Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  With those words, the hill cracked and the ground began to tremble again. Soon enough, a silhouette shot up from the ground and stood under the night sky.

  Chapter 848 - It’s Fortunate That Their Opponent Has A Low IQ

  The entire sky was blotted out by the flying soil and dirt. No matter how far they had retreated, Lin Sanjiu still could not completely steer herself away safely from the assault of the hail of dirt. She accidentally s.u.c.k.e.d in the dirt-laden air and coughed. Holding the easel, the artist followed closely behind her. When he saw Lin Sanjiu suddenly stop and cough nonstop, he became so anxious to the point he began pacing back and forth, unsure about what he should do. Meanwhile, the monstrosity ahead had completely risen from the ground.

  After Lin Sanjiu finally recovered from her fit of coughing, she raised her head to look ahead. Then, she was dumbstruck. Even though she had anticipated something like this when she was mimicking Ji Shanqing, she was still stumped by the scene before her eyes. Her throat felt raw and no words would form.

  "What the hell is that?" Ryuji asked, his cheeks red from the coughing fit. As he gasped for more air, he asked, "Is this guy a giant?"

  Looking up from the ground, the massive figure standing in front of them did resemble a normal human being closely—a head sat on top of its shoulders, and it had an enormous body and two long, dangly arms. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was its size, which was hundredfolds larger and taller than a human. Was it as tall as a five-story or an eight-story building? Lin Sanjiu could not tell.

  All of a sudden, the giant yanked its arm up, casting five long shadows on the ground as its fingers that were as thick as trees moved across the air. Startled, before both of them could do anything, the arm swooped down in a quick motion and patted the mound that had caked around the giant's feet. As the warehouse and a blanket of soil filled the sky anew, the giant took a step forward and appeared in front of Lin Sanjiu and Ryuji.

  "Artist, go behind me," Lin Sanjiu barked out her order as she hastily summoned her [Ability Polishing Agent]. "The target is the warehouse!"

  Receiving his order, the artist made a few quick steps and went behind Lin Sanjiu. He had set everything up within mere seconds, and the sound of a brush c.a.r.e.s.sing canvas soon filled the air. Lin Sanjiu shone the silver bottle forward, and a half-suppressed scream slid out of Ryuji's throat.

  The giant was bending its body down. A squeaky noise that sounded like a piece of leather being stretched rang out as the giant thrust its face into the beam of light and met their glance.

  For a moment, all sounds were sapped away from the night, leaving nothing but only a deadly silence behind.

  Both of them were frozen as still as a millpond. Neither of them could move their eyes away and they were robbed of their ability to speak. They could only stare as the giant got closer to them and filled their vision with its large, irregular-shaped face.

  Black, yellow, brown, pink, and white…One after another, countless pieces of skin in different colors and textures had been pieced together to form the 20-square-meter large face before their eyes. Trailing down the giant's neck, its shoulders, arms, and c.h.e.s.t were all filled by the same patches of skins in different colors.

  Some of the skins were fine while the others had a rough texture. Some skins were wrinkled while some were marred with scars. Lin Sanjiu's gaze wandered up and down, and left and right of the giant, yet every time her eyes would meet with a new piece of skin with different colors and textures that she had never seen before. She had no idea how many people had fallen victim to the pocket dimension and eventually had their skins ripped off by the giant doll before their eyes. To think that she had also almost gotten her skin ripped off by the giant, Lin Sanjiu shuddered.

  However, she set the thought aside as she knew such thought would not do her any benefit in her current situation. Taking a deep breath, Lin Sanjiu calmed herself down and resumed inspecting the giant doll.

  The more she stared at the giant, the more she felt uncomfortable. Lin Sanjiu had no idea why, but she had a hunch that the creature was trying its very best to look human. Everything that was on a human's face appeared on its face as well.

  Its down-curved mouthpart was created by mish mashing God knows how many human mouths. The nose, the eyebrows, and even the eyelashes were each sourced from different humans. At first glance, it looked like a nose, but upon closer inspection, one would find out that the giant nose was not the real deal but was actually a conglomerate of different smaller human noses in varying sizes. Ryuji had taken only a glance, and he began to retch. Using the tail of her eyes, Lin Sanjiu saw that all color had drained from his skin and he looked as pale as his face.

