The reason Orff’s situation was complicated was that the evidence in his hands was divided into two parts.
The first part ca from when Orff hacked the old website. It mainly consisted of the recorded snuff video and so encrypted user information. He had already reviewed this part so ti ago. If the flesh monster attacked anyone who had seen the old evidence, then “today’s” Orff would already have been nailed to the death list.
The second part of the evidence ca from the new website. Since this loop had only just begun, these items were still in an “unobtained” state. If the flesh monster targeted only those who had seen this second part, Orff would remain safe as long as he didn’t recklessly hack the new website.
So which type of information did the flesh monster actually target?
Everly pulled Orff aside and asked him which evidence he had shown to the police in the previous loop. If he had shown only the first or the second part, the answer would have been obvious.
Unfortunately, things never go that smoothly. Orff had been thorough—he had shown the police both Part One and Part Two.
Well… she knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
Everly didn’t lose heart. As an old unlucky soul, she had long since learned that giving up at the first setback would have led her to an early, miserable end.
And, to be honest, she already had a rough idea of what triggered the flesh monster’s attacks.
Back when Everly was in middle school, the U.S. experienced a nationwide supernatural event—the “Butterfly Descent Incident.” During that event, the actress Seradiya, in an attempt to cure a terminal illness and gain a second life, transford her s**cide video into a dium for collecting belief, intending to use the faith of others to elevate herself into an immortal god.
Anyone who watched that s**cide video would gradually develop an addiction, unable to stop themselves from replaying it, unconsciously feeling compelled to make self-sacrifices, and ultimately giving their life to Seradiya.
Because of that incident, when Everly realized that the flesh monster’s attacks were connected to the evidence, her first thought imdiately went to the snuff video Orff had recorded.
Could the snuff video itself be the dium through which the monster’s curse operated?
Everly considered it highly likely.
The flesh monster had a body pieced together from severed fragnts, with teeth collected from different people growing in its jaws, and fingernails from countless individuals sprouting from its nail beds. Such a bizarre anatomical structure gave the imdiate impression of a patchwork of corpses.
As Orff forced himself to describe the monster to Everly despite his fear, he ntioned one detail: the monster’s nail beds were covered with countless fingernails, each different in shape. One nail had been decorated with a manicure: on the blood-stained nail surface was a little star, and a dulled rhinestone was stuck on it.
That description imdiately made both Everly and Misha think of their missing, spirited upperclassman, Barbara.
After Misha started her part-ti job, she had treated Barbara to pizza. Barbara was a lively girl, and around that ti, she had just finished a manicure with the money she had earned. In the U.S., manicures are expensive, so everyone had gathered around, curious and envious, to admire Barbara’s custom nail art.
There was a very high probability that the nail Orff described ca from Barbara. And from this, the composition of the flesh monster could be inferred: it was a product ford from the corpses and lingering resentnt of the murdered girls.
As for when and why such a monster appeared, that still required further investigation. But guessing who it wanted to kill wasn’t difficult—
The girls who beca victims were once healthy, whole-bodied, and full of life—working part-ti jobs to support themselves, living with hope, and striving to build a bright future. Yet, in a single day, they were abducted, stripped of their dignity as human beings, bound like cargo or livestock in front of caras, t*rtured, displayed for others’ amusent, and ultimately cut into pieces and murdered with cruel precision…
How could they not feel resentnt? How could they not feel hatred?
The killers were undeniably guilty, but the viewers of the snuff livestreams were also accomplices—repulsive, vile, gutter-dwelling vermin. In the face of the victims’ hatred, no one could remain uninvolved. Every single person who fild or watched the snuff videos—one by one—had to die.
Driven by this rage, the irrational monster began attacking anyone who had seen the snuff livestream or its recordings.
…
Of course, whether this speculation about the flesh monster was true still required further verification.
Regardless, to ensure the safety of herself and Misha, Everly resolved that in this loop she would absolutely not watch any of the material Orff provided.
“If possible, I’d like to end this cycle entirely in this loop. But I’m afraid things won’t go exactly as I expect… Anyway, Orff, for now, prepare to die once more, then follow my instructions. Got it?”
Orff nodded.
Everly tossed him the car keys.
“In this loop, you don’t need to hack the new website. Just stay put, don’t do anything, sit quietly in the car, ignore Abel and Ronald, and don’t drive out of the school. Unless those guys decide to escalate things, they won’t have the guts to bring in a big truck to chase you across campus. So, theoretically, as long as you stay obediently in the car, surviving today should be easy.”
The only caveat: the monster mustn’t appear.
And this was exactly why Everly forbade Orff from hacking the website—she wanted to use it to test whether it was Evidence One or Evidence Two that triggered the monster’s attacks.
Orff took the keys, his face flushed, and hesitantly asked what he should do if he needed to use the bathroom.
Everly: “…”
Good question.
If it were up to her, Everly really wouldn’t want her clean, pristine Grand Cherokee to suffer such indignity—but today, for the sake of the investigation, she had no ti to worry about Orff…
After a painful struggle with herself, Everly handed Orff a few plastic bottles.
They exchanged a glance; everything was understood without a word.
…
After saying goodbye to her beloved Grand Cherokee, Everly and Misha split up and went into action.
Misha’s task was to monitor the city police station on Everly’s behalf.
Of the three operators outside the school, one had cognitive issues, one didn’t care about others’ business, and the only genuinely threatening one was “Nest Keeper” Charlie.
Misha needed to do two things: watch Charlie’s movents and imdiately report any suspicious behavior to Everly, and keep an eye on a police officer nad Dumpsy.
