Chapter 174: Mining Disaster (1)
Everly, Misha, and a third companion spent two days playing in the Winton people’s village. At the villagers’ enthusiastic invitation, they even experienced a real-life escape room game—without any actual props.
It really was just as outsiders had praised it: extremely fun and worth replaying many times.
On the third day, Everly and Misha said goodbye to the villagers and, though reluctant to leave, set off on their journey and flew back to university.
College students are the most frequently portrayed group of victims in American horror films. Perhaps because of this, after entering university, Everly clearly felt that horror-movie-like incidents were occurring around her much more often.
Indeed, just over a single summer break, at least eight college students within Misha’s circle of friends alone had gone missing or died for various reasons. Expanding the scope to the entire university, the number was likely even higher.
The only somewhat comforting news was that Orff had made it back to school alive.
Last semester, Everly had assigned him the task of investigating the Barnes and Blade families. After returning to school, Orff spent an entire semester scratching his head in front of his computer, finding nothing at all—this was hardly surprising. After all, those events dated back to the 1940s and 1950s, when computers might not even have existed. Many records were paper-based or passed down orally, so searching online alone was unlikely to yield results.
So, in order not to disappoint Everly and also to impress Misha, Orff made a special trip to Dalifer State during the summer break to investigate the Barnes family.
After the semester began, the three met once at Misha’s pizza shop. A slightly nervous Orff reported his current findings to Everly.