Mechanical Alchemist

Chapter 157: Four corpses, four alchemical objects

The cursed space is cut off from the outside world, so if you want to control the death rate, the hunting teams of the five major families must send people in.

Su'en suspected this possibility and has been keeping an eye on certain suspicious individuals in the team.

He didn't want to become someone else's "fertilizer" while looking for materials.

He had noticed a faint "malice" in the team before, and after observing for a while, he naturally discovered the man wearing a deer hunting hat.

The reason why the malice was sometimes present and sometimes absent was because it was directed towards everyone in the team, not just Su'en.

......

More than sixty hunters entered the restaurant one after another, and Su'en followed that guy inside.

There was no one on the streets outside, but the restaurant was bustling.

It was an exceptionally luxurious ancient restaurant, with exquisite candlestick-style classical crystal chandeliers, artistic female body murals, and warm-toned decor that gave off a heavy sense of luxury as soon as you entered.

In addition to the hunters, there were also some staff members in the lobby, such as the cute receptionist, doorman, and serious-faced security guards in black trench coats... but these people were all shrouded in a faint black aura, a sign of contamination.

Su'en followed the guy with the deer hunting hat and walked straight in.

The guy seemed to be familiar with the layout of the restaurant and had a clear purpose. As soon as he entered, he headed towards the guest room area, occasionally looking back to be vigilant of anyone following him.

Such anti-tracking methods were almost useless for Su'en now.

He quietly followed, his extremely high nerve reaction speed allowing him to easily anticipate the other person's movements and avoid them in advance.

After walking for a while, Su'en saw that the guy stopped in front of room "1021" and pretended to be a smoking guest, waiting there for a while.

"Huh... Isn't this room 1021 one of the few rooms that should never be touched? What is this guy doing?"

Su'en looked slightly curious.

He didn't expect the guy to go straight to this room.

According to the information he had obtained before, this room should never be opened. Once opened, it could trigger a terrifying wipeout plot, seemingly involving some terrifying "ghost species."

Is this the key to controlling the death rate?

Or is it intentionally misleading information leaked by someone?

Su'en just watched coldly without stopping him.

He knew that this guy definitely didn't come here to seek death. Since he was doing this, even if there was real danger as rumored, he probably knew some way to survive.

Moreover, Su'en had previously speculated that the background plot of this cursed space in the "1911 Hotel" was likely related to room 1021.

Otherwise, why would there be a few special rooms that mysteriously appeared on the same floor with the same level of contamination?

It was called the "Survival Mode," but in reality, it was also the "Plot Decryption Mode." There was more than one way to clear the cursed space.

But from the information he had obtained so far, all the information was about how to kill monsters, and there was almost no information about the background plot.

The hunters were also after wealth, so they probably didn't want to "meddle" and trigger any high-risk plots. No one would interfere.

But Su'en was different. He needed something on the second floor.

The current information about that place was almost blank, and he needed to collect more useful information.

Now, watching this sneaky guy with malicious intent enter room 1021, Su'en felt that he must go and take a look.

And in that moment, he saw the guy with the deer hunting hat take advantage of the waiter's disappearance and pull out lock-picking tools, fiddling with the door lock.

......

The guy looked around while working on picking the lock.

"Click, click, click..."

The lock cylinder made a faint metallic sound as the tool probed for the correct position.

Su'en leaned against the corner of the corridor and attached a silencer to his gun, calmly and unhurriedly.

He didn't even look, but he could clearly distinguish the progress of this guy's lock-picking from the sound.

The technique was pretty good, but due to nervousness, he made a few mistakes.

Then, after waiting for nearly a minute, Su'en heard a "click" sound.

Listening to the faint sound of the door opening, Su'en suddenly rushed out from the corner.

He moved extremely fast and appeared in front of the room door in a few strides.

In the instant before the person could close the door, Su'en grabbed hold of it.

The man, who was already nervous, was startled when someone grabbed the door.

Before he could react, a gun was pressed against his head.

Su'en pushed the guy into the room and casually closed the door.

"Tell me, what are you doing here?"

"What... what do you mean..."

The man's voice trembled as the gun was pointed at his head.

Su'en lazily looked at the pale-faced guy, not paying attention to him at first, but instead glanced around the room.

The room was very tidy and didn't look like someone had been living in it.

However, at first glance, Su'en saw a pair of feet with livor mortis on the white bed.

"A corpse?"

