wendigo," and "cannibalism" made both of them feel dizzy. samanatha subconsciously moved closer to Asa, as if doing so could bring her a sense of security.
"So the monster that attacked us was a Ghoul on Blackwood Mountain?"
"That's right, exactly. But don't worry too much; they have weaknesses too. Their eyesight is terrible, and they can only rely on sound and body temperature to determine the location of their prey."
"The fact that you didn't speak just now was the most correct course of action."
"There's such a thing?"
samanatha had no choice but to believe Asa words. After all, as the pursued party, she had seen the monster's appearance clearly, and it was indeed exactly the same as the photo Asa had produced.
As for the matter of Hannah, Asa did not tell the two.
The three walked and talked, their pace not slow as they quickly arrived at the Lodge on the mountain summit.
Returning to the Lodge, Mike and Matt heard the commotion and came to investigate; the group finally gathered together again.
Seeing the remaining few were safe and sound, the two breathed a sigh of relief.
But seeing the blood at the doorway, samanatha couldn't suppress her grief again, sitting silently to one side, with Jessica comforting her on the side.
"Alright, stay here and don't move around. I'm going to take care of some things."
After sending the important character samanatha back to the Lodge, Asa prepared to deal with Hannah.
He had dragged it out for too long.
"Stay here; it's safer for the six of you to be gathered together."
"You're going out again?"
samanatha, who had just been full of grief, rushed over and tightly grabbed Asa hand.
"It would be safer to stay here and wait until daybreak. Didn't you also say that Wendigos love the cold and fear fire? When the sun rises at dawn, perhaps it will be safe once it gets light?"
"Your judgment is correct. Once day breaks, the Wendigos will hide back into the darkness. Stay here and try your best to hide until it's light out. Also, make sure to light the fire in the Lodge's fireplace; that way, the Wendigos won't come looking for you."
As Asa said this, he patted the shotgun in his hand.
"I still have things I need to do, samanatha."
"What else is there?"
"Naturally, it's to end everything here."
"How can you do it alone..."
"I have special techniques; believe in me."
Opening her mouth, samanatha said nothing, only leaving behind a sentence: "Take care." Then came a hug.
Leaning close to Asa ear, samanatha whispered:
"If you can come back, perhaps we can skip the dating phase."
What am I saying?
With flushed cheeks, samanatha let go of her hands.
"Remember to take a shower."
With a slight smile, Asa waved his hand and turned to leave.
Mike and the others watched the back of this international student from the East in silence. As peers, why did he have such confidence, always able to put his ideas into action, and not care about the thoughts and attitudes of others?
They still didn't know where his confidence came from, or why he dared to go alone?
Bidding farewell to the remaining few, until he turned the corner and the others could no longer see him, Asa suddenly accelerated.
End it as soon as possible, then open another instance.
The more instances, the more cheats; coupled with the lifespan granted by the virus, running four at once wouldn't be a problem.
Josh woke up from his coma, his whole body aching.
He groaned in pain, struggled to get up, and looked around:
"Where the f*ck am I?"
The dim environment made it hard for him to see things around him, but Josh was certain he was in an enclosed space, with the only light being a faint glow pouring down from above.
His mental symptoms had already left him unclear about where he actually was. Just a moment ago in his hallucination, Josh had been in a psychological clinic, accompanying a doctor to confirm his condition; in the blink of an eye, he had arrived here.
Josh groped around, until his hand inadvertently touched something hard. He picked it up, and by the faint light, took a look—it was actually a notebook.
"How could there be a notebook here?"
There wasn't much remaining sanity to support him in thinking about this matter. Josh opened the notebook, and when he saw the words on it, his heart suddenly trembled.
He was too familiar with this handwriting; it was Hannah's!
But how could it be?
"December 15th, I am trapped in the mine shaft, and my leg is broken. Will my brother come to save me?"
Impatiently flipping to the first page, the first line of text that met his eyes made Josh's breathing almost stop.
"It must be a hallucination!"
A terrifying thought welled up; Josh instantly lost the courage to keep reading. He struggled to throw the notebook away, and when he got up, he was tripped by something.
It was a bone.
...
The abandoned mine shaft on Blackwood Mountain was not hard to find.
In the original game's plot, when Ashley and Matt were heading to the signal tower to repair the signal and attempt to contact the outside world for help, the tower suddenly collapsed, and they both fell into an abandoned mine.
From this, it was clear that the entrance to the mine was directly beneath the signal tower.
Without much effort, Asa found a very hidden cave entrance in the mountains that was only wide enough for one person to pass through.
Summoning Wendigo No. 1, Asa had it scout the path ahead while he followed closely behind.
The entrance was initially very narrow, but after walking a few dozen steps, the space inside suddenly opened up, accompanied by a faint, foul odor.
It was very dim inside the cave, but Asa could now see clearly without the need for any light source.
It was dark and cold, with the skeletons of animals that had been drained dry scattered across the cave floor.
"Is this what that strongest Wendigo left behind? It seems Hannah has had a miserable year, barely able to eat human flesh."
Asa continued deeper into the cave until he felt a strong sense of being watched all around him.
"You've finally appeared."
He made no attempt to hide his movements while walking through the cave; it was a trap Asa had deliberately set to lure Hannah out.
A foul wind rushed at him from the side, but Asa twisted his waist and easily dodged the attack, pointing his hands forward:
"Eagle's Hand!"
Two blue-white arcs of light instantly illuminated the entire mine.
"Crackling—"
The attacker that had lunged from the darkness was electrocuted and fell to the ground—defeated!
Asa went up to inspect it. Sure enough, the system did not identify it as an important plot character, though its physique was indeed larger and more powerful than the Wendigo Asa had just encountered.
Regardless, its combat power was only slightly higher than a Licker's, with no significant difference, so it was naturally a trivial matter for Asa to handle.
