The thing Everly had been worried about did not happen.
Carrying a body bag and gasoline, she moved quickly and successfully made it to the rental car. At the sa ti, good news ca from Misha’s side.
“Everly, I’ve successfully gotten the cara and the laptop. I’m heading back to my car now.”
“Got it. I’ll send you a navigation route shortly, just follow it for now.”
Everly opened the map on her phone, marked out a route, and sent it to Misha.
At present, Everly and Misha were located in the northeast and southeast of Dalami City, respectively, about 30 kiloters apart in a straight line. As for Orff, he had set out from the school much earlier, heading southwest. After leaving Dalami City, he passed through another city called Johanna and was now speeding along the road between Johanna and Nakto. By rough estimate, he was over 400 kiloters away from Everly, and even farther from Misha.
The positions of the three currently ford a very irregular obtuse triangle. The destination Everly marked for Misha lay at the “incenter” of that triangle.
The incenter is the center of a triangle’s inscribed circle, the point with the smallest total distance to all three vertices. Everly’s plan was for her and Misha to first head to the incenter, then travel along the route connecting Orff to that point, moving toward him. Once Orff reached Nakto City, bought the equipnt he needed, and had the ans to protect himself, he would turn around and drive toward the incenter to et up with the other two.
However, this route also had its drawbacks: traveling from Orff’s direction to the incenter required passing through Johanna City, and the sections covered by the city would greatly slow down progress. Still, Everly wasn’t exactly a math genius, and the other two were even worse at it than she was. Under ti pressure, this was the best plan she could co up with.
“Orff, give us a status update—how are things on your end?”
Everly drove as she spoke over the call.
“I’ve already reached Nakto City. I’m looking for a store where I can buy a cara… Everything around is normal for now, the monster hasn’t appeared yet.”
“Understood. Misha and I are both on the way. Be careful, and report imdiately if anything happens.”
“Copy that.”
For the rest of the journey, the three of them reported their status in the group chat every so often as they drove.
Everly and Misha weren’t far from the “incenter.” After arriving there one after the other, they began following the new route Everly had marked, heading toward Orff’s direction.
By this ti, Orff had already bought three 128GB Air 6 phones from a roadside Air experience store. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to buy more—his credit card was maxed out, and he simply didn’t have enough money.
“I’ve unlocked all the devices and placed them on the passenger seat. If the monster appears, I’ll be able to start recording imdiately. I’m about to turn the car around and head back along the marked route.”
“Got it.”
“Understood.”
At 18:13, Orff’s terrified voice suddenly rang out in the voice chat:
“It’s here! I see it—it’s rushing toward at high speed!”
“Don’t panic. Take out your phone—you know what to do!”
“Understood. To have more devices available for recording, I’m going to disconnect from the voice chat.”
“Take care!”
“Don’t you dare die!”
Orff quickly left the voice channel. At the sa ti, driven by a powerful sense of urgency, Everly and Misha also stopped talking. Without a word, they both sped up, racing through streets and alleys, pushing their cars to the limit along the narrow, poorly maintained roads of Johanna City.
Faster—faster—just a little faster…
Orff only had three phones and one laptop. To keep the recording going and hold the monster in place, he wouldn’t have the focus to drive anymore. The rest of the journey had to be completed by Everly and Misha. The sooner they arrived, the greater his chances of survival.
Everly desperately wanted the information about the Fountain of Youth, very desperately.
She believed that in the previous loops, those versions of herself who had died or failed all carried the sa feeling: a fierce longing for news of the Fountain of Youth.
After losing Mother Lamia and Buddy one after another, the only important family she had left in this world was Old John. He was already 76 years old—truly not young anymore. Everly could hardly bear to imagine what he would look like in the future, weakened by age.
She had to save Orff. She had to obtain the information about the Fountain of Youth!
She spun the steering wheel and drove straight off a set of steps that cars weren’t even ant to cross. The rental car leapt into the air in an arc, its front wheels slamming heavily onto the ground. The whole vehicle jolted violently, letting out an ominous creak—but Everly seed not to hear it at all. She kept driving recklessly, charging forward, speeding through every path she could—or couldn’t—take.
Faster. Faster. Even faster…
The car shot across a patch of grass, drove along a muddy dirt road for a stretch, and finally reached a state highway leading out of Johanna City. Sparse population had its advantages—the roads between cities were often wide and empty.
Everly floored the accelerator, pressing onward with anxious urgency…
Yes, of course—she knew the male protagonist wouldn’t die so easily. Even if Orff failed this ti, in the next loop, with the groundwork laid by this one, he would most likely succeed.
But by then, the one who obtained the Fountain of Youth’s information would be another version of herself in a parallel world—not her, the one here and now.
Since it would belong to her sooner or later, why shouldn’t she be the one to get it now?
She didn’t want to beco a stepping stone for another version of herself like she had in the previous three cycles. Because every version of her, in every world, was unique—and each one had a beloved grandfather of her own.
So, faster… just a little faster…
Her anxiety made ti drag, making every minute feel much longer than usual.
Everly drove chanically along the empty highway. Every ti she saw a vehicle appear at the far end of the road, she held her breath, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. But each ti she got closer, all she felt was disappointnt.
