006, who had once been cornered and beaten by over a hundred miners in a narrow alley, harbored an instinctive hatred for this kind of terrain.
He urged Bella to get them out of there as quickly as possible.
Bella also felt the current environment was unsuitable for combat, so she stepped on the accelerator and drove straight out.
They'd gone less than ten meters when a humanoid creature shambled out from the shadows.
Taller than an adult. No facial features. No arms. No skin. Its entire body seemed wrapped in dozens of layers of plastic film—like cling wrap pulled tight over something vaguely human-shaped.
The monster barely resembled a person anymore. No matter how one looked at it, this thing clearly wasn't coming out to welcome them.
Despite having no visible mouth or eyes, it seemed to lock onto the pickup and charged toward them with a limp.
Why was it charging? Who knew.
If it were an ordinary teenage girl, she'd already be screaming hysterically.
Bella remained completely calm and spoke in an even tone. "Let me see your marksmanship."
When it came to ghosts and monsters, 006 was useless. But marksmanship? He'd trained for over twenty years.
He was still confused, though. "Just shoot it like this? No magic spells or anything?"
Bella looked utterly composed. "Brother, trust in science. This is the age of science. Just shoot it. Whenever you see something that defies logic, shooting it is definitely not wrong."
I think YOU violate my worldview, 006 muttered inwardly.
Naturally, he didn't dare say it out loud.
Having undergone MI6's rigorous training, his age might be catching up to him, but his fundamentals were still solid.
His shooting was excellent. But after sticking his arm out the car window, he hesitated.
Against such a bizarre monster, where exactly was he supposed to aim?
Not wanting to ask Bella again and look ignorant, he raised his M1911 and repeatedly fired at the area where the monster's head should have been.
The bullets seemed to strike some kind of fluid-filled sac. Their penetration was astonishing, blasting out large sprays of dark green pus.
A strange wailing sound came from somewhere in the creature's abdominal cavity—like an infant, or perhaps a wild animal.
Bella had no intention of studying it further. Killing it was enough.
The pickup burst out of the alley, and Silent Hill's Fog World gradually revealed itself before the three of them.
"That's Rose's car!"
006 suddenly exclaimed, pointing excitedly at a Jeep parked by the roadside.
They got out and circled it once.
The door was open. Interior empty. Faint traces of blood on the driver's seat and steering wheel. Several graffiti-like oil paintings scattered messily across the back seat.
They looked off into the distance.
Dense fog filled their vision. The town's buildings were indistinct. Staring directly into the center of the fog gave the unsettling impression of a giant vortex, involuntarily drawing one's gaze inward.
The sky seemed to be snowing. Specks of dust drifted down from time to time. When they landed on skin, there was a faint burning sensation. Brushing them away revealed rough, pitch-black granules of ash.
"Rose! Where are you! Rose!—Sharon!—"
006 cupped his hands and shouted at the top of his lungs.
It was even worse than in the Real World. Sound traveled an even shorter distance here. Some rule was clearly restricting sound propagation.
Bella waved toward the pickup.
Shaw immediately understood and handed over a pink megaphone shaped like a cartoon character. Heather had left it in the car during a fencing club match a few days earlier.
"How loud can you be just shouting? Here, use this."
006 took the megaphone in a daze.
Calling it a children's toy wasn't inaccurate, but it was hardly something meant for serious occasions.
To save his wife and daughter, he was willing to endure any humiliation. What did a megaphone matter, as long as it worked?
He switched it on and began to shout. "Sharon!—Rose!—"
The sound carried a little farther now. Not by much—perhaps within a radius of thirty to fifty meters. Bella also listened carefully to the surroundings. As long as someone responded, they could rush over and save them.
Unfortunately, after a long wait, the only sound in the air was 006's own voice.
No one answered.
"Don't lose heart. Let's head into town and keep searching."
Bella admired 006's wife quite a bit. A woman with no combat ability, running back and forth through a place as dangerous as Silent Hill, ultimately willing to sacrifice herself just to send her daughter out—her recklessness was staggering, but her maternal love was genuine.
Bella used the megaphone's recording function to capture what 006 had shouted, then set it to loop from the car.
Accompanied by repeated cries of "Sharon, where are you—! Rose—! Sharon—!", the silver-gray pickup slowly drove deeper into the town.
Like a street vendor hawking wares.
When he was shouting himself, he hadn't noticed it. But now, sitting inside the car and listening to his own voice echoing on loop outside, 006 felt an indescribable sense of embarrassment.
It wasn't that Bella's method was wrong. It was just that the tense atmosphere had been completely ruined.
Bella didn't care about atmosphere.
With a shotgun resting by her feet, she continuously scanned the surroundings, trying to find clues in the environment.
She knew about the church. Remembered that part of the plot. But the purpose of this trip was to rescue Rose and Sharon, not wage a holy war with a rocket launcher. Once the mother and daughter were rescued, the church would become optional.
"The road on the left!"
"Send me home."
A human and a ghost pointed in the same direction at the same time.
Reality proved that when it came to tracking clues, a professionally trained agent was indeed better than Bella the "armchair detective."
Following the signs, the pickup arrived in front of a dilapidated school.
Bella looked at Shaw. "Can you take us inside?"
The female ghost shook her head. "Send me home."
"So you can't..." Bella nodded. "This place even suppresses a ghost's ability to phase through reality. Fine. Shaw, guard the outside. Mr. Alec, we'll go in and look for them."
Bella slung the famous M79 grenade launcher over her back and gripped an M4 carbine in her hands. A Beretta 92F was tucked into the back of her waistband. Wearing a U.S. military tactical vest with her hair tied in a ponytail, she kicked the door open in a standard combat stance, pressed the stock to her shoulder, switched on the flashlight, and rushed into the campus together with the equally heavily armed 006.
This didn't look like exploring a supernatural phenomenon at all.
It looked like a counterterrorism operation.
006 felt a deep sense of absurdity. But honestly, he wasn't nervous anymore.
Any enemy that could be dealt with using firearms wasn't an enemy in his eyes.
"I've always felt you people should be a bit more... mysterious," he muttered at Bella.
Bella rolled her eyes and said nothing.
Why use magic when I have guns? Am I stupid?