Eldritch Horror Theatre

He had red hair and a thick beard. Though not tall, he was heavily built.

Coupled with his resonant voice and the burst of flames he had unleashed the moment action was needed, the newcomer called White struck the perfect image of a tough guy.

Yet the most striking thing about him right now was his blue-and-black uniform.

Exquisitely tailored and intricately designed, it stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the group. It even bore a distinct emblem: a gold trident set against a black background.

It was the emblem of Siren, a mark Fu Qian had seen long ago in the Wasteland.

He clearly wasn’t a fellow prisoner. In all likelihood, he was a member of the staff stuck in here with them.

That probably explained why this makeshift self-rescue team vaguely deferred to his judgment.

Take the much younger, far slighter woman standing behind White, for example. She had offered no opinion on either his fiery attack or the ongoing questioning. Instead, she just kept her lips pressed tight, scanning their surroundings.

Besides appearing to be the youngest present, she also had the healthiest complexion.

With her red lips and vibrant eyes, she stood in sharp contrast to the black-haired Madam Jill.”But doing that will only spread the corruption further...”

Meeting White’s scrutinizing gaze with a deep look of her own, the black-haired woman turned her attention back to the warped cell door and softly critiqued his statement.

Under the relentless bombardment, the grotesque creation had been completely reduced to ash, leaving no trace behind.

In theory, that was exactly the problem. With not even ash remaining, the spread rate of the corruption was an absolute hundred percent.

”But it won’t necessarily make our situation worse.”

White, however, was clearly completely confident in his own judgment. He fired back almost instantly.

”We’re all already infected, aren’t we? It’s better than having that thing pop out and cause trouble while we’re trying to find a way out.”

Like a true man never looking back at an explosion, he sneered the question without so much as sparing a second glance at his handiwork.

”Including Madam Ann here.”

The next moment, he reached right over and grabbed the younger woman’s arm.

She still didn’t make a sound, visibly suppressing the urge to yank her arm away as she let him pull up her sleeve.

Her skin wasn’t snow-white, but it was smooth and lustrous, making the faint threads of Crimson Frenzy look all the more hideous and glaring against it.

Even so, her infection was still the mildest of anyone present.

”Then you can call them Jill, Li, and Scholar respectively... and this guy is?”

While the black-haired woman stood speechless, White pointed in turn at her, her athletic teammate, and the two people they had just rescued.

When his gaze finally fell on Fu Qian, his eyes narrowed as he fell into thought.

”You don’t know him?”

The black-haired Madam Jill finally cried out at his last question.

...

Why was Brother Cellmate’s nickname completely different in style from everyone else’s?

Besides, it looked like this Brother White wasn’t just part of the staff down here; he was likely some sort of manager.

Of course, given his strength, he was certainly qualified to be a head jailer or something similar.

Instantly becoming the center of attention—diluting even the desperate, life-or-death atmosphere somewhat—Fu Qian remained completely unflappable.

Madam Jill’s shock was perfectly normal.

They were clearly a makeshift team, yet old Brother White knew everyone’s name but his, right down to his cellmate’s nickname.

Rattling them off with such familiarity proved that, exactly as suspected, he was part of the prison administration.

And yet, he didn’t know his name.

That made the already irregular double cell look even more suspicious.

In fact, by comparison, his cellmate—the man known as Scholar—had the most intense reaction of them all.

After all, he had pondered this exact issue earlier and ultimately come up empty.

On one hand, he was a highly suspicious individual; on the other, according to the information Jill had provided, the source of the Crimson Frenzy still hadn’t been found...

Though he understood all this, Fu Qian didn’t place any extra blame on the Warehouse.

He had to keep distinct matters separate. Out in the jianghu, one had to be reasonable.

Granted, his assigned identity was a bit perfunctory, but compared to the very beginning, he had long since molded himself an entirely new face.

Because of that, even if head jailer White recognized every single prisoner, it wouldn’t do him any good.

”It’s fine. Just call me sinner.”

Chuckling, Fu Qian finally spoke, even following along with the prison culture by giving himself a jianghu moniker.

...

”He was locked in the same place as me, and you don’t know him?”

More than one person remained on high alert; their guard didn’t drop in the slightest even after Fu Qian’s self-introduction.

In the deadlocked atmosphere, Brother Scholar finally tried to break the silence, staring at White and asking in disbelief.

”With you... why would I lock the two of you together?”

White’s brow instantly furrowed deeper as he fired the question back almost instinctively.

At that statement, even Madam Ann’s fingers twitched beside him. A grayish-green light sparked between them, radiating pure hostility.

”Wait a second. Now that I think about it, it actually seems like...”

Yet right at this hair-trigger moment, old Brother White suddenly remembered something, and his eyes shot wide open.

”There was a new arrival recently... as for the name, um... it is true I was the one who assigned him there...”

He stared hard at Fu Qian’s face, visibly struggling to recall the memory, before finally nodding and coming up with an affirmative answer.

Huh?

That conclusion made the atmosphere abruptly whiplash once more.

He had seemed highly suspicious just a moment ago, making them think they had caught the culprit red-handed, only for him to receive official verification out of nowhere.

For a moment, Jill and her group seemed completely unsure of how to react.

It just went to show: everything had two sides.

Chuckling softly once more, Fu Qian clearly paid the awkward scene no mind.

A perfunctory cover had its advantages. The Warehouse had seemingly assigned his identity with incredible stiffness: cramming him into a rare double cell without providing a prisoner name to match, or even putting a photo in his file.

Normally, this would have been a suspicious flaw exposed at the slightest touch, but combined with the current situation, it possessed a different sort of subtle perfection: old Brother White appeared worried that the Crimson Frenzy was affecting his brain.

He clearly remembered the incident itself, but couldn’t recall the critical details of cause and effect, and had practically no concept of what the man looked like.

Compared to being under a specialized mental influence, blaming his memory loss on his worsening Crimson Frenzy infection was obviously a much easier conclusion to reach.

And in a tense situation like this, showing signs of such a tendency would undoubtedly throw his leadership into question.

He had likely been hesitating over the issue of his name just now, but ultimately decided he was unwilling to get too tangled up in it.

”Since this Mr. sinner checks out, shouldn’t we keep moving? Which way?”

The voice came from the side. It was Jill, who had been scrutinizing White’s performance the entire time, already urging the group to get back in motion.

Judging from her reaction, it was hard to say how much trust she actually placed in White’s words.

But they were on a broken ship acting as a mere stepping stone anyway. Expecting every detail to be perfect was simply too much of a luxury.