  The only facial feature that was absent from the giant's face was the eyes. There were two black holes that looked like two endless tunnels appearing instead in the spot where the eyes should have been.

  Slowly, the big mouth cracked open. The human skins around the mouth gave off a squeal as if they were being ripped apart.

  "You…you cleared…but…but…I don't care…" The ear-rasping voice rang out again, becoming louder and louder by the degree until it pierced through their brains like a spear. "I need more scalp and hair! I need more scalp and hair!"

  Ignoring the assault of her own heavy breathing, Lin Sanjiu lifted the [Ability Polishing Agent]. At the edge of the silver beam, she could barely make out the scalp of the giant. There was a missing piece underneath the swath of multi-colored hairs of different lengths. It seemed as if somebody had made a hole out of its head.

  "It's mine…I don't care if you cleared my locked room or not, but I want your scalp and hair!"

  "Your locked room?" Lin Sanjiu parroted, "Are you the pocket dimension?"

  'A living pocket dimension! That's just great. Just what are the odds for me to bump into a pocket dimension that has become sentient?'

  The eyelashes on the large face fluttered, giving one the impression of it rolling its eyes. Lin Sanjiu and Ryuji broke out into gooseflesh. As the giant stared at them with its "eyes", its voice boomed out once more, "Do you recognize me? Right…I'm the pocket dimension itself. I need scalp and hair. Give them to me!"

  "No wonder a pocket dimension would appear somewhere there shouldn't be any pocket dimension," Lin Sanjiu murmured. Then, she turned to the giant and asked, "When did you get here? And how did you get here?"

  "It's so tiring. I've been walking for a long long time," said the pocket dimension, drawing out its vowels as it raised its arm, "No one came to me anymore. I need more scalp and hair, so I kept walking and walking. If you two give me your scalp and hair, then I don't have to walk anymore…"

  "Artist!" Dragging Ryuji and leaping to the back, Lin Sanjiu bellowed, "Are you done yet?"

  As soon as her voice faded away, Lin Sanjiu felt a strong suction force from behind. The air was getting s.u.c.k.e.d in a reverse direction into the area behind her, and for a moment, she could not hear anything but a sharp whistle that assaulted her eardrums. Suddenly, she saw something that made her irises shrunk. Scarcely had she pressed Ryuji's head down to the ground when the half-destroyed warehouse was torn into countless pieces. The rain of broken rubble pelted through the giant and flew over their heads before disappearing into the canvas.

  Unable to steer itself away in time, the barrage of rubble cut through the giant's skin and revealed the back emptiness underneath. It seemed not to have a sense of pain as it only bellowed angrily when it saw the cuts on its arm. Seizing her chance, Lin Sanjiu grabbed Ryuji and recoiled once more as she shouted, "If you don't leave now, you will be the next to get s.u.c.k.e.d into the canvas."

  Hearing her words, the artist quickly changed the canvas and lifted his brush.

  The giant stopped roaring. It tilted its head several times as if it was contemplating what Lin Sanjiu was talking about. Even though it was dr.a.p.ed in human skin and looked like a human, it was apparent that it lacked the intellectual capability of one. After a short while,
it began speaking again, "Scalp…Scalp…"

  "It doesn't seem scared," Ryuji commented with a trembling voice.

  Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and calmed herself. Her brows were knitted together tightly in the center of her forehead as she crouched down and picked a stone from the ground. "Do you not understand?"

  After that, she activated the [Mosaic Censorship] and blasted the rock into smithereens. "If you don't go now, I will kill you. By that time, forget about your scalp and hair. You won't even have a single piece of skin left."

  Lin Sanjiu did not know if the pocket dimension would fall into her game of bluff. After all, this was her first time going against a specimen like this one. She was completely clueless about how a pocket dimension could come alive and walk around as if it was a living thing. She did not even know whether it had a body or not.