Su'en wasn't surprised.If, as the rumors say, ghosts appear in this room after midnight, then it would make sense for the tenants here to die.

But looking at the corpse, it seems like it has been dead for a while.

Because there was a screen blocking the view, Su'en didn't see the whole picture. He took two steps and wanted to move closer.

At this moment, the guy opposite him seemed to sense that Su'en's attention was not on the gun, and he charged forward, wanting to snatch the gun and counterattack.

Then...

Su'en easily dodged and the butt of the gun smashed into the man's head.

Then, without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

"biu~"

"biu~"

The special gun with a silencer made a sound.

Two shots accurately shattered the kneecaps, and the man in front of him fell to his knees.

"Ah..."

A scream.

Just as he was about to cry out in pain, Su'en's gun was pointed at his head, and he coldly said, "If you don't want your head blown off, shut up."

The man endured the intense pain, sweat pouring down his forehead, and said, "We're all scavengers, what... what do you mean?"

Su'en calmly said, "Tell me, what were you doing in this room, and all the information you know."

The man wanted to argue and hide his intentions, but listening to that indifferent voice, he had no doubt that as long as he didn't satisfy the other party with his words, he would be killed immediately.

He endured the pain and threatened fiercely, "If you kill me, you're dead too!"

Su'en ignored his threat because at this moment, he had already seen the body on the bed.

It was a male corpse with a blood-stained sack over his face.

With the All-Knowing Eye, information immediately appeared.

[Faceless Man]

Explanation: A special resentful corpse containing powerful fire attribute energy; one of the sacrificial materials required for an evil ritual; if the body is damaged or moved out of the room, the practitioner will immediately detect it.

Upon further examination, the sack on the body's face turned out to be an alchemical item.

[Cursed Sack]

Explanation: Who recognizes you with a sack over your face? This is a sack tainted with special corpse energy, when worn on the head, it is immune to attacks from specific vengeful spirits; it is both a weapon and a restraint against vengeful spirits.

Evil ritual?

These words were particularly eye-catching.

As Su'en read this, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he suddenly realized that things were not so simple.

His thoughts immediately raced in his mind, and he suddenly guessed the purpose of the forbidden rooms on the first floor.

Seeing that Su'en seemed a bit dazed, the man with broken legs thought his threat had worked. He sneered and said, "Now that room 1021 is open, you're dead! If you're smart, you..."

But before he could finish his sentence, Su'en interrupted him and said expressionlessly, "Are you trying to say that at midnight, this corpse will turn into a 'ghost seed' and kill anyone who enters? And if you wear the sack on the corpse's head, it won't attack you?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the man's confidence vanished, his face went from white to black, and he pointed at Su'en in disbelief, as if he had seen something even more terrifying than a distorted monster.

"You... you... you..."

He roared in his heart, why would someone else know this secret!

Dragging his broken legs, the man kept retreating, finally leaning against the wall with nowhere to go.

Su'en glanced at him, then pulled the trigger.

"biu~"

"biu~"

Two shots again, breaking the man's arms.

Su'en had lost patience with wasting time on this kind of person. "Now that the door is open, is there a way to prevent the corpse from turning into a ghost seed?"

With his limbs broken, this man had been scared silly by Su'en's cruel methods.

His greatest reliance had been exposed, and he knew he had no bargaining capital left. Trembling, he said, "I... I don't know."

Su'en asked one last time, "Tell me any information you think will let you live."

"I... I am a member of the Clark family's exclusive scavenger team..."

Before the man could finish speaking, a bullet blew off his head.

Asserting his identity had become oppressive, and there was nothing worth listening to.

Su'en had no interest in wasting any more time on this kind of person.

He walked over, took off the sack from the corpse's head on the bed, and put it away.

There were still over four hours until midnight, and he didn't have much time left.

The body couldn't be moved or damaged, and Su'en didn't care. He walked out.

.......

To confirm his suspicions, Su'en went directly to the "Room 1055" that was strictly forbidden to open according to the intelligence.

This room also had a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the door.

Su'en's lock-picking skills were much better than the previous guy's, and he opened the door in less than twenty seconds.

Then he walked in and saw the hanging corpse, hanging from the ceiling with its feet off the ground, and a sudden realization dawned on him.

[Hanged Corpse]

Explanation: A sacrificial material for a certain evil ritual, a wind attribute resentful corpse; if the body is damaged or moved out of the room, the practitioner will immediately detect it.

