Chapter 3168

According to Madeline's previous experiences, it could be inferred that she had a deep feud with Silteke, hating him to the bone. She didn't plan to leave alive when she came here, so naturally, there was no one she couldn't kill.

If Madeline knew that guy was hired by Silteke to complete his evil plan, she absolutely wouldn't let him go. Perhaps she would also vent her hatred on him, cutting off his limbs to torture him.

Then why did Madeline commit suicide?

Schiller went over Madeline's behavior in his mind. He clearly remembered that after he restored Madeline's spirit, she kept shouting, "He is coming."

In English, the pronunciation of "it," referring to other objects, and "he," referring to a person, are completely different, so Schiller thought at the time that Madeline was saying the Prowler was coming.

But assuming this Prowler was brought by Madeline to retaliate against Silteke, how could she still be surprised? It was even more impossible for her to shout out loud. She would rather the Prowler kill everyone here; she wouldn't warn anyone at all.

Schiller instinctively felt that Madeline wasn't referring to the Prowler. Besides the grudge between her and Silteke, there were secrets about this woman he didn't know.

"What's going on with that family?" the Pale Knight looked at Bruce and Greed. He was referring to the family that died in the lighthouse, which were the corpses now lying upstairs.

"I'm not clear about this," Greed shook his head and said. "I'm not crazy enough to kill a whole family."

"Neither am I," Bruce said. "Even if I needed someone to die, I wouldn't take a little girl with me. I have trauma regarding this."

Although the Pale Knight didn't know what Bruce was referring to, he could hear that Bruce wasn't lying.

Bruce continued, "Didn't that diary mention this little girl? Maybe it was done by Mr. Good Guy Batman?"

He still hadn't forgotten to smear the main universe Batman, Schiller thought. Unfortunately, there were two Jokers in front of him; you just have to see if they spray you or not.

Sure enough, the Joker snorted coldly and said, "If Batman could really do such a thing, then he would be as boring as your methods of framing others."

"What? You actually said I'm boring?!" Bruce bared his teeth and said, "You wait, I'll have Gordon handcuff you sooner or later."

"But no matter what, Batman is the biggest suspect, because only his diary mentioned that family," Greed shrugged and said. "Even if it wasn't intentional, it must have been involved in his affairs; he cannot shirk the blame."

"Your methods of framing others are a bit more clever than his, but not by much," the Pale Knight said. "Truly evil and incompetent."

Schiller ignored their bickering; he just looked at Greed and said, "To say that only the hunter's diary has a relationship with that family would be wrong. Who killed Jeff?"

Greed raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything. The others also looked at him, because it was indeed as Schiller said: the hunter's diary only mentioned the little girl, but Greed had directly used a skill to silence Jeff. His connection to this family was the strongest.

"He was just a madman babbling nonsense," Greed said. He glanced at Jeff's corpse on the floor of the room, his gaze lingering on one spot for a moment, but he quickly withdrew it.

Schiller noticed this tiny movement of his, so he also came to the side of Jeff's corpse. Now that time was stopped, he had plenty of time to observe the corpse carefully.

Just as he was looking at the corpse, he discovered the problem: the wound where this guy was sliced open was shorter.

The detective was sliced open to the lower abdomen by the wind blade, but Jeff was only sliced to the chest—accurately speaking, a little below the collarbone—and it wasn't that deep at all.

Schiller didn't think this was Greed wanting to leave him a whole corpse; he must have had his reasons for doing this.

Schiller suddenly raised his eyes to look at Greed and said, "You didn't want to open his stomach because he also ate fish, right?"

"I don't have to answer every one of your questions. If you really want to know, you can look for yourself."

Schiller immediately understood Greed's meaning. They were currently in a combat state and couldn't do anything else. If Schiller wanted to verify his conjecture, he had to end the combat.

Greed wanted to trade a clue for the end of this battle where he was at a disadvantage. Sure enough, he never did a losing business.

Schiller glanced at Bruce and felt it really wasn't good to hurt him too badly, otherwise Pride might settle scores with him later, so he waved his hand and put down the knife.

There was no prompt sound, just the skill list appearing again. Schiller felt a bit strange. So, as long as they fought without a winner or loser, they would get skill points? Then couldn't they fake a fight to farm points?

Schiller looked back and met Greed's gaze. Clearly, both were thinking the same thing. However, Greed still touched his own neck, seemingly worried that someone might make the fake real.

Schiller added another point to First Aid.

He was so anxious to figure out everyone's talent skills because, in fact, as skill points increased, everyone's skills would increase, and various abilities would become increasingly confusing. Once the skills really increased, it would be difficult to investigate which one was a talent skill.

Schiller had already discovered that the initial talent skills they possessed were the strongest. Schiller searched the list for a long time but couldn't find any skill similar to his Requiem skill that could ignore all obstacles and directly increase mental health values. Most of them required rolling dice.

After adding the skill, Schiller walked directly to Jeff's corpse. He took a scalpel from the medical kit nearby and slid it down along the original wound of the corpse. After opening the stomach, he indeed found fish meat and fish bones that hadn't been completely digested.

