Chapter 415: Creeping Dread [3]

The sight made me freeze.

Jamie did too.

Neither of us said a word. Our eyes stayed fixed on the reflection in the recording, those shapes, those faces, staring straight toward us, or rather, toward the drone hovering silently between us.

"D-Do you..."

Jamie eventually broke the silence, turning his attention towards me. I didn’t answer; instead, I kept my attention focused on the reflection.

There was no doubt about it.

The reflections were indeed staring at the drones.

But was it really the case?

—Lmaaao. What are these two trying to do?

—Why are they making such faces? You know we can see the phone, right?

—There’s literally nothing.

—They’re obviously doing it to raise the tension. Don’t fall for such a cheap trick. This stream is boring. You should get out of this room and explore other places.

Despite the wave of negative comments, neither Jamie nor I paid attention to them.

Especially when—

Blink!

The reflections were no longer staring at us.

It was almost as if it had never happened from the start.

Jamie and I looked at each other.

"You saw, right...?"

"I did."

It became very obvious to me that something was going on.

’A shift in perception? It doesn’t seem like the viewers can tell, but at least Jamie and I saw it. There’s also the matter of how he was somehow able to speak before I spoke, or the weird moments when either one of us thought that something had happened when it didn’t.’

Something was off.

I could feel it, and Jamie could feel it too.

Jamie cleared his throat.

"Ehm, chat. I know you might not believe what I’m saying, but it’s really the truth. Neither Seth nor I is lying. You might not be able to see it, but we both feel it. Ah, well... I suppose there’s no point in discussing this further. Let’s head deeper. With this key, we can probably enter other areas."

"....."

I didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, I looked at the keycard.

I wasn’t stupid.

’How does it make sense that a keycard is here?’

This place had been raided multiple times by streamers, the homeless, and even ’treasure’ hunters. Surely they’d be able to find a card like this.

’...It’s been obviously placed in advance.’

But how...?

I hadn’t disclosed the location of the stream until the very start of the stream. There was absolutely no way for anyone to know about the location.

That was unless...

I looked at Jamie and pursed my lips.

Eventually, I shook my head.

This was unlikely, but what if...? What if he had been the one to leak the location? Or maybe worse... What if he were part of the cult?

’Now that I think about it, he was there during the museum incident. If they can target me, what does it say that they won’t target him?’

Ba... Thump!

For a moment, my heart leaped.

"What? Come on... Don’t be ridiculous. None of this is staged. Look, I don’t know why the situation is turning out the way it is, but I swear on my life that I didn’t do the things you’re talking about! I’m losing it? Well, maybe. It’s dark, and it’s kind of cold..."

Jamie was chatting calmly with the drone.

Looking at the chat and then the comments, I swallowed in silence.

—There’s no way such a string of coincidences can happen. It’s way too obvious.

—Does he take us for fools? It’s pretty darn obvious. Just go ahead and go to the next room.

—Yeah, go. I can see that people are starting to lose interest. Btw, has anyone researched the guy Clement White?

"Oh?"

The last comment attracted Jamie’s attention.

His words similarly attracted mine as I reached for my phone to look at it.

—Apparently, Clement White was a rather famous inspector. He was still alive not too long ago, but he recently died. From what I understand, he was fired before the plant shut down and was later hired by a different company.

"That’s... pretty interesting information.

Jamie mumbled, frowning. It hadn’t been long since the factory had been shut down. It wouldn’t be strange for most of the workers to still be alive. But for this ’Clement’ to die... that was also not strange. Many people die every day.

This was a normal part of life.

"But is that all? I thought you had found something interesting."

—...I did.

The commenter replied a moment later.

—He died by suicide.

"Oh."

Jamie’s voice turned tense. But only for a brief moment.

"But what does that have to do with the situation?"

—This is pretty much it. He died by suicide, and in his last letter, he wrote something like ’I’m Twisted, but it’s my wife who made me Twisted.’ I don’t really understand what it means, but I just thought it was interesting.

"Err... I guess it is?"

Jamie looked at me, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the comment.

’I’m Twisted, but it’s my wife who made me Twisted.’

I silently swallowed my saliva.

This...

"Anyways, should we get going? I don’t think there’s anything else interesting in this room."

Jamie pointed at the drone, and he soon walked out of the room. He started talking with the drone as he did, but I didn’t move.

I couldn’t move.

The clues were all there.

’This is definitely the place that I’m looking for, but based on all the information, there’s no doubt whatsoever. The cult... No, this place... It was turning humans into anomalies.’

I swallowed, feeling a creeping dread crawl into my mind.

Mirelle. The Twisted Man.

One room alone contained ties with the two alone.

This was no coincidence.

’It’s almost as if the cult is doing this on purpose to welcome me. But like I said, the only person who knows of this place is Jamie. There’s also the graffiti being fresh...’

My eyes narrowed, locking onto the door as a faint light flickered beneath it. A moment later, Jamie’s voice echoed from the other side. It was muffled, but it was his.

Glancing around and noticing that Jamie was still outside, I pulled out my compass to check it. It was still spinning, refusing to settle on a direction. Suppressing a sigh, I reached into my bag and retrieved a particular lantern, its surface cold and faintly pulsing with a blue light.

’It’s been a while since I’ve used this, but it might be useful.’

It was an item I’d once used inside the Hourglass Gate. Its function was simple but invaluable. It allowed me to trace the footsteps of anyone who had been in the room, the glow shifting in brightness based on how fresh the tracks were.

Taking out the lantern, I raised it up.

’...Let’s see.’

The light pulsed. Steps appeared all over the floor, moving in all directions. Looking at them, my eyes narrowed as I tried to see any steps other than mine and Jamie’s.

But—

"Huh?"

The sight that greeted me was an unexpected one.

The steps...

There were none.

Blink!

"Should I get started then? I think it’s best if I give a bit of a description of where we’re at, so that everyone has an idea of the setting of the place."

Jamie’s voice echoed in the background.

But...

"This place used to be part of Millwall Steel Production. Yeah,

that

Millwall. They’re still around, with three other plants running across Malovia Island, but this one’s different. This one shut down about ten years ago after a series of incidents that no one ever fully explained."

Blinking my eyes, I looked at my surroundings.

It was there that I noticed something.

I... was outside.

Not only that...

"Officially, it was labeled a ’containment failure’. A sort of industrial accident, a gas leak, and a couple of workers unaccounted for. But the weird part is that the company never demolished the site. They just fenced it off and left everything inside, like they planned to come back... but never did."

But Jamie.

He was repeating the same things he had done in the past.

What in the...