"Holy sh... are these... are these all people?"
The DoorDash rider's legs went weak from fright, and he almost collapsed right onto the ground.
The Uber Eats rider quickly steadied him, but his own face was pale. "How... how did they all get frozen into blocks of ice? Is this first floor a cold storage unit? This is too weird!"
Fumiya Jin looked at the white sheet of ice covering the entire area below the 1.5th-floor landing.
"This should be the final stage. The hint said the first-floor main entrance is the only exit... We have to figure out a way to get down from here and leave through that door."
The two riders and Kei Shirogane were a little surprised to hear this. It wasn't that they found the challenge too terrifying; rather, they subconsciously felt that compared to the previous two stages, this one seemed much milder.
Low temperatures were certainly dangerous. But compared to a murderous monster like a tank and the threat of whispers that could appear at any moment, where answering by mistake meant instant death... just a low temperature actually seemed quite tame.
After all, humans have a fairly strong resistance to low temperatures for short periods. Some 'warrior nations' even have their children doused with ice water in sub-zero, snowy conditions to toughen their bodies.
The Guinness World Records even has a record of a Chinese person surviving after being submerged in ice for nearly two hours.
"Um... boss, is our mission just to rush to the main entrance on the first floor and get out?" the Uber Eats rider asked Fumiya Jin respectfully. "That... doesn't seem too hard, does it? As long as we're careful not to slip, it'll take less than half a minute. We shouldn't freeze to death in that time, right?"
Fumiya Jin turned and gave him an annoyed look. "If it were that simple, why do you think there are so many people down there?"
The Uber Eats rider paused, scratching his head. "Is it because the door is locked and hard to open or something? But even so, they should have had time to run back... Or maybe... the ice is too slippery for them to get back up?"
Fumiya Jin pointed at the "popsicles." "Look at their condition... Many of them died standing up. That doesn't look like they slipped. To be frozen into a popsicle while standing upright like that is highly unusual in itself..."
Speaking of which, Fumiya Jin suddenly remembered there were also dead bodies in the elevator hall behind them.
So, he told the other three to stay put, went back to the elevator hall, and used his tachi to sever an arm. He grabbed it by the sleeve, carried it back to the stairwell, and, under the watchful eyes of the other three, tossed it down the stairs...
"Thump... clatter, clatter..."
The severed limb landed on the steps, tumbled forward several times, and fell onto the 1.5th-floor landing. Since the corpse hadn't fully decomposed and the blood inside hadn't completely coagulated, the tumbling caused fresh blood to seep from the severed end, staining the stairs with a dark red streak as it rolled.
But the moment it landed on the ice...
A crackling sound was heard.
Watched by four pairs of eyes and illuminated by the beams of several phone flashlights, the arm instantly stuck to the ground. Its tumbling momentum ceased, and it was rapidly encased in frost, turning into a dark blue lump of ice in the blink of an eye.
"Holy crap, that fast?" The Uber Eats rider was dumbfounded.
"Still think you can just run through it?" Fumiya Jin asked him.
The Uber Eats rider immediately shook his head like a rattle drum. "Good thing I didn't try anything stupid... or I'd be a popsicle too."
"So... how are we supposed to get across?" The DoorDash rider frowned, gritting his teeth anxiously.
After all, he was the only one of the four who was seriously injured—blood was still seeping profusely from his shattered knee. Although he had tied his pants tightly around it as a makeshift tourniquet, it was clear that wouldn't hold for long.
Fumiya Jin stared at the ice, deep in thought.
The first hint mentioned three things—do not respond, do not make noise, do not start a fire.
Do not respond, that corresponds to the illusion monster. Do not make noise, that corresponds to the grafted monster. So, do not start a fire must correspond to this freezing trial.
But that raised a question—why not start a fire? The most obvious way to combat the cold is to start a fire. So why is it forbidden?
Would starting a fire cause some kind of adverse effect? Moreover, the intense cold seems to only cover the area from the 1.5th floor down. As long as we stay on the upper floors, we should be safe. Why specifically warn us not to start a fire?
Could it be that even on the upper floors, starting a fire would lead to danger? A bold hypothesis suddenly formed in Fumiya Jin's mind...
"Hey!!! Wait, the ice... it looks like it's starting to move up!" Kei Shirogane, beside him, suddenly cried out in alarm, pointing her phone's flashlight downward.
Fumiya Jin and the two riders immediately looked down.
At first glance, nothing seemed obviously wrong.
But after staring at the edge of the ice for a moment...
"It looks like... it really is! It's moving! It's coming up!"
Fumiya Jin and the others were currently standing at the entrance to the second-floor stairwell.
The ice covered the entire 1.5th-floor landing (since each floor had two flights of stairs with a landing in between) and the two steps leading up from it.
The edge of the ice was still more than a dozen steps away from their position, so they hadn't noticed the subtle change before.
But now, after watching it intently, they realized the ice was slowly extending upward, creeping up the third step and continuing its advance...
The speed wasn't fast, maybe less than a centimeter per second, but it was definitely, undeniably spreading upwards!
"No way... Does the frozen area expand? At this rate, the whole building will be frozen solid, won't it?" the Uber Eats rider said with a shiver.
Fumiya Jin pondered for a few seconds, then shook his head. "No, that's not right. The ice probably hasn't been extending this whole time. Rather... it suddenly started spreading for some reason."
"Uh... how can you tell?" Kei Shirogane asked Fumiya Jin with a look of confusion.
"The bodies we saw upstairs had mostly already developed rigor mortis, meaning they've been dead for at least an hour or two.
In other words, in this instance's backstory, a disaster must have struck this apartment building one or two hours ago, killing almost everyone. Then, another hour or two passed before we arrived as players.
So, the bodies on the first floor must be people who rushed down here during that time, trying to escape, and were frozen into popsicles."
Fumiya Jin raised his hand and pointed to the two 'popsicles' on the 1.5th-floor landing. "If the ice had already spread this far back then, after one or two hours... would it have only climbed two steps?"
Kei Shirogane froze for a second.
She looked down again at the slowly advancing ice.
And suddenly understood.
"Definitely not! At this speed, which we can see with our own eyes... it could probably climb one step in a minute. In over an hour... it would have already climbed several floors, right?"
"Mm," Fumiya Jin nodded. "So, there must be a reason why the ice has started moving now..."
"Haaa..."
"Haaa..."
"Haaa..."
At that moment, probably because they were close to the first floor, the air temperature was also quite low.
With each breath they took, their warm exhalations formed plumes of white mist in the air.
Looking at the white mist, Fumiya Jin suddenly understood.
"Let's go. To the third floor... no, let's make it the fourth."
_____
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