  Even though she had already destroyed the warehouse, which was considered as the first form of the pocket dimension, the giant did not disappear. Furthermore, even after its skin was cut by the hail of rubble, it did not sustain any injury at all and there was only a glut of nothingness beneath its layer of skin.

  It would be best if she could avoid fighting it, but… When Lin Sanjiu thought to this point, she shouted again, "I have something else more important to do, so I'm not going to waste my time on you anymore. I will now count to ten. Leave now or get ready to be erased from the surface of this planet! One!"

  She was skeptical that the giant could understand anything she said, but she had no other choice. The giant kept a neutral face and its expression was simply unreadable. Just as her heart picked up its pace and her countdown reached eight, the giant finally moved. Slowly, it rose to its feet.

  It finally realized that it was not that easy to get scalp and hair from the person in front of it.

  "Scalp, scalp, scalp," the giant murmured as it turned its body, "Locked room. Find the next person. I will have many, many scalps and hair. Cut them neatly and put them into squares…"

  The giant was getting further and further away. With every step it took, the giant was getting shorter as if it was digging into the ground. Both Lin Sanjiu and Ryuji stared fixedly at the diminishing figure, and for a moment neither of them could believe that they had scared the giant away. It was only when Ryuji took a deep breath that Lin Sanjiu was snapped back to reality.

  "We… succeeded?"

  "It is gone… It's really gone…" Ryuji stammered. Apparently, he knew Lin Sanjiu was just bluffing as well. "But why don't you look happy?"

  Lin Sanjiu's expression was ugly.

  "Not only does the pocket dimension come alive, but it can also move around freely and pursue its target… It can even weigh the situation and utilize the pocket dimension to lure its target in," Lin Sanjiu said as she looked out ahead. The giant was getting smaller and smaller, and would soon go out of sight. "But what makes it become like this?"

  "Well, only it knows," Ryuji answered, his face drawn.

  "You are right." Lin Sanjiu glanced at him. Then, before he knew anything, she shouted at the figure in front, "Hey, pocket dimension," startling even her own artist.

  The humongous silhouette stopped.

  "You are just a pocket dimension and shouldn't have any sentients, so what makes you come alive?" Lin Sanjiu asked, "Besides, why are you so hell-bent on looking for human skin?"

  As the familiar squeal came sliding into her ears, the giant spun around and faced her. Through the dark, the nose that was made from many smaller noses looked like a mass grave covered in rocks.

  "The...the deluge is coming," it growled, "I need to wake up. I need legs. I need skin. I need to run."

  Chapter 849 - The Reward Of Good Deed (2)

  Spears of sunlight from the east were peppering through the sky and chasing away the darkness. As the sky gradually brightened, it showed them a completely different side of the wilderness, unlike the one they had experienced last night. If there were two worlds progressing on two tracks whereby one was known as daylight while the other was nighttime, she was certain that she was in the one with the longer night.

  The morning sun cast haloes of golden light about the vast wilderness, causing Lin Sanjiu to squint her eyes due to the brightness.

  Whether it was the apocalypse or the deluge, she had had enough of them. Right now, she was just glad that she had survived another day and could see the sun again.

  After that, they began to make their way back to the rebuild zone. As Ryuji and she walked down the road, Lin Sanjiu said with a terrible weariness in her voice, "For your safety, we shouldn't interact anymore. The one who is coming for me won't go for you anymore, so you can prepare for the next transfer and then—"

  She wanted to say "return to your normal life", but she swallowed her words. After all, life in the doomsday was not normal and there was no way to tell when they would die.

  "Okay," Ryuji just gave a laconic reply after hearing what Lin Sanjiu said. His face grew even gloomier while his eyes, his brows, and the tips of his lips were all curled down in pure dejection. He sighed before he even began speaking, "I don't know how long I can keep going like this. By the way, does the deluge affect only the Heaven Underworld?"

  "I'm afraid not," Lin Sanjiu answered, watching him. After staying awake for several days straight, she was certain that she must look even more terrible than him. "If I hear anything, I will publish it on the Mokugyo Forum. Keep your eyes on the forum all the time…By the way, do you have a visa?"

