I Know a Little Restorative Therapy

"Huff, huff~"

A faint, rustling pant reached Xu Kai's ears. He lowered his body a little, his eyes fixed on the corner.

The first monster poked its head around the corner. In the dim light, Xu Kai could clearly see what it looked like.

Only its neck was human. Its head was like a wolf's, and its mouth stretched wide at the corners.

Xu Kai immediately hooked his left elbow around the monster's neck and thrust his right hand into its eyes. Then a powerful force pulled at his left arm, and the monster actually wrenched itself free of his elbow.

"Awooo, ah!"

After breaking free, it let out a terrible howl, part human, part wolf. When it howled, Xu Kai knew his sneak attack had succeeded.

The monster had previously been relying on instinct, creeping cautiously down the corridor without daring to make a sound. This time, having lost its eyes, it roared in pain, and the sound exceeded 55 decibels.

Sure enough, after the howl, Xu Kai watched the monster huddle in the dark corridor and slowly turn to ash.

But he didn't relax. Two monsters had been following him and Kana. The other one had vanished.

Xu Kai had recovered too little Weird Energy to sense the monster's presence.

His Weird Energy was still stitching his wounds together. Although he felt that a long time had passed, it had actually been less than forty-five minutes since he left the cafeteria.

With all the wounds he had, it was only thanks to the quality of his Weird Energy that they had barely scabbed over.

Unable to tell where the monster was, Xu Kai didn't even need to look behind him. After dying in battle so many times, he had learned all too well where it was best to ambush someone from.

The monster had to be right above him!

The moment the thought occurred to him, his body moved with it. Xu Kai hurried forward, intending to dodge the monster's pounce.

But he moved too much. His foot landed on a burnt-out twig with a "crack."

At that moment, Xu Kai thought, I'm done for.

[Making a sound exceeding 55 decibels violates the rules. Punishment: eradication]

A flash of white light passed, and Xu Kai turned to ash.

On his ninety-fourth Save-Load, Xu Kai woke just in time to see the first monster turn to ash.

He took a light step forward, then felt a rush of wind behind him and hurriedly turned around. As soon as he steadied himself, he saw the monster's claws sweep across his throat.

Pfft!

Xu Kai's throat was easily slashed open. He could tell this monster was twice as fast and strong as the first one.

He then felt himself gradually lose consciousness. At the same time, the monster also turned to ash for violating the rules.

On his ninety-fifth Save-Load, he returned to the same point as before.

Xu Kai reacted without thinking. He stepped forward, then immediately bent down and turned around, trying to hook his arm around the monster's neck. The monster jumped straight back, and Xu Kai felt a gust of wind against his face. The monster had actually leaped onto the ceiling, gripping its blackened cracks.

By the faint light from a moment ago, Xu Kai's black-and-white vision finally allowed him to make out why the monster was so agile. Its transformation had gone too far: just like Kana when he first saw her, it had fleshy wings on its back!

The monster seemed intelligent. Hanging upside down from the ceiling, it stared intently at Xu Kai. It must have seen the first monster die and feared Xu Kai would attack its eyes, so it remained locked in a standoff with him.

Xu Kai had no time to waste in a standoff with the monster. Staring up at it, he slowly backed toward the information desk, then heard Kana's voice:

"Found it. I found it, but..."

Kana's speech seemed to have broken down. She stared at the information desk and said nothing more.

The monster remained motionless on the ceiling. Xu Kai finally made his way slowly to the information desk and saw what was there.

The entire desk had also been burned black, but the rules, written in pale white in the middle of it, had not been erased by the ash.

Xu Kai looked at the rules:

1. Nurses must check the corridors on this floor for abnormalities half an hour after each meal. The inspection lasts thirty minutes, and nurses are not permitted to enter rooms. If an abnormality is encountered, nurses must still complete the entire route and report to the head nurse when the inspection is over.

2. Nurses must deliver medicine once a day to patients designated by a doctor. Medicine is stored on the seventh floor and must be collected according to the doctor's prescription. The prescription must not be disclosed to the patient.

