"A presence of oddity..." Asagiri Utsunomiya first muttered, then stepped down the stairs, signaled the Man in Suit and the Woman with Heavy Makeup who were standing there to move aside, and then walked to the sturdy fire door. While observing, he asked Kotoko Iwanaga, "Necro, when you came here before, did you not sense a presence of oddity behind the fire door?"
"No." Kotoko Iwanaga first denied while shaking her head, then she said with a flat tone, "The fire door just wouldn't open. I don't have the means to break through such a thick fire door, and at that time, I wasn't sure what was on this floor, so I didn't act rashly."
"A presence of oddity suddenly appeared behind the fire door that couldn't be opened..." Asuna Yuuki muttered, walking to Asagiri Utsunomiya's side and observing the fire door in front of them. Then she said thoughtfully, "Is it possible that the source of the oddities in this Hotel has intelligence? It knows that we might come to this floor and enter the Hotel corridor, so it deliberately arranged for Banshees to ambush us?"
Before Asagiri Utsunomiya could reply, Asuna Yuuki first shook her head, negating the idea she had just proposed herself, then said, "No. It shouldn't be like that. The red-clothed vengeful spirit we encountered before was an Earth-bound Spirit that couldn't leave its own floor.
"The vengeful spirits in this dungeon should all be Earth-bound Spirits that cannot leave their own territory. Otherwise, there would be no need for the temperature to rise; wouldn't it be better to just let the vengeful spirits chase the Players?
"There must be some kind of restriction on the source of the oddities in this Hotel, but... it can still set up ambushes for Players through some means, and based on the information we have, the way it can do this is..."
Asuna Yuuki paused and leaned closer to the fire door connecting the stairwell and the Hotel corridor, then observed carefully before she muttered to herself, "There's no gap between the wall and the ground... I see..."
At this point, Asuna Yuuki looked at Asagiri Utsunomiya and said, "Captain, I speculate that behind this fire door is water, water that covers the entire Hotel corridor on this floor. The source of the oddities in this Hotel can not only control vengeful spirits and spread its influence through water, but also, in turn, control the water contaminated by it to set up ambushes for Players, just like the bottled mineral water these two people drank.
"If we open the door directly, the water previously blocked by the fire door will instantly rush out. Even if we manage to survive under the pressure of the water, we will definitely get the water contaminated with that guy oddity into our bodies."
The Man in Suit beside them heard this and couldn't help but look skeptical. He asked, "Water covering an entire Hotel corridor? Can that really be done? It would explode, wouldn't it?"
"It's a phenomenon of oddity itself; it will violate common sense of human society. That's the rule." Kotoko Iwanaga, standing on the steps, explained. She raised her cane, tapped the ground lightly, and said, "But as long as you If you can figure out the rules and mechanisms behind the phenomenon of oddity, no matter how bizarre the phenomenon, it will be easily solved."
Just as Kotoko Iwanaga finished speaking, she suddenly seemed to sense something. A look of caution appeared in her deep purple eyes, and she immediately said: "Captain, Violet, watch out!"
The next second, the bodies of the Man in Suit and the Woman with Heavy Makeup looked like balloons filled with water. Their bodies suddenly expanded, and their skin seemed about to burst—to explode immediately.
Asagiri Utsunomiya seemed to have anticipated this. The moment Kotoko Iwanaga gave the warning, he directly picked up Asuna Yuuki beside him with one hand, also picked up Kotoko Iwanaga with the other hand, immediately crossed several steps, and ran up the stairs as fast as possible.
*Ka-Boom!!!*
*Splat!!!*
A deafening explosion echoed in the stairwell, accompanied by the sound of blood and fragments of meat hitting the wall.
By the time the bodies of those two Players exploded, Asagiri Utsunomiya had already taken Asuna Yuuki and Kotoko Iwanaga back to the sixth floor, completely avoiding the blood and minced meat that splattered during the explosion, and was not affected at all.
"Captain is indeed very fast." Kotoko Iwanaga, saying this, didn't seem panicked at all. After Asagiri Utsunomiya put her down, she tidied her clothes and beret and said in a relaxed tone, "I see. That guy who can control vengeful spirits or humans who have drunk the water to explode at any time... The reason it didn't explode those two Players before might be that this method consumes its power, or it might have wanted to wait until we lowered our guard to deliver a decisive blow, or it might be both. No matter what..."
Carrying one person in each hand, he had climbed so many steps in just a moment, yet Asagiri Utsunomiya showed no sign of physical exertion and still looked relaxed. He said with amusement in his voice, "Using such a one-time method at this time shows that the source of oddities in this Hotel has felt threatened. Hehehe, going all out, a cornered dog will jump over the wall, stubbornly resisting, a mantis trying to stop a chariot, a dead duck with a stubborn beak, I see it won't shed tears until it sees the coffin, it won't give up until it reaches the underworld, wanting to be severely beaten by Hitoshura..."
Asuna Yuuki suppressed the urge to retort, sighed slightly, and said: "However, the difficulty of this dungeon is indeed not on the same level as the novice dungeon..."
Compared to the novice dungeon of Mount Massive Asylum, where you could clear it no matter what, it just depended on what rating you could get, and you didn't even need hands, as long as you could walk, or even crawl, you could complete the mission objective, the difficulty of this dungeon of Haunted Hotel had indeed increased a lot.
With the methods of that source of oddity, as long as a Player had drunk the Hotel's water, when the Players gathered together, it could control the Players who had drunk the water to explode, splashing blood and flesh and spreading its influence to other Players.
Even if Players realized through some means that water spread the influence of the source of the oddities, Players were still human. As long as they were human, they would want to live. It is very likely that a Player who had drunk the Hotel's water would hide the truth because they didn't want to be targeted or even killed by other Players.
The numerical disadvantage referred to in the special prompt Asagiri Utsunomiya received actually didn't only refer to the number of vengeful spirits, but also the number of Players contaminated by the oddities and who could be controlled by the strongest the source of the oddities in the Hotel to explode at any time.
It's just that this time, the source of the oddities in this Hotel had completely failed.
Not only did Asagiri Utsunomiya and Asuna Yuuki know the important information that water could spread its influence early, but among the Players, there was also Kotoko Iwanaga, who could directly sense the presence of oddity and see through who had been possessed by the oddities at a glance.
What was playing here? How did we play this?
Originally it was an oddity-type of dungeon that was a mental torment and internal consumption for Players, testing their caution and psychological endurance, but it was directly turned into a game of hide-and-seek by these three people.
Moreover... What was hiding was not the Player, but the source of the oddities in the Hotel. And once Asagiri Utsunomiya found it...
It would be in for a good time.