Marco emerged from the shadows and appeared inside another room. After ensuring he was a safe distance from the creature, he began to heal himself.
After drinking various potions and holy water, his critical health bar and de-buffs returned to normal. Though his [ Infected ] status would expire in 16 minutes, the wound in his shoulder began to heal, and the skin knitted together, leaving only a thin scar before vanishing as if he had never been wounded.
Sigh...
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!
Why is there a Supernatural in this instance?
It also did not escape his attention that its blood bar was on the fritz, displaying only a symbol.
"Not good...not good...not good!"
He didn't know about Rey, but Shaira was unaware of Supernaturals, and if she encountered that creature, she might treat it as an ordinary system monster. Marco immediately tried calling Shaira, but the call wouldn't connect.
Unknown to him, due to the emergence of the Horror System fragment, his current system was incompatible with the instance without the Transcenders' modifications. It was like an app for Android trying to connect to an iOS. Compounding this was the fact that he was in an 'OFFLINE MODE' and couldn't even connect to a 'LAN,' let alone a 'wide area network.'
Without the Transcenders' system update that they had made for Shaira, Marco's system was in a state of incompatibility.
Damn it!
He tried calling the others, but the result was the same. He hoped that the others were okay.
°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°
Meanwhile,
GROUNDFLOOR, LOBBY
Shaira was trying to find the logbook or anything that might help her solve the quest. She glanced momentarily at the radar and was surprised to see Marco's marking moving towards the stairs.
He's awake!
Shaira was glad. Just as she was about to go to him, a sudden notification alerted her.
[Miracle Party wants you to join the call... >>>>
A group call?
[ Call Accepted ]
"So have you found what I asked for?"
>>"Hey, listen. We basically know what's happening on your side. Are you still in room number 5? We found something," Rey's voice came through.
"If you're talking about the corpse in the bed, I already tried to submit the answer, but it wasn't Carmen."
>>"Oh? You just confirmed our findings here," Ken replied.
>>"See... I told you! Anyway, using
"What?! How about the one on the floor?"
>>"Well, we're sure that he's the husband."
So... the husband and wife died?
>>"Yes... I'm not 100% sure, but my theory is that the lovers, Roberto and Carmen, planned the whole thing. Their motive was to kill the couple. Probably, first, Roberto pretended to knock out Carmen. Then, while Soledad killed her husband, they killed Soledad while she was off guard," Rey explained.
"Wait, what? Hold up, I don't know what you're talking about."
>>"Basically, we've pieced together the history of what happened in that room," Rey said.
"Okay?"
>>"From what we inferred, a wife—whose remains you found in the bed—caught her husband cheating with another woman. At first, we theorized that Roberto, another person who checked in at this inn, also tried to expose his lover's affair with Soledad's husband. Of course, now we know for sure that it was all a trap made by Roberto and Carmen, with Carmen being the mistress in the situation."
"Are you sure that the wife killed the husband?"
>>"Yes. Based on the height and angle where the husband was hit, I'm 80% sure that she's the one who killed him."
"Only 80%? What's the 20%?"
>>"Well, there's a chance that, given that we don't know the other suspects' heights, either one of them did the deed. But since the analysis perfectly matches Soledad's height, she's still the primary suspect."
"Oh! Okay, thank you. Wow, you're good at this."
>>"...Anyway, do you need anything else? How's your situation there?" Ken asked.
"Ken, I... still can't say much, but one of the rewards from the tasks is Resentment Energy. Do you know anything about it?"
>>"What? Resentment energy?!" Ken's voice was sharp.
>>"What's the problem?" Rey asked.
What was with his reaction? Did Ken know something about it?
°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°
In the Regular Instance, Ken ground his teeth in worry.
If Supernaturals are involved, Shaira and Marco are in big trouble. I need to do something...
Angelo observed Ken's reaction, and intrigue flashed in his eyes.
"Have you encountered anything dangerous there?" asked Angelo.
>>"Well, there's this entity that grew stronger when it absorbed resentment energy," Shaira's voice answered.
Upon hearing that, Ken became agitated.
"Shaira, is Marco already awake?"
>>"Why are you asking? I left him inside a room, but by the looks of things, he was already awake."
Upon hearing this, some of the tension eased in Ken's body.
"Okay, make sure you go to Marco and tell him everything, including the resentment energy. He knows what to do."
Hearing this, Angelo looked at Ken, a contemplative expression on his face.
Interesting, it looks like whatever it is, only Ken and Marco know about it... Meh, I don't really care, but now I'm curious!
>>"What, why don't you just tell me? Ken—!"
[ Call Ended ]
Ken immediately ended the call, his mind buzzing with the implications.
"So what's up? You think it has something to do with the Supernaturals?" asked Angelo nonchalantly.
Ken looked at him, then sat down and sighed in frustration. "I thought you weren't interested?"
"Yeah, but now I'm curious," Angelo replied, pointing at the bound Busaw servant lying unconscious on the floor. "Besides, I have a feeling that our friend here has a connection to what's happening."
"Besides, I'm also curious why you'd hide it from Shaira when you know there's a big chance that this System is going to overlap with whatever fantastical forces exist in our world sooner or later."
"Well, you're right about that, but take it as our own selfishness," Ken answered, his eyes looking into the distance. "Anyway, before we became subcontractors, Marco and I were Hunters... Supernatural hunters, that is."
"Oh? Like Pedro Penduko?" Angelo asked with a smirk.
Ken laughed and answered blithely, "Sort of."
"Back then, Marco and I thought that the world of Supernaturals was the only huge secret in the world, but now we know how naive we were," Ken continued, his eyes dazed as he recalled how Shaira had saved them.
They had been hunting a trail of resentment energy when they encountered an Instance monster. Following the monster, Shaira suddenly appeared and sliced it in half, presenting her fiery visage to the two of them. That's when they discovered Shaira was a subcontractor. The rest, as they say, is history, and here they are, in this Trial Instance.
"I see...what exactly is resentment energy?" Angelo asked.
"It's basically negative emotions that gather and turn into resentment," Ken explained. "Ghosts and other malevolent entities use it to power themselves up."