Campfire Shelter

"Huhuhu~"

The scorching fireball stood at the forefront, providing Colin, who was fully armed, with a long-range "vision".

However, apart from the fact that the stairs leading to the next floor feel a little more sinister than usual, there is nothing unusual about them.

Colin and others went up until they reached the third floor, and found that there was another mirror-like downward turning after the third floor.

He looked around by the firelight, and in the area starting from this corner and going down, more or less black moss-like patches began to appear all around.

"Go down from here and go back to the first floor, which is the second floor of the hospital." The voice of the orange cat came from behind.

Colin nodded, checked to make sure there was no problem, and then moved on.

At this time, the Holy Body of Ashes took a look at the plaques: "It's best not to touch these things directly. They are very corrosive to things like flesh and blood. Direct contact with the skin is almost the same as contact with strong acid."

"Will this happen again?" Orange Cat asked in surprise.

The last time they came here, they just avoided it and didn't notice this yet.

"Yes." The Holy Body of Ashes added: "We have tested it, but it only reacts to the flesh and blood of living creatures. If corpses have been dead for a period of time and are completely dead, they will not have any reaction."

"Will it trigger anything if we clear them out?" Colin asked casually.

"It'll be okay. This thing can't be destroyed. Brother Shunzi, if you don't believe it, you can give it a try." said the Holy Body of Ashes.

"Can't it be destroyed?"

Hearing this, Colin flicked his finger and a flame flew out, landed on the black patch on the wall, and ignited it in an instant.

"Isn't that easy hmm?"

Just as Colin was about to speak, his expression suddenly darkened.

Surprisingly, it wasn't burned?

After the flames disappeared, the black patches in the original area reappeared.

There is no change from before he was burned.

He didn't believe in evil, so he tried a few more times, but there was still no difference.

Even after the wall is burned together, it will be restored to its original state within a few seconds.

"There's something unusual about it that can't even be burned by a 'bonfire'."

This was the first time that Colin encountered this situation.

However, he had no intention of struggling to figure it out. After making sure that nothing would happen as long as there was no direct skin contact with the dark patch area, Colin led the team down.

All the way down from the mirror-like staircase on the third floor, Colin and the three returned to the lobby on the first floor without any danger.

To be precise, it is the lobby on the first floor of the consultation department on the second floor of the hospital!

"I originally thought that each floor refers to a floor, but now it seems that this is not the case. Every time you pass a floor, you reach a layer of the world 'inside', and there is a 'non-existent hospital' on each floor. .”

Feeling the changes around him, Colin realized this.

At this moment, the scene in front of me looks similar to the first level except for the dark patches around it.

Even the female employee standing at the front desk is still there.

And what's different from just now is that the female employee had to wait for her to look at him before she felt something, and then turned around. This time, she didn't need to look at her, she had already looked at her.

Colin did not avoid it, but looked directly at the other person.

On the face with a professional smile, a pair of black and white eyes looked at each other, becoming more and more ferocious.

"Hello, need help? Hello, need help?!"

"Hello?."

"you you you"

The soft and polite female voice suddenly became hoarse and sharp, as if fingernails were scratching on a blackboard, which was heartbreaking.

Colin suddenly felt a strong falling feeling.

He didn't panic, fire surged in his eyes, and he got rid of the weird feeling caused by staring at each other, and recovered from some kind of momentary "distraction".

The voice in the ear disappeared instantly and returned to its original gentle voice: "Hello, do you need any help?"

Colin ignored it. The flames on his body burned, completely severing the connection: "Pay attention to your mental state and don't look at these things, otherwise you may encounter some unexpected troubles."

Boss, we have always been cowards. How dare we look around like you? The two of them cursed at the same time, but still nodded.

Seeing this, Colin looked past the female employee who seemed to be a part of the anomaly and looked at the LED screen behind.

After arriving on the second floor, the rules above have undergone certain changes.

For example, the first article "The outpatient department of our hospital only has three floors" disappeared and became "1. Our hospital has fully carried out disinfection and there are no unclean things. If you find dirty things, please do not touch them. If the situation is bad, Please shout loudly and call the nurse of our hospital to deal with it.”

"You mean those black patches?"

Colin thought thoughtfully. The information currently observed, which inputs the information to the LED screen, seems to be a friendly party?

