Li Ang removed a portion of the intestine and unexpectedly discovered that something seemed to be stuffed at the end of this intestinal segment—a bulging solid object.

He spread his legs apart, dangling above the cargo well. Through his gloves, he squeezed the item out of the withered intestine.

It was a small horse puppet made of wood and cloth. The material was crude, but it was made with care. By the look of it, it seemed to be a toy puppet for children.

"A horse puppet stuffed inside intestines? What's going on here?"

Li Ang muttered, "A fanatic horse puppet enthusiast..."

Insufficient information, unable to make a judgment, he gathered the two somewhat aged items into his inventory, silently counting the four types of abnormal organs he had collected.

Heart, intestines, lungs, limbs.

Li Ang said to himself, "Halfway there. Now all that's left are the kidneys, the skull, the torso, and the embryo."

He was just about to grab the rope and slide down when he noticed something engraved on the stone bricks of the inner cargo well wall.

"Hmm?"

Li Ang frowned and, through his gloves, gently brushed away the thick layer of dust on the bricks. A line of text, cut with a sharp object like a knife, appeared on the surface of the brick.

The inscription was rather twisted and askew, but upon close examination, it turned out to be a line of English letters:

"Croatoan."

Li Ang was Nenning this English word, his brow furrowed. He clutched the rope, descended to the cluttered room on the bottom floor, and greeted his three teammates.

At that moment, Stonemason was asking Ur Wunnian about the hallucinations. Seeing Li Ang return, he nodded at him and continued to question Ur Wunnian, "When you were attacked in the elevator shaft, did you see any hallucinations besides the flesh-covered walls?"

"Yes."

Ur Wunnian nodded. "Right after I was transported here, the first thing I saw were normal stone walls. Then, some very strange scenes began to emerge before my eyes."

A peculiar expression appeared on Ur Wunnian's face as he began to narrate.

It was a desolate and ruined colonial village. The land was cracked and charred, the crops wilted and dead. The villagers, bearing Caucasian features, wore expressions of numbness; their clothing resembled rags more than garments. Worse, many villagers had yellow-green, pus-filled bumps the size of steamed buns on their bodies. These bumps, full of pus, sloshed back and forth with the slightest movement.

Plague, famine, death.

Expressions of numb desperation covered every villager's face. They emerged from their low, humble cottages with their families, gathering in front of the village along a path leading to a dark, dense forest.

Dense fog filled the forest. A huge shadow with a human silhouette approached from afar, drew near the people, and lingered in the mist. The shadow seemed to say something. Struggle flashed across the villagers' faces. After a moment's hesitation, they silently walked into the fog, following the shadow into the woods.

A little girl, held in her mother's arms, carried a small horse puppet. She blinked her light green eyes, looking outside the forest toward the only villager who didn't follow the shadow into the trees.

It was a middle-aged man. He, too, was covered in pustules; his left eye was even obscured by an abscess growing on his eyelid. He was dressed in what could barely be considered the cleanest and neatest clothing. Judging by the style of his attire and The Bible he clutched tightly, one could ascertain he was a clergyman from the village.

The little girl and her mother vanished into the woods. The small horse puppet she was carrying accidentally fell, tumbling onto a moss-covered rock.

...

The clergyman, his gaze Youyou, watched the villagers who had abandoned him. He picked up a stone from the ground and with its sharp edge, inscribed a line of English text on a tree at the edge of the woods.

Then, the clergyman, alone and covered in pustules, hobbled into the village, clutching The Bible.

"The illusion ends here," Ur Wunnian said. "After that, I saw the elevator shaft, filled with flesh and still contracting."

Forest Cat's brow furrowed deeply.

This was another illusion. And from Ur Wunnian's description, the ruined colony existed even before William built his mansion. The time span between the two events is still unknown, and what was that huge shadow that lured the villagers into the woods...?

"Wait a second."

Stonemason's eyes suddenly lit up. He turned to Ur Wunnian and asked earnestly, "The text that the clergyman wrote, was it 'Croatoan'?"

To ensure Ur Wunnian remembered correctly, Stonemason even took out a paper cutter and etched the English letters into the wooden floor.

"Uh..." Ur Wunnian looked at the English letters, recalled for a moment. "It seems to be."

"I see."

Stonemason exhaled a long breath and stood up, his tightly knitted brow relaxing considerably. "Roanoke Island."

"Roanoke?" Forest Cat raised an eyebrow. "So that's how it is."

Both of them understood, but Ur Wunnian was still somewhat confused. "What do you mean?"

"Roanoke Island, located off the coast of North Carolina in the United States, is an island in the southern part of Albemarle Bay."

Li Ang spoke up, "This island exists on Earth in the real world. However, from what we've seen, this script mission has only borrowed the setting, rather than actually taking place in the real world."

"That's right."

Stonemason nodded, explaining to Ur Wunnian, "All the illusions we've seen are from the past history of this script mission's world. The disappearance of the colonial villagers you saw actually happened at the end of the 1580s. In 1585, John White, an English explorer, traveled to Roanoke Island on the east coast of the United States and drew a map of the island. Two years later, he returned with a group of British colonizers and established a colony. When he went back to England for supplies, war delayed his return until 1590. By the time he returned again, the colony had vanished. Over 120 British colonizers had completely disappeared—no trace of them, alive or dead. The only clue left behind was the word 'Croatoan' inscribed on a tree."

Forest Cat continued, "This historical event did indeed take place. Over the centuries, many scholars and curious individuals have studied the reasons for the colonists' disappearance on Roanoke Island. Some believe the colonists were attacked by Native American residents, while others think they moved to the mainland United States. Theories abound, but no conclusion has been reached to this day. This mass disappearance is also quite famous in the field of occult studies and has even inspired a television series. In short, we can assume for now that the event you saw is the root of all events in this script mission. We must figure out what exactly that huge shadow is."