Since it wasn't an important female character, Asa didn't hesitate. He took out a Militech incendiary grenade, intending to finish it off right there.
"No!"
Just as Asa was about to throw the grenade, a desperate voice suddenly echoed from deep within the cave.
It was Josh; he had been captured here.
Asa frowned and pulled out a flashlight. He saw Josh scrambling toward him from the depths of the mine, muttering crazily:
"Don't hurt Hannah!"
"You have to be joking right now, right?"
"This isn't a monster; this is Hannah! She's just sick!"
Asa frowned.
"You want to plead for her?"
"Yes! You can't hurt her. She's the only family I have left in this world!"
"Then how about you die in her place?"
"Huh?"
Josh froze, until he saw Asa muzzle aimed directly at him, the barrel gleaming black in the flashlight's beam.
His delirious mind finally cleared. He muttered something, then ultimately backed away to the side.
"That's more like it. She died a long time ago; this is just a walking corpse."
Whether she was sick or had long since passed away, surely the system would know, right?
As long as the system didn't acknowledge it, it meant she wasn't a romanceable target, and there was no "wool" to be sheared from her.
Asa tossed the incendiary grenade.
"No!!!"
Amidst Josh's gut-wrenching screams, the Wendigo erupted into flames, illuminating the entire mine.
Ignoring Josh, who was still wailing in agony, Asa collected the loot dropped by the Wendigo.
[Remnant Soul of the Wendigo].
It's the same?
It seems the materials dropped by monsters don't vary based on size, or perhaps the difference between a regular Wendigo and the giant one Hannah had become wasn't that significant.
Since that was the case, he might as well continue strengthening Wendigo No. 1, his primary target.
"It's over."
...
The next day, with communication on the mountain restored, the incident came to a close, and everyone finally contacted the police.
The incident shouldn't have ended so quickly, but Josh had been using a camera to record his friends' reactions, and it just so happened to capture the entire sequence of the shadow's attacks.
Furthermore, apart from Ashley only having half her body left, the others hadn't suffered much harm, though they were terrified, exhausted from a sleepless night, and looked quite disheveled.
Then there was Josh. He kept shouting that his sister wasn't dead, but subsequent examinations diagnosed him with a dissociative disorder, and he was sent to a local hospital for treatment.
After contradictory testimonies and interrogations, the police officially classified the incident as an animal attack.
Yes, exactly. Asa had initially assumed there would be some sort of supernatural containment agency in this world, but it turned out he had overthought it; no one cared at all.
"Wendigo? What's that? You guys just saw it wrong."
In short, the incident came to a close in a rather absurd manner.
Thanks to the police, Asa finally figured out his identity in this world:
As a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he was permitted to remain in the United States on a short-term visa.
Asa had already rented a small studio apartment in Philadelphia where he lived, but as for a job, he didn't have one at the moment.
After the incident, he needed a battle to soothe his nerves, and the cheerleader outfit was quite nice.
After eating and drinking his fill, Asa finally had the chance to connect to the internet and get a glimpse of the full picture of this world.
The ICE of this era was riddled with countless vulnerabilities against the information flow of the 2077 era, so he quickly figured out what this world was really like.
To use a Chinese idiom to describe it: A gathering of heroes.
Asa had considered that this wasn't a standalone world—at the very least, it contained other stories from The Dark Pictures Anthology—but he hadn't expected it to encompass not just that, but other horror games as well. It was a complete hodgepodge!
First, Asa discovered a famous American biotech company, Murkoff Corporation, the parent company of Mount Massive Asylum.
Then, there was a genius doctor in New York named Ruvik who had invented a new neural connection device capable of allowing multiple people's consciousnesses to enter a shared space, making him famous and highly sought after.
Additionally, there were rumors of a bizarre town called Silent Hill, from which no one who entered ever returned alive.
Multiple missing persons cases had occurred near the famous tourist attraction, Crystal Lake, with most of the victims being college students.
An all-female caving expedition team had gone missing in their entirety after an excursion.
What on earth is going on?
It wasn't just the Americas that were teeming with such "talent"; even Asa homeland and Fusang to the east were full of them.
Back in his homeland, especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan, urban legends and horror stories were endless: in one university, there was a legend about a "Ghost Bridge," and in Hong Kong, an entire live-streaming team had gone missing while exploring an old residential complex.
As for the mainland, uh, it seemed fine—peaceful and quiet.
Japan was even heavier-hitting. A famous Japanese folklorist, Kunihiko Aso, had invented a special camera that, according to him, could use special film to capture and seal vengeful spirits, and could also see ghosts invisible to ordinary people through the viewfinder.
Furthermore, urban legends like Lady Dimitrescu and Hanako-san of the Toilet were rampant, making it hard to distinguish truth from fiction.
There was also a forum that had mentioned an outrageous incident:
In 1976, a village called Hanyuda Village, located in a remote valley in Japan, had mysteriously vanished; the entire village had been completely wiped off the map and remained missing to this day.
That was actually one of the better outcomes.
What was even more ridiculous was that while browsing, Asa had accidentally stumbled upon a bait post.
It marked a specific location in some unknown mountainous region of the United States: an abandoned cabin in the woods.
The blogger swore up and down about how quiet and remote the cabin was, how it had plenty of water, a beautiful environment, and lovely scenery, and how no one would disturb you. The entire cabin and its surrounding attractions were located in a valley with only one road leading in and out.
"Damn it, isn't this The Cabin in the Woods?"
Thinking of the Ancient Ones' sky-covering hands at the end of the movie, Asa face darkened.
"Can I ever get a break?"
Evil gods, vengeful spirits, demons, time loops, parallel worlds.
Guys, I think I'd better go check out a new world.
How is anyone supposed to play this?