  "Yeap, I've got it," Ryuji said disgruntledly, "It is a place called Coconut Island and it cost me all my fortune."

  "Coconut Island?" Lin Sanjiu searched through her muddled mind for the name but found nothing, "Why is it so expensive? Is it one of the Twelve Worlds?"

  "Nope, it isn't, but it's much more expensive than a visa to one of the Twelve Worlds. I have to save up for four years before I can get my hands on one." Ryuji sighed. "You can get all the information about that world from the Mokugyo Forum. Rumor has it that it is a fabled place to go."

  "Really?"

  "In general, an E-level world is the safest, but Coconut Island is even safer than an E-level world. The reason for the downfall of the population in that world is their comfortable life and relatively low birth rate. The population grew smaller and smaller over time, and at one point, they all just vanished."

  Lin Sanjiu was quite astounded to know that there was actually one out of the many worlds that had perished because of this sort of reason.

  After experiencing countless apocalyptic worlds like the Hyperthermal Hell, the Garden of Eden, and Kisaragi Train Station, to name a few, she felt that this particular apocalyptic world known as Coconut Island was a joke.

  "Since the world is not destroyed by a disaster, consequently, the infrastructure and facilities in Coconut Island are still in tiptop condition, so it's very suitable for humans to stay. Some of the people even call Coconut Island a black sheep amongst the apocalyptic worlds because of this particular reason. There's a rumor going around that it might join Twelve Worlds Centrum as the thirteenth world."

  'If Coconut Island is really that safe like Ryuji says, perhaps it will be the perfect spot for me to set up base over there…' As Lin Sanjiu mulled over the possibility of going to Coconut Island, they were nearing the rebuild zone and could see the crowd of posthumans at the fringe of their vision. As always, the street in the rebuild zone was bustling with many people. It seemed to Lin Sanjiu that the giant that appeared yesterday night did not stir up any commotion here. Perhaps it was because the giant walked in the opposite way.

  "Don't forget to make an announcement in the Mokugyo Forum," Lin Sanjiu advised once more before she parted ways with Ryuji. "I remember there is an organization in the Twelve Worlds that is responsible for taking care of the pocket dimension. I hope they can put that pocket dimension under control—oh yeah, here you go. This is the processing fee."

  Slightly embarrassed, Ryuji lowered his head and scratched his ear. "Thank
you for helping to find a place to stay. After I go back to the Mokugyo Forum, I'll try to persuade them to give me back my job."

  After he took the red crystals from Lin Sanjiu, his cheeks suddenly became redder as he stammered, "T-there is one more thing…"

  "Yeah, what is it?"

  "Bandie…" Ryuji whispered, feeling the words stiffen on the tip of his tongue, "If you feed him some cotton and treat him well, he can still grow back…So…"

  Lin Sanjiu smacked her forehead and quickly returned the roll of gauze to Ryuji. Bandie seemed very delighted to return to its master as it squirmed around on his palm. "Are we clear now?" Lin Sanjiu grinned. "If there is nothing else, let's bid goodbye now."

  Before she turned around, Ryuji looked at her face and suddenly said, "I know you have something more important to do, but you seem tired. Don't you want to catch some rest first?"

  "Don't you worry about me," Lin Sanjiu replied with a wide grin, her amber eyes flickering under the sun. "I hope we won't see each other again. Farewell."

  Ryuji nodded and saw her off. After she turned around a corner and faded out of his sight, he let out a sigh and then dragged himself into the Mokugyo Forum.

  The Mokugyo Forum was always busy no matter what time it was. It was always so full of people and it sickened him.

  Then again, on second thought, there were a lot of things that sickened him.

  After he did what Lin Sanjiu had told him and published a message on the Mokugyo Forum, he moved to the lower ground floor to talk to his boss, hoping that he could have his job back. Everything was a burden. Working was a burden, talking was a burden, and so was keeping himself alive in the apocalypse. Even though he had shouldered so many burdens, his life did not change. He barely made it to the minimum requirement to stay alive. Unfulfilled, he did not have any specific life goal to pursue, and he was merely living his life to exist. He found that he was no different from a pig.