"I didn't know that! Damn it! How dare that kid skip school?"
"Please calm down, sir..."
"After I return I will criticize my son."
"If so, could you give me Joe's phone number? We are quite worried about Joe's condition."
"Are you actually a teacher? I want to see the homeroom teacher."
When Joe's father heard that Colin wanted Joe's phone number, he became wary, and the voice on the other end of the line was also full of skepticism.
After that, Colin had to go through the principal's assurance and prove that he had no nefarious intentions to get this phone number.
I thought everything was fine here, but when Colin tried calling Joe, there was no response from Joe's side.
"No, the other side didn't pick up the phone."
Colin shook his head, deciding to give up after making ten consecutive phone calls.
"Do you think Joe's side has no signal, or..."
"Any situation is possible, but I think we always have to put ourselves in the worst case scenario."
Colin spoke in a deep voice. He had assumed that Joe had been killed, because the odds of another coincidence happening were too unbelievable.
It's not a coincidence, it must be natural.
However, Colin did not intend to ignore Joe just like that. Because even if this person was killed by a monster, this person must have left behind some clues.
Colin asked for Joe's home address from the principal, then the whole team took a taxi there.
Looking at the house right in front of them, except for Matthew, the remaining four people all had heavy looks on their bodies.
"Hey, you guys should take the lead and watch first, Orson and I will be outside to respond."
"Otherwise, if something bad happens, there won't be a rescuer..."
Paul tried to make his voice sound as calm as possible, but his eyes were completely deceiving.
He is afraid.
However, Matthew does not care.
"Hey hey hey, stop right there!"
"Except for Colin, none of us have the right to refuse to go in there. Anyway, we haven't been able to contribute anything since the beginning, and Colin has been investigating from beginning to end."
"I... I just considered the situation that could happen and had no intention of avoiding it."
Paul countered.
"It's okay to leave two people behind to rescue. Colin and I will stay, and the three of you should go inside and take a look."
Matthew laughed, making Paul angry but did not dare to argue back. Because this request of Matthew was no different from his previous request.
If Paul were to refute it, would it be any different from indirectly refuting his own opinion?
"Okay, no need for rescue, all five of us go in together."
"After all, many people have an advantage over few people."
Colin spoke, ending the meaningless argument.
He walked to the front door of the house, intending to raise his hand and knock. But at that moment, Colin saw a strange sign on the door.
"This place has been broken into."
The four people behind were all surprised. Except for Matthew, Kane, Orson and Paul all showed signs of panic, quickly moving away from the door.
"Maybe I'm too suspicious, maybe a thief broke in or something..."
Colin said, at the same time preparing the Attack Mark on his hand.
He approached the door, carefully pressing his ear to listen to the sounds inside. Seeing that nothing was coming out, Colin gently pushed the door open.
The lock had been tampered with, so he could have done it without any trouble getting in.
The house is very quiet. So much so that the sound of a pin dropping became clear.
Five people formed a line, looking around carefully and slowly. Although the atmosphere was scary, nothing dangerous happened.
"The first floor is clean. Now we will go to the second floor."
Colin spoke quietly.
Each footstep stretched up the stairs. The structure of the second floor of the house is much simpler, with only two curved corridors and rooms built along the corridor.
The five of them found Joe's room. This time, Matthew volunteered to open the door.
Inside the room, only terror remained.
A corpse sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. The head of the body had completely disappeared, leaving only a cut on the neck along with blood. The wall behind the corpse was stained red.
It seems that whatever caused this incident killed the victim with a single cut.
Seeing this disgusting scene, all five of them felt a chill go straight to their bones, Paul even ran to the bathroom to vomit his entire lunch.
Colin tried to suppress the feeling of vomiting, he bowed his head, approached the body and picked up the phone from the body's arm.
"Dude, what are you doing?"
"Look for clues."
Colin answered briefly, he did not want to stay here another second.
Suddenly, the headless corpse moved, its arms were jerking, then the whole body stood up from the bed and rushed towards the group.
Three different screams rang out. Colin was too surprised to react, only Matthew raised his foot and kicked the headless body aside.
"Quick! Use the Mark to destroy it!"
Colin reacted promptly, hastily using the prepared Mark to place it on the headless body. And he saw that it was "screaming", even though this body had no part to make sound.
When the Mark of Attack became gloomy, the screaming also stopped. Regardless of whatever was residing inside, it must have been destroyed by the supernatural power of the Mark.
Colin recovers the Mark of Attack.
"This is… a monster?"
Paul asked tremblingly.
"It seems so. The energy from the Mark reacts with monsters."
Colin was still shocked.
He could predict that Joe was dead, but he could not predict that Joe's corpse would transform into a monster.
Another thing that surprised Colin was Matthew's reaction speed. He doesn't seem to be afraid at all, easily counterattacking monsters with surprising reflexes.
"What are you hiding, Matthew?"
Colin wondered in his mind, but this was quickly ignored by him. Now is not the time for issues like this.
All five people quickly ran away from the house and returned to the rented room. Only then did Colin's heart, which was beating extremely strongly, gradually calm down.
"I want to go home…"
Some people held their heads and groaned, others quietly huddled in a corner. After all, they are still just a group of young people who just entered college, and their mentality is not much stronger than normal people.
Colin sat in one place, resting his chin on his hands, thinking.
He's not a person good at comforting others, so he can only think. Think about how to come back alive.
"Guys, we are currently in a very unfavorable situation."
"The monster's safe period is over, and it has started killing people."
"Now I will present the findings I have made from this phone."
Colin spoke calmly, his tone made the rest of the team less depressed, and had more hope for survival.
"First, two days ago a group of four friends including Joe, Billy, Tommy, Frank did some kind of horror game. And they were haunted."
"Everyone knows everything after that, all four of them quit school. This seems to be the monster's safe period, until today."
"Joe has been killed, the culprit seems to be Billy. Or more accurately, a Billy who has been transformed into a monster."
"Wait, how can you be sure about that?"
Everyone found it hard to believe, wasn't Billy one of the four victims?
"Here is the proof."
Colin held up the phone. It already has the notes section opened.
There weren't many words in it, but everyone could see that Joe seemed very afraid of Billy and wanted Billy to stay away from him.
"According to previous research, Billy and Joe are two very close friends. There is no reason why Joe could be afraid of Billy for no reason."
"Unless Billy is no longer Billy, but a monster."
"And there's one more proof."
Colin pulled up the call log.
"This morning, there were two phone calls from Billy to Joe. Just now, we found Joe's body in his own house."
"I don't think this is a coincidence."
Mentioning the headless corpse, everyone felt their necks become cold.
"So… what do we do now?"
"Very difficult to say."
Colin thought for a moment, then gave the appropriate answer.
"We now have two options."
"Follow the other two, or go to Billy's house."
"If the remaining two people, Frank and Tommy, aren't dead yet, then the possibility of Billy coming and taking their lives is very high."
"Just wait for the monster to come, we can ambush it and work together to destroy it, completing the test."
"The other option, go to Billy's house. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to it."
"What do you guys think?"