civilwarnovels Chapter 4230 Possessed by an Evil Spirit ( )
Chapter 4230 Possessed by an Evil Spirit ( )
Chapter 4230 Possession by an Evil Spirit (Part 10)
Even though the detective wasn't an expert in psychoanalysis, he could tell that Linda was genuinely happy. This was probably the happiest she had been since they met.
The agents initially had little hope of catching fish with such rudimentary equipment. The harpoon was essentially just a sharpened long stick. And while Linda was strong and healthy, she didn't look like someone who had ever fished before, making the chances of success extremely slim.
However, as we all know, whether a person can catch fish has little to do with the person themselves, but more to do with the fish. In a resource-rich area, you can catch fish with just a casual cast; in a place with scarce fish resources, even a world champion wouldn't be able to catch fish.
The area under the waterfall was indeed a great fishing spot; the high oxygen levels meant that migratory fish needed to come here to breathe. Linda cruised around in her boat for a while and soon spotted her target. She swung her fork forcefully, thrusting it downwards. Unfortunately, she missed.
The agent had already reached the top of the waterfall. It wasn't a large waterfall, only three or four meters high. He found a path leading up, stood at the top, and pointed out directions to Linda. He pointed to the other side and said, "Over there, the spray is bigger; there should be fish there."
Linda rowed over and soon spotted the school of fish. Without hesitation, she picked up her harpoon and plunged it in. With a splash, she lifted a large fish right up.
The harpoon had only one point, which couldn't hold the fish in place. The fish thrashed about and fell back into the water. Linda, unwilling to give up, jumped in. A short while later, the agents saw blood splattering on the surface of the water.
Linda's head surfaced from underwater. She used one arm to hold the fish she had caught, and swam with the other arm, quickly reaching the shore.
As the agent went downstairs, Linda was examining the fish. The agent went over and looked at it, discovering it was a salmon. He squeezed its belly and said, "There should be quite a few eggs in here."
Linda grinned. She found a twig nearby and cut open the fish's belly; sure enough, it was full of fish eggs.
At that moment, to the agent's surprise, Linda grabbed the fish by the tail like a madwoman and began slamming the fish to the ground.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!
The detective quickly moved aside. The girl was incredibly strong, swinging the fish with tremendous force. It hadn't been long before the fish broke apart, but even with only the tail remaining, she kept smashing it. She continued until the entire fish was smashed to pieces. The fish eggs were mangled beyond recognition, and the ground was covered in rotten fish flesh and blood.
Still seemingly unsatisfied, she jumped onto the fish and stomped on it. She didn't spare any of the fish eggs either, crushing them all. Then she stood there, panting heavily, her whole body trembling.
"Are you alright?" The agent knew it was pointless to ask; the situation was clearly not good.
He had realized that the girl wasn't fishing for fun; she was simply after the fish eggs. But what grudge she held against the fish eggs remained unclear.
However, it is known that she harbors considerable resentment in this regard, even astonishingly so. Her only remaining sense of humanity is devoted to catching and killing fish.
Thinking about this, the agent suddenly realized that Linda might have something in common with the Hunter. The Hunter was pathological, and Linda was clearly somewhat pathological as well. His mind immediately opened up.
Due to the severe limitations of the instance, agents are unable to speedrun as before and are forced to study the storyline. However, compared to psychoanalysis, which is akin to mind-reading, the biggest drawback of behavioral analysis is its requirement for a large amount of sample data.
As mentioned before, the current mainstream approach in the industry is behavioral analysis because it is highly accurate when there is a large enough sample size. However, if someone comes for psychotherapy, it will inevitably be a long-term treatment, allowing ample time to collect data and ensure accuracy.
However, in these story-driven instances, players must outrun the storyline. In other words, they can't simply follow the plot step-by-step, or they'll certainly suffer a bad outcome; they must anticipate the story and figure out what's going on.
Take this instance for example. If they knew there was a corpse there before the clown's corpse got up, and knew that the corpse would rise from the dead, then they wouldn't need to go in at all; they could just burn the warehouse down.
Of course, this might cause them to miss many clues, but it's only because we're in the early stages of the story and the monsters aren't very strong yet, so collecting clues is more important than avoiding danger. However, later on, choices will inevitably have to be made. Those monsters that could kill in one hit must be avoided, even if it means abandoning clues, otherwise, they'll quickly suffer casualties.
Therefore, obtaining relevant information before the plot progresses to a certain point is crucial. However, behavioral analysis requires experiencing the events first before making inferences. This creates a paradox: they have to go through the plot and follow the characters' actions to collect behavioral data, but by then it's already too late.
Currently, among all the players, the only one skilled in psychoanalysis is the Hunter. However, the Hunter's psychoanalysis differs from the others; to be precise, it's not psychoanalysis but rather mental tracking, which is purely aggressive and lacks informational depth.
Furthermore, considering his personality, he wasn't the type to launch into lengthy analyses. The agent hadn't held out much hope, but then he suddenly remembered that pathological and normal states weren't actually the same; they weren't clearly distinguishable. In other words, each pathological trait possessed certain abilities of other traits.
