Chapter 1 The Cursed Space

The cursed space is disconnected from the outside world, so if you want to manipulate the mortality rate, the hunting squads of the five great families must send people in.

Suren guessed this possibility, so he had been paying attention to some of the ill-intentioned people in the team.

He didn't want to come here to find materials and be used as "fertilizer" by others.

He had noticed a faint "malice" in the team for a while, and after observing for a while, he naturally found the man with the deerstalker hat.

The reason why the malice was intermittent was because his malice was directed at everyone in the team, not just Suren.

.......

More than sixty hunters entered the restaurant one after another, and Suren followed that guy in.

There wasn't a single person on the street outside, but this restaurant was very lively.

This was an unusually luxurious ancient restaurant, with exquisite candelabra-style classic crystal chandeliers and artistic nude murals. The lights illuminated a warm-toned decoration, giving people a strong sense of luxury as soon as they entered.

In addition to the hunters, there were also some staff in the lobby, such as a well-behaved receptionist, a doorman, and guards in black trench coats with serious faces... but these people were shrouded in a faint black aura, a sign that they had been corrupted.

Suren followed the guy with the deerstalker hat straight through and walked in.

The guy seemed to be very familiar with the layout and environment of the restaurant. His purpose was also obvious. As soon as he came in, he rushed to the guest room area, looking back from time to time, as if he was wary of anyone following him.

These anti-tracking methods were almost useless to Suren now.

He followed quietly. His super-high nerve reaction speed allowed him to easily capture the other party's turning and twisting movements, and then avoid them in advance.

After walking for a while, Suren watched the guy stop in front of room "1021", pretending to be a smoking guest, waiting there for a while.

"Huh... isn't it said that this 1021 room is one of the few rooms that absolutely cannot be touched? What is this guy doing here?"

Suren looked on with slight curiosity.

He didn't expect this guy to come straight to this room.

The information he had obtained earlier said that this room must not be opened. Once opened, it was very likely to trigger a very terrifying team wipe plot, and it seemed that some terrifying "ghost species" would appear.

Was this the key to controlling the mortality rate?

Or was it just misleading information deliberately leaked by someone?

Suren watched coldly and did not stop him.

He knew that this guy definitely didn't come to seek death. Since he did this, even if there was danger as rumored, he probably knew some way to survive.

Moreover, Suren had previously speculated that the background story of the [1911 Hotel] cursed space was probably related to this 1021 room.

Otherwise, being on the same floor with the same level of pollution, why would there be a few special rooms for no reason?

It was said to be "survival mode", but it was actually "plot decryption mode". There was never only one way to clear a cursed space.

But from the information he had obtained so far, this space was full of information on how to kill monsters, and information on the related background plot was almost blank.

The hunters were also after money, and probably didn't want to "meddle in other people's business" and trigger some high-risk plot. No one would be nosy.

But Suren was different. He needed things on the second floor.

Currently, the information there was almost blank, and he needed to collect more useful information.

Now that he saw this sneaky guy going to room 1021 with "malice", Suren felt that he had to go and see.

In just a moment, he watched the guy with the deerstalker hat take advantage of the fact that the waiter had disappeared around the corner of the corridor and took out his lock-picking tools to fiddle with the door lock.

......

The guy looked around while fiddling with the lock.

"Click, click, click..."

A slight metallic clinking sound came from the lock core, indicating that the tool was testing the correct position of the pins.

Suren leaned against the corner of the corridor and took out the silencer, calmly screwing it onto the barrel.

He didn't even need to take a look to clearly discern the progress of the guy's lock-picking skills from the sound.

The technique was not bad, but he made a few mistakes because he was a little nervous and his hands were shaking.

Then, after waiting for about a minute, he heard a "click".

Suren heard a slight "creak" of the door opening at the corner and suddenly rushed out.

He was extremely fast, and appeared in front of the door in a few strides.

At the moment when the man hadn't closed the door, he grabbed the door.

Suddenly someone grabbed the door, and the guilty man was so frightened that he trembled.

Before he could react, a gun was pointed at his head.

Suren pushed the guy into the room and closed the door casually.

"Tell me, what are you doing here."

"You... what do you mean..."

With a gun pointed at his head, his speech was a little trembling.

Suren looked lazily at the guy who was pale with fright, ignoring him first, and surveying the room with the corner of his eye.

The room was very tidy, not like someone was living in it.

However, he saw a pair of feet with corpse spots on the white bed at a glance.

"A corpse?"

Suren was not surprised.

