Plot and all that—nothing but fleeting clouds!

It turns out that Doraemon's aerial maneuvering skills indoors leave much to be desired.

The proof? Just as he was about to reach the top of the stairs, he clumsily scraped against the ceiling, then tumbled down like a bowling ball, thudding and rolling along the steps, eventually crashing into Haruhi Suzumiya and Yuki Nagato, knocking both girls to the ground in one breathless heap.

Fortunately, Doraemon didn't end up with a broken neck—or rather, whether the rotund creature even has a neck remains a matter of debate.

At last, the seemingly endless staircase came to an end. The mercenaries paused briefly outside the stairwell door to survey the surroundings, granting Doraemon, Haruhi, and Yuki a moment to untangle themselves and slowly stagger to their feet. They shuffled out of the stairwell together, narrowly avoiding the fate of being erased by the Lord God for falling more than twenty meters behind the protagonist, Alice.

"Huff… phew… I'm exhausted and in pain! Ugh… no! My bamboo copter's broken!"

Doraemon slumped down by the wall as soon as they emerged from the stairwell, immediately examining the mangled remains of his flying gadget with a crestfallen expression.

"Get up, Doraemon! The mercenaries are about to move out again! Do you want to be erased?" Wang Qiu urged.

"Eh? Run again? But I'm already completely wiped out," Doraemon replied, wearing a look of utter misery. "Long-distance flight is just like racing—it takes a lot of energy… and my hangover hasn't even worn off yet…"

"But we have no choice. If we fall more than twenty meters behind Alice, we're finished," Wang Qiu reasoned.

However, Doraemon was clearly a master of lateral thinking.

"Oh? As long as Alice doesn't get more than twenty meters away from me, it's fine? That's great—I've got an idea!"

Clapping his hands in sudden inspiration, Doraemon rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a spherical object, then raised it high and called out to the mercenaries.

"Everyone, wait! Look! I've made an extraordinary discovery!"

The Umbrella operatives and prisoners gathered near the exit turned their heads toward him—only for every one of them, from the black captain to Alice and the handcuffed "suspect" Matt, to be instantly petrified into pale, stone statues.

Behind Doraemon, Wang Qiu also stared in disbelief, almost feeling himself turn to stone. "What… what the hell did you just use?"

"This is the 'Medusa's Eye' I managed to snag during a massive clearance sale at the Interdimensional Toy Mart," Doraemon explained cheerfully, tucking the artifact back into his pocket. "Just like in Greek mythology, it can temporarily petrify any living creature, including humans. They'll return to normal in an hour."

He shuffled over to the now-statuesque Alice, sat down with his back against her stony legs, and let out a satisfied sigh. "There! Now I can rest for a bit without worrying about being erased…"

With that, Doraemon closed his eyes and began snoring contentedly—his psychological resilience was simply terrifying.

Seeing this, the equally exhausted Shinnosuke Nohara and Haruhi Suzumiya also found spots to sit and rest. Meanwhile, Yuki Nagato picked up the fallen laptop belonging to the Umbrella tech specialist Kaplan, powered it on, and began clacking away on the keyboard.

At this point, thanks to Doraemon's antics, the plot of Resident Evil 1 was on the verge of being thoroughly derailed.

Wang Qiu stood there blankly for a moment, overwhelmed by the absurdity, and had just begun to sit down himself when the cold, mechanical voice once again echoed inside everyone's minds:

"Attention. Due to significant deviation from the original plot, the twenty-meter proximity requirement to protagonist Alice is now nullified. A new mission is issued—escort Alice to the Red Queen's mainframe chamber within thirty minutes. Reward: 1000 points. Failure: -1000 points. Any individual with negative points at film's end will be erased."

The moment the announcement ended, the drowsy Doraemon reluctantly opened his eyes and howled in anguish.

"Damn you, Lord God! Are you my personal trainer or something? All you ever do is force me to exercise! Exercise! And more exercise! You don't even care how tired I am… fine! If you're going to push me into a marathon, I refuse to run another step! Anywhere Door!"

With a shout, a simple rectangular door appeared on the floor.

But as Doraemon stepped toward it, ready to bypass everything and stroll straight into the Red Queen's chamber, he suddenly froze.

"Crap! My Anywhere Door doesn't have this world's map data loaded—it's completely unusable right now!"

Fortunately, Yuki Nagato calmly stepped in to save the day.

"I'll handle this. I just copied the Hive's layout and Raccoon City's map from Kaplan's laptop. I can upload them into your door now… done." She placed her palm on the door's handle, concentrated for a moment, and pushed it open with ease.

On the other side stood the Red Queen's ominous mainframe chamber.

Thus, to the shrill and bewildered screams of the Red Queen, the group strolled nonchalantly into her domain.

Wang Qiu, meanwhile, had to store Alice's statue in his personal storage space before stepping through the Anywhere Door, only to release her afterward.

As the door vanished behind them, the petrified mercenaries were left to their fate—whatever awaited them when they returned to flesh an hour later was no longer any of Wang Qiu's concern. They were lucky he hadn't looted their weapons.

All told, the group completed the thirty-minute time-limited mission issued by the Lord God in just under three.

From that moment on, the plot of Resident Evil 1 had truly, utterly turned to smoke and clouds.