On his way back, the agent thought that perhaps he could persuade the Hunter to manipulate Linda.
Linda's mental state isn't quite normal; she's clearly hiding something. This kind of person is easily manipulated, so even if it's not manipulation, it probably is.
After thinking it over all the way back to the old house, the detective immediately went upstairs and found Hunter. Hunter was still sitting on the edge of the bed, pale and looking somewhat weak.
The detective found it rather strange. The hunter was indeed seriously injured, with a stab wound in his abdomen that wasn't stitched up, just simply bandaged. Moreover, apart from some fever reducers, he hadn't taken any other medications, yet he had been able to stay alive and kicking for so long, which was already a medical miracle.
But something was strange. The detective felt this wasn't the true level of his illness. Moreover, aside from offering a few words of advice upon arriving, the hunter hadn't spoken a word and seemed somewhat detached. What was going on?
The agent was a little worried, but he didn't want to ask too many questions, since asking would indeed put pressure on his teammate.
But he momentarily forgot that they shared a memory bank, meaning they had in-team voice communication that the system couldn't detect. Just as he realized this, the Hunter turned to look at him.
His face seemed even paler than before. The agent was genuinely worried, so he sat down next to Hunter and watched him. Hunter said in a slightly hoarse voice:
“I see it, it’s looking for me.”
Just that one sentence sent chills down the detective's spine.
"Who?!"
The hunter shook his head, then said, "Bring her to me."
The detective was still somewhat dazed as he went downstairs. He suddenly realized that the ability to track down prey, or "psychic vision," was, in a sense, a supernatural ability.
In a horror game instance like this, where there are genuine paranormal events, being able to directly see people's souls and spirits is practically the same as being able to see ghosts directly!
The detective rubbed his forehead. He knew this wasn't going to be simple. Now, thanks to the hunter's report, he confirmed that there was indeed an evil spirit lurking nearby. But the question was, who exactly was this evil spirit, and what were its conditions for attacking others?
The agents weren't really concerned about the former; their focus was on the latter. Undoubtedly, this evil spirit couldn't kill indiscriminately, otherwise, with such strict restrictions, they wouldn't have survived the first day. However, it probably wasn't completely celibate either, otherwise the hunt wouldn't be in its current state.
The agent could tell that the hunter was doing everything he could to avoid being discovered. He couldn't even focus on the real world because of it.
The agent didn't know what the Hunter had seen in the mental world, or how he had managed to evade the terrifying evil spirit's pursuit. But he knew that if the Hunter had to struggle to survive, then this evil spirit was probably invincible, at least in the mental world, impossible to kill and only able to avoid.
In other words, once they trigger the evil spirit's killing rules, they won't even have the ability to struggle and will be killed directly.
This instantly increased the pressure on the agents. However, this instance didn't allow for speedruns. To understand the rules of hunting the evil spirit, they needed to figure out who the evil spirit was; and to find out the evil spirit's identity, they had to continue following the storyline.
The agent sighed deeply. He went downstairs and heard Aunt Kane scream.
"Linda!!! Why do you smell so strongly of fish? You killed fish, didn't you?! Don't you know it's salmon spawning season?! You devil who deserves to go to hell! Daughter of Satan!! I'm going to kill you!!!"
Linda let out a scream, which quickly turned into a sob. The agent ran downstairs, somewhat puzzled. Linda was actually quite strong, while Aunt Kane was rather frail. If Aunt Kane was going to hit her, why didn't she dodge, and why didn't she run away?
But he rushed downstairs and stopped the domestic violence commotion. When Aunt Kane saw someone come down, he stopped hitting her and just stood there angrily.
"Please don't be like that, ma'am. Violence is unacceptable. Besides, Linda is still a little girl. We just went to play by the waterfall and found a dead fish on the way. It must have fallen off the waterfall and died. There were still many eggs in its belly. We felt sorry for it and buried it. I even prayed for it. Because we stayed for a while, we inevitably smell a bit. We'll just wash it off. Please don't be angry."
Hearing this explanation, Aunt Kane seemed relieved. She said, "Oh, my God, that's wonderful. I thought you really... I'm sorry, that's so cruel. I really can't accept it. Linda is a good girl, she shouldn't have picked up such a bad habit."
The detective found this odd: it sounded like Aunt Kane already knew what Linda was planning. Had Linda done it before? Or was she planning to do it but was stopped by Aunt Kane?
"It's like this, my brother caught a cold when he came here, and he had a slight fever the night before last. We didn't tell you because we didn't want to bother you, but his condition has worsened a bit. However, he's always been very healthy, and he'll be fine after some rest. But I don't have much experience taking care of people, so I'm hoping Linda can help. Of course, if it's too much trouble, then forget it..."
“Oh, goodness, you should have told me sooner,” Aunt Kane said, somewhat surprised. “Go quickly, Linda. Take good care of this gentleman’s brother. I’ll go get you some hot water.”