If it was true as the rumors said that a ghost species would appear in this room after midnight, then it made sense that the tenant here had died.

But looking at the corpse spots, it seemed that he had been dead for quite some time.

Because there was a screen blocking it, Suren couldn't see the whole picture. He took two steps, wanting to move over.

At this time, the guy opposite him seemed to think that Suren's mind was not on the gun. His eyes flashed and he rushed up, wanting to snatch the gun and counter-kill.

Then...

He was easily dodged by Suren, who smashed a gun butt on his head.

Then he pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"Biu~"

"Biu~"

A special gunshot with a silencer sounded.

Two shots accurately shattered the kneecaps, and the man in front of him slumped to his knees.

"Ah..."

A scream.

As soon as his wail came out, Suren's gun turned and pointed at his head, coldly saying, "If you don't want your head to be blown off, shut your mouth."

The man endured the pain, sweat pouring down his forehead, and still said in a trembling voice, "We are all hunters, what... what do you mean!"

Suren said lightly, "Tell me, what are you doing in this room, and all the information you know."

The man wanted to quibble and hide his purpose, but hearing the cold voice, he had no doubt that as long as what he said didn't satisfy the other party, he would be killed immediately.

He endured the pain and threatened fiercely, "If you kill me, you're dead too!"

Suren ignored his threat, because at this moment he had already seen the corpse on the bed.

This was a male corpse with his face covered by a blood-stained sack.

As soon as the All-Knowing Eyes saw it, information immediately appeared.

[Faceless Man]

Details: A special resentful corpse containing powerful fire attribute energy; one of the sacrificial materials needed for an evil ritual; if the corpse is damaged or moved out of the room, the caster will immediately discover it;

Upon further inspection, the sack covering the corpse's face was actually an alchemical item.

[Cursed Sack]

Details: Sack over the face, who knows you? This is a sack stained with special corpse gas, covering the head, protecting from attacks by specific wraiths; it is a murder weapon, and also an object to restrain wraiths;

Evil ritual?

These words were particularly eye-catching.

Seeing this, Suren frowned slightly, suddenly realizing that things were not that simple.

His mind immediately raced, and he suddenly guessed the use of the forbidden rooms on the first floor.

Seeing that Suren seemed a little dazed, the man with broken legs thought that his threat had worked. He sneered and said, "Now that the 1021 room door has been opened, you're dead! If you know what's good for you..."

But before he could finish his words, Suren interrupted him, saying expressionlessly, "Are you trying to say that at midnight, this corpse will turn into a 'ghost species' and kill everyone who comes in this time? Then you will put on the sack on the corpse's head, and it won't attack you?"

As soon as these words came out, the little bit of confidence on the man's face disappeared, his face changed from white to black, and he pointed at Suren with disbelief, as if he had seen a monster more terrifying than a mutated monster.

"You... you... you..."

He roared in his heart, why would others know this secret!

The man dragged his crippled legs and kept retreating, finally leaning against the wall, and then there was no way to retreat.

Suren tilted his head and glanced at him, then pulled the trigger.

"Biu~"

"Biu~"

Two more shots broke the man's arms.

Suren had lost the patience to waste time on this kind of person: "Now that the door is open, is there a way to prevent the corpse from turning into a ghost species?"

His hands and feet were broken, and this person had been frightened by Suren's cruel methods.

Having his greatest reliance exposed, he knew that he had no capital to negotiate at all, and stammered: "No... I don't know."

Suren asked one last time: "Tell me any news that you think can save your life."

"I... I am a hunting squad exclusive to the Clark family..."

Before the man could finish speaking, a bullet blew his head off.

He started to state his identity to pressure people, which meant there was nothing worth listening to.

Suren had no interest in wasting time on this kind of person.

He walked over, took off the sack on the corpse's head on the bed, and put it away.

There were still more than four hours before midnight, and he didn't have much time left.

The corpse could not be moved or damaged, so Suren didn't care much and walked out.

.......

In order to verify what he thought, Suren went directly to another "1055 room" that the intelligence said was strictly forbidden to open.

This one also had a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the door.

Suren's lock-picking skills were much better than the previous guy, and he opened the door in less than twenty seconds.

Then he walked in and saw the hanging corpse with its feet in the air, hanging from the ceiling, and revealed a touch of realization.

[Hanged Corpse]

Details: A sacrificial material needed for some kind of evil ritual, a wind attribute resentful corpse; if the corpse is damaged or moved out of the room, the caster will immediately discover it;

The rope hanging the corpse was also an alchemical item with cursed properties.

The effect was similar, all to avoid the harm of specific evil spirits and to restrain them.