Then who could it be?

The mission was not mentioned, and there were not many directions that Colin could guess.

He took a breath, looked at the other two, and found that the "garbled code" in the third one had changed.

However, it is still a bunch of garbled characters. Except for the disappearance of a few rare and complex characters and the addition of the word "help", the rest is completely incomprehensible.

"It's better not to make random guesses about the things above."

Colin pursed his lips and did not look any further: "What's next?"

"It's still stairs. The first few floors are all via stairs. After every three floors, there will be some changes. But starting from the second floor, the range of special stairs expands and is possible in every building. It starts to become a little difficult to find. ." said the Holy Body of Ashes.

'Changes every three levels.'

Muttering in his heart, Colin remembered that many things in the company were in similar situations.

"Can't you remember the stairs from the last time you came here?" Colin asked. I wonder if this is because the hospital built by the 'Bonfire Company' is very large. If you search one by one, you won't know where to find it. when.

Hearing this, the Saint on one side shook his head: "I remember it, but it doesn't mean much. We came here two or three times at that time, and its location would change every time. The first time we came was supposed to be the fifth building. The oncology department on the seventh floor of the building became the gastroenterology department on the 31st floor the second time I came here, and it also changed the next two times.”

"Yes, we have been here twice, but at different locations."

The orange cat agreed, paused, and continued: "But no matter what, it can definitely be found. After all, it won't move. It will be really troublesome to find the 'stairs' on the fourth floor later."

"It will move and appear anywhere. It may be behind the door of a certain ward or the door of the toilet. It is particularly difficult to find."

It's not a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them. Just knowing the key to "stairs" took a lot of time.

"Is that so?"

Colin nodded, said nothing more, and continued to take action.

This time, after the scope was expanded, the search speed obviously slowed down a lot.

'It's a pity that it can't be observed with the 'bonfire'. It can only be found with the naked eye. Otherwise, I would just fly out with a bunch of flames, and the speed would be greatly accelerated.'

Colin sighed secretly.

There is no time limit for this task, but there are only the last two days left for the total task of Fifteen Rings, so the default time can be two days.

If it is not completed, the task may be in vain, or it may be considered that his previous task score is higher and he will be given a chance to make mistakes.

But no matter what, it is better to complete it.

Fortunately, it's smoother. It's only the second floor now, and there are not many anomalies. There are only female employees in the outpatient department hall who are suspected to be part of the anomaly, and special black patches.

So there is no need to worry too much about safety

Nearly an hour later, after Colin and others visited almost a quarter of the hospital corridors, they finally saw the special abnormal staircase in an area marked G Building, the inpatient building.

It has more of that inky dark patch than it did on the second coat.

And it looks more and more like the patches of mildew on the walls of your home during the rainy season, exuding a musty smell.

Fortunately, the trouble is still not too big.

Colin left a bonfire, then let the flames cover everyone, and continued to lead the team upstairs. In just a few minutes, they successfully reached the third floor area.

The location we came out of was still the building of the inpatient department.

But compared with the previous level, the whole world has become more difficult to describe, as if there is some kind of indescribable feeling of depression.

"Go back to the outpatient department lobby first and see if there are any changes to the rules."

Colin had just made this decision, and before he finished speaking, he saw something while dusting the holy body, and suddenly a "fuck" interrupted his words.

He and Orange Cat looked forward after hearing this, and found that the other person was looking at the floor-to-ceiling balcony window of the ward in the side building that was also the inpatient department.

The room behind the window that was supposed to be a ward for two people now turned into a dark and dark staircase going down.

"Damn it, it's the stairs to the fourth floor!" Orange Cat screamed when she saw this.

Compared to the two people's surprise, Colin couldn't help but raise his eyebrows:

"What a coincidence?"

"What a coincidence, we were lucky enough to bump into him! It won't be easy to find him again later!"

It was while talking that the strange corridor in the room began to fade away.

It seems that it will disappear immediately.

"Walk!"

After a moment of hesitation, Colin first took out a "firewood" that had been prepared from his pocket, lit it and threw it on this floor. Then he reached out and grabbed the two of them, dragging them out like cannonballs and shooting out in half a second. When he didn't reach it, he crossed the gap between the two buildings and fell directly into the passage leading to the fourth floor.

