Stanley and I walked toward the building where the Clairvoyant had pointed to on the map. Within half an hour we’d arrived outside it.

I moved toward the entrance, a small wooden door on the side of the building... But, soon found Stanley hadn’t followed me. Instead, Stanley moved toward a portion of the wall instead of toward the door.

Glancing at him with curiosity to see what he planned to do, I watched Stanley attempt to open the wall as though it was a door and then immediately give up.

“Locked.” Stanley said, while looking at the wall with frustration. Before banging into the wall with his fist.

Moving up behind him, I tried examining the section of wall that he’d approached. It seemed to just be a normal section of wall, though.

Did… Did he go crazy or something? This just a wall.

“Are you okay?” I asked Stanley with a look of confusion while glancing between him and the actual door. “You realize that’s a wall, right?”

Stanley’s expression turned to confusion, he stepped forward and knocked on the wall twice before saying, “It’s a door, isn’t it?”

“The door’s over there.” I said, gesturing over toward the door. Before walking over to trying and open the door.

The door easily swung open, leading into a medium sized room that was filled with tables and seemed to be some type of abandoned or unused bar.

Stanley apparently couldn’t see the door, but followed me inside easily enough.

Thus, we soon entered the building. The tables scattered throughout the room had layers over dust atop them. In fact, almost everything had dust atop it… save for the bar which seems to have been cleaned recently.

Regardless, this room seemed empty. If Rin is in this building, she should be elsewhere. Probably on another floor.

Heading toward the backdoor, I found a staircase heading upward and downward. Another problem immediately showed up, though, as I turned around to find that Stanley had begun talking to thin air.

Stanley was using hand gestures to exaggerate his points, I found him asking thin air where Rin was... but he was explaining her physical traits like he was talking to somebody. As should be expected of thin air, though, nobody responded.

Considering the room was entirely empty beside ourselves, I checked to confirm he wasn’t talking to me, but he said he wasn’t.

I stood there and looked at him awkwardly as he continued to chat with nothing.

…

Is… is there some type of mental ability affecting him?

“Stanley?” I said, approaching him and shaking his body in an attempted to break the ability affecting him.

However, it didn’t seem to work and Stanley merely turned toward me before asking what I wanted.

“You realize you’re talking to yourself.” I coughed and gestured around the empty room. “There’s nobody here. This room is empty.”

Stanley blinked, thought back to the door situation moments ago and looked around the room. “It seems rather full to me.”

“Well… it’s completely empty.” I said, glancing around the empty bar with suspicion. “I’m going to continue heading forward and search the building.”

If Stanley heard me, he didn’t show any inclination of it. Instead, Stanley returned back to talking to thin air while acting as though there was somebody there.

Okay… that didn’t work. God-hunter, am I going insane or is Stanley actually talking to thin air?

If it was anyone else besides Stanley, I wouldn’t be having these doubts. However, Stanley’s insane luck makes wonder if I’m the one under an illusion and he was actually talking to people.

Stanley seems to be talking to absolutely nothing. I believe your first instinct was correct, he’s probably under some sort of mental ability that's confusing his senses.

God-hunter confirmed that I wasn’t going insane and Stanley was the person having problems. While it was possible both God-hunter and myself were affected by some mental ability and Stanley was the only sane one, I preferred to believe that my ability to remain unnoticed played a role and prevented the mastermind behind this from affecting me with his ability.

I briefly told Stanley that I planned to explore the building without him, but he seemed dismissive and explained that he would follow up with clues from here.

I felt speechless at that statement.

Clues? What clues? You’re hallucinating or trapped under some type of illusion, how could you possibly find any clues?

Regardless of my speechlessness, I didn’t bother pursuing his statement. Arguing with him would be less effective than searching for Rin and, with his insane luck, Stanley might somehow discover some real information from this fake source.

Deciding to check upstairs first, I used the staircase to ascend to the second floor.

The second floor was mostly empty and unimpressive. However, I could barely hear Rin’s voice from upstairs.

Racing upstairs, I found Rin sleeping on the floor an otherwise empty room. She seemed to be sleep talking occasionally.

“Kom tevius…” She muttered in her sleep, which sounded rather cute while she muttered it… but, from my rough understanding of her language, actually meant something similar to ‘eat you’. Causing slight chills to run down my spine as I deciphered it.

Even so, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. Rin was not in any immediate danger, which was my biggest worry.

Taking off my coat, I lay it atop her sleeping form which caused her sleep talking to stop.

I didn’t see a reason to disturb her by waking her up prematurely. Instead, I pulled up a nearby chair and sat down beside her.

I briefly considered going down to inform Stanley, but dismissed that thought soon afterward.

Stanley’s more than capable of taking care of himself. If anyone seriously intended to harm him, his heaven defying luck should save him.

Meanwhile I didn’t want to leave Rin alone and vulnerable whilst she slept.

Still, it doesn’t make much sense why Rin choose to sleep out here. I wonder if that mental ability that’s affecting Stanley somehow trapped her here.

