“Warning, assimilation level increased, current assimilation level: 2%,” the system suddenly prompted, giving Chen a start.
Holy crap!
What did I do?
Chen was completely baffled.
“Assimilation level” sounded like a super crappy setting.
He suddenly thought of something: would this assimilation not count as death, thereby bypassing the trigger conditions for the Resurrection Armor?
I don’t want that to happen!
“System, what happens when the assimilation level reaches 100%?”
“Nothing happens; you will enter Level 826: xxxx.”
“What the hell, it’s actually garbled text?” Chen thought to himself, feeling that things were looking bad.
Level 826—in his world, Chen had heard of The Backrooms law that the higher the number, the more dead zones there were.
This, to a certain extent, reflected the shift in the mentality of The Backrooms creators and the gradual transformation of the meaning behind The Backrooms’ style.
This wouldn’t be a dead zone, would it?
Or a dead zone that can bypass the Resurrection Armor?
It shouldn’t be that difficult, right?
Chen didn’t dare to gamble.
He hadn’t done anything, yet his assimilation level had increased.
He guessed that perhaps the longer one stayed in the Field Hospital, the easier it was to be assimilated.
This is bad; I need to slip away quickly.
Turning back to check the entrance, Chen found that there was nothing there.
The originally pitch-black door was now tightly shut, with a large padlock hanging on it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, are we doing an escape room now?”
While Chen was checking all around for any gaps that would allow him to noclip out, the system prompt sounded again.
“Assimilation level increased, currently: 3%.”
No way, that fast?
This is a disaster.
“Go deeper inside; there’s no exit outside,” the system prompted.
“Shut up, I’m busy barbecuing.” Chen thought for a moment and decided to follow the system’s prompt, heading deeper into the Hospital.
There were many abandoned treatment rooms along the way, with many medical kits lying on the Hospital beds.
Out of some psychological urge, Chen took two with him.
Then he discovered that these things could actually be put into his system inventory.
So, adhering to the logic that one takes up space and a hundred take up space anyway, he grabbed every medical kit he saw.
Along the way, he had collected several dozen abandoned medical kits.
Under a bed in an operating room, Chen picked up a note.
It was stained with blood, but he could vaguely make out a few characters: “(pretending there is a lot of content written inside).”
“Wait, I don’t recognize these characters?”
“…”
Chen was surprised; this was a thing?
The note looked like a page torn from a notebook.
After the system translated it, Chen saw part of the content written on it:
“I am an innocent person, why have I been exiled here…”
“Huh?”
Is this a prison setting?
Or is the Field Hospital a recycling bin?
I don’t get it.
Having searched almost every room on the first floor, Chen still hadn’t found any place that looked like an exit, though many ghosts would appear and run around from time to time.
Chen keenly noticed that the movement patterns of the ghosts seemed to have some regularity.
After being bumped into by the same ghost for the third time, Chen finally realized that this ghost seemed to be leading the way.
Chen slowly followed the ghost’s footsteps and discovered that it disappeared by passing directly through a wall.
“…”
After thinking about it, Chen tried touching this ordinary blue-and-white wall and discovered that it was actually hollow.
Chen’s hand passed right through.
Holy crap!
So it was here!
Chen rammed into it and passed straight through the wall.
He arrived at a dim and narrow Stairwell.
The Stairwell was full of severed limbs and hands, as well as the heads of some animals.
The entire Stairwell was filled with the mixed smell of blood and disinfectant.
Ugh, so disgusting.
Chen gave a disgusted “ugh,” and when he looked back, he found that the wall he had used to enter had returned to a solid state.
He had no doubt that if he rammed into it again, he would pass out instantly.
Although the damn system had previously said that fainting in Level 14 would teleport him to a less dangerous level, Chen still didn’t quite believe it.
A few low hissing sounds from some kind of animal came from the Stairwell.
Are there Entities?
Chen remained silent and quietly crept into a narrow little hole under the stairs.
Could there be Bloodhounds here too?
Before long, a few leashed hounds ran down, sniffing around.
Chen was as quiet as a mouse.
He chanted inwardly: I am a Rat, I am a Rat, big brother, don’t look here.
Then, one of the hounds, sniffing as it went, arrived near Chen’s hiding spot.
“No, don’t do this, even a Rat will bite if pushed into a corner.”
Chen had just listened carefully and heard at least four or five hounds’ footsteps.
The footsteps of the Entity leading them were extremely heavy; just from the sound, Chen knew it was no pushover.
This won’t work; he definitely wouldn’t gain any advantage if a fight broke out.
Chen’s pistol and submachine gun were fine against the hounds, but for that Entity that sounded super strong, Chen would bet they wouldn’t be effective at all.
If he used them, Chen would instantly transform into the Jade-Faced Grenade King.
The compression cube was a single-target weapon, and its use was slightly cumbersome; it was basically useless in a group fight.
The same went for the master ball.
Most importantly, once a fight started, Chen didn’t know what kind of things the noise would attract.
“How about you use the Resurrection Armor here and just restart?” the system said eerily.
“Wow, do you know the phrase ‘cherish one’s life while doing great things’? You’re really an idiot.”
“Then why did you dare to use a grenade to blow up others in Level 7 before?”
“That was because my hands were itchy. Now my hands are very dry, not itchy at all.”
The system was speechless.
Chen held his breath, thinking about how to respond if the hounds attacked later.
Fortunately, perhaps because the smell here was too pungent, the hounds snorted twice and actually didn’t discover Chen, who was just one step away from them.
After pretending to look around for a bit, the hounds walked back.
Chen saw out of the corner of his eye that the rope tied to the hounds’ necks was super long.
“Current assimilation level: 8%.”
The moment the system finished prompting, Chen felt his bones seem to crackle.
“No way, I’m only 18, and I already have osteoporosis?”
“Wow, I feel like with this body of yours, you’ll just pass away in less than ten years. Do you dare to accept that?” the system mocked.
Although that was what it said, Chen guessed that this should have something to do with that assimilation level.
It’s only eight percent; can it actually cause me substantial harm?
Chen stopped joking around.
As the footsteps slowly faded away, Chen remained still.
Just kidding, there was definitely some sly dog going to double back.
Sure enough, about two minutes later, Chen heard the hounds’ footsteps again.
Heh, trying to play the ‘double back’ trick?
Too bad I’m even better at camping.
The hounds searched again, but still found nothing.
Chen felt like a statue, sitting there with his arms hugging his legs, motionless.
Well-behaved.jpg.
The hounds’ footsteps faded, and Chen waited another five minutes.
This time, there was no movement at all.
After confirming it was safe multiple times, Chen slowly crawled out, and then, with a crack, his back gave out.
“My poor back…”
Ignoring the system’s merciless mockery, Chen stretched his body a bit and began to move forward slowly and quietly.
Splat!
Chen seemed to have stepped on something.
Looking down, he discovered that the hound from just a moment ago had actually taken a big dump.
Chen’s rage meter shot straight up to 150.
The system chimed in appropriately:
“Warning, warning!”