That Dumpsy was the officer who, when Orff first reported the case, dismissed the snuff video as “special effects” and drove Orff away. He was likely Charlie’s subordinate and, like Orff, had seen Barbara’s snuff video.
If Dumpsy’ eyes were to suddenly burst or his head explode at so point, that would indicate the flesh monster had appeared.
With Misha’s assignnt set, Everly drove her rented car, carrying her weapons, armor, and other gear, straight to Mark’s house.
The twenty-second loop had been Orff’s first encounter with the flesh monster, and it had happened right at Mark’s doorstep. Moreover, of the four operators, Mark was the one responsible for handling the corpses.
Everly’s instincts told her that this person might be closely connected to the monster’s appearance.
To avoid alerting Mark, Everly got out of the car while still so distance away from his house. Wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a ski bag full of weapons on her back, she slipped into the woods and found a concealed spot with a good vantage point. From there, she raised her binoculars and began observing carefully from afar.
Mark’s house was large—a two-story standalone villa. Outside the villa was a yard enclosed by iron railings, containing a lawn and doghouses, with a garage behind the house.
In the twenty-second loop, the three of them had arrived here shortly after 5 p.m. At that ti, the dogs in the yard were already dead, and the door to Mark’s house was leaking blood.
Now, however, the gate to Mark’s yard was tightly shut, and the dogs were lively and healthy—nothing seed wrong.
Everly couldn’t be certain whether Mark was just an ordinary person or soone with abilities in the mystical arts—especially with the flesh monster already appearing, it was better to err on the side of caution. So she didn’t rush in; she waited patiently in the woods, using her binoculars to watch Mark through the windows.
He was clearly at ho. Through the glass, she occasionally caught sight of an elderly Black man with graying hair moving around the rooms. The front door, which had once leaked blood, was now completely normal.
But after a while, Mark disappeared. Everly tried changing her viewing angles several tis but couldn’t see him through any of the windows.
With no other options, she returned to a position directly facing the villa’s front gate and continued to stake out from the hillside.
Since she had so ti, Everly used the opportunity to call Rebecca and Wester, two people more knowledgeable than herself in the occult, to ask if they had ever heard of any creature similar to the flesh monster.
Rebecca checked with her own circle of contacts and concluded that no one had ever seen or heard of anything like this monster.
“The vast majority of people in my group think it’s a monster created through so kind of dark magic for specific purposes,” Rebecca replied. “You know, there are countless forms of evil sorcery in this world, so it’s normal to occasionally encounter a completely new type of creature. But because the information you provided isn’t sufficient, no one can clearly say where this monster ca from or how to deal with it…”
As for Wester, he usually ignores other people’s inquiries unless it involves taking on a mission to exorcise sothing. However, perhaps because Everly had helped him during the “Lucky Relief Sculpture” incident, he didn’t imdiately hang up when she called with questions.
The man on the other end listened to Everly’s explanation with a hint of impatience, then coldly told her: for monsters that have never appeared in history, there are no precedents to follow. How to deal with them must be figured out by gathering information and devising your own thods.
“Find out its origin, understand its obsession, discover its weakness, and then destroy it. If you don’t have a sharp mind, I suggest you give up entirely and don’t get involved.”
With that, he cut the call abruptly, almost impatiently.
No reference cases, and we’re supposed to figure out how to destroy it ourselves…
Everly relayed the information she had gathered to Orff, then continued thinking as she kept her stakeout.
She stayed put until 16:58. It seed a power outage had occurred—all buildings with lights in her line of sight went dark. Not long after, a short but piercing scream ca from Mark’s house. Imdiately afterward, Everly saw red blood seeping through the crack of Mark’s front gate.
Less than ten seconds later, the dogs in Mark’s yard fell victim as well. One of them scread in agony as an invisible force wrapped around its body, tearing it apart in midair into countless pieces.
Everly opened the temporary group chat she had set up with Misha and Orff, and initiated a group voice call:
“Be careful. The flesh-and-blood monster has appeared. I’m going to enter Mark’s house to look for clues about its appearance, and I’ll report everything in real ti in this chat. Misha, keep an eye on the two people at the police station and report anything imdiately. As for Orff, every single word I say in this chat from now on, you need to rember. If the monster attacks you again, this information will help our future selves in the next loop avoid a lot of detours. Understand?”
Misha: “Got it!”
Orff: “Understood.”
And so the infiltration officially began.
The monster killed the dogs at 16:58. In the previous loop, it appeared at school at 17:19. That ant Everly had roughly twenty minutes to search for clues.
She put on her Bluetooth earpiece, kept the group voice call active, slung her gear over her back, climbed over the fence, and entered Mark’s house.
Breaking the window and climbing inside took a little ti, but not much. The interior was dark. Everly reached for the wall switch and pressed it a few tis with no response—power hadn’t been restored yet. She gave up on the lights and moved forward with her flashlight to the entrance area of the house.
Mark was lying face down, holding his phone with his arm extended forward. The back of his head had been blown open, splattering brain matter, blood, and tissue across the floor and wall.
Suppressing her nausea, Everly, wearing gloves, flipped him over.
Like all the other victims of the monster, his eyes had burst, his mouth gaped open, his tongue reduced to a mass of shredded flesh, his expression frozen in terror.
Right before dying, it seed he had been conducting so experint, wearing a slightly dirty and worn white lab coat.
Seeing the coat made Everly’s eye twitch—things looked extrely bad.
In movies, people who wear this kind of outfit are either cannon-fodder researchers or mad scientists. And whenever monsters are involved, nine tis out of ten, it’s the lab-coat-wearing type who caused the problem.
So… was this flesh-and-blood monster created by this guy?
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