Super Righteous Player
Chapter 507 - 48: Detective Ke Nan_1

Chapter 507: Chapter 48: Detective Ke Nan_1

Twilight slowly rose to his feet, silently staring at the scene before him.

The buzzing mill looked like the gaping maw of a monster.

It seemed as if the air around it had come to a standstill.

Though there was no "sun" as a primary light source in the Underworld, the crystalline dome ceiling above shone brightly around the clock, without distinguishing between morning and night.

But Twilight inexplicably felt... a twilight atmosphere enveloping the surroundings.

Even though he didn’t even know what a twilight atmosphere felt like, his instincts were telling him, urgently warning him—

—Do not go in.

Almost liquid fear seeped through his pores, making him feel the blood vessels at his temples on his forehead throb madly with an undefinable tension.

—Run fast.

In a daze, Twilight felt the air around him become thick and sickly sweet.

The world in front of him seemed to momentarily turn into a black and red silhouette, then instantly reverted back to its original state.

Even the barrage of bullets in front of Twilight had disappeared.

It was like playing a horror game with friends, but at the critical moment when he was talking, he suddenly felt silence around him.

Turning around, he found the room had become empty at some unknown point.

That was scarier than playing a horror game alone from the start!

"...Huh."

Twilight murmured softly:

"Did I wake from a dream... or have I entered into a dream?"

—Damn it.

Twilight’s lips moved slightly, he bit down hard on his teeth, silently cursing.

His expression grew grave as he seriously gazed at the mill with its doors wide open.

"Is anyone there?"

Twilight called out at the entrance.

No response.

—There shouldn’t be a response.

He walked forward slowly, stepping through the door.

But in the next instant, the large door behind him suddenly let out a loud "creak" and slammed shut!

"Cliché."

Twilight commented calmly, "I guessed as much."

He stopped at the entrance, looking around.

This seemingly large mill was filled with a strange aroma. Twilight tried to identify it... it seemed to be the smell of mushrooms.

That made sense.

The mill seemed to have once been called the Black Mushroom Mill.

Twilight had learned from Niusel that black mushrooms were a peculiar type found only in the Underworld.

They were a very lowly mushroom... able to survive on rotten wood without any care at all, but they had to live in an environment without any light. They were called black mushrooms because they appeared completely black.

With just a little blood or feces, they could grow incredibly fast, and with great toughness, they squeezed out other mushrooms, causing them to wilt and turn into nutrients.

Yes.

—It was a "fungus that could digest other fungi." Therefore, it required no care, and there was no worry about other fungi growing in.

The value of this mushroom lay in the fact that once dried and ground into powder, it became a nutritious food that could be stored for quite a long time.

In the Underworld, its status was equivalent to that of wheat.

And the powder ground from black mushrooms was tantamount to "flour."

Almost every larger Underground City had its own Black Mushroom Mill. There are cities that relied entirely on imports from other cities... but really, there was no need.

Because the cost of cultivating black mushrooms was low and did not require special techniques.

Black mushrooms that were not dried and ground into powder could be sprinkled on rotten wood to produce new black mushrooms. The work of the mill was just to continuously replace the wood, scrape off the grown black mushrooms, dry them, and grind them into powder—all of which could be handled by just two or three people.

"Replacing the wood" and "drying the black mushrooms" were done concurrently; "grinding into powder" did not require manpower—and of course, it wasn’t the traditional windmill, but rather a steam engine that was used.

And the humming sound from the outside meant...

At this moment, the mill was in operation.

But there was no one inside.

Not to mention voices speaking, there wasn’t even the sound of footsteps.

"This is..."

Twisted suddenly noticed a very abrupt detail.

In the corner of the main hall on the first floor of the mill lay a shovel.

The tip of the shovel was smeared with blood, which had dried up and turned brown. Spots of blood were also scattered on the ground nearby.

However, Twisted had no knowledge of forensic science and could not reconstruct the scene with these details.

...If it had been Xitan Pulan, perhaps more details might have been uncovered.

Although Xitan Pulan was actually a psychiatrist, Twisted always subconsciously felt that there was a forensic-like chill about him.

To describe it...

It was like Orochimaru.

He picked up the shovel and examined it closely.

And before his eyes, a system prompt appeared:

[Bloodstained Shovel]

[——Once a Murder Weapon]

Without a doubt, someone had died here.

...Though it couldn’t be determined who died.

But Twisted could guess that this must not have been a murder.

In the Underground City, where there was no shortage of iron weapons, no one would use a shovel to kill another person.

However, at the same time, no one should be bringing a shovel into a house...

Twisted’s gaze turned toward the bloodstains.

He took two steps forward, approaching the bloodstains.

The moment he got close to the bloodstains, Twisted suddenly felt an unexplained, intensely strong sense of fear—

The world around him once again became styled in hues of red with black outlines.

In his ears came the distorted, shrill cries. Like the rustling sound when pressing a seashell to one’s ear, but mixed with devilishly sharp and piercing voices:

"——Hurry, he is about to wake up! Take out his liver first!"

"——Kaz, you do it, I’ll start the machine!"

"——Where’s Alice?"

"——She’s definitely hiding nearby, she’s in this mill!"

The next moment, the hallucination ended.

Twisted suddenly heard a whistling sound behind him.

He instantly felt a chill run down his spine!

A sharp pain surged from the back of his head, his eyes widened, but all he saw was darkness.

Twisted staggered a few steps, then fell to the ground.

The blood seeping from the back of his head slowly soaked into the ground.

Spreading over the dry brown traces, eroding them...

Finally, outlining a pattern nearly identical to the original.

"Hiss—"

Twisted was startled awake, sitting up in bed.

He clutched the back of his head, as if he could still feel the phantom pain.

He looked around warily, first noticing the two beds.

And he was lying on one of the beds, still covered with a blanket.

Little Bear stood at the bedside, its face stitched with a black line into an OvO smile.

Barrage messages floated before his eyes again:

"——Damn, that scared me!"

"——I always felt that in the next scene, two people should jump out and feed Brother Kezi a pill with a test tube..."

"——I know, this story is called Detective Kezi (confirmed)"