As soon as he stepped into the stairs, he had the feeling of entering another space, and the temperature became cold and dull.

There is a stench of rotten protein floating in the air.

‘The rules generally provide content at this level. I just crossed one level, so I shouldn’t miss any key information. ’

Colin looked back and found that the road he came from had been shrouded in gray haze.

"If you want to go back, if you pass through the fog now, you will go directly back to the first level. If you don't go through it, it will become a closed road after a while, so we can only go back through the mission route."

The Holy Body of Ashes continued to talk about the "information" that exploded from his mind like a land mine: "This staircase goes all the way down. You can reach the fourth floor after walking a certain distance. There may be more than a hundred turns."

"Is there any danger?" Colin asked smoothly.

"Just pay attention to those shadow patches. Only after the fourth level will there be some abnormalities that are not too dangerous. There are none now."

"Then take action."

Colin waved his hand, still letting a fireball explore the path ahead, and then he and others followed behind.

Starting from the fourth floor, the shadow patches on the ground began to appear somewhat three-dimensional, and squirmed strangely, as if they were getting closer to their true nature as the layers went deeper.

But the same thing is that Colin tried to burn it with fire, but it still couldn't be burned.

In this regard, he had some vague judgments.

'This thing is a bit like some kind of high-latitude projection. To be more precise, it is like a shadow projected from the depths of a 'non-existent hospital'. If the source of the disease is not eliminated, killing it several times will be useless. .'

'This should be the reason why the female employee can still be seen on the second floor, and she doesn't look like a living person or a dead person. After all, in a sense, what we see is a 'shadow'.'

Colin had some guesses about the abnormalities on the surface of the hospital.

It's not that the "bonfire" can't be burned, but that the source can't be found.

Thinking of this, Colin's uneasiness caused by the "invalidation" of the bonfire dissipated a little.

After what the two said, the three of them moved down silently.

As you go down the stairs, the lights become darker and the atmosphere becomes more depressing. Ordinary people may feel great psychological pressure, but for experienced people who have done a lot of tasks.

Unless there are hidden means such as mental pollution, this atmosphere alone will not have an impact on their psychology.

The process of going downstairs was smooth.

At least that was the case for the first ten minutes.

At this time, Colin paused and stopped, and the two people behind him also stopped when they saw this.

"You said before that there is nothing down there?"

Hearing this, the two looked at each other and vaguely realized that there was something in Brother Shunzi's words.

"Hmm, what's up?"

"There's someone crying down there," Colin said.

Under several corners, the fireball at the front received some sound feedback, which sounded a bit like the cry of an adult man.

"No way, we were there at that time."

"It was before, it's different from now. Judging from the current situation, there should be some new changes happening here."

Colin waved his hand. According to them, there shouldn’t be that female employee in the outpatient department!

He now even feels that there may be some kind of will in this hospital, inducing him to go deeper.

‘After all, I am a ‘Fire Holder’ reserve, and I have encountered the ‘Red Moon’ and chased away the ‘Dark Night’. I want to see what kind of thing dares to lure me in with all this pretense! ’

As his thoughts turned, Colin became more wary, but he did not stop.

Holding three gold cards in his left hand and holding a revolver in his right hand, with a bone spur installed on the revolver to serve as a bayonet, Colin drove streams of flames like torrents toward the bottom of the stairs quickly.

The temperature of the originally gloomy corridor space rose sharply.

"Brother Shunzi is really strong."

The two people behind him felt the power contained in the flames and couldn't help but take a breath, feeling full of security.

After almost ten more floors, Colin discovered that the cry that was approaching him started to get farther and farther away with his sudden outburst, moving towards the stairs further down at a speed faster than his.

After a few more floors, it seems to be the fourth floor.

"It seems like he was scared away?" The orange cat on the side couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the news.

This kind of encounter they encounter is beyond their knowledge. If you can avoid it, it is best to avoid it.

However, just when Colin was thinking about letting it go, multiple mission events suddenly jumped out of his mind one after another.

[Event 1: Catch the "crying madman" and extract one thousand milliliters of blood. 】

"Remarks": Obtain one hundred milliliters of "Blood Extract of Mental Madness Patients".