Chapter 190: Don't Go to Bamboo Grove Mountains Scenic Site (1)
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
In retrospect, Lin Sanjiu realized how naive she was for thinking that she could go against this world just because she destroyed a human-sized cardboard standee. Lin Sanjiu lowered her head silently; her jacket was useless against the cold, so she would try her best to endure.
At that moment, someone opened and peeked out from the window of the second floor. The person fixed his emotionless eyes on Lin Sanjiu, with his lips curled and a wide smile, "Where are you going? Don't you want to play some video games?"
That window was neither from room 205 nor room 207—it was Lin Sanjiu's room. The Teru Teru Bozu was still hanging from the ceiling. Looking up, Lin Sanjiu could only see a black outline of it, slowly spinning above Douglas's head. There wasn't a glimmer of light in Douglas's eyes. Apart from his stiff, perfect smile, his face was like that of a mannequin; he stretched his neck out of the window.
Right now, he looked just like those students and their teacher at Mausoleum Elementary Station.
"Why didn't I realize this before?"
Now that she thought carefully about it, that perfect wide smile that almost reached his ears had been plastered on his face for almost the whole day. " Isn't that very abnormal?"
"Why are you standing here stupidly, run!" Mrs. Manas' fierce voice rang out in her mind. When Douglas raised his slightly puzzled eyes, Lin Sanjiu couldn't stand it any longer. She turned and ran. Her surroundings were dark, and she was too flustered to consider her route, as she couldn't see clearly. The only thing on her mind was to run away from the hotel. Unfortunately, her body had stiffened from the cold and was not cooperating. After running for less than ten minutes, she felt her lungs burning and she had difficulties breathing.
"Where-where did I run to?"
There was a death-like silence behind her. No human or object was chasing behind her. But, of course, the lights from the hotel far away had already been switched off. Lin Sanjiu held her knees, bending over, panting. All her rigid limbs were numbed by the cold, and she felt as if her athleticism had returned to the level before she evolved.
Lin Sanjiu didn't know when she was surrounded by patches of forest. Even though they were clearly a design feature of this city, she didn't see any streetlamps around. Through her intense gasps of air and tightly-strung nerves, she turned to look behind. Luckily, the cold didn't affect her eyesight. She peered straight into the darkness and suddenly jumped up; she was speechless.
At the side of this road, not far behind her, there was a convenience store...
And at the entrance of the convenience store stood a cardboard standee of a beautiful air stewardess.
Unlike the previous time, the air stewardess wasn't looking in the direction of the train station. The air stewardess's eyes seemed to be following Lin Sanjiu. Right then, Lin Sanjiu turned over to face the standee straight on. The air stewardess's smile was just as beautiful before, revealing eight white teeth in the darkness.
Ignoring other matters, after seeing that the convenience store was behind her, she realized that she was now on the road leading to Bamboo Grove Mountains.
"Don't go to the Bamboo Grove Mountains."
Lin Sanjiu didn't know why, but she could still remember this particular sentence that Douglas said to her very clearly.
"This world is just too strange and incomprehensible. You should defend yourself with your higher consciousness," Mrs. Manas said weakly. Mrs. Manas logically knew what Lin Sanjiu was thinking about. Like a drowning person who had suddenly managed to grab on to a driftwood, Lin Sanjiu immediately followed what Mrs. Manas had taught her previously and activated her newly mastered skill, [Defence Forcefield].
"Every bit of your higher consciousness is required for your survival now, so I won't embezzle it from you right now." Mrs. Manas sounded extremely solemn, "my presence also uses up your higher consciousness. While you activate your [Defence Forcefield], I will temporarily disappear so that the forcefield will be stronger."
If Mrs. Manas disappeared, Lin Sanjiu knew that she would be all alone in the darkness. Lin Sanjiu nodded her head with some difficulty. When she didn't receive a reply even after a few seconds, she suddenly realized that Mrs. Manas already disappeared. She activated her [Defence Forcefield] wordlessly. As expected, a white light illuminated her whole body. It flashed for a few times and it quickly became dark again. Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth and that white light appeared abruptly, only to fade into darkness even more quickly.
If Mrs. Manas had not vanished without a trace, she would certainly be sighing right now.
At its first stage, a properly activated [Defence Forcefield] would cover the user's skin with a faint light which others would not notice without scrutiny. Unfortunately, Lin Sanjiu was like a flickering defective lightbulb right now. This fully illustrated that she lacked practice in this aspect.
Lin Sanjiu had to control the 'flow' of her higher consciousness so that she could direct a steady stream of higher consciousness to maintain her Defence Forcefield. Meanwhile, Lin Sanjiu also had to move quickly as she did not dare to remain in one place for too long. No matter how hard it was for her, Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to struggle on with each passing minute.
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu had problems even figuring out where to go next. Nowhere in this Kisaragi Station world seemed safe. Right now, Lin Sanjiu had her back against the direction of the hotel, and there was no way she was going to turn around—she had the feeling that if she turned around, she would find the cardboard standee creeping closer to her.
"Everywhere is the same to me, right?" She forced herself to calm down and tried to use her logic to analyze her current situation. "It seems to me that everything related to 'humans' is dangerous... so I might as well enter the mountains."
"At least, there are no human cardboard standees and no clothes that have been worn by the deceased..."
However, Lin Sanjiu had only walked a few minutes on this dark, dusky road when she discovered that her [Defence Forcefield] had a critical flaw. She smiled drily. This ability wasn't bad but the flaw stemmed from her poor proficiency at controlling her higher consciousness. Once she activated her ability, her whole body would flicker like a bad light bulb, sometimes the white light surrounding her would be far brighter than what it should be, and when it was dark, there would be totally no light.
Anyone who had used a mobile phone in the dark would understand this situation. Whenever one looked away from the edge of that bright screen, the room they were in would appear darker than usual.
This is especially true for Lin Sanjiu right now. With the flashing light, her eyes did not have sufficient time to adapt to the lighting of the environment which was constantly changing. Lin Sanjiu couldn't walk quickly as she had to be extra careful since she couldn't really see what was ahead of her. She walked in this manner for five minutes before she suddenly hit her own head. She was on the verge of cursing herself.
How could she forget after activating her [Defence Forcefield] that she still had her [Ability Polishing Agent]!
Considering that she would soon have some light around, Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief and took our her [Ability Polishing Agent]. At the same time, she also took out her Vibroblade. Holding her 'lamp' in one hand and a knife in the other, accompanied by the intermittent white light from her [Defence Forcefield], Lin Sanjiu felt more confident in herself.
However, this confidence didn't last for long.
After walking for a while, she kept feeling that something was amiss. The spot behind her, on her left, seemed especially dark. She slowly turned her head behind.
Not far behind her, in the darkness at the boundary of her silver light, she saw a lanky man walking. He was almost five meters tall and seemed to have noticed her slowing down. He bent down his very long neck.
His flat, sheet-white face, had no facial features and it was now facing Lin Sanjiu directly.
Sure enough, no one should walk in the darkness, because they would never know what followed behind them.