Chapter 4085: Chapter 3194: The Detective Will Die (8)

Madeline's manuscript chronicled her investigation process.

In her records, she arrived at the village on the 18th, and, thanks to her status as former clergy, was allowed to stay in the village's Church, where the villagers welcomed her warmly.

Here, she wrote, "…This is a very peaceful small village, the villagers are a bit vigilant, but I can understand them. After I introduced myself, they were quite enthusiastic…"

Regarding the village, that's all she described, then the rest is mainly about the description of the Wandering, that monster.

Madeline emphasized that this was not her first encounter with the Wandering; the last time was when she was nine, which was also the last recorded appearance of the Wandering.

Like the detective's corpse had provided, Madeline mentioned that 30 years ago, there was a heavy snowfall. She and her family were spending Christmas in their holiday villa, but it was during that very night when the dreadful Wandering appeared, and her family fell victim to its malice, leaving only her and her youngest sister alive.

Since then, she has been pursuing this monster, but there never was a particular pattern to the strange occurrences, nor did the Wandering always come with each snowy weather, so she was always at a loss.

However, this did not mean she had no successful outcome in her research; on the contrary, after becoming an official member of the clergy, she used the Church's resources to identify several characteristics of these strange entities.

First of all, not all the monsters among the strange phenomena could do as they pleased; they were subject to certain restrictions.

This was good news for Shiller, of course. If they were truly invincible, there would be no point in playing this game. There are no unrestricted beings in the world, not even God.

But the more Shiller read, the heavier his heart sank.

Because the second point mentioned that the monsters were not just monsters; they were sly Demons with their own cognitive abilities, possibly even smarter than the Human race. They could use their Wisdom to circumvent their restrictions and go on a rampage.

In other words, the Human race wasn't just fighting a system but another group of cunning Intelligent Creatures. As one could imagine, the difficulty was immense.

And the last and most important point was that humans could not use firearms to resolve the aberrations.

So-called firearms included not just modern weapons but also those old-fashioned muskets; simply put, firearms were ineffective and only Cold Weapons could solve the issue.

Madeline mentioned that firearms not only failed to hit the monsters, rendering the attacks ineffective, but also everyone who tried to use firearms against the monsters would be cursed and immediately plunge into madness.

Finally, Madeline added that all the monsters were intangible; they were a concept and didn't truly exist in this world.

To accomplish certain things, they had to use a host, usually Humans or animals. In places where the strange entities appeared, one could not trust anything that breathed.

Shiller continued to flip through, but the content below comprised mainly Madeline's speculations, without any real evidence, mostly about the Wandering.

Madeline also noted that the bodies affected by the Wandering moved in exceptionally strange ways: some walked on hands, some on their heads, and some wriggled on their bellies—none used their feet.

And yet these monsters would only appear in snowy weather, which led one to speculate whether the Wandering didn't want to leave footprints in the snow.

Following this line of thought from Madeline, Shiller continued to deduce.

Madeline's notes mentioned that all monsters were bodiless, capable only of possessing Humans or animals.

The greatest danger of this situation wasn't the monsters themselves being so terrible, but rather the impossibility of distinguishing who was a monster.

When an anomaly descended upon an area, your mother, child, daughter, or even your pet might already be possessed, and you wouldn't be able to tell. They could even take advantage of your affection for them, leading you astray so they could ignore the restrictions and slaughter everyone.

Thus, the so-called restrictions might also be the monsters' flaws, the aspects in which they differed from normal people.

For example, they might have special markings on their bodies that needed to be hidden to avoid detection or move in odd ways, requiring excuses to go unnoticed.

Did this mean that the Wandering's restriction was that its footprints differed from normal individuals? And that its method of overcoming this restriction was not to walk on feet?

Shiller thought about it and felt it couldn't be that simple. If it could avoid leaving distinctive footprints just by not walking on feet, how could that really be considered a restriction?

It could simply possess a person, make them commit suicide, and when others came to check the body, it could possess that person to commit suicide again. By doing this, it wouldn't have to move at all and thus would not leave any footprints.

Shiller felt there must be another restriction for this monster, which might have to do with what the Researcher had just done.

Assuming Madeline was conscious, she attracted everyone over and then committed suicide, which could be another kind of limitation.

