Chapter 4215

The car bumped along the road, moving very slowly. The motorcycle's headlight formed a distinct beam, like a sharp sword piercing the night, yet it could not reach very far. The darkness in the forest was so thick it felt tangible. Just as they thought they had reached a dead end, pinpricks of light suddenly appeared ahead, and a small town emerged at the end of the road.

Peter turned on his headlights as well. At the intersection where they merged onto the town road, Shiler noticed a slightly dilapidated billboard. The patterns on it were hand-painted, appearing very retro. On one side was a cartoon clown with a red nose, while the text on the other side had become somewhat blurred and illegible.

Bruce, who was driving the motorcycle in front, turned his head to stare at the billboard for a long time, but they still drove into the town. Only this time, it was Peter who took the lead. Following the map, he drove the car to the entrance of a house on the edge of town.

Several of them got out of the car; Peter went forward to knock on the door, and Kate followed. Then, a somewhat elderly, middle-aged red-haired woman opened the door. Shiler saw that she did not exchange pleasantries with Peter, who was greeting her, nor did she even acknowledge her own niece; her eyes were fixed straight on Kate's belly.

"How wonderful," Aunt Kane said in a somewhat sharp voice. "Our family is about to have a new member. How wonderful. Linda, come out and meet your cousin! Linda!!!"

Linda walked out. She was a somewhat gloomy red-haired girl with a messy mop of red hair tied behind her head, pale-faced, but her limbs were sturdy; she did not look thin, but rather appeared somewhat clumsy and dull.

She also stared at Kate's belly but said nothing. When the others walked in, she simply retreated to the side in silence. By the light inside the room, Shiler saw calluses on her hands, which seemed to have been left by farm work.

Then he began to examine the house; this was undoubtedly a very old building, originally constructed in the last century, but it had not been restored. Much of the wallpaper had peeled off, and there were mold spots in some places, but fortunately, it was still relatively clean.

The living room and kitchen were connected, and the kitchen was, of course, open-concept. There was a stove with two pots on it; six water glasses sat on a tray; and a sink with a towel draped over the faucet. Other than that, there was nothing else.

There were indeed cabinets above, but one could tell from the dust on them that they had likely not been touched for a long time. Whatever was inside had probably not been used for a long time either.

There was no television in the living room, nor were there any books, magazines, or newspapers to be seen. The carpet under the coffee table was a solid color with no patterns. The sofa was dark brown, slightly old and peeling, but it was still comfortable to sit on.

"Welcome," Aunt Kane said. "It has been a long time since anyone came to this town. We are truly happy to host so many visitors at once. My niece Linda is a very good girl. She is very capable, very beautiful, and, her genes are very good; she can for you..."

"Ma'am," Linda suddenly spoke up.

Aunt Kane, having been interrupted, was somewhat displeased. Shiler noticed that when she said this, her eyes remained fixed on him; it seemed his disguise had taken effect.

Touching his expensive cashmere fabric, Shiler revealed a smile and said, "She is indeed a good girl, but you are also a very respectable lady. The house being so clean must be due to the efforts of you two. Cleaning such a large house must be very tiring, right?"

"It's nothing," Aunt Kane laughed. She appeared somewhat excited, then said, "We just... we just do a little bit every day..."

"Sorry, my friend was injured a bit," Kent spoke up. "I wonder if you have any bandages or something; we'd like to give him a simple dressing."

"Linda, go get them some bandages," Aunt Kane said, appearing slightly cold. Shiler discovered that this aunt did not seem to value her niece as much as Peter had said; otherwise, she wouldn't have had time to exchange pleasantries with other guests while seeing her niece's husband's head bleeding.

Soon, the sturdy girl brought over the bandages. Kent helped Peter clean the wound and then bandaged it. However, the wound on his head was not shallow, and blood soon seeped through the bandage.

Aunt Kane was completely oblivious; she just kept praising the town, boasting about her daughter, and constantly inquiring about the backgrounds of these guests.

"Yes, I am British," Shiler said. "My brother and I run some small businesses in London. We just met some partners in Los Angeles a few days ago. Because we had long heard that the natural scenery here is quite good, we decided to come over for a vacation."

"Ah, that's wonderful. Seeing how particular you are about your attire, I know you must be a wealthy gentleman. You must be under 40 this year, right? My daughter is just 19; young people like you should talk more..."

