Chapter 3146: The Detective Shall Die (Part 8)

Madeline's manuscript recorded her investigation process.

According to her records, she arrived at this village on the 18th. Because of her former status as a clergy member, she stayed in the village church, and the villagers were also very welcoming to her.

Here, she wrote, "... This is a very peaceful little village. The villagers are slightly vigilant, but I can understand them. After I introduced my identity, they were quite enthusiastic..."

That was the only sentence about the village, and the rest was basically all descriptions of the monster, the Prowler.

Madeline emphasized that she wasn't encountering the Prowler for the first time. The last time was when she was 9 years old, which was also the time the last recorded Prowler appeared.

Like the clues provided by the detective's corpse, Madeline mentioned that 30 years ago, it was also a heavy snow. She and her family were spending Christmas in a vacation villa, but it was on that night that the terrible Prowler appeared. Her family was brutally murdered, and only she and her youngest sister survived.

Since then, she had been tracking this monster, but there was no special pattern to the appearance of all anomalies, and the Prowler didn't come every snowy day, so she had always gained nothing.

But this didn't mean her research had no results. On the contrary, after she successfully became a clergy member, with the help of church data, she summarized several characteristics of this type of anomaly.

First, monsters among all anomalies cannot do whatever they want; they are subject to certain restrictions.

This was good news for Shiler. Of course, if they were really invincible, there would be no need to play this game. There is no existence in the world that is not restricted, even God is the same.

However, the further he read, the heavier Shiler's heart became.

Because the second point mentioned that monsters are not just monsters; they are cunning demons. They have their own thinking ability, even a few points smarter than humans. They can use their wisdom to avoid their own restrictions, thereby going on a killing spree.

That is to say, all humans are not fighting against mechanisms, but against another group of cunning intelligent creatures. It is conceivable how difficult it is.

And the last and most important point is that humans cannot solve anomalies with firearms.

The so-called firearms, in addition to modern weapons, even include those old-fashioned flintlock guns. Simply put, thermal weapons don't work; only cold weapons can solve them.

Madeline mentioned that on one hand, thermal weapons can't hit monsters, and attacks are ineffective. On the other hand, everyone who uses thermal weapons to attack monsters will be cursed and will immediately fall into madness.

In the end, Madeline also added one point, that is, all monsters are intangible. They are a concept and do not truly exist in this world.

If they want to do certain things, they must borrow a physical entity. The entity is usually humans and animals. In places where anomalies appear, do not trust anything that breathes.

Shiler continued to flip through, but the things below were all Madeline's speculations, without real evidence, most of which were about the Prowler.

Madeline also noticed that the corpses harmed by the Prowler moved in very strange postures: walking with hands, walking with heads, crawling on the ground with bellies, anyway, none of them used their feet to walk.

And this kind of monster only appears on snowy days, which makes people have to wonder, does the Prowler not want to leave footprints in the snow?

Borrowing Madeline's line of thought, Shiler continued to associate downward.

Madeline's notes mentioned that all monsters have no physical form; they can only possess humans or animals.

The most dangerous part of this situation is not how terrible the monster itself is, but that there is no way to tell who is a monster.

When an anomaly descends somewhere, your mother, child, daughter, or even pet might have been possessed, but you can't tell at all. He might even use your feelings for him to induce you so that he can ignore the restrictions and kill everyone.

Then the so-called restriction is very likely the monster's flaw, that is, the place where they are different from normal people.

For example, perhaps there will be special marks on their bodies, and to avoid being discovered, they must cover them up. Or perhaps their movements are abnormal, and they have to find excuses to avoid being discovered.

Then could the Prowler's restriction be that his footprints are different from normal people? And his way of breaking this restriction is not to use his feet to walk?

Shiler thought about it and felt it wasn't that simple. If just not using feet to walk could avoid leaving special footprints, then what kind of restriction was this?

He could directly possess a person and make him commit suicide. When others come to check the corpse, possess this person and make him commit suicide again. This way, there is no need to move from beginning to end, and naturally, no footprints will be left.

Shiler felt that this monster should have another restriction, which might be related to what this researcher just did.

Assuming Madeline's consciousness was clear, she attracted everyone over and then committed suicide, which might be another restriction.

The detective who didn't die in the wooden cabin but appeared in the wooden cabin, the owner of the diary who died in the kitchen but had reeds on his body, the researcher who came to investigate the Prowler but committed suicide on the second floor...