The rope hanging the body was also an alchemical item with cursed properties.

Its function was similar, both to avoid harm from specific evil spirits and to restrain them.Then, Su'en made another trip to "Room 1071", where he found a drowned female corpse in the bathtub and picked up a strand of wet hair.

He had gathered corpses of water, wind, and fire attributes.

The previous scavenger team had identified problems with these three rooms, saving Su'en a lot of trouble.

However, there were still ten rooms, 1090-1099, that had not been explored.

Thinking it wouldn't take much time, Su'en decided to check them out before midnight.

There were three rooms with "Do Not Disturb" signs. Su'en listened at the doors. If there was noise, it meant there were living people inside, so he didn't need to open them.

For the rooms without any noise, he would pick the locks and take a look.

Then, on the bed in "Room 1099", he found an earth-attribute Big Head Grudge Baby corpse and an alchemical item, the Grudge Baby's Swaddling Clothes.

Looking at the four almost identical special corpse materials, Su'en had a rough understanding of the "hidden plot" on the first floor.

Someone had set up an evil ritual and left four corpses in four rooms... perhaps there were more?

But there were many rooms in the hotel, just the first floor had ninety-nine. Searching room by room would definitely not be enough time.

He thought he should go to the front desk to see who had checked into these rooms, perhaps he could find more clues.

As for the "magician" he was looking for, there was no rush.

According to the intelligence, the magician would not appear until an hour later and would perform in the hotel banquet hall. It wouldn't be too late to go then.

......

The previous scavengers had risked their lives to test that the previous three rooms were "forbidden rooms".

Now that Su'en had opened four rooms, it meant that about four ghost species would appear.

But he didn't feel much of a crisis.

After all, having opened a "forbidden room", it was destined that this wave of scavengers would be wiped out.

Su'en thought that if he could investigate clearly, there might be a chance of survival.

Moreover...

Ghost species were indeed powerful, but they were not truly invincible.

Their usual methods were mental attacks, and they were usually immune to physical damage, so for most scavengers who used physical attacks with guns and knives, they were invincible.

But in reality... it wasn't that exaggerated.

The so-called "ghost species" could not escape the category of energy.

They could be hurt by magic, or some other magical means.

For example, the cold flame of No Servant.

As for the mental attacks of the ghost species, they were also graded.

Ordinary first-order ghost species couldn't control a healthy human unless they were scared to a very low san value.

Want to scare Su'en?

It didn't seem very realistic.

Want to control forcibly?

It probably required a high-ranking ghost species.

From the information currently known about this space, such an existence would not appear on the first floor of the hotel.

Things weren't too bad.

Besides, that card master had also come in, so there was someone to back him up in case of trouble.

......

Without a room key card, Su'en had no right to go to the second floor guarded by guards.

He thought about it and went to the hotel's registration front desk.

Just like the last time in the "Clock Tower Space", there were many ancient people restored in the hotel.

Guests, waiters, doormen, guards... there were thousands of "living people".

These NPCs didn't have much wisdom, they were like programmed robots, only doing certain fixed actions, reacting to certain fixed dialogues.

They wouldn't think that these scavengers who suddenly appeared were outsiders.

As long as you didn't disturb their normalcy, they would choose to "ignore".

This time, more than sixty scavengers had come in.

Obviously, some people thought of getting some useful information from these hotel staff, such as... which room was occupied by a rich businessman, a jeweler.

A direct theft would yield a lot of rewards.

But obviously, not everyone could check the registration records.

When Su'en arrived, a few scavengers had just been rebuffed at the front desk and left cursing.

"Don't waste your time, those silly front desk ladies won't reveal a word."

"Yeah, ask a few more times, damn it, they'll call the guards. If we get caught, it'll be really bad..."

"But speaking of which, the girls at the front desk are really good-looking. If it wasn't for the fact that we can't force them, I'd really like to try these ancient people..."

"..."

Waiting for the few people to leave, Su'en then walked over.

He didn't beat around the bush, and directly asked, "Beautiful lady, can you do me a favor?"

Sure enough, even if they were NPCs, they would react when someone complimented their beauty.

The blonde girl changed her previous indifference towards the scavengers, her pretty face was filled with a smile, "Sir, please speak."

Knowing that conventional methods wouldn't work, Su'en took out a badge and said mysteriously, "I'm Officer Johnny, this is my badge. I'm here to secretly investigate an important fugitive, so... I'd like to see the room records."