Volume 7 - CH 125.3

The ten Missiontakers have finally met each other.

That said, before coming into this scene, Mystic, A-One and A-Two still haven’t regained their memories.

Though it wouldn’t exactly affect Mystic’s mental state, it seems; A-One and A-Two are capable enough analysing scenes with or without memories.

Before the ten have met back up, Mu Jiashi met up with the rest of his team of five through a Nightmare which Fei and Wu Jian also experienced themselves.

The first Nightmare the two of them worked together in, as part of the organisation.

The organisation explores Nightmares with the principle of safety first – only working out details and minutiae of Nightmares after they have figured out how to resolve a Nightmare completely.

At the same time, they also avoid restarting too many times in the same Nightmare, or starting that Nightmare too frequently.

Of course, how ever much safety measures they take, there is always an inherent risk to exploration.

In fact, it is during this very first assignment together that Fei and Wu Jian ended up in deep trouble.

Wu Jian appears quite embarrassed, telling the others that they once messed up here.

Mu Jiashi asks, curious, “messed up? You made the Nightmare crumble badly?”

“No, not just that,” Fei shakes her head and says frankly, “we got a Bad End.”

“Even after you learnt the backstory to the Nightmare and how to achieve a Normal End?” Mu Jiashi says, shocked, “is it something like the Nightmare with the Raining Hellfire with some difficult binary choice?”

“Kinda,” replies Wu Jian, vaguely.

Fei gives him a glare and says mercilessly, “it’s all this guy’s fault!”

Wu Jian shrinks somewhat, not denying that.

Mu Jiashi appears hesitant.

“I’ll explain,” says Wu Jian, “actually… the backstory, is that this is a mental institute.”

The very specific location makes Mu Jiashi raise his brow. He’s interested now.

He did note this to possibly be a hospital, but a mental institute of all things?

A mental institute, when madness has spread through the whole of humanity. It must be madness inside.

He can imagine it going overcapacity immediately, and descend into full chaos.

People would have had hope that they could handle the madness at first, until they end up steering far clear of this terrifying location.

Wu Jian once read a book in the Nightmare with the Raining Hellfire that was more a chronology of human society post-madness, which had an offhanded remark indicating that it was ‘madmen treating madmen.’

Perhaps that is the reality here.

Fei sighs and says, “we didn’t know that the Nightmare… These Nightmares, took place after the madness had humanity reeling.

So we had a backstory, but we didn’t account for the specialists inside the institute… also being mad.

Having overlooked that point, we trusted that doctor when we should not have, and… indirectly caused the deaths of many patients within.”

Fei also looks deeply regretful and down when explaining.

Cast blame on Wu Jian all she wants, but she also blames herself. What Wu Jian said impaired her judgement, but she is also responsible for ultimately deciding the doctor is trustworthy.

Then Wu Jian tries to cheer her up a little, and comments with a sad smile, “I didn’t think I’d meet this Nightmare again, either.”

He looks up at this building, and looks to be stranded on memory lane, telling the others, “this place should have been packed to the brim, though. I suppose it’s Missiontaker who has succumbed.”

Mu Jiashi furrows his brows and says, “so what actually happened?”

Fei says, “now that I can look at this Nightmare anew, I think I know exactly what happened; we didn’t understand before, but what took place here, was likely… an investigation into everything people discussed about treating the madness, and the… attempts.”

“Attempts?” Mu Jiashi repeats that word with a slightly sour expression, “it doesn’t sound like a good thing at all.”

“It wasn’t…” Fei quietly says, “the mad people were the lab rats, being subjected to all kinds of strange treatments. We… didn’t even question the ethics of it all back then.”

Wu Jian chimes in, “I suspect we trusted the doctor so wholeheartedly because NE influenced our minds!”

Fei then continues, “the Nightmare’s owner was one of the victims who went through some of the… rather inhumane treatments, including craniotomy.

Some people said that, because the madness stemmed from the mind, so they studied the brain as closely as they could.”

“But?”

“But, it was useless,” Fei says, “so many people went through the pain, the suffering, and even so, they… voluntarily gave up their brain to be studied, but they couldn’t find anything.”

Mu Jiashi looks put off, asking, “voluntarily?”

Given Mu Jiashi’s rather cold personality, it’s understandable he would question the motives of people who just give up their bodies for science…

It’s true the madness is threatening the entire world, but he cannot comprehend people with messiah complexes.

Fei seems hesitant to agree, and merely says, “it’s difficult to say whether they’ve gone mad or not. It looks like it’s almost honourable to them when they are laid down on the operating table.”

Mu Jiashi looks mortally horrified. It takes a long time for him to say, “I could almost be convinced the madness was a good thing. It’s… convinced many to sacrifice themselves to advance scientific knowledge, but…” he goes back on his words, “maybe it wasn’t a good thing, I think.”

It’s like the age-old comparison between whether one would rather have chocolate that tastes like shit or shit that tastes like chocolate.

Wu Jian nods in agreement, and says, “that’s why we believed the doctor! It’s because everyone else in this institute suggested absurdities that it made the doctor look normal, at least… seemingly.”

By this point, A-One and A-Two also understands what’s happened in this scene. So A-One asks, curious, “but what you just said seemed to be that this doctor wasn’t a good person either? What did he propose to treat the madness instead?”

Fei looks quite distraught at the question.

Wu Jian says, with a face that says ‘just kill me right now,’ “brain transplantation… He wanted to try transplanting the patients’ brains.”

A-One’s mouth is twitching, asking, “and you actually thought that was more convincing?”

“No, actually…” Wu Jian explains, sighing, “we didn’t know he was going to do that. He only looked to be deeply alarmed and angry at the others performing craniotomy. He said they were completely mad to pursue such a fruitless line of research, and asked us to save the poor patients…

That’s why we thought he would be helpful, and even might be a key character leading to a True End. So we made an attempt, however…”

“However, that craniotomy was ‘useless’ was because, after the bone was removed, the brains were left where they were, so it was a waste of time?” Mu Jiashi’s face looks like he just swallowed a lemon whole, and he says, “that’s…”

“So basically, the doctor fooled us both,” Fei says, “we believed in him, and really intervened and ‘saved’ all those volunteers who were waiting to have their brains studied closely and physically.

Then they were moved to the doctor’s operating room instead to have their brains transplanted. We don’t know how the operation went, because we already got a Bad End as soon as that happened.

I suppose the operation would fail in the end.”

Fei sighs again.