The Demonic Magnum still had seven bullets. So, Will decided to get the dropping. He didn’t touch the corpse and it emanated smog in a minute.

The corpse vanished after a while, leaving an ear on the ground. Will took and inspected it. The drop was called the mutant rabbit’s ear. He was still shocked that the oddity was a rabbit. Eldritch oddities’ evolutions were weird, he thought as he put the item inside the ring.

After this encounter, Will became more scared to continue his investigation. One oddity already decreased his HP a lot.

“I should take a risk and accept one of the missions from those mysterious beings. I will try to negotiate. If something goes wrong, I will use my monocle again.

Will took off his monocle and clicked accept to a quest. It was from a mysterious being called Dr. Horror. His request was to find someone called Mr. Comedy in this Ruin of Blueport City.

“He is a doctor because he cures people, right? I hope nothing goes wrong.”

After a few seconds waiting, someone whispered in his mind, “Horror.”

Will jumped in fear, but he suddenly floated in the air. He was looking at his body who was standing below him. The surroundings suddenly covered in black smog.

Will turned back and saw a wooden door. The knob was clicked and the door was open. Inside the room was dark. He felt suspicious and started to ask himself if he made the right choice.

Will decided to leave. When he turned back, a woman walked out of black smog.

She had wet hair and wore a shaggy, white robe. Blood flowed down from her face as she smiled at him. Then, she kicked the air and ran toward him.

Will didn’t have a choice but run to the darkroom. He slammed the door shut and it suddenly disappeared. He heard tapping sounds from behind. He braced himself to turn back slowly.

A mysterious man was sitting on a chair with a long back. His body was covered in black smog, leaving the head that wore a faceless mask. He was tapping the round table. The same chairs were arranged around it.

The mysterious man who wore a faceless mask pointed to an empty chair. “You are the one who makes contact me and decides to enter this room.”

Will sat in the opposite direction of him. He asked cautiously, “I am sorry, but who are you, Sir?”

“People call me Dr. Horror. My honorific chant is ‘The Ruler from another world; the King of Souls; the Sole Controller of the Primordial Idiot; the Curer of Nightmares; Dr. Horror’. You have to remember to call me.”

Will nodded. “Where should I search the person called Mr. Comedy?”

“He went to this ruin to search someone called John Stuart a few centuries ago. I know he is still trapped somewhere in the ruin.”

Will’s eyes widened when he heard that name. It was his father. He was curious about the relationship between them and his father.

“If I can know, what is the relationship between you and da—that person?”

“I don’t have,” Dr. Horror replied calmly. “But, Mr. Comedy has a good relationship with him.”

Will pondered. They used code names. It meant they belonged to a mysterious organization. If the person called Mr. Comedy had a good relationship with his father, maybe he could join this organization.

“May I ask if you and Mr. Comedy are in the same organization?”

Dr. Horror nodded. “Our organization is called Genre Club.”

“Genre as in story genres?”

“We use story genres as our codename.”

Will stood and bowed. “Sir, John Stuart is my father. I am currently looking at him too. If Mr. Comedy has a good relationship with him, can I ask you to join this organization?”

“We have spots for new Questars too.”

 Dr. Horror waved his hands and a glowing text appeared on five chairs. Each represented a genre codename. Mr. Comedy; Mr. Action; Ms. Romance; Mr. Fantasy; Mr. Tragedy.

“Choose your codename,” Dr. Horror said.

Will bowed once again. “Thank you, Dr.”

Will originally wanted to choose the fantasy genre, but it had already occupied. He remembered a certain good fantasy-psychological anime he had watched in the net café.

“I will choose Mr. Psychological as my codename.”

“From now on, you are the seventh member of the Genre Club.” Dr. Horror tapped his finger several times. Suddenly, a white mask appeared in front of Will.

The right side of the mask had a circle eye socket that seemed to fit with his monocle and a smiling mouth. The left side had the eye and the mouth curled down.

“You take it. You can conjure it in the real world too.”

“The real world? Where is this?”

“This place is located inside the gap of the dream world and the spirit world. I call this place the nightmare region where evil spirits can pass by to invade people’s dreams. Time in here runs one hundred times slower than in the real life.”

Will stared at him. “Dr. Horror, can you tell me where I should search for Mr. Comedy?”

“Mr. Psychology, I want to give you one simple advice before I answer your question. You can’t look directly into a powerful Questar like that because….”

Dr. Horror shifted his faceless mask, revealing a bit of his face. His right eye was bright blue and he had fair skin. he looked like a normal human. However, Will felt his blood surged after staring directly at him. It was like the feeling of transforming into oddities.

Dr. Horror put his mask again. Will collapsed onto the table.

“Now, you understand. I don’t mind you talk casually to me, but you should be respectful toward other Questars.”

Will coughed. His breathing was rough. “I understand.”

“For your answer, your strength is too weak to investigate the ruin. You need to be at least rank 3 Questars.”

Sweat came down from his temple. “What should I do? Do you have any suggestions?”

“I can teleport you to somewhere else, but your spirit form has to search the place first.”

“Is that mean I have to go outside? Will I encounter evil spirits or go stray into someone’s dream?” Will asked.

Dr. Horror nodded. “After you are teleported, you will stay for a day in the forest and wait for reinforcements.”

Will remembered the woman figure that chased him to this room. “Can I even do that?”

“Put your mask and chant my honorific calling. While you are inside this room, I think you want to check your rank-up quests.”

When Dr. Horror tapped the table, a message entered his quest window.

Dr. Horror’s Request
Move your spirit form outside of the city. Your time limit is two hours. Failing the quest will result in your death.   Reward: One rank 1 Questar item
Accept	Decline

 

Will stared at Dr. Horror suspiciously. “Forgive my rudeness. Why will I die if I fail?”

A screen appeared above Dr. Horror. In real life, the mutant rabbit’s death had attracted many oddities. His body was surrounded from all sides by various weird oddities.

“Two minutes in the real world passes, you will be killed by them. The city is the breeding ground of strong oddities. That mutant rabbit is weaker oddities from the woods. You can go there. The woods are around one hour of Nightmare Region time from here.”

Will didn’t have time to delay things. He checked all his quests as per Dr. Horror’s suggestion. He had five quests in total. A rank-up quest from the solar tablet; a rank-up quest from the lunar tablet; two quests from Dr. Horror; a rank-up quest for his Demonic Magnum.

After remembering the details, he got up from the seat and walk to the door. As he reached the knob, he turned back to see him. “Your excellency, can you accompany—”

Before he finished his sentence, Dr. Horror clapped his hands and the room vanished. The last thing Will heard from him was, “Belief in me. Put your mask and chants my honorific calling.”

When the door vanished, Will saw the ghost woman just one meter in front of him. “Oh, no.”

The woman smiled wildly. Blood oozed out from her mouth as she ran toward him.