Chapter 531: Island of Devil’s Maw (37)
Translator: Lonelytree
“What in the world…” Atobe shivered all over and he uttered, “What is this sense of disgust that suddenly overwhelms me?” The contrast of the giant bulbous body of the giant silkworm and the innocent speaking voice of the little girl inside it evoked a sense of disgust within him.
“Hmm… Actually when you think about it, it makes plenty of sense.” Feng Bujue explained in the tone of a teacher, “Because a silkworm ultimately is a species of young insect.”
“Enough, now is not the kind of a natural science class.” Ambitionist interrupted them and then raised his finger to point at the direction opposite from the bug boss. “We need to run and then we can talk about everything else after we get out of here!” With that said, he had already started to run ahead.
“I still have enough Stamina Points left in me, I will stay at the back of the group to hold her back giving you guys the opportunity to run.” Uncle Worthless had turned to face the boss and was standing at the back of the group. “You guys go ahead, I will catch up to the rest of you in a minute.” Based on his tone, it was not like he was discussing with his teammates. This was not a suggestion but a decision that he had already made up in his mind.
“Oh! It is no wonder that you are an ally of justice, you sound so reliable and trustworthy…” Pegasus had started to begin his spiel of some lines filled with Sophomore Syndrome, before he could get any more out, he was half-dragged and half-pulled away by Brother Jue. Atobe moved to follow after them. Before he left, he turned back to yell at Uncle Worthless, “I do not know what you have prepared, but remember to take care of yourself and be careful no matter what you do!”
“Hmph… It feels like I have been underestimated…” After his teammates had all retreated into the forest of crystal columns, Uncle Worthless only then released a haughty scoff as he reached into his pyjamas to take out a pack of cigarettes. “Puff—” He lit one of them and sucked in a deep breath before puffing out a stream of cigarette smoke. Then he turned to the giant silkworm with an ease in his eyes. He mumbled, “it is still not that hard for me to escape from this level of predicament.”
“Sounds like you people do not understand me at all, my advice has gone unheeded in the end…” The cute voice rang out from inside the giant silkworm again. It lifted its giant head to look at the four players who had slithered away. All she did was to snicker like a girl and giggled, “He he… O well… The hunt makes it all that more exciting…” As she finished, the giant silkworm’s body suddenly shuddered. The next second, the invisible web that dangled in the sky showed itself. Instantly… the entire sky of the crystalline maze appeared to be covered in a layer of powdery white silk.
Then, she lowered her giant silkworm body downwards, moving headfirst. She passed through the web before landing in her full glory before Uncle Worthless. “You… why did you not choose to run with the rest of them?”
“Puff—because I need to stay to buy time for my teammates to escape.” Even being stared down by the giant monster, Uncle Worthless stood with his back straight and his head held high. Under this circumstance, he not only did not take one step back but even managed to very calmly lift his head and puffed out a smoke ring at the boss’ face.
“You are intending to eat us, don’t you?” Uncle Worthless continued, “Naturally I would not allow that to happen. I will not allow you to do as you wish…”
…
“In other words… you wish to resist me?” The giant silkworm asked. “Hmm… that is to be expected. He he…” She giggled again. “I have encountered similar preys like you people before… you think you can escape after you have run away from the web, is it? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”
Uncle Worthless managed to capture a hint of danger in the boss’ tone. His heart wrenched with concern. “What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!”
“Hah… Look closely above your head….” The giant silkworm answered darkly. “…you ignorant traveller from another world.”
Hearing that, Uncle Worthless did what he was told. His expression shifted slightly as his eyes moved swiftly upwards and then he saw…
…
On the Island of Devil’s Maw, at the eastern side of ‘Reverse Isle’. At the fringe of the crystalline maze, through a piece of white sandy beach that was covered in not the smoothest of sand but salt, one would be able to discern the outline of a small wooden house.
Creak— Crack— Creak— Crack—
Following the sound of metallic axle turning, a mini tricycle arrived at the front door of the small wooden house. Sitting on top of the tricycle was a puppet the size of a normal size. He was wearing a black western suit, with a bright red neck tie. On his white ‘painted mask’, there were two swirls of red paints that acted as blush, a pair of red eyes with dark pupils and a pair of incredibly red lips.
“I really would like to pretend that I am not inside this house.” A man’s voice came out from the small wooden house. “But unfortunately, even through the door, you and I are able to sense each other’s presence.”
“Ha ha… Long time no see, little brother.” Billy began with a smile.