Not Orff. Not him… not…
After countless disappointnts, finally, at 18:48, she spotted it: a Grand Cherokee parked by the roadside, hazard lights flashing.
She had finally arrived!
Everly pulled over, and just as she opened her car door, she heard Orff’s panicked shout from the other side of the road:
“Everly! Finally! My phone’s about to die—hurry, hurry, give your phone!”
“I’m here!”
On her way over, Everly had kept her own phone charging; its battery was now very healthy.
She jumped out of the car, ignoring everything else, and ran straight to Orff. She switched her phone to recording mode and shoved it into his flustered hands.
The Grand Cherokee had USB charging ports—but only two, each rated at 0.5A—so charging was slower than a normal port. Orff had four phones, aning two would always be left unpowered. On top of that, the newly acquired phones weren’t fully charged. For the short term, it would suffice, but over ti, so phones would inevitably run out of battery.
As for Everly’s laptop, clearing its mory was painfully slow, and it wasn’t convenient to use—Orff had long since set it aside.
“Finally… we’ve got the connection back…”
Orff took the phone, fiddling with it for a mont. His anxious expression eased slightly, but his tightly furrowed brows betrayed that he was far from relaxed.
“How’s it going? Can you handle it?”
“It’s fine. The equipnt is enough for now, though the battery drains a bit fast… Everly, you should go do your part. I hope the body you brought will be useful.” Orff forced a smile toward her, trying to appear strong.
Everly nodded.
She wasn’t on the monster’s hunting list; she couldn’t see it, so she couldn’t help much with filming. Her best contribution was to focus on eliminating the monster as quickly as possible to support Orff.
Everly crossed the road back to the rental car, and while no one was around, she carried the body bag and gasoline over to the Jeep.
According to Bokor, the next step was to “let the snake enter the hole”—that is, to get the monster into the corpse.
It was an abstract idea. Everly had initially assud that simply bringing the corpse close would automatically attract the monster, like in movies, where it would return to its own body on its own. But Orff had told her that the flesh-and-blood monster remained fixed in place by the video, unmoving.
Did she have to manually “press” the corpse into the monster?
Everly froze as she scanned Orff’s thin, stick-like arms and legs. Her movents stopped abruptly.
No… that wasn’t right. The thing that could destroy the monster wasn’t just assembling a corpse!
There was sothing she had been overlooking all along: Orff was the protagonist of a ti-loop movie. In the final loop of the film, he had relied on his own strength to successfully escape his death.
If the so-called “entering the hole” ant forcing the monster into the corpse, Everly couldn’t even begin to imagine how many loops Orff would have to go through—finding Mark’s secret lab, discovering Mark’s journal, accurately interpreting Bokor’s verse and grasping its deeper aning, then, entirely on his own, moving the corpse to the monster, pressing it onto the creature, and finally burning it alive…
A hellishly difficult task like that was far beyond what Orff—a lanky, slightly goofy otaku—could manage alone.
By contrast, the cara in Misha’s hands had a much higher chance of success.
Without spending too much ti, Everly could imagine a conclusion that fit the logic of a horror film while also satisfying the requirents of the poem—
For example, in one loop, unlucky Orff could be captured by the “Butcher” or soone else and tied to a chair in the basent of the forest ranger’s cabin. Perhaps, to get more material, the “Butcher” didn’t imdiately kill him, but instead turned on the cara, intending to film Orff’s tornt.
Then 17:09 arrived, and the monster appeared.
The “Butcher” might have been outside the cara’s view, or perhaps frightened by the monster and running out of fra. In any case, because he didn’t understand the monster’s attack chanism, he was killed.
When the monster tried to attack Orff, the cara captured it—the very cara that had recorded countless girls being tortured, the original “source” of all the evil and hatred. It was the one thing the monster feared most.
Captured by its “birthplace,” the monster entered the “hole,” while Orff seized the opportunity to break free, sprinted out of the basent, and set the place ablaze. By sheer accident, this completed the final step, sending the monster “back into the burning bowels of the earth”…
In short, Everly was ninety percent certain that the key to ending everything was the cara in Misha’s hands!
————————————————————————————
Author’s Note:
Additional plot summary:
In the subsequent loops, Orff finally realized that several people and a monster all wanted him dead. By repeatedly replaying events, he gradually discovered that the monster feared being fild and prioritized attacking the closest target. Moreover, the people who wanted to kill him were themselves on the monster’s kill list.
After countless deaths, Orff managed to “kill by proxy”: he tricked a few of the operators into being in the monster’s imdiate vicinity, where they were killed. Eventually, he was accidentally caught by Abel, who, furious at seeing all his companions dead, tied Orff up in the basent of the forest ranger’s cabin, intending to brutally t*rture him on cara.
But at that exact mont, the monster arrived. Abel escaped out of the cara’s fra and was killed by the monster. As the monster moved to attack Orff, it was inadvertently captured by the original cara. Orff then dragged the battered corpse and set the forest ranger’s cabin on fire…
Yes, this guy never discovered Mark’s secret underground lab from start to finish. Killing the monster was entirely accidental. But even so, the movie’s ending still felt tragically heroic and fit the standard of a proper horror movie conclusion.
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