Chapter 378: Ran into an acquaintance
Lin Ye entered the passageway leading to the ship's interior. The corridor was pitch dark, its end connecting to a massive banquet hall.
The banquet hall was completely empty, containing only some already rotten food and large amounts of yellowish-green stains.
Lin Ye carefully navigated between the dining tables. The surroundings were utterly silent, and the old man had already run off to who-knows-where.
The banquet hall connected to several passageways leading to other areas, with one of them heading in the direction of the bridge.
This particular passageway wasn't dark, because the corridor walls were embedded with some bright yellow glowing spheres.
These spheres varied in size, each containing a milky white solid object inside.
'What the hell are these things now?'
Lin Ye didn't really want to get close to those glowing spheres, but every passageway leading deeper into the cruise ship was covered with these things.
Just as Lin Ye was struggling to decide which passage to take, he heard chaotic footsteps coming from the corridor connecting to the deck.
Lin Ye hid in the shadows, peeking toward the exit of that passageway. A team that looked extremely disheveled emerged from the corridor. The team consisted of three young people wearing luxurious formal attire and one gelatinous monster.
One of the young people was actually an acquaintance Lin Ye had met once before.
"Ayla? How did you end up in a place like this?"
Lin Ye's first reaction was that he was hallucinating. After all, running into an acquaintance in a place like this was just too coincidental.
"And you are?"
Ayla looked warily at this stranger who had suddenly appeared before her.
"I'm Lin Ye. I'm on a system mission, this body is borrowed... Want a fish head?"
Lin Ye took out a black fish head as a friendly gesture.
"Lin Ye? It's actually you?"
Ayla said in surprise.
"Of course it's me. I don't think you'd know any other acquaintances who'd appear in a place like this."
Lin Ye replied with complete confidence.
"...You're right about that."
Ayla thought about it and realized that was indeed true.
"Ahem, Ayla, could you introduce your friend?"
The woman standing beside Ayla, who looked pale and weak, spoke up.
"This is Mr. Lin Ye, a friend I met in the red maze. These three are my classmates—Kama, Liv, and Mond."
Ayla introduced her classmates one by one. Kama was a serious-looking little girl with silver-white hair, Mond was a tall, burly man, and Liv was that gelatinous monster.
"You all look like you're in pretty bad shape... Is this a graduation trip?"
If not for his talent ability, Lin Ye wouldn't be adventuring in a place like this.
"While visiting the museum, we accidentally triggered some dangerous relic, and then we were teleported to this place. I relied on a relic's guidance to find this abandoned cruise ship. During this process, Liv turned into this state, and Kama was severely injured. The relic told me there should be someone or something here that could help us."
Ayla very straightforwardly explained their situation.
"I can give you a hand, but this is my first time here too. This body isn't even a spiritual energy user, so the help I can provide is limited."
Lin Ye handed the fish head to Ayla, then looked at the gelatinous monster.
"She got touched by a similar gelatinous monster and turned into this."
Ayla stuffed the fish head into her mouth. They had been here for several days, and their supplies and food were completely exhausted. They were starving to death.
Lin Ye reached out and touched the surface of the gelatin. His mental energy seeped inside, and he quickly figured out the gelatin's structure.
"Mr. Lin Ye, may I ask what your profession is?"
Kama looked at Lin Ye with suspicious eyes. After hearing Ayla's explanation, she realized the two had only met once in the red maze, basically no different from strangers.
And according to Ayla's account, this Mr. Lin Ye was likely just a low-tier spiritual energy user. She didn't doubt he had malicious intentions, but could a low-tier spiritual energy user really handle this situation?
"Before becoming a Survivor, I was a doctor. After becoming a Survivor, I've worked many jobs—miner, driver, law enforcement officer, fishing enthusiast... Don't worry, no matter which profession, I'm at a professional level."
Liv's condition wasn't too troublesome for now. She was just wrapped in the gelatin, being assimilated by it. Compared to being turned into a Salted Fish, this was less serious.
Lin Ye used collapse runes to slowly dissolve the parts where Liv was in contact with the gelatin. After absorbing spiritual energy for a while, he could now slowly use various runes.
Under Lin Ye's control, the gelatin's collapse spread outward, quickly affecting the gelatin's overall structure. The gelatin collapsed into a pool of pitch-black liquid, revealing a little girl with yellow hair inside that puddle.
"Liv! Are you okay?!"
Ayla picked up Liv, carefully checking her physical condition.
"Wahh... Thank you... I thought I'd never change back..."
Liv burst into tears. Inside the gelatin, she could feel her body gradually merging with it. That feeling was truly terrifying.
Both Kama and Mond looked at Lin Ye in shock. They hadn't expected him to solve Liv's problem so easily.
"I told you I'm a professional. Don't resist, let me take a look."
Lin Ye placed his hand on Kama. His mental energy entered Kama's body, and after half a minute, he fully understood her condition.
"Wow, yours is much more serious than hers. Internal organ deformity and Alienation, strange Aberration invasion, massive parasites... With all this, you can still speak normally?"
Lin Ye couldn't help but feel a sense of kinship—this kid is like me. He was also very good at enduring pain, even able to treat his own ingrown toenail without changing expression.
"What? That serious?!"
The others were all shocked. They had no idea the girl who led them here was already on the verge of collapse.
Kama said nothing. She had pushed herself this far purely through willpower.
"Can you cure her?"
Ayla asked urgently.
"Of course. I am a doctor, after all. I've handled situations more troublesome than this. Back then, I was an old hunter."
Lin Ye began using various runes to address the problems inside Kama's body. Kama was a third-tier spiritual energy user, so Lin Ye only needed to inscribe runes to use the spiritual energy within her body to deal with those issues.
Cut, Alienation, synthesis, Molding, splicing, collapse, parasitism...
Lin Ye skillfully used various runes, cleaning up the problems inside Kama's body bit by bit. Finally, only one active Aberration hiding in Kama's stomach remained unaddressed.
"Hmm, a bit troublesome... Swallow this."
Lin Ye took out a fish tail from his pocket and inscribed an incomplete protection rune on it.
Kama swallowed the fish tail. When it entered her stomach, Lin Ye completed the protection rune. A layer of spiritual energy shield wrapped around that active Aberration.
The active Aberrence struggled violently inside, but before it could break free, Kama vomited it onto the ground.