James blinked, completely thrown off. "What?"
Soren thought for a second and decided against explaining.
Trying to talk sense into someone already drowning in confusion would just waste breath. Better to let him see the truth with his own eyes.
Some people only believe what they witness themselves.
He continued, "The 'old place' Mary mentioned in her letter — I've already tracked it down. It's at Lakeview Hotel."
In the original story, Lakeview Hotel sat on the shore of Toluca Lake. Right now they were in Rosewater Park, so the hotel was directly across the water.
The "old place" in Mary's letter was exactly the hotel room where the couple had stayed during their vacation years ago.
A videotape hidden there contained the entire truth.
Thinking of that, Soren glanced at the system description of James's mission and fell into thought.
[Main Quest: Letter from the Dead Wife]
[Objective: Find James's wife, Mary]
[Reward: 1000 points, 1% Bloodline Awakening]
James had already met the fantasy wife born from his own heart — Maria — yet the system showed zero reaction. That proved Maria wasn't part of the quest's completion conditions.
So what exactly did "finding Mary" mean?
The real Mary had been dead for years, killed by James's own hands.
A dead person couldn't be found.
Which left only one path—
Make James watch that videotape that held the truth. Force him to confront his inner demon and his own crime.
Only when he stopped running from the nightmare he had created would he have truly "found" Mary.
At that moment, Soren sensed a surge of energy fluctuation in the space beside James.
"Careful. An extremely strong resentment is gathering next to him."
Alessa's cool voice echoed in Soren's mind at the same time.
Soren casually glanced at the empty spot beside James and understood instantly.
Maria had chosen to appear in Rosewater Park on purpose — it was a carefully laid trap.
This was the exact place where James and his wife Mary had once shared their sweetest moments. His feelings for this location ran deep.
Maria was trying to use the face that looked exactly like Mary's to stir up the guilt and longing buried in James's heart.
According to the original plot, she would keep pulling at his emotions and desires through a series of encounters, even using "death" to push that lust to its peak.
Then, once James completely broke down after learning he had murdered his wife, she would slip in and make him accept her existence.
In the end, James would take her out of Silent Hill, turning the illusory character into a real person.
The whole process sounded ridiculous, but Silent Hill had never played by the rules.
Soren's refusal to follow the script had completely wrecked Maria's plan. She was probably furious right now.
Let her be angry. Soren didn't care, as long as she didn't cause him extra trouble.
The main issue was that Maria refused to show herself, so there was nothing he could do to her yet.
And just as he expected, Maria stood beside James with a dark expression, but because James was right there and she still needed to maintain her image, she held back.
Soren led James down to the lakeshore.
Thick white fog covered the water. The lake looked bottomless, and a chill washed over them.
A small boat was conveniently tied up at the edge, almost as if it had been waiting for them.
The two men boarded. Soren stood at the stern, paddling with steady strokes that broke the deathly silence of the water with soft splashes.
James, sitting at the bow, was acting extremely strange—
He was arguing in a low voice with the completely empty seat in front of him. His face was anxious, and every so often he made pushing gestures at thin air.
"No…"
"Mr. Soren is the detective I hired…"
"Even if there are other places, I want to check the hotel first…"
Clearly Maria wasn't giving up. She kept trying to seduce James into abandoning the current plan and following the route she had already prepared.
Soren ignored it all, silently rowing while his mind stayed focused on the mission rewards.
[Reward: 1000 points, 1% Bloodline Awakening]
He stared at the "1% Bloodline Awakening" line, eyes narrowing slightly.
In all the years of missions he had completed, the rewards had only ever been points — the only difference was the quantity.
This was the first time he had ever seen a bloodline-related reward.
He had already scoured the system shop inside and out when it first activated. The only bloodline item available was an unawakened demon bloodline that could be exchanged for points. Nothing else.
And he had already purchased that bloodline; the item was gone.
Which meant this kind of key reward that could evolve his bloodline couldn't be bought — it could only be earned by completing specific missions.
For Soren, who desperately wanted to become stronger, the temptation was enormous.
He knew very well that the world was far more dangerous than ordinary people could imagine.
From everything he had seen growing up and the fragments he had heard from Dante, Silent Hill was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
In the shadows invisible to humans, lower demons had long disguised themselves as people and blended into cities.
Who knew what else was hiding in some corner — immortal mask monsters, or dream fairies that only killed inside nightmares…
Not to mention the high-ranking demon lords that truly ruled the depths of the demon world.
If he wanted to live as freely as his uncle Dante in this chaotic world, he needed absolute power.
Right then—
"NO!!!"
A furious roar exploded from the bow.
Soren looked over and saw James's face flushed red, fists clenched so tight the veins on his forehead bulged.
Failed to persuade her?
At the same time, the empty seat in front of James began to flicker like a broken signal.
Maria's expression turned ugly. She had never expected that even after taking on Mary's exact appearance, James would still reject her so firmly — and for another man!
She shot a venomous glare at Soren, who was calmly rowing at the stern.
It was all this damn man's fault for ruining her plans!
"You stole my last precious moments."
Maria's form stopped flickering and stabilized. The light around her twisted from pure rage.
Her once-beautiful face became terrifyingly dark. "In that case… let's all stay here together!"
The moment the words left her mouth, a rusty metal frame dropped from the void above her head.
It clamped around her body like a torture device. A tripod appeared out of nowhere and locked onto her skull.
With a sharp whoosh, the frame flipped upside down and rose into the air, suspending Maria head-down in mid-air.
Her limbs hung limply. Her once-fair skin rapidly broke out in pus-filled sores and corpse spots, turning her into a body that looked like it had been imprisoned and left to rot for years.
The once-clear lake water grew murky. A foul stench of stagnant water spread.
The sturdy wooden boat began to rot and blacken at visible speed. Icy, bone-chilling black water seeped in from the bottom.
"Lady, with a stench like that, even the best man would run for the hills."
Soren fanned the air with exaggerated disgust. "Besides, I have the Otherworld too."