I am the guide. If anyone finds this note, please go to the third supply point. The map is hidden under the seventh floorboard from the entrance of this cabin. I won't survive, but only that place offers a way out. You must, must destroy it!
A mission has appeared.
At the location indicated by the note, he fired a shot to break the wooden board.
Sure enough, beneath it lay a map.
The map had four marked points labeled with numbers one, two, three, and a final destination.
The first three were the supply points, while the final destination was located at the very top of the snow mountain—likely the ultimate goal of the research team that came here.
So why did this guide hide the items? Was he afraid of something discovering them?
"It's quite far... but time should be sufficient."
After brief consideration, since the mission had appeared, there was no reason not to complete it.
"The direction is... here?"
He purchased a compass from the Trading Platform and began ascending the mountain following the map.
The mountain was relatively smooth without many uneven areas, and the snow on the ground was unusually compact, as if something had rolled over it repeatedly.
This made things easier for him as he drove the Road Tyrant upward.
The surrounding scenery remained identical, and staring at it for too long could easily make one disoriented.
After driving for about forty minutes, he finally spotted a cabin that looked almost identical to the second supply point.
If he hadn't been consistently moving upward and increasing his distance from the Train, he might have thought he had circled back to the starting point.
The cabin was the same, yet something felt different.
"Is that... smoke?"
Thin wisps of cooking smoke were drifting upward from the chimney atop the cabin.
Which meant... someone was inside? Or something else?
Thud—
He threw a snowball at the wooden door.
After a moment, several trembling voices came from inside the cabin.
"Who, who is it? Is it a monster?"
"Don't open the door! It must be monsters!"
"Maybe it's rescue personnel the guide found! Hey, outside, say something!"
They were actually human.
Ye Qiyan didn't lower his gun and shouted loudly toward the people inside:
"I'm a rescuer sent by the guide, here specifically to take you down the mountain! Open the door and let me in—it's freezing out here!"
"Open it! Go open it! It's a rescuer!"
"Hahaha, we're saved!"
"Don't you dare! Whatever's outside is definitely monsters tricking us!"
"Hurry over, go on!"
"I said we can't open the door! We'll die if we open it!"
From the sounds, there were three people in the cabin, with two of them wanting to open the door.
So why was the remaining one holding them back?
Something felt off.
Ye Qiyan glanced down at the Pure Cleansing Stone hanging around his neck.
It wasn't glowing, meaning whatever was inside wasn't some evil creature.
Finally, after the commotion inside the cabin continued for a while, the cabin door opened.
"Save, save me!"
Hearing this completely human voice, Ye Qiyan didn't respond but instead took a step back, aiming his gun at one of the heads.
"Don't shoot! We, we're human! We're not monsters!"
"Yes, we're really human!"
Human?
Looking at the "person" before him—with three heads, six arms, and lower bodies completely fused together—Ye Qiyan suppressed the urge to open fire and finally understood why they couldn't open the door by themselves.
"What exactly happened here? You three... people, how did you become like this?"
The three-headed person exchanged glances, and the middle one sighed—the same voice that had stopped the other two from opening the door.
"We're from the research team. Young man, come inside to talk... it's too cold out there..."
Entering the cabin.
Ye Qiyan maintained a safe distance from the three-headed person.
He kept his gun trained on the three of them as the middle head nervously swallowed and spoke:
"Young man, since you came up the mountain to rescue us, does that mean the guide escaped?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, otherwise how would you have found us?"
Ye Qiyan narrowed his eyes slightly, recalling the contents of the diary.
"Didn't the guide not come up the mountain with you? I was just assigned to search for you because you've been out of contact for too long after ascending. When I reached the second supply point, I found items left by the guide and a diary."
He spread open the diary.
"You recognize the person who wrote this diary, right?"
"Recognize, recognize... he's my younger brother..."
The head on the left suddenly became enraged.
"I know him! He's the one who made us like this! That madman! He killed everyone!"
"That's not true! My brother—"
"Your brother is a demon!"
"Don't you talk about my brother!"
"Both of you stop arguing! Damn it, stop hitting the face! I can feel it too!"
Watching the three constantly hitting their own bodies and faces, combined with their grotesque appearance, it was somehow... slightly amusing.
Ahem, ahem, stop fighting. So what did you mean earlier about him being the reason you became like this? Tell me everything that's happened since you came up the mountain. Maybe there's still hope for you."
The three-headed person looked bruised and battered, but the head on the left gritted its teeth and spoke bitterly:
"The research team originally had fifteen people. Our goal was to reach the mountain summit to study a mysterious substance that only exists on this mountain. Unexpectedly, when we reached the first supply point, the guide who should have been waiting for us there had disappeared. Everyone decided we couldn't have come for nothing, so we didn't wait and continued up the mountain directly."
"When we reached the second supply point, one person developed a high fever. At that time, we drew lots to leave one person behind to care for the sick person. The one who stayed behind was that diary-writing madman, while the rest of us continued upward."
"But then... an accident happened."
As if recalling something terrifying, that head's face twitched violently.
"We... we got lost. We completely lost our direction on the way to this third supply point. Sob, we... we really couldn't hold on anymore. So many people, so many people starved or froze to death. We were lost there for almost half a month, half a month! Why didn't you come find us earlier, sob!"
The crying was noisy and showed no signs of stopping.
Bang—
A gunshot rang out.
The bullet precisely whizzed past above the three heads.
Simultaneously, the crying stopped abruptly.
"Continue. If you keep crying, the next bullet won't just graze past you."
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