3. Cognitive Abnormality may be treated with medicine relinquished by patients or by accepting treatment from a doctor. It must not be concealed.

The three rules quietly confirmed Xu Kai's earlier guesses.

But when Xu Kai looked at the third rule, his eyes fixed on the word "doctor."

He had seen doctors in the cafeteria. Their cognition was not much more normal than the patients', and some doctors even crawled. Why was accepting treatment from a doctor one of the options when doctors clearly couldn't even treat themselves?

Xu Kai set that question aside for the time being. Now he knew the medicine was on the seventh floor. Once he got it, he could temporarily suppress his Cognitive Abnormality.

"How could this be? How is this possible..."

When Kana saw the rules, she clutched her head in pain.

She had almost recalled some details. They were memories of her going to the ward to get medicine.

She had first peeked at the doctor's password, then bypassed the alarm and used the operating system to take the patient's pills. The first half of the memory was normal, but in the second half, she had also seen a medical report on the doctor's desk. Although she couldn't remember what it said, her whole body was filled with fear.

The fear seemed contagious. She was trembling now just as she had back then.

Kana stayed at the information desk, engulfed by the fear in her memories. Xu Kai didn't stand on ceremony. He pulled her away from the desk and into the staff lounge.

Then he bent his index finger slightly and flicked Kana right on the forehead, bringing her straight to her senses.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Could you stop hitting me on the head?"

Kana came to and squatted on the floor, clutching her head.

Instead of answering her immediately, Xu Kai closed the broken door and said to her:

"Do you still remember the way? That overhead map at the information desk was completely burned up."

"When you hit me like that, I can't even remember what I could before!"

Kana held her head, her two cat ears folded down, and glared at Xu Kai with wide, round eyes. Although the staff lounge had a window, the whole room was very dark. Xu Kai felt Kana's gaze turn tangible. He rubbed his nose, looked toward the door, and said:

"I saw you weren't moving and was afraid something had gotten to you. So, do you still remember the way to the pharmacy? There's something wrong with my cognition right now. Everywhere I look has been burned, and I can't see the overhead map of this floor at all."

"Tss~ Well, thanks for your concern! Luckily you didn't bash my brains in. Follow me. Oh, right, is that thing still at the door? Then let's use the other door. I know the way."

Xu Kai had diverted Kana's attention. At the mention of the matter at hand, she turned serious. This time, she led Xu Kai forward, through the staff lounge and into another corridor.

When she stepped into the corridor, she waved a hand in front of her face in surprise.

"What's wrong, Nurse Kana? Why did you stop?"

"It's gone. The hell I saw before has disappeared. It's a normal corridor now..."

Hearing Nurse Kana mutter to herself, Xu Kai also looked outside. As far as he could see, everything was still pitch-black and covered in scorch marks.

It seemed only Nurse Kana had recovered.

"That's good. Lead the way. I haven't recovered yet."

"It would be even better if someone hadn't hit me on the head."

Kana rolled her eyes, reached out, took Xu Kai's hand, and headed forward.

She had no time to care about the difference between men and women. Desperately trying to remember the hospital map, she led Xu Kai along the corridors, turning this way and that. Sometimes she even had to enter a nurse's password to open a locked passage.

What Xu Kai saw was even stranger. Countless prone patients were packed into glass boxes, their red eyes fixed on Xu Kai and Kana. Paying them no mind, Kana led Xu Kai onward, pushing a glass box aside with one hand and smashing through a wall with a punch, then pulling him through the wall into another corridor.

Xu Kai was completely stunned. If he had abandoned Kana earlier, how many times would he have had to die to get here?

"Look, the pharmacy is just ahead. This pharmacy is very... complicated."

Kana knew there was something wrong with Xu Kai's cognition and that he couldn't see what the pharmacy looked like. She did her best to describe it, but she was at a loss for words.

Pointing toward the pharmacy, Kana turned to Xu Kai and asked in confusion:

"Go on in. My task doesn't allow me to enter. Huh? Why are you lying on the floor?"