“Technically, we have not ‘seen’ each other.” The “little brother” inside the house corrected. “We are merely talking through the door.” He suddenly raised his voice to say, “If you turn around and leave now, I can totally act like you have never been here, that will be best for all of us.”
“That is enough, Bill. You have all the reasons in the world to act petulant against me but am I not here to save you already?” Billy slid down from his tricycle. With small steady steps, he climbed up the steps before the small house with great difficulty (There were only three steps in total but for Billy who was relatively small in size, it was quite taxing for him to even climb up one step). “You have to see things from my perspective. It is impossible for me to come and save you when I was unable to even save myself.”
“Of course, of course… then you better not come in the first place.” Bill added. “After all, a violent person like myself who is not even worth mentioning will only become your burden after I get out from this place…”
“Shut up, Bill.” Billy used a severe tone to cut the man off.
“Fine.” Bill seemed to have gotten all the complaint out of him and his tone became less pointed after being warned by Billy.
“Hmm… Let me see.” Billy stood on his tip toe and leaned on the door of the small wooden house to study closely the wooden pattern on the door. He studied the grains of the wood for about 10 minutes before Billy took two steps back and stood on the space before the door and chanted at the top of his voice, “Ba la bing~ Ba la boom~ Ba la bing~ Ba la Boom~ Ba la bing bang boom~”
Then, something surprising happened… the wooden door started to vibrate according to the rhythm of the spell (if what Billy chanted could be considered a spell anyway), it binged and banged and boomed for a while… And finally, with a ‘creak—’ the door opened.
Bang! Bang! Inside the darkened room came two powerful and heavy footsteps. As the footsteps came closer and closer to the door, a large and muscular figure appeared at the entrance.
“Now…” Bill’s low growl of a voice was within earshot. “We have met each other in reality.” Then, following that, there was another loud crack. A giant armored puppet about 2.5 metres tall and weighed probably about a ton rammed through the door frame and burst out of his cage. This was Bill, his body was made up of a blue metal of unknown origin. He had a rectangular shaped head that looked curiously like a mah-jong tile. His body was a muscular, swimmer’s V-shaped, his arms were as buff as one’s legs and his legs were twice the size of a person’s normal calves…
“You seem to have shrunken since the last time I saw you, big brother. Or is that just my imagination?” Bill lowered his head to study Billy and then came up with this observation.
“That is because you have grown much bigger.” Billy shrugged before he turned around and shuffled carefully down the steps. “At least when you were trapped inside this room, you were able to go through that door normally.”
“Oh… now that you mention it, that was true…” Bill scratched his head before saying. “O well, it does not matter anymore.” His face was quite unique, one could say. Compared to Billy, Bill was definitely more emotive because Bill’s face was a monitor screen. Even though his face was a surface that was fixed and flat, but at least various kind of colors, words and emoticons could be shown on the screen.
“During the period you have been captured, many things have happened. So many things are no longer like what they were.” As Billy walked back to his tricycle, he turned back to tell Bill, “I will fill you in on them along the way.”
“Okay.” Bill answered. “So where are we going now?’
“The crystalline maze.” Billy replied.
“Ah?” Bill was obviously startled. “Are we not going to leave the Island of Devil’s Maw directly?”
“No, I need you to help me move something first.” Billy got on the tricycle and started to cycle with his little legs. Bill though moved with giant steps behind him. His walking speed was almost as fast as Billy on the tricycle. “Hey! Hey! What is the meaning of this? You saved me just because you need someone to help you with manual labor?”
“Why else do you think I have come to save you? Do you I enjoy your company and come along to chat with you?” Billy shot back the question with a level tone.
“Hmph…” Bill scoffed with great annoyance. “After we leave this godforsaken island, that will be the moment we part way from each other.”
“Then you will soon be captured back to this place.” Billy countered. “And then they will design a much bigger cage for you and come up with a more painful method to torture you.”
“Oh, is it?” Bill retorted, “Then what you will offer that is better than that? A heavy manual labor of 60 hours a week? And the rewards will be… hmm… let me guess… a can of machine oil?”
“Actually, I have indeed found a job for you.” Billy said, “You will become a librarian for the Count of Script.”
“What?!” Bill was shocked beyond his belief. “Have you lost your mind? That old coot is mad! He will spread me like jam on a piece of toast and then eat me alive!”
“No, he won’t. I have formed some kind of arrangement with him.” Billy consoled his little brother. “Currently we have a very stable and trustworthy working relationship and I fully believe that he is a man of his words, or at least he is far more reliable than you will ever be.”
