James was taken aback by the question: "What?"
Sephirot thought about it but didn't offer any explanation.
Rather than exhaustively explaining the truth to someone who was confused, it was better to let them witness it firsthand.
Some people only believe the truth they see themselves.
He continued, "I've already investigated the 'old place' mentioned in Mary's letter. It's at the Lake View Hotel."
In the original story, the Lake View Hotel was located on the shore of Toluca Lake. They were currently in Rosewater Park, and the hotel was on the opposite side of the lake.
The "old place" mentioned in the letter Mary sent to James was precisely the hotel room where they stayed during their vacation here.
There was a videotape there, sealing the truth of everything inside.
Thinking of this, he looked at the task description about James in his mind and fell into contemplation.
[Main Quest: Letter from Silent Heaven] [Quest Objective: Find James's wife, Mary] [Quest Reward: 1000 points, bloodline awakening 1%]
James had already met the imaginary wife from his heart, Maria, but the system showed no reaction. This proved that Maria was not within the scope of the system's quest completion.
So what exactly was this so-called "find Mary"?
The real Mary was already dead, and she was killed by James himself.
A dead person cannot be found.
Therefore, the only remaining path was:
To let James watch that videotape containing the truth, forcing him to face his Inner Demon, to confront his own crime.
Only when he stopped escaping that nightmare he personally created would he truly find Mary in a meaningful sense.
Just then, he sensed some energy fluctuations in the space beside James.
"Be careful, there's an extremely strong resentment gathering around him."
Alessa's cool voice echoed in Sephirot's mind.
Sephirot glanced unobtrusively at the empty spot beside James and understood inwardly.
Maria choosing to meet James in Rosewater Park was itself a meticulously designed setup.
This place was where James and his wife Mary had courted and fallen in love; naturally, he held deep feelings for it.
And Maria was attempting to use this face identical to Mary's to stir up the guilt and longing for his deceased wife deep within James's heart.
According to the original plot, she would next, through a series of encounters, constantly tug at James's emotions and desires, even using death to push his passion to its peak.
After James completely broke down upon discovering the truth of his murder of his wife, she would then seize the opportunity to make him accept her existence.
Finally, James would lead her out of Silent Hill, transforming her from a fictional character into a real existence.
This process sounded pretty absurd, but Silent Hill never made sense anyway.
Sephirot's off-the-script behavior completely threw Maria's plan into chaos; she was probably furious by now.
But whatever, if she was angry, she was angry. Sephirot didn't care, as long as she didn't cause trouble or stir up problems for him.
Mainly, if Maria didn't show herself, he couldn't do anything about her either.
And indeed, as he expected, Maria watched Sephirot with a gloomy expression, but due to James being nearby and needing to maintain her own image, she didn't act out.
Sephirot led James to the lakeside.
On the water shrouded in white fog, the lake was bottomless, and a chill swept over them.
At the shore, a small boat happened to be moored, as if it had been waiting there for a long time.
The two boarded the boat. Sephirot stood at the stern, the paddle in his hands breaking the dead silence of the water surface, creating splashing sounds.
But James, sitting at the bow, behaved peculiarly:
He was arguing softly with the empty seat before him, looking agitated, occasionally making gestures of refusal toward the air.
"No..."
"Mr. Sephirot is the detective I hired..."
"Even if there are other places, I want to go to the hotel first..."
Clearly, Maria was not giving up; she had been coaxing James to leave, to explore those locations she had prepared step by step.
Sephirot ignored this, silently rowing the paddle, his mind immersed in James's mission reward.
[Mission Reward: Points 1000, bloodline awakening 1%]
Looking at the description "bloodline awakening 1%" in the mission reward, his gaze tightened slightly.
Over many years, the tasks he received only gave points as rewards, with the difference merely in quantity.
This was the first time he encountered a reward related to bloodline awakening.
The System Mall had long been scoured through by him since activation; apart from an unawakened Demonic Bloodline that could be exchanged with points, there was nothing else related to bloodline at all.
And that Demonic Bloodline had already been exchanged by him, the item vanished.
This meant that such key rewards allowing bloodline evolution could not be purchased; they could only be obtained by completing these tasks.
For Sephirot, who craved strength, this temptation was too great.
He clearly knew that this world was far more dangerous than what ordinary people saw.
Based on his observations from childhood and the fragmented words he heard from Dante, Silent Hill might just be the tip of the iceberg.
In shadows beyond human perception, those Lesser Demons had long disguised themselves as humans mingling in cities.
Perhaps in certain corners lurked unkillable masked monsters, or dream fairies that only killed in dreams...
Not to mention those Greater Demon Lords truly entrenched deep in the Demon World.
So to live freely and unrestrained like his uncle Dante in this chaotic and disordered world, absolute power was indispensable.
Right at this moment.
"NO!!!"
A roar suddenly erupted from the bow.
Sephirot looked over and saw James flushed, fists clenched tightly, veins bulging on his forehead.
Communication failed?
—--
Meanwhile, at the originally empty seat before James, a figure flickered like a signal malfunction.
Maria looked displeased; she hadn't expected that even after transforming into Mary's appearance, James would still refuse her so resolutely, and for a man!
She glared venomously at Sephirot rowing at the stern.
It was all this damn man's fault, daring to ruin her plans!
"You stole my last precious time."
Maria's form no longer flickered, rapidly stabilizing; the light around her began to warp due to her anger.
Her originally beautiful face darkened terribly: "Since it's like this, then stay here together!"
Before the words finished, above Maria's head in the void, a rusty, long metal frame plummeted down.
The frame trapped her body like torture tools, a tripod appearing and locking her head.
With a tearing sound through the air, the frame flipped upside down, rose, suspending Maria inverted in mid-air.
Her limbs hung limp, her originally fair skin began showing pus-filled sores and corpse spots, like a body long imprisoned and dead.
The originally clear lake water around also turned murky, a stagnant-water stench spreading.
The sturdy wooden boat also began rotting visibly, forming black spots; cold, piercing black water seeped into the boat from the bottom.
"Lady, with such terrible body odor, even the best man would be driven away by you."
Sephirot pretended disgust, fanning the air, "Besides, I also have the Otherworld."
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — CROSSOVER GUIDE Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers. The notes below are here to help readers unfamiliar with these universes follow along more easily.
PLACES
Lake View Hotel — A key location in Silent Hill 2, situated on the shore of Toluca Lake. It is the site of the game's climactic revelation: a videotape hidden in the hotel room James and Mary once shared contains footage that forces James to confront the truth of what he did to his wife. In the game, reaching it requires navigating most of Silent Hill's horrors; Sephirot is cutting straight to the end.