Then Suren went to the "1071 room" again, found a [Drowned Female Corpse] in the bathtub, and picked up a strand of [Wet Hair].

He collected corpses of water, wind, and fire attributes.

The previous hunting team had explored that these three rooms had problems, which saved Suren a lot of trouble.

Finally, there were ten rooms, 1090-1099, that had not been explored.

Thinking that it wouldn't take much time, Suren decided to take a look before midnight.

Three of the rooms had "Do Not Disturb" signs on the doors. Suren listened to the movements at the door. If there were movements, it meant that there were living people inside, so naturally there was no need to open them.

If there was no one, he would unlock the door and take a look.

Then he found a earth-attribute [Big-Headed Wraith Infant] corpse on the bed in "Room 1099" and found an alchemical item [Wraith Infant's Swaddling Clothes].

Looking at the four special corpse materials with almost the same introduction.

Suren roughly understood the "hidden plot" on the first floor.

A guy set up an evil ritual, and then left four corpses in four rooms... or maybe more?

But there were many rooms in the hotel, with ninety-nine rooms on the first floor alone. If he just looked for them one by one like this, there definitely wouldn't be enough time.

He felt that he should go to the front desk to see who had registered to stay in these rooms, and perhaps he could find more clues.

As for the "Magician" he was looking for, there was no rush for the time being.

The intelligence said that the Magician would only show up in an hour and would perform in the hotel's banquet hall. It wouldn't be too late to go then.

.......

The previous hunters used their lives to test that the previous three rooms were "forbidden rooms".

Now that Suren had opened four rooms, it meant that about four ghost species would appear at that time.

But he didn't feel much of a crisis.

Anyway, since a "forbidden room" had been opened, it was destined that this wave of hunters would be wiped out.

Suren felt that investigating clearly might still have a turning point.

Moreover...

"Ghost species" were indeed powerful, but they weren't really unsolvable.

It was just that their methods were usually mental attacks, and they were usually immune to physical damage, so for the vast majority of hunters who used knives and guns for physical attacks, they were unsolvable.

But in reality... it wasn't that exaggerated.

The so-called "ghost species" could not escape the scope of energy.

Magic, or certain magical means, could also hurt them.

For example, the cold flame of [Wu Shi].

As for the mental attacks of ghost species, they were also graded.

Ordinary Tier 1 ghost species, as long as healthy humans were not frightened and their sanity dropped to a very low level, they couldn't control them.

Want to scare Suren?

It didn't seem very realistic.

Want to force control?

Probably needed a ghost species with a very high rank.

From the currently known information in this space, that kind of existence would not appear on the first floor of the hotel.

Things weren't too bad.

Besides, that card boss had also come in, and there was someone to back him up if something happened.

.......、

Without a room key, Suren was not qualified to go to the second floor, which had guards guarding the stairs.

He thought about it and came to the hotel's registration front desk.

Like the previous "Clock Tower Space", there were many ancient people restored in the hotel.

Guests, waiters, doormen, guards... there were as many as a thousand "living people".

These NPCs did not have high intelligence, just like robots with pre-programmed procedures, they would only do certain fixed behaviors and react to certain fixed dialogues.

They also wouldn't think that these hunters who suddenly appeared were outsiders.

As long as you didn't interfere with their normal lives, they would choose to "ignore" you.

A total of more than sixty hunters had come in this time.

Obviously, some people had also thought of getting some useful information from these hotel staff, such as... which rooms were occupied by rich merchants and jewelers.

Going directly to steal a wave would yield a lot of harvest.

But obviously, registration records were not something anyone could check.

When Suren came, several hunters had just suffered losses at the front desk and left cursing.

"Don't waste your time, those silly receptionists won't reveal half a word."

"Yeah, if you ask a few more times, they'll call the guards. If you get caught, it'll be really bad..."

"But speaking of which, the beauties at the front desk are really good-looking. If it weren't for the fact that you can't force them, I'd really like to try the taste of these ancient people..."

"..."

Waiting for the few people to leave, Suren walked over.

He didn't ramble, and directly opened the door and asked, "Beautiful ladies, can you help me with a favor?"

Sure enough, even if they were NPCs, they would react if someone praised their beauty.

The blonde lady changed her previous indifference to the previous few hunters, and a smile appeared on her pretty face, "Sir, please tell me."

Knowing that conventional methods were useless, Suren took out a badge and said mysteriously, "I am Officer Johnny, this is my police badge. I'm secretly investigating an important fugitive, so... I want to see the housing records."