“Oh… okay… So in other words… you have already arranged everything long before you arrived here.” Bill’s face was deleted and it was replaced by a pouting emoji. “And I can only accept it as it is, is it?”
“Yes.” Billy confirmed. He paused and tried as best as he could to use his brassy tone that was meant to terrify more than to comfort to tell Bill, “I am so sorry Bill, I cannot let you stay with me… at least not for now. After I have explained everything to you, you will soon understand why. Our universe is facing the danger of imploding and corruption, I still have many things that I need to do, some very important things…”
“it does not matter, even if you try to explain them to me, I do not think I will be able to get it.” Bill brushed it off quite easily. Since his big brother was obviously caught in some serious problems that appeared that he was not able to help solve, then he was not going to dig himself into this hole. “Let us return to what we were talking about earlier, what is this thing that you want me to help you move?”
Billy sighed and then revealed, “The dead body of the Silkworm Mother.”
“What?!” Billy almost jumped out of his robotic skin from pure shock. “The Silkworm mother is dead? Who did it?”
“She is still alive now.” Billy announced as he lowered his head to glance at the small watch over his wrist (This piece of accessory not noticeably not there during the Going up scenario), “But… she won’t be for long.”
…
At the same time, inside the crystalline maze…
“Hey, do you think we have run far enough?” Atobe had raced at the top of his speed behind Ambitionist and the rest for five total minutes already. His breaths were starting to get uneven again.
“Hah ha… I think… that is far enough.” Even Pegasus was getting a bit caught up in his breath. He had left too little Stamina Points for himself earlier.
“Phew… then we should temporarily rest for now.” Seeing how his teammates Stamina Points had almost reached rock bottom, Ambitionist stopped moving. As he adjusted his breathing, he said, “phew… after all, from the looks of things, the enemy has not started giving chase afterus.”
“Ah—” Seeing Ambitionist before him stopped, Atobe instantly let out a tired groan and collapsed to the ground. He gasped heavily for air and said, “Ha hah… By the way… The web in the sky… hah ha… Why did it suddenly choose to show itself now?”
“Probably the boss has used some kind of skill.” Feng Bujue replied. His breathing was quite even and easy.
“Uncle Worthless will be fine, right?” Pegasus asked with some worry.
“From the status in the team tab…” When Feng Bujue replied, he opened the game menu to take a glance at it. “Hmm… He is still alive.”
“It will be fine, Brother Worthless is incredibly reliable.” Ambitionist continued, “With his ability, it should be no problem for him to escape unscathed from the boss…” Ambitionist stopped talking when he was in the middle of the sentence. His whole person froze to the ground like someone had pressed a pause button on him. A strange sound like ‘ka—gu—’ came out from his throat and his face took on a mask of extreme terror.
“What is going on with you?” Feng Bujue instantly looked at the man alertly while at the same time used the corner of his eyes to scan their surroundings. At that moment, Brother Jue’s first reason was—Ambitionist was hit with some kind of crowd control attack that caused him to unable to move. But to his consternation, almost at the same second…
“Ka—Ah—” Both Atobe who was sitting on the ground and Pegasus who was holding his knees with his hands gave the same reaction as Ambitionist.
“What is going on now…” Feng Bujue said darkly. Even though he wanted to do something, without finding out what was really happening, it was unwise to make any brash decision. After a temporary silence, a strange scenario happened…
Atobe, Ambitionist and Pegasus, all three of them straightened themselves, stood upright and started to move with their limbs moving mechanically like some kind of robot. The three looked like toy soldiers from some kind of low budget comedy. They moved forward in unison, their left arms leading their left legs and then vice versa….
“They have been controlled by some kind of thing…” Seeing how his teammates was acting, Feng Bujue soon came to this conclusion. “Then… now I will need to figure out the theory behind the method of control…”
While he was thinking, the three had already turned around and started to take lunging steps back down the direction where they had spent so much Stamina Points trying to escape from.
“Is it a physical kind of domination or a mental type of interruption…” All Feng Bujue could do was to follow behind his teammates while he tried to come up with a solution. “Hmm… From their very unnatural body movement, the probability of it being a physical domination of their bodies is much higher.” He scratched his chin and said contemplatively, “But if it is a kind of physical domination control, how come it does not affect me?” He once again swept his eyes up, down, left and right. “I was staying close to them when we were running away and there was no trace of any attack from the enemy at all… so there is no reason that I should be the only one excluded from this influence.”
