Chapter 18: The Pigman's Guillotine

Nora was shocked. She thought Janet would be careful with her escape plan. She hadn't expected her to blow a hole in the basement. This one needed to be more professional in her technique. Janet's loud noise startled the people outside. The main door was kicked open, and Pigman stood in the doorway with an axe. "I've finally found you." The Pigman came barreling towards them with his axe. Nora's scalp tingled. She hadn't been mentally contaminated before because she hadn't had much contact with the contaminant. Now, Nora looked at the Pigman and was starting to get delirious. Before she could escape, Janet took out an assault rifle from her backpack. Bang, bang, bang. Dozens of bullets hit the Pigman, and one of his newly grown heads was smashed again. Janet was more equipped this time; it was nothing like the last time. She knew that once she found out where the Pollutant was, she had to kill it as fast as possible. When the contaminants realized they were exposed, they'd go into the manic mode, and they'd do their best to kill the humans just like the fishermen had done before. More and more monsters in the hallway ran towards the room. "Jump down," Janet said. "What?" Nora yelled, "Do you want me to jump from here?" She pointed to the big hole that Janet had blown up. Below it was the disgusting owner of the fondue restaurant. "If you don't want to go down, I must kick you." Janet needed more patience, and time was running out. Janet started another round of sweeps, and she looked surprisingly unphased. Nora was going to trust Janet for once. After all, Janet was the only one who was as human as she was in this horrible place. Nora pulled a piece of white plastic sheeting and hung it over the opening, climbing down on her hands and knees. Nora couldn't breathe as the soles of her feet touched the ground. It was too close, and the owner of the fondue restaurant was now lying next to her. The flesh on the owner's body seemed to be crawling. They were growing fast. Obviously, only a ceiling separated these two rooms, but Nora felt as if she had entered another world when she entered the basement. The flow of time and even the air felt different here. The air here seemed sticky. The air wasn't transparent. If normal air was like a stream of clear water, the air now was like a bowl of white rice porridge. Even though Nora wore a helmet, she was already having trouble breathing. Mirrors surrounded the basement. It was made of many irregular pieces of mirrors stitched together. The mirrors reflected countless Nora and countless shopkeepers. Nora looked at the mirrors, which seemed to be slowly fusing herself with the Hot Pot Shopkeeper. It's repetitive mental pollution! Breathe, Nora, calm down, breathe. She had looked up the information before she came here. As long as she killed the source of the contamination, the contaminated area would naturally disintegrate. This hot pot store owner was the source of contamination. He was now lying senseless on his bed, and even his employees were able to cut the flesh off of him, so it shouldn't be that hard to kill him. Nora took a deep breath, then picked up her gun. Two instruments were next to the hospital bed with small letters written densely on them. Nora could read the detectors. The numbers on the instruments didn't fluctuate in the slightest. So this was a dead man. The boss was already dead! Wait, was the contaminant dead or alive? Nora felt her mental value was dropping rapidly. Her mind wasn't even prominent anymore, and she could only act on instinct. The only thought that filled her mind was to kill the boss. Kill the boss. Kill the boss. Kill the boss. Suddenly, Nora felt a black hand slap on her left shoulder. Her hand with the gun shook uncontrollably. "Nora?" It was Janet's voice. Nora said fearfully, "Are the contaminants dead?" "For now," Janet said. That contaminant wouldn't die entirely if the contaminant didn't die. They would still recover. But compared to last time, it would take a little longer for the Pigman to recover. Janet could feel Nora's mental state starting to deteriorate, and the helmet's internal message indicated that the contaminant concentration was already as high as 113 at this time. Such a high figure proved that the contamination source was right before them. "What were you going to do?" Janet asked. "I'm going to kill him," Nora said. She slowly lowered her gun, "I don't think I can. I feel like I'm going to hallucinate soon. I should give you the gun first." Janet took her gun. She scanned the basement and saw the mirrors as well. Those mirrors looked so attractive that one couldn't help but keep staring at them. Nora breathed louder and louder, "It's so weird in here. That life detector shows the contaminant is dead." She was speaking with great uncertainty because she could still hear the boss's flesh moving and growing. The boss's fat meat was growing too fast. Soon, it spilled out of the bed and fell to the floor. The fat meat was like vines that would soon fill the room. Janet frowned. Janet looked into the mirror, and her and Nora's bodies were so distorted that they seemed to have become part of the basement decorations. Amid the countless superimposed figures, Janet saw a black dot. It was a very, very small black dot, but against the thousands of mirror shards, it was magnified simultaneously. Thud. Her heart suddenly contracted. She saw the death preview again. [Beginner's talent Danger Forewarning triggered: 30 seconds advance danger forewarning has been sent. It was a trap! Nora only felt Janet freeze. Nora just wanted to check what happened to Janet. Janet suddenly yanked Nora and lunged towards the other side. Nora was leggy and almost tripped. Her face hit the ground, and the helmet protected her. Nora suddenly felt a cool breeze. It was a guillotine! A three-meter-long guillotine blade suddenly appeared inside the room, and the blade flew against Nora's back, almost cutting into Nora's head. Nora couldn't react at all. Janet pressed against Nora's back, positioning herself higher than Nora's position. The guillotine cut her right shoulder, and blood ran down her arm. Janet began to get dizzy. Her protective suit broke. She must stop the contaminating spores from parasitizing! For a few short seconds, that was all Nora could think about. Janet might be turning into a contaminant. Nora's only companion was about to be infected. Reacting quickly, Janet pulled a sticker from her backpack and attached it to her torn protective suit. Cleaner's Workbook #9: Please stop the mission when your suit is torn. If you can't stop it, please patch it immediately to ensure the suit is sealed. Jane didn't know if any contaminating spores had taken the opportunity to parasitize himself, but he couldn't care less now. The sharp guillotine was dangling from a chain, still rattling around the room. Janet and Nora would have been dead by now if they had been standing just now. At this point, Janet pushed Nora out of the way and rolled on the ground to avoid the second attack of the guillotine. Janet took the opportunity to look at the guillotine hanging upside down from the ceiling, but she couldn't find the exact location. Contaminated areas couldn't have things that didn't make sense, meaning that a guillotine existed here before it became a contaminated area, only now it was exaggerated. Why would there be a guillotine? Who was the owner of the hotpot restaurant supposed to kill? "The source of the contamination wasn't the owner," Janet said as she covered her injured right shoulder with a shot of healing solid agent, "the source of the contamination was Jack." "What?" Nora slumped to the floor and pressed as far as she could. She was having trouble understanding Janet's words. Wasn't Jack the victim? Why was he the source of the pollution? Nora felt like she was about to hallucinate. After Janet said Jack, the mirror in front of her suddenly began to distort, and the edges of the broken lens began to bleed. A pig's face emerged from the mirror. It was a more significant and uglier pig's head. At that moment, the sharp guillotine blade came for the third time.