Countless clues prowled in Shiler's mind, just like a math problem that needs to find a pattern. His own thinking didn't spark any inspiration, so he stated the content of the notes and his own guesses.

This didn't count as violating the persona, because their purpose in coming here was to investigate the Prowler, and discussing clues was perfectly normal.

"Intangible monster..." Main Universe Batman muttered this sentence, and he seemed to be thinking.

"I think we must figure out one question," Bruce said. "Can monsters be eliminated?"

"Ms. Madeline didn't mention it, but I hold a pessimistic view," Shiler said. "An intangible existence means that humans can't even observe them, let alone eliminate them."

"That is to say, this is a natural disaster," Greed said, stroking his chin. "Humans have no way to stop the occurrence of natural disasters. What they can do is minimize losses as much as possible. Perhaps facing monsters is the same."

"I think we can analyze the gains and losses from the perspective of both humans and monsters," the Pale Knight said. "For humans, the greatest benefit is naturally surviving the monster. For monsters, although I don't know their purpose for doing this for now, they seem to want to kill more humans."

"The more humans survive, the fewer humans the monster kills, and vice versa. This is a zero-sum game, an irreconcilable contradiction. Humans try their best to survive, and monsters kill by any means. This is the interest confrontation between the two sides."

"Since this is the case, any means that can reduce human losses must be unfavorable to the monster. I think the most fatal one is to find the pattern of monster possession."

Shiler immediately realized that the Pale Knight and he were thinking the same thing. The best way to reduce the threat of this kind of intangible monster is to figure out who they possessed.

Of course, the person possessed should be a goner, but as long as it is clear who is possessed, others can still run.

At least in Madeline's research, there were no monsters that could fly and burrow in the physical sense. Most monsters had some attack means beyond human cognition, but the distance was limited. They were fast and powerful, but as long as there was precaution, it wasn't completely impossible to run away.

In this case, as long as the characteristics of the possessed person are clear, most people can be preserved.

So the monster's core interest must be not to let people discover him.

Then, aiming at the monster's restriction, it is possible that it is a trait that allows people to discover him.

Combining this logic with the state of the corpse, the point where this monster called the Prowler is easily discovered by people might be footprints.

Shiler raised the question he had thought about before and said, "If just not using feet to walk won't leave footprints, he could completely get himself a wheelchair, or just not walk, wait in one place, and kill one by one."

"There must be other restrictions," the Pale Knight said.

Main Universe Batman nodded and said, "I think another restriction might be forced movement."

Shiler became interested and said, "How so?"

"This monster must move after possessing someone," Main Universe Batman put forward a bold assumption. He said, "The detective might have been possessed, but he still completed the invitation of the diary owner and came to the wooden cabin. The diary owner might also have been possessed, but he still ran to the pond and brought back a lot of fish and ate them."

Hearing Main Universe Batman say this, Shiler suddenly had a flash of inspiration and said, "The last purpose of the detective before death was to come to the wooden cabin to find his friend. The last wish of the diary owner before death was to eat the fish he caught... Does the Prowler need to help the possessed person complete their last wish?"

"I guess it should be the last action," Bruce said. "The detective's last action was to go to the wooden cabin, and the diary owner's last action was to go out fishing. After they were possessed, the Prowler helped them complete this action."

"I get it," Greed snapped his fingers and said, "The restriction against the Prowler is composed of two restrictions together."

"The Prowler will leave footprints when moving. Humans can observe whose footprints are different, so as to find out who is possessed. And the Prowler must complete the last action of the human before death, which means he must move, which means he must leave footprints, which leaves humans the opportunity to find the possessed person."

"But the Prowler is clearly not willing to be restricted," Shiler continued. "This is the reason why the posture of the corpse we saw is so strange."

"But as long as you don't use human feet to walk, won't you leave footprints?" Night Owl raised a question.

Everyone felt this was absurd. If you just don't use feet to walk and won't leave footprints, then this monster is suitable for possessing a high-paraplegic patient, and then kill people in a wheelchair.

Joker gave a light sneer and said, "I'm afraid it's not that simple. I guess as long as he moves, he will definitely leave footprints, but if you are a murderer and you don't want to expose yourself, wouldn't you clear the footprints?"

Everyone fell into deep thought again. Shiler felt Joker made sense. This Prowler controlling the corpse to do so many strange things might not be to avoid leaving footprints completely, but more likely to cover up the footprints. ===== CHAPTER 3147 =====