...What’s happening?
The Machine was still sowhat bewildered.
That mont just now had left his brain completely blank.
His brain had suddenly ground to a halt—just like a sudden blackout and shutdown—halted so of his thought processes. The Machine stared blankly at the plush bear.
——And at the toy knife in the plush bear’s hands.
"Do you have an answer?"
As the expression of the plush bear transford into a -v-, she issued her bell-like voice again, "If you give the victim’s na, I’ll tell you the secret of how to be saved."
"The victim’s na..."
The Machine murmured to himself.
His gaze gradually focused on the toy knife in the plush bear’s hands.
He looked up at the plush bear.
He asked softly, "Is it you..."
"Alice?"
"It’s ! Correct! You got it right!"
The little bear giggled, raising her hands in cheer.
"Now for the way to be saved!"
"What is it?"
"It’s the liver~"
The little bear’s voice was sickeningly sweet, "The antidote to the poison is the liver...
"——Do you believe it?"
With the toy knife in her hand, she chopped off The Machine’s limbs in a few strokes.
But strangely, each chop did not result in any bleeding.
Instead, with each chop, The Machine’s torso went limp and deflated quite a bit.
After four chops, The Machine’s body had beco torn and ratty like the plush bear on the bed before.
"——"
He opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak.
The Machine’s vision darkened, and he was once again in front of the Sporogenesis Mill.
Two new statuses appeared before his eyes:
[Limb Amputation: Your limbs have been severed.]
[Liver Missing: Your liver has been stolen.]
The Machine felt a sticky sensation on his shoulder.
He touched it and found a red line erging on his shoulder.
It was as if the cut limbs had been hastily stuck back together.
With every movent, he felt the sensations in his legs fade away gradually; similarly, every ti he tried to pick sothing up, like pushing a door open, The Machine felt his right hand weaken sowhat.
The Machine quickly figured it out.
...Was this limiting the number of steps and investigation attempts?
This was, after all, a common tactic in pixel puzzle gas.
Like taking sothing from a room ablaze with flas or walking across a poison pool wearing crystal shoes.
If there were such settings, then sothing must be hidden.
Was there a branch in the storyline?
But regardless, steps could not be wasted.
The Machine thought to himself.
From the reactions of the barrage before, although he couldn’t see the comnts, the live-stream probably hadn’t been cut off. In other words, the main goal of "leaving behind a recording" could still be achieved.
What he had to do then was to test out the traps.
——Therefore, death was not to be feared.
This ti he didn’t approach the shovel in the corner.
Instead, he headed towards the bottom of the stairs.
He saw a few bags of flour piled on top of each other.
Atop the highest bag of flour, so strange mushrooms had grown.
...The Machine had never seen such mushrooms before.
It appeared to be dark green in color.
But upon closer inspection, it looked more like a transparent epidermis, beneath which lay a dark green liquid. That transparent skin, resembling dehydrated and cracked flesh, ford white, net-like patterns as though it was about to rupture any second.
"Mushrooms..."
Sit Dark Fist murmured thoughtfully.
He walked up to the front of the staircase.
On the hollowed-out wooden staircase, mushrooms also sprouted sparsely. They spread upward in a line, most densely on the stair where the sack of flour was, becoming fewer and further apart as the stairs ascended.
—It was blood.
Sit Dark Fist quickly realized the truth.
The scene was well replicated this ti.
There must have been soone here who suddenly got injured and bled profusely... and then they walked up the stairs. The blood they spilled, for so reason, gave rise to strange mushrooms.
Sit Dark Fist continued up the stairs.
He could have easily leaped over the two steps covered with mushrooms—though his limbs were broken, the at soup he drank at the Three Bears’ ho allowed him to jump several steps in this condition.
But after all, not everyone could walk the sa path as him.
As the pathfinder, Sit Dark Fist didn’t avoid the mushrooms.
He stepped right over them.
The mushrooms burst with a disgusting sound. It was as if he had squashed a segnt of intestines, spraying a dark green aromatic liquid.
Sit Dark Fist suddenly ca to a realization.
The "mushroom scent" he had slled outside the mill emanated from these very mushrooms!
Without hesitation, he followed the trail of mushrooms painted on the floor, heading towards the second floor.
The space on the second floor was much more cramped compared to the first.
There was no spacious hall, just two residential rooms, a narrow utility room, and a bathroom. At the end of the corridor was a wooden wall that had been smashed open.
Below this wooden wall, one could see a square chute-like opening. It seed to be used for dumping black mushrooms... and behind the wooden wall was a buzzing, spinning gear machine.
Huge gears roared as they spun.
Sit Dark Fist was about to go over to have a look.
But he suddenly felt an itch on his lower leg.
He bent down and scratched it subconsciously.
However, he quickly realized sothing.
He lifted his arm to take a closer look.
After using up a "search" attempt, Sit Dark Fist realized that his forearm skin had developed small, spotted water blisters.
Was it because he had walked over those mushrooms?
Or was it because he had burst them... and moreover, he was[missing a liver]?
Then, if he had drunk that cold "hodgepodge soup" in the Three Bears’ room, wouldn’t he have beco immune to these mushrooms’ effects?
And what if he had drunk the bone soup?
...Would he then not have been "amputated"?
"I see..."
Sit Dark Fist muttered to himself.
—He finally understood.
The scenes in the previous "corridors" might have been about acquiring certain abilities or providing certain buffs to combat the various traps in The Sporogenesis Mill...
But those people, if they hadn’t entered the Three Bears’ room—logically, shouldn’t have had their limbs severed, should they?
Or was it that different ends of the corridors brought about different debuffs?
And based on different choices made in the corridor rooms early on, the state upon entering the mill was evidently different...
Just as Sit Dark Fist pondered this,
his left arm had noticeably begun to swell.
The itching feeling gradually turned into numbness and throbbing, and the skin beneath the blisters had completely lost sensation.
"...Is this ti limited?"
Sit Dark Fist whispered softly to himself.
The next mont, his left arm burst open.
And he was reborn in front of the mill once again.
—He had died once more.
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