“Ka—Ge—” At that moment, Ambitionist struggled to force out two strange moans from the inner of his throat as if he was trying to remind Brother Jue of something.
“Save your breath, I cannot understand you anymore.” Feng Bujue very unkindly replied.
“Ke ke—Gu—” Atobe and Pegasus also continued this strange conversation with their own mumbled version of moaning.
“The same goes for the two of you.” Feng Bujue added. “All of you should try to converse your energy. Your zombie-like enunciation and way of expression will only distract me. They are of no help at all.” But the three refused to take his advice. They kept on moaning, trying their best to express in the only way that they could.
“Eh? That’s right!” Suddenly, Brother Jue had a lightbulb moment. “You guys are not trying to tell me something specific because you know you are unable to fully convey a full sentence so what you are doing is you are trying to remind me of the things that I have said?”
After having figured that out, it was like the mist in Brother Jue’s mind had cleared. He looked at Ambitionist’ back and said, “So the problem lies in the statement…’there is no reason that I should be the only one excluded from this influence’?”
Ambitionist immediately groaned a few times to show agreement.
“Okay… let me think about this.” Feng Bujue replied and immediately started to move the gears in his mind. [Only I am excluded… only me…]
Just 3 seconds later, he came to a quick conclusion.
“So that is why…” Brother Jue instantly relaxed his caution of their surroundings. He walked forward and mumbled under his breath. “Earlier no one has attacked us…” he paused. “Because the attack has already been done much earlier when you guys were stuck to the web.” At this point, Feng Bujue had walked to stand behind Atobe. “Now where is it…” He narrowed his eyes and looked Atobe’s body up and down, he was closely searching for something.
“Found it!” About half a minute later, Brother Jue’s eyes lit up with a glow. There was… an extremely hard to detect, incredibly thin strand of powdery white silk thread hanging on the back of Atobe’s head. One end of the silk thread was hidden inside Atobe’s hair, reaching right into his brain, while the other head… extended right up into the sky.
“Jeez, you really cannot let your guard down at all at this place…” As Feng Bujue spoke, he already took out Defense Break Cleaver. “This silk thread has to be different from the other threads of the web, that is the reason why it has stayed on while the rest has fallen away. It has hidden itself very well all this time.”
Ding—When Brother Jue’s cleaver touched the thin strand of silk, it gave off the sound of a rubber band being snapped. The next second, Atobe stumbled forward and knelt down to the ground. He started to gasp like a landed fish like all the energy had left his body and his face was as white as a person who had just come back from the grave.
“Hah ha… Hah ha… That was so scary…” As Atobe caught his breath, he grumbled, “That was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me!”
Feng Bujue ignored him and continued to move forward and repeated the same thing on the other two teammates. He found the silk threads and sliced them away. This time… he had officially and fully rescued his teammates from the trap of the spider web.
“If you have waited for another 10 seconds, my Stamina Points probably would have dropped down to zero already…” After Pegasus was rescued and sat down to the floor, he said with plain fear still scarring his face.
Ambitionist though sighed and said, “Aiz… this time, even if we manage to clear the scenario, the fear rating at the rating review will definitely be at the lowest score.”
“What’s wrong?” Feng Bujue could not help but ask with his interest piqued. “When you guys were controlled, you were given a view of very scary images and videos?”
“It is hard to explain.” Ambitionist answered. His answer… was very appropriate.
In the less than 2 minutes when they were controlled, Ambitionist, Atobe and Pegasus went through a very harrowing journey. At the time… the three of their bodies were out of their control, they could not make any understandable sound from their throat but they still had full assess to their five senses, if anything their five senses became multiple times much sharper than us… They could hear the most intimate sounds within their own ‘bodies’, like the beating of their hearts, the peristalsis movement of their stomach, the flow of their blood through the veins, the constriction of their lungs. They could see all the details of the objects within their sight like the smallest cracks on the crystals, the mould on the surface of the ground, the fibre lining the web. They had even been given an olfactory tour of smells that they would probably never forget in their lives, like the smell within their own nose cavity….
“Okay then… in any case… the three of you better stay here and rest, I will go on ahead.” Feng Bujue answered as he prepared to move.
“Ha? Where are you going?” Pegasus asked curiously.
“Do you even need to ask…” Feng Bujue replied in a serious expression. “Do not forget that…” he pointed behind his own head. “The same thing that happened to you would have happened to Uncle Worthless as well.”