The detective who wasn't supposed to die in the cabin, ended up there; the person who died in the kitchen, yet had the reed diary's owner; the researcher who came to investigate the Wandering and ultimately committed suicide on the second floor…

Countless clues wandered through Shiller's brain like a mathematical problem searching for a pattern; his own thinking didn't spark any inspiration, so he shared the content of his notes and his hypotheses.

This didn't count as breaking character because their purpose here was to investigate the Wandering, and discussing clues was only natural.

"The invisible monster…" Primary Universe Batman muttered, as if he was pondering.

"I think we need to clear up one issue," Bruce said, "Is the monster something that can be killed?"

"Madeline didn't mention it, but I'm pessimistic," Shiller said, "The existence of something intangible and formless means that the human race can't even observe them, let alone eliminate them."

"So, it's a kind of natural disaster," Greed said, stroking his chin, "Humans can't prevent the occurrence of natural disasters, and the most we can do is minimize the loss. Maybe it's the same when facing the monster."

"I think we can analyze the gains and losses from the perspectives of both humans and the monster," the pale knight spoke, "For humans, of course, the greatest benefit is to survive under the monster's hand; as for the monster, although I don't know their purposes yet, they seem to want to kill more humans."

"The more humans that survive, it means fewer humans are killed by the monster, and vice versa. This is a zero-sum game, an irreconcilable contradiction. Humans struggle for survival with all their might, while monsters unscrupulously kill. This is the conflict of interests between the two parties."

"Thus, any method that can reduce human losses must surely be disadvantageous to the monster, and I think the most lethal would be to find the pattern of the monster's possession."

Shiller immediately realized he was on the same page as the pale knight – the best way to mitigate the threat of this kind of invisible monster was to figure out who they had possessed.

Of course, the possessed person could likely not escape, but if it's clear who was possessed, then the others could still run.

At least in Madeline's research, there wasn't any kind of monster that could physically fly or be omni-capable; most had some methods of attack that were beyond human comprehension, but they were limited by distance. They were fast and strong, but with due caution, it wasn't impossible to escape.

In this case, as long as the characteristics of the possessed could be understood, then most people could be saved.

So, the monster's core interest must be to prevent itself from being discovered.

Therefore, a possible restriction against the monster could be to let people discover its traits.

Based on this logical deduction combined with the state of the corpses, a point at which this so-called Wandering could easily be discovered by people might potentially be the footprints.

Shiller posed a question he had previously considered, "If it doesn't use feet to walk, it won't leave footprints; in that case, it could simply use a wheelchair or not walk at all but wait in one spot and kill whoever comes."

"There must be other restrictions," the pale knight said.

Universe Batman nodded, "I think another possible restriction could be forced movement."

Shiller's interest was piqued, and he said, "How so?"

"This monster has to move after possessing someone," Universe Batman made a bold conjecture, "The detective could have been possessed, but he still carried out the invitation of the diary owner and arrived at the cabin; the diary owner might also have been possessed, but he still managed to go to the pond, caught a lot of fish, and ate them."

Hearing Universe Batman explain this, Shiller suddenly had an epiphany, "The detective's last goal before death was to find his friend in the cabin; the diary owner's last wish before death was to eat the fish he caught… Could the Wandering be required to help the possessed person fulfill their last wish?"

"I think it's probably the last action," Bruce said, "The detective's last action was to go to the cabin; the diary owner's last action was to go out fishing. After possession, the Wandering helped them complete these actions."

"I get it," Greed snapped his fingers, "The restriction against the Wandering is made up of two simultaneous restrictions."

"The Wandering leaves footprints when moving, and humans can observe who has different footprints to find out who is possessed. The Wandering must complete the last action of humans before death, which means it has to move and therefore has to leave footprints, giving humans a chance to find the possessed."

"But obviously, the Wandering isn't content with these restrictions," Shiller continued, "That's why we see the cadavers posed so strangely."

"But is it really true that no footprints will be left if it doesn't use human feet to walk?" Night Owl raised the question.

Everyone thought this was absurd; if all it took not to leave footprints was not using feet to walk, then this monster would be suitable for possessing a paraplegic and killing people in a wheelchair.

Joker snorted lightly and said, "I'm afraid it's not that simple; I guess it would definitely leave footprints as soon as it moves. But if you were a murderer, wouldn't you want to cover up your tracks to avoid exposure?"

Everyone fell into thought again, and Shiller felt Joker had a point. It's possible that the Wandering controlling the corpse to make all those elaborate poses wasn't necessarily to avoid leaving any footprints at all, but rather to obscure them.

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