The Gentleman at the End
Chapter 486 - 484: Primal Fear

Chapter 486: Chapter 484: Primal Fear

The kitchen was located on the southern side of the circus and could not be reached directly.

A hidden passageway with a secret door was concealed in the corridor leading to the restaurant, which only key members of the circus could recognize and open.

When Beast Tamer Zock prepared to open the secret door, Catherine swiftly pushed him aside, "Let me do it! Let me do it!"

There was a small indentation on the large, roughly hewn stone that formed the passage wall,

Catherine first pressed her finger against it, allowing the outline of the indentation to imprint on her finger’s surface... Swipe! She sliced off the corresponding piece of finger flesh and snugly fitted it into the indentation.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The door sank, revealing a secret passage built with deep red stone bricks, which was not only clean but had also been thoroughly polished to a shine.

At the end of the passage was the entrance to the kitchen.

It was more akin to a sterile laboratory rather than a kitchen, with a complex "buffer room" at the entrance for physical disinfection and clothing change for visitors. Moreover, should an emergency occur in the kitchen, the buffer room could also act as an isolation barrier.

An employee of the kitchen stood guard by the door,

dressed in surgical attire similar to that of a doctor, wearing a surgical cap and a fully enclosed breathing mask to filter the air he exhaled, maintaining absolute cleanliness.

He also wore a black leather butcher apron over the surgical clothes, stamped with an emblem of ’hairs surrounding chunks of meat,’ signifying his unit - the "Fear Kitchen."

As Zock, such an important figure, made his purpose known, the employee courteously ushered everyone into the buffer room, isolating them in individual disinfection chambers.

William had thought it would be a tedious process and was preparing to undress when a flash of white light swept over him and the disinfection was complete. Additionally, a notification came from the opposite wall:

"Your attire is quite special, clean, and tidy, with no pathogens detected that might contaminate the kitchen. The death aura flowing within your clothes actually serves as an effective disinfectant.

Therefore, you do not need to change clothes but simply don the apron we provide here."

With the notification concluded, the side door opened.

At the exit of the buffer room, special black aprons were hung. The moment William put on the apron,

Buzz! A ringing filled his head, along with a sudden, pressing desire to cook. Although this urge was quickly suppressed by his madness brain, William was quite surprised.

"The apron has this effect? Putting it on makes one want to cook delicious food... How interesting."

As William exited the buffer room, a massive kitchen area with a deep red theme entered his view, accommodating up to twenty people cooking simultaneously.

Stoves imprinted with flame arrays,

vessels resembling the body cavities of those with dry heat illness, capable of baking and stewing,

an internal garden cultivated with various vegetables and fruits,

an ingredient processing area laden with various knives, torture devices, and even surgical table clamps,

and a garbage area with twenty-eight classified slots, equipped with crushing machines, meat grinders, acid etching solutions, and other disposal facilities.

The kitchen’s diversity far exceeded William’s expectations, but his gaze kept wandering among the various utensils as if searching for something, eventually settling on a safe embedded in the deep wall.

Even though it was heavily sealed, William could still sense a hint of the fear aura seeping through the gaps in the safe.

Unlike Catherine’s nightmare phobia or the clown Art’s fear of clusters... it was not any defined fear but a sort of undefined, primitive fear.

As William focused his observation, this fear permeated his eyeballs and spread across his retina, unfolding a dynamic video reminiscent of watching VR.

The video led William to a succession of sealed chambers, where writhing chunks of flesh were scattered and black hair filled the crevices.

Gusts of primitive fear drifted from the deepest layers, materializing into arms carved with human faces, grasping William’s body and dragging him deeper into the abyss.

"William, do you need me to scorch the unknown substance between your retinas with Evil Sun? Continuing to watch like this seems quite ominous." Little Grape’s voice came through.

"Don’t... keep watching."

William didn’t refuse the visual images that Fear offered him, and continued to watch.

As he went deeper, the number of flesh and hair increased, and there were even some pieces of flesh with hair that managed to take on a human head shape, slowly crawling with Fear tentacles grown from their necks, or hanging overhead and constantly shaking their heads.

Even with only visual observation, William had begun to gasp for air, as Fear surged within him like a tide.

It was not that the images before him were so terrifying,

but the proportion of these images, the color tone, the arrangement of various flesh material proportions, the mental oppression brought by the confined space, and the completely unknown source of Fear in the deepest part.

All these factors piled up, deepening the fear, making the fear on a visual level multiple times greater.

When William finally managed to reach the deepest part after persevering, a dense curtain of black hair blocked his view. As he reached out to lift the curtain,

a stabbing pain transmitted instantly from the palm of his hand, and the image disappeared, returning to reality.

It wasn’t a pain caused by the pointed tips of hair, but someone had stabbed their fingernails into the base of William’s palm, and blood seeped out.

"What’s behind the hair curtain isn’t something you can see now... However, you seem to have a good affinity for ’Fear.’ To reach the depth of the hair curtain on your first encounter with primal Fear is impressive,"

explained Beast Tamer Zock, who was standing beside him. His animal, Madness Brain, sensed William’s state and severed the connection at the critical moment.

"Is the boss behind the hair curtain?"

"No... It’s something that you shouldn’t see right now.

Once glimpsed, that kind of primal, pure Fear will invade your thought, and your soul and physical body will end up completely chaotic in Fear, eventually collapsing and transforming in an unforeseeable direction."

"I see."

Zock remained in his undressed state, only adding a black apron over it, which, along with his exaggerated, bizarre skull mask, gave him a wild butcher’s air.

Just then, Catherine, who was the slowest, came out dressed in a black and white chef’s uniform. "Hey! William, why didn’t you change your clothes?"

Before William could answer, a voice came from the depths of the kitchen, "Because his attire meets the kitchen’s cleanliness standards, there is no need to change."

As the voice faded,

a white-haired old man emerged slowly from the shadows, dressed somewhat like a doctor from the Gentleman Organization,

except his face was very special, as if to slow aging, his face bore multiple skin transplants and stitch marks, at least five different colors and tender skins stitched across his face.

Moreover, he wore a very peculiar breathing mask, enveloping only his mouth, large in size, like a storage box.

When William tried to examine the strange respirator, he discovered that a super long tongue was stored inside, secreting saliva continuously.

Through the respirator’s cycling system, excess saliva was drawn off and disposed of periodically.

As William observed more closely, he could even see hundreds of small, pink arms on the surface of the tongue, and structures resembling eyes.

"An illness related to the ’tongue’?"

At that moment, Beast Tamer Zock introduced them, "Chef Timi, this is my good friend, William Behrens. I’ve brought him to get acquainted with and tour the kitchen. He’ll definitely become a main member of the circus in the future."

"It’s rare for you to recommend someone like this, Zock, and he’s not even from your zoo.

Since you regard him so highly, would he like to try cooking a dish? Without using the meat cabinet, as long as the taste meets 50% of the standard, the cost will be waived."

Catherine quickly conveyed a message through telepathy, "William, don’t agree! You’ve never cooked before and are unfamiliar with the kitchen—the cost of cooking is very high."

However, William ignored her and instead glanced sideways at Zock, who hadn’t offered an opinion. After they exchanged a look, William nodded in agreement.

"Alright, let me give it a try. But before we start, please give me ten minutes to get a bit familiar with the overall structure of the kitchen."