"Whew, that was close!"

Lin Yu looked at the charred monster on the ground wearing a security uniform with tentacles for limbs and sighed with relief.

Since he had felt uneasy intuition and was already prepared, Lin Yu naturally wouldn't fall for the ambush.

After a fierce struggle that ended with him defeating this monster, Lin Yu also received admiring looks from Max.

"Holy crap, bro, you're so cool!"

"No wonder you managed to take down that doctor. Turns out you're not just good at deduction and behind-the-scenes planning—your actual combat skills are impressive too."

Max rubbed her hands together as she spoke: "Looks like I'll be clinging tightly to your coattails in this dungeon, bro!"

Hearing Max's words, Lin Yu modestly waved his hand.

"It's only because the monsters in this dungeon aren't that strong."

After all, based on the currently known information, this dungeon's mechanics were already quite special: whether it was the cycles or memory erasure, both were complex and difficult challenges to overcome.

If, under these circumstances, the monsters inside were also so strong that players like them couldn't handle them at all...

Then this dungeon shouldn't have only 'Robin' as the sole 'Third-Tier' player.

Hearing Lin Yu's modesty, Max also laughed: "Ah, whatever you say, but if it were me, I definitely couldn't win... especially since this thing ambushed us. I might not have reacted in time and lost my fighting ability immediately!"

Listening to Max's words, Lin Yu shook his head.

"Even so, you wouldn't be that pathetic."

"You're probably right," encouraged by Lin Yu's reassurance, Max became optimistic again and spoke with confidence, "If we really fought... maybe I could hold out for a few moves!"

Hearing Max's tone, Lin Yu felt even more helpless.

"With such a confident tone, at least say you could win!"

"How could I? My self-awareness is pretty clear," Max waved her hand, "Right now, I don't have many items that can be used for direct combat."

Hearing this, Lin Yu thought it was just modesty.

After all, the security uniform monster wasn't that strong.

He could handle it just with the [Fear Torch].

If Stiller were still here, he could probably one-shot it.

Thinking of this, Lin Yu felt somewhat melancholy.

"I really don't know where Stiller and Hannah went... did we get separated before the last 'Rewind'?"

"Although I can confirm they're probably still alive, I hope they weren't captured by some dungeon boss waiting for me to rescue them... but if the notebook didn't mention it, it should be fine, right?"

Lin Yu had no clues, so he could only remain optimistic.

"Maybe it's because summoned creatures aren't affected by 'Rewind'... that's why they didn't appear—after all, other consumed [items] didn't recover either, and the notebook specifically mentioned this."

Lin Yu exhaled.

Just as he sorted out his thoughts, footsteps suddenly came from upstairs.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

Max instantly tensed up.

"What's coming down?!"

She quickly threw different dolls up the stairs, then assumed a fighting stance—it looked like a Wing Chun opening stance, but not very standard.

But even if it were standard, it probably wouldn't be much use...

"The monsters in this dungeon are either giant doctors two stories tall or things covered in tentacles. Are you planning to have a bare-handed close combat fight with them?"

Lin Yu couldn't help but ask.

Max chuckled: "No, I'm just posing. Maybe it'll intimidate someone!"

"Besides, I've got you here."

As they joked, a head peeked out from around the staircase corner.

A somewhat fluffy, even messy-haired ordinary girl with dark circles under her eyes looking slightly haggard poked her head out. Seeing Lin Yu and Max, her face showed a relieved expression.

Then, Robin spoke: "Whew... you're players, right? From your looks, you should be players, right?"

She asked timidly, not expecting Max below to immediately stand at attention.

"Whoa," Max said excitedly, "Brother May, we can just coast now!"

"This is one of the top experts in our 'Night Watchmen,' Teacher Robin," as she spoke, Max waved her hand, "Hello, Teacher Robin! I'm Max from the 'Night Watchmen,' and this is 'May May' from 'Order'!"

"We're both First-Tier players—I'm a 'Thief' and he's a 'Doctor'!"

Accompanied by Max's excited introduction, Robin quickly came downstairs, somewhat shyly tugging at her clothes as she spoke: "Hello, hello... I didn't expect to meet other 'Night Watchmen' in this dungeon..."

"Yeah," Max said optimistically, "Two 'Night Watchmen' and one 'Order'—at least we players don't need to scheme against each other!"

"Let's work together to conquer this dungeon!"

As Max spoke, Lin Yu chimed in: "Indeed, based on the current dungeon difficulty and our team composition... this dungeon shouldn't be too hard for us to clear."

Noticing the bloodstains on Robin's clothes, he asked: "Teacher Robin, you must have dealt with quite a few monsters to get down here, right?"

After all, since entering the stairwell, although they'd dealt with one monster, Lin Yu could still hear many monster movements from above—until just before Robin appeared, when all those monsters suddenly went quiet.

Connecting the timeline, Lin Yu could easily deduce that Robin must have cleared out the monsters.

Robin seemed somewhat embarrassed: "Because they looked noisy and scary, so I killed them all..."

"Because the environment here itself gives me some unpleasant associations, so I... ah, sorry, I'm oversharing, and this isn't really a place for chatting."

Robin said, then clapped her hands.

"Alright, anyway, before I came down to this floor, I investigated a bit. We're currently on the thirty-seventh island of the Misty Sea Archipelago. The clear condition mentioning leaving the 'island' probably refers to this," Robin looked down at the ground, speaking in a continuous stream of muttering, "Then from things I found on some doctors, I temporarily deduced that the first step to leave this 'asylum' building—meaning leaving the island—requires obtaining an item that's probably something like 'Director's Permission.' The director's office is likely on the first floor..."

Listening to Robin's long speech that sounded like an elementary student reciting a lesson, Lin Yu immediately realized something.

First, there was indeed a mechanism similar to "cycles" existing in this dungeon—it wasn't him using some deceptive method to perform "Rewind" again but without retaining memories.

Second...

Robin must have also transmitted some information from the previous cycle to herself through some means.