Actually, ever since Ethan saw his younger sister, Riyana, he had a bad feeling that the people in this strange world, or rather, the NPCs, or perhaps the monsters.
Had the ability to respawn after a certain amount of time.
In other words, after you killed them, they would probably come back to life within a short period of time.
But after coming back to life, they seemed to have changed in some ways. For example, they might not remember what had happened before, or perhaps the things they forgot only covered a certain period of time.
In games, this was called a rollback gap.
It was similar to a game server restarting. But because saving wasn't done in real time, there was a gap between when the game was saved and when the server shut down. If a player or NPC did anything during that period, those actions couldn't be recorded, so after the restart, the memories from that short period would be lost.
But there were two problems now. First, Ethan didn't know how long the rollback gap was.
If Ethan's guess was correct…
The younger sister who had eaten lunch with him earlier had already died after drinking the poisoned soup, and then been thrown into the rooftop water tank by Mom.
But after his younger sister was reset, she no longer remembered what had happened after she came home from school at noon.
However, his younger sister could still remember that Mom had changed and had even become terrifying, so Ethan assumed that the rollback period was probably somewhere between half a day and a day.
Second, the creepy Mom had fallen from the rooftop and died while attacking Ethan.
But it had taken Ethan only the time needed to go downstairs, and Mom had already been reset. Although she didn't remember that Ethan had actually come home and eaten lunch, nor did she remember that her daughter had already been killed, Ethan could still assume that the monster's respawn time was probably within five minutes.
Because when he looked down from the rooftop, Mom the monster had definitely fallen hard enough to be completely dead, and that had happened within a minute.
But the time it took him to go downstairs and look for the key had definitely been less than five minutes, yet Mom's body was already gone.
In other words… this monster would respawn within five minutes. But whether it took two minutes, three minutes, or four minutes, Ethan had no way to determine.
Unless... he killed her again, then stood nearby with a stopwatch and timed it.
But killing this monster wasn't easy either. After the battle on the rooftop, Ethan could already confirm that this monster had extremely strong attack power. Not only could she transform, but she was also incredibly fast and attacked from tricky angles.
And this monster could also use weapons, such as fruit knives and kitchen knives.
Finally… this monster could also poison people and use nursery rhymes to launch mental attacks.
She could even respawn infinitely.
"Fuck, what the hell is this monster!", After counting everything up, Ethan directly started cursing, "This is already a super-BOSS-level monster, okay? It can launch both physical and mental attacks, and the worst part is that it can respawn!"
"How the hell is anyone supposed to survive this!"
Ethan was practically desperate.
But forget it, for now, he could only take things one step at a time.
"Come in quickly. Time to drink the soup."
A strange smile appeared at the corner of Mom's mouth as she beckoned the siblings inside.
Ethan had no choice but to enter. After all, he had already noticed that Mom seemed to be holding something reflective behind her back.
The reflection was also visible on the security door, and Ethan could see it clearly from this angle.
If he wasn't mistaken… it was probably a knife.
"Yeah, Sis, let's go."
Without another word, Ethan moved behind his younger sister and pushed her forward by the shoulders.
He pretended that the siblings were close and just fooling around.
But in reality… he was pushing his younger sister forward as a shield.
Anyway… his younger sister had already died once.
Ethan couldn't die now. If the others were reset, they might get another chance, but he probably wouldn't get another chance.
All he had to do was look at the original owner who had left behind the diary to know that.
And there was one more thing… the countdown on his arm was probably also a warning.
Once the time ran out, Ethan would probably get a Game Over too.
"Brother, you bastard!"
Riyana struggled, but when she found that she couldn't break free from Ethan's grip, she could only curse at him.
Ethan naturally ignored her and simply kept pushing her forward.
"We'll sleep together tonight."
Ethan quietly said this beside her ear, and Riyana immediately gave up struggling.
Perhaps compared to how terrifying nighttime was, Riyana would rather face Mom during the day.
The two passed by their smiling mom.
Ethan broke out in a cold sweat, but fortunately, nothing happened.
At the dining table in the dining room, there were indeed two dishes and a soup, just like before: a plate of red-braised spare ribs, a plate of large intestine stir-fried with pickled mustard greens, and a bowl of seaweed soup.
But what surprised Ethan was that there seemed to be much less seaweed this time, with only a few sparse strands.
They could barely cover the round mushrooms in the seaweed soup that looked like eyeballs.
He had no idea where these mushrooms had been found.
Each one looked nothing like an ordinary mushroom. They were damn scary.
"Come and have a bowl of soup. Otherwise, it won't taste good once it gets cold."
Mom served each of them a bowl of soup.
Ethan used the same trick as before. When Mom turned around to get something, he poured the soup back.
His younger sister originally wanted to do the same, but Ethan stopped her with a look.
Sure enough, the very next second, Mom had already turned back and asked his younger sister with a smile, "Riyana, how much do you want to eat?"