Eldritch Horror Theatre

Was none of this real, or was only part of it fake?

In the dim underground space, Hayami Suzune didn’t immediately chase after the scattered pieces of the corpse. Instead, she took deep breath after deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

Perhaps due to mental interference, the moment this thought entered her mind, it spread uncontrollably.

This stemmed from a very practical problem.

If those scattered, fleeing pieces of the corpse weren’t a hallucination born of mental interference, then the transcendent capable of such a feat was someone she had absolutely no chance of defeating.

So for Hayami Suzune, the only choices were to sit there and wait for death, or to figure out how to break free if all of this really was a hallucination.

Hayami Suzune couldn’t help but rub her face.

Looking on the bright side, the fact that the enemy resorted to such methods meant they lacked absolute confidence in a direct confrontation. Otherwise, there would be no need for these extra tricks.

It wasn’t a bad guess.

Thanks to her powerful transcendent constitution, the numbness in her body soon faded. Biting her lip, Hayami Suzune struggled to her feet and moved toward a corner based on her memory.This was the spot the detached head had fled to.

She had seen it with her own eyes moments ago: bundles of nerves and blood vessels extending from the head, intertwining to form two legs.

Propped up on them, the head had looked like a literal turkey as it sprinted all the way over here.

There was nothing.

For a moment, Hayami Suzune unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

Despite her rational deductions, she had still felt the torment of waiting for a death sentence a moment ago.

Fortunately, the facts proved that her guess was likely correct.

There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the ground right now, let alone a walking turkey.

However... the next moment, Hayami Suzune straightened up, her gaze falling upon a rectangular stone slab mere inches away.

The lighting was dim. From a distance, she had only vaguely noticed that the stone slab wasn’t empty, but she hadn’t been able to see exactly what was on it.

But now, a corpse with its chest and stomach ripped wide open was clearly presented before her.

Compared to Kisaragi Iken from not long ago, this body was in an undoubtedly more gruesome state.

Not only was the head missing, but the chest and abdominal cavities were completely splayed open. The ribs on both sides were snapped, and at a glance, she could see that several internal organs were missing.

”Just cheap tricks!”

Surprisingly, faced with such a scene, Hayami Suzune merely sneered, showing little fear.

Strength was one thing, but whether this was real or fake, thinking a bloody scene like this could scare a Night Watcher was far too arrogant.

She didn’t observe the corpse any further. Having confirmed that she was under mental interference, the primary issue was figuring out how to break free.

Glancing around and confirming there were no other exits, Hayami Suzune picked up the dagger she had thrown earlier and decisively chose to return the way she came.

Certain details were still unconfirmed. If she was suffering from localized mental interference causing hallucinations, the target couldn’t be too far away.

But if she had already fallen into a predicament similar to a Nightmare, then she had to do everything in her power to shatter it.

In either case, moving quickly to find a flaw was undoubtedly a good choice.

Deep down, Hayami Suzune actually hoped this was a complete illusion.

After all, the talisman she had just used was a duplicate fragment made using the transcendent item Bird Haze. Its materials were extremely precious, making it one of her life-saving trump cards.

If it hadn’t actually been consumed in reality, that would definitely be a good thing.

...

”Madam Suzune, what guidance do you have for me this time?”

After passing through the long corridor, climbing the steps into the bedroom, and entering the living room once more, Hayami Suzune soon received a seemingly familiar greeting.

By the dining table, Fu Qian, wearing the turkey mask, looked back at her. His voice held a hint of surprise, acting just as if he were seeing her for the first time.

”Hmph!”

Hayami Suzune’s response was very simple. With a flick of her hand and a howling gust of wind, the dagger once again pierced through the hand he had resting on the table.

”To attend the banquet, of course. Am I not welcome?”

After throwing the dagger, Hayami Suzune didn’t stop moving. She walked straight up to Fu Qian, pulled out a chair, and sat right down.

”How could that be? I am flattered.”

Fu Qian’s tone didn’t waver in the slightest.

”However, this makes me a bit inflexible, so you’ll just have to help yourself.”

As he spoke, he gestured to the side with his chin.

At the corner of the table sat a rather large pot. Inside, about half a pot of milky-white broth was steaming hot, with familiar objects bobbing on the surface.

A whole pot of creamy brain soup!

Hayami Suzune took a deep breath.

It wasn’t just because of the soup. From where she sat, she could clearly see a long, narrow bloody gash on his neck just below the edge of the turkey mask.

It looked as though his head had been severed and then stitched back onto his body.

And it wasn’t just that one spot. His entire body was covered in crisscrossing cuts, and his clothes were torn to rags around them.

In fact, right before Hayami Suzune’s eyes, this cannibal was nonchalantly using his left hand to yank his severed right hand free from the blade, then trying to reattach it to his bare wrist stump.

”Arriving so early, Madam Suzune must be starving, right?”

”Don’t hold back. Just follow your feelings.”

The voice drifting from beneath the mask was like a devil’s whisper.

”Have you really never been curious about how it tastes?”

”Tissues carrying memories, emotions, and cognition, torn apart by boiling water, separated and then blended together... What kind of flavor would that produce in the end—”

”Never!”

Hayami Suzune’s roar was the only response Fu Qian received.

After shouting that, Hayami Suzune used almost all her strength to forcibly wrench her head away, tearing her gaze from the pot of soup.

Because just a moment ago, along with his low whispers, she shockingly realized that a tiny impulse to drink it had actually surfaced from the depths of her heart.

Even in an unreal hallucination, this was something she could not accept.

After roaring that line out, she forcibly rationalized the urge as a physical discomfort—hunger.

She had felt it faintly a moment ago, but now it was quite obvious. This most primal of human discomforts was slowly sweeping over her.

Not wanting to ponder the underlying reasons, Hayami Suzune abruptly stood up.

This brief exchange wasn’t entirely without gain. Putting aside Fu Qian’s bizarre actions, she had noticed another detail.

Before her dagger stabbed into it, the exquisite wood-grained table had been perfectly smooth and flat.

But if her memory served her right, she had already stabbed a knife into it well before today.

This proved once again that her current surroundings weren’t quite real, greatly increasing the likelihood that she was deeply trapped in a Nightmare.

But if that was the case, it would be very difficult to determine the state of her physical body in the outside world.

She had to shatter all of this as fast as she possibly could.

’’’