"Aunt, I'm not feeling well; I'm going upstairs first," Kate suddenly spoke up.

After saying this, she walked toward the stairs, and Peter followed her up. Kent and his companion also stood up to take their leave, saying, "We are just passing through; if it weren't for clearing the way for you, we wouldn't have come to the town. We might have to rush back overnight tonight, so we'll be going first."

Shiler and his companion also stood up to take their leave, but Aunt Kane kept trying to persuade them to stay. She said, "It's so late, and there are no hotels in town. If you want to stay here for a few more days, it's better to stay here. We are a very traditional family and have guest rooms specifically prepared for guests. We have hosted many relatives and friends, and Linda is very experienced in this regard. Please, you must stay; tomorrow you can go see the creek valley together..."

"Since you are so warmly insisting, it would be hard for us to decline. Please take us to the guest room," Shiler said with a smile.

"Linda!" Aunt Kane shouted.

The two were led by the girl to the guest room. The guest room was also somewhat old, but spotless. The bed sheets were all solid colors with no patterns. There was only a bed, two nightstands, a small wardrobe, and a bedside lamp in the room; there was nothing else.

After dropping them off, Linda left. Shiler watched her back, then thought to himself: This family is definitely strange.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he began to calculate in his mind. When choosing the instance, he had specifically selected the horror type, and one with relatively strong restrictions. And this instance certainly did not disappoint them.

First, no one here had superpowers; physical fitness was at the average level of ordinary people, with slight differences depending on body type, but the differences were not significant.

Furthermore, this instance had very strict restriction mechanisms. Above everyone's field of vision, there was a translucent health bar. A player's power level was not allowed to exceed the average level by too much; even for someone like Shiler, who could forcibly boost his power level through his mental state, once his power level was detected as being too high, the bar above would start to drain health. The less health, the higher the instance intensity.

In other words, the difficulty of this instance was dynamically increasing. If you wanted to go on a rampage here, it would correspondingly increase the instance difficulty to an absurd level. Shiler had already witnessed this before.

Secondly, players needed to play their character roles, each with different backgrounds and identities. Not disguising well enough would also drain health. This meant that this instance did not allow communication between teammates other than what was related to the plot. So even if they recognized that the people they met on the road were Batman or Spider-Man, they could not call out their identities, otherwise, they would lose health. Not to mention calling out their identities, even reacting too intensely would result in health loss.

But this did not mean they could not improve their armament level within the instance. As soon as Shiler entered the room, he pulled a gun from his suit jacket, then reached out to his teammate and said, "Give me yours too; I need to maintain it."

The other gun was also thrown onto the bed. Shiler walked over, picked it up, and checked it. Don't expect much from a gun bought on the black market, but since the money was sufficient, the condition of the gun was actually not bad.

However, they had paid a price for this. Shiler took off his cashmere sweater; there was a sunken black mark on his left arm, as if the muscle had atrophied and the entire piece of flesh had become necrotic.

"If I had known it would be like this, we shouldn't have robbed that bank," the agent sighed, then thought to himself: The restrictions in this instance are too strict; the character he is playing is a con man from England, anyway not a good person, so why can't he rob a bank?

The Hunter just glanced back at him. He also took off his jacket; his abdomen was wrapped in a bandage, and the left side of his abdomen was still seeping blood. This was clearly a sequela brought about by the previous operation.

After they landed, they were on a commercial street in Los Angeles. The character the agent was playing had received a mysterious package a few months ago and followed the clues to the United States, seemingly wanting to use this to make a fortune.

However, after learning of such strict restrictions, the agent understood that if they just pushed the main plot forward like this, they would likely encounter some dangers they couldn't handle. So they planned to strengthen their equipment first and robbed a nearby bank.

And sure enough, health was drained. However, what the agent had imagined—a bunch of agents suddenly rushing out to surround them, or the bank security guards being enhanced into Super Saiyans—did not happen.

In the bank vault, they found a special safe. The moment the agent opened that safe, a knife popped out of a clown's jack-in-the-box, stabbing the Hunter. And the arm the agent used to touch the box seemed to have been cursed by something, instantly turning black.

At the bottom of the box, they found a flyer. It read "Kile Circus," and below it was the address of their first tour, which was exactly the Great Creek Valley Town.

Just like that, the two officially started the main plot. They first came to Westview City, then drove along the highway to Great Creek Valley Town, and met Peter and the others who were also driving there on the road.