Another terrible fishy smell attacked. Greed leaned against the wall and walked two steps, leaned over to take a look, and then walked away with some disgust.

Schiller, however, was calculating in his heart. So far, there were three people confirmed to have eaten fish; the sample was already sufficient.

The pattern Schiller summarized from the three of them was that their fish were all eaten raw.

The fish in the stomach of the first corpse was relatively complete, and it could be seen that it was raw. Although the other two were digested quite a bit, judging from the smell and the fish bones inside, they weren't eaten in a normal way either. Who eats fish without spitting out bones?

If it were just some small bones, that would be one thing, but the problem was that the fish's spine was inside. This couldn't have been eaten as a meal. The human throat has a safety mechanism; eating something too hard will inevitably cause vomiting. This fish wasn't small, and the fish bones were as hard as awls. How did these three people eat them?

Even if they were afraid of being affected by the anomaly, they wouldn't chop up a fish and swallow it raw, would they? Not to mention there was a corpse that was killed in the kitchen, and not far away was the fireplace. Throwing the whole fish in and roasting it for a few minutes would have worked too.

Schiller was more inclined to believe they didn't eat the fish voluntarily. Only by using a throat tube could they so easily get the chopped raw fish into their stomachs.

Schiller suddenly thought that a billionaire like Silteke didn't have to find such a remote little fishing village to go out to sea to fish. Whether it was the East Coast or the West Coast, there was no lack of port cities, and the throughput wasn't something this kind of small village could compare to.

If he wanted to build a laboratory in a safe place, there was no need to choose this place. The United States is vast and sparsely populated, and there is plenty of wasteland. Those in the medical industry aren't short of money; they could completely choose a better place.

He ran to such a remote place; it definitely wasn't just for fishing and doing experiments. Anything that could make such a person have scruples must involve human lives.

Fishing at sea, building a laboratory, the fish in the villagers' bodies...

Human experimentation?

Schiller felt this was the most reliable conclusion so far. Silteke might be using the villagers here for experiments.

This could also well explain why the lighthouse keeper and the hunter were hired by Silteke to work for him at first, but then turned against him in the end.

Maybe at first they were just fishing and watching the underground cave, but later they discovered that this damn capitalist was actually using the villagers for experiments, so they wanted to expose him. This also gave the motive for the hunter's behavior.

As for the death of Jeff's family, it wasn't impossible that they were silenced by Silteke, but they killed each other, and it was also a bit difficult to explain how they did it.

After reasoning, Schiller put the scalpel into his bosom and said, "Now we have two choices. One is to go to the village; the supplies in the lighthouse are enough for us to reach the village. The other is to return to the underground cave and see what is on the road on the other side of the river."

The others naturally thought of these two roads; they were just discussing it. Greed turned back and said to Schiller, "I said splitting the forces, you definitely wouldn't agree, because you would worry about us secretly making trouble behind your back."

Schiller nodded and said, "Splitting the forces is not a good choice. The Prowler is a real thing. Even if its characteristics are different from what we analyzed before, it cannot be underestimated. In a situation with too few people, it is too easy to be broken one by one."

"I want to go to the laboratory," the Pale Knight said. "I know there might be survivors in the village, but if we don't figure out what is going on, we are just attending their funerals when we rush over."

Greed and Bruce looked at each other. Greed nodded and said, "I am also more interested in the laboratory, mainly because I don't want to let someone run around here, and you know what kind of people he will deal with."

Schiller knew Greed was hinting to him that both the pharmaceutical giant and the church could be Batman's enemies. Leaving Batman aside and ignoring him was simply chronic suicide, so even if there were a few floors in the lighthouse that hadn't been explored, it was best to go after Batman first.

In the end, everyone decided to go to the laboratory first, but to go to the laboratory, they had to cross the river. Ordinary methods wouldn't work; the best method was to build a bridge.

Fortunately, the lighthouse was well-stocked. Not to mention anything else, there was no shortage of various shelves. As long as they were assembled a little, they could make a fairly sturdy bridge.

Although the dark river was turbulent, it wasn't very wide, and the bridge could be pushed directly to the opposite side after being assembled.

But the problem they were facing now was that the entrance to the cave was too small, and they could only assemble the bridge below. But directly below this hole were the reeds that were still baring their fangs and brandishing their claws.

"How did he get across?" Schiller stood in front of the hole and whispered. "At that time, Batman only had 4 skill points in his hand. If he maxed out a First Aid skill, he would only have one point left. Then which of the remaining skills could help him dodge the pursuit of the reeds?"

Just as Schiller was thinking, he saw Greed and Bruce already squatting around the hole discussing.

Do you think it's a good idea for us to drag it up?

"Who are you talking about? This reed monster? This thing is so big, how could it be dragged up?"

"Then drag it leaf by leaf," Greed said. "Drag one, and there's one less. As long as we can pluck it bald, won't there be no one chasing us?"

"Good idea. I'll get something to go down and lure it?"

Suddenly, Schiller seemed to have thought of something. He turned his head to look at Jeff's corpse in the corner. Before, he had only been looking at the wounds. At this moment, he noticed that the corpse had traces of being moved.

He immediately understood what Batman had done.