I stored the thoughts in my mind, this wasn’t the time to have such questions. I’ll try asking when she awakens.

Time passed and I sat there messing around with the system menu. It took almost a full hour for Rin to awaken from he slumber, in the meantime she mutter words in her sleep that I mostly couldn’t understand.

Rin slowly woke up and sitting upward, my cloak covering her body fell down forming a small pile on her legs.

She examined the cloak, lifting it to her face and smelling it before the cloak before looking around the room and calling out my name, “Tobias?”

“Here!” I waved to her getting her attention. I’m surprised she didn’t notice me immediately, but I suppose she did just wake up.

Rin nodded, looked around the room and frowned. She spoke harshly to me in her language, but spoke too quickly for me to make out any recognizable words.

Knowing Rin, she’s probably berating me for leaving the apartment and moving about.

Leading Rin downstairs to where Stanley had stayed, I found Stanley had helped himself to old alcohol bottles and was currently drinking in the bar alone.

Rin turned her gaze toward me in a questioning manner, and I shrugged.

“Stanley?” I interrupted his drinking.

Stanley vaguely looked in our direction and lifted up his glass. “Y-you found her! Brilliant.”

His words were slightly slurred and I could tell he wasn’t in the best state of mind, I couldn’t help but be stunned at his carelessness.

We were in potential enemy territory. Why would he get drunk at such a time?

Rin and Stanley began talking to one another. I could only make out portions of the conversation, but they seemed to be explaining the situation to each other.

Stanley stopped drinking alcohol after Rin gave him a stern glare.

Asking Stanley to translate for me, I managed to ask why exactly Rin was here.

Rin apparently was searching for the person who attacked me, but he’d left the zone recently. Thus, she tracked down one of his friends to this building to figure out where exactly he’d hidden.  

Before I continued to discuss with Rin, I realized we were no longer alone.

A man had entered the room from the stairwell. The man dressed himself as a barkeep and move to sit in the corner of the room on a dusty table, while stirring a glass filled with an alcoholic beverage.

The man seemed to just be quietly observing the scene of Rin and Stanley talking and neither of them had noticed the new addition to the room. My instincts told me that he was likely the cause of Stanley’s abnormality.

If he is the true cause of Stanley’s abnormality, then straight up walking up and talking to him or attacking him would only allow him to utilize his ability on me.

I thought about hitting him on the back of the head with a heavy object to knock him out, but quickly dismissed the idea.

Knock someone out like that is actually extremely difficult, I’d be more likely to kill him than actually succeed in knocking him out.

Running through possible options, I eventually decided that petrifying him was the best option. While petrification was more permanent than knocking him out, it can also be cured by dropping my blood on it.

Killing him is too permanent when I haven’t actually confirmed that he’s responsible for the situation and, even if he is responsible, he hadn’t done anything particularly deserving of death.

Utilizing my petrifying eyes, I watched him near instantly turn to stone. However, I found myself frowning at the sight.

The speed of petrification had increased dramatically. While that’s not exactly a bad thing, it was certainly abnormal.

Glancing toward Rin and Stanley to ask about whether Stanley's hallucinations had ended, as my eyes glanced over them, they also instantly turned to stone.

“Rin!” I shouted and moved toward Rin’s petrified stone form in a panic before looking back and forth between Stanley and Rin. Both had been petrified. I forcefully calmed myself.

Relax Tobias. It was an accident and it’s fixable. Just pour some blood on her.

Tapping on Rin’s petrified body, I winced at the thought of bleeding myself. I'd said it so simply earlier, but that didn't mean I'd enjoy the process.

This is going to hurt…

Taking out God-hunter, I make a cut in my arm to drain blood onto her. The thought of leaving Rin as a statue hurt more than the physical pain would so I’d made my decision instantly. Sadly, my body regeneration speed actually made it difficult to get a decent amount of blood out of my body.

Why didn’t my petrifying gaze deactivate? It should be single target and then have a long cooldown.

My mind wandered back to the identification warning that stated top-level Basilisk DNA had been detected and a sinking feeling began to set into my chest.

It seems like the system was right about that. Otherwise, the sudden changes to my Basilisk Inheritance make no sense.

Although, that still doesn’t make any sense. How could I suddenly acquire top-level Basilisk DNA? Any top-level monsters are rare beyond belief. To the point that there are less than ten in the whole universe.

How could I suddenly acquire top-level DNA that happens to be from a Basilisk?

That isn’t exact good news, though.

The intelligent races considered top-level monsters the greatest threat to their control over the universe in the later days of their regime, and developed many automated countermeasure to deal with them.

Sighing, I realized I now had another problem to deal with.

Without answers, I continued to drip my blood onto Rin’s petrified body. My wounds healed too quickly which stopped my blood from easily flowing onto Rin’s body and healing her.

Thus, I had to repeat the process of cutting my arm several times, until enough of my blood had dripped on her to finally counter the petrification process and Rin turned back from stone.