Yuan Kejie closed her eyes after swearing, then quickly reached back towards Luo Qi who was next to her and waved her over as she said, “Qiqi! Go help me kill that fella first! I haven’t mentally prepared yet!”
Luo Qi picked up the shovel and said with disgust, “don’t call me Qiqi.”
Despite that, she still rushed towards the monster with her shovel, then aimed at its head. A wave, and that shovel landed on the monster’s neck.
That monster looked extremely disgusting. Its physique was similar to that of an ape, but it didn’t have any hair or even genitals. Instead, it was densely covered with eyes of varying sizes, all round and shiny. From time to time, some of them blinked, causing tingles to run across their scalp. Since there were eyes present everywhere on its body, when Luo Qi was aiming towards the neck when her shovel waved down, she still managed to chop four eyes. Even through a weapon, Luo Qi was able to feel how weird it was.
Luo Qi pulled out the shovel.
“Spurt–”
The sound of a shovel piercing through
several eyelids sounded, and even with her eyes closed, Yuan Kejie shivered.The monster that was attacked immediately reacted, and roared as it swung a fist towards Luo Qi.
Luo Qi felt exceptionally annoyed looking at this monster, and dodged its attack. She turned back and said towards the people behind her, “don’t help, I’ll be the one killing this thing.”
After that, she countered and slashed another shovel onto that monster’s head.
The strange thing was that even though this monster didn’t have any genitals, it still had a complete set of features, with ears, a nose, a mouth and a tongue.
When Luo Qi swung that shovel a second time, directly cutting off one of its ears. The monster looked up and screamed, then went into a berserk stage. Luo Qi didn’t give it the time to get angry and resist, and instead, she countered and crashed the monster into the ground with her shovel. Then, she pulled it up again, and jumped into the air with it in hand. With inertia and her weight, she thrust the shovel into the monster’s neck.
“Crack–”
Luo Qi held the handle of the shovel and lifted it slightly, and the monster’s head and body were separated.
Once the monster’s head left its body, it started to twitch, and the eyes on it started to blink rapidly at different frequencies, until they gradually slowed down. Then, its eyes started to close until there were no signs of life left.
On the other side, Yuan Kejie knew that the fighting had stopped once she didn’t hear anymore sounds, and slowly opened her eyes.
Only to see that even though the monster was dead and had closed its eyes, its densely packed eyelids were still pressed together, and that scene made her, a trypophobia sufferer, felt really uncomfortable, and even dizzy and nauseous.
“No,” Yuan Kejie shook her head, and tried to drive away that feeling of discomfort in order to overcome her own physical fear. “If we met these guys again in a while, you’ll have to share one with me. I have to overcome this kind of feeling and kill one by myself.”
When he heard this,
Lu Chu nodded.Song Gui said, “when it’s almost time to kill one, we’ll reserve one for you to practice.”
Yuan Kejie still forced herself
to stare at the dead monster body, and said in a soft voice, “en, thanks.”They didn’t continue
on moving forward and gave her time to adapt.These ‘games’ were just like
this, constantly changing a person, making them get used to what they were afraid of before. Because, if they couldn’t accept it, there would only be a dead end for them in the end.After getting used to it,
Yuan Kejie walked towards the monster’s body then stopped, staring at it closely.When Lu Chu saw what she
was doing, he walked over then bent down to pick up a branch from the ground, before using it to pry open one of the monster’s eyelids. The dark and round eyeballs had lost the lustre it had while the monster was alive, and it was staring straight into the air.Yuan Kejie followed what
Lu Chu did, picked up a branch to pry open the monster’s eyes. While the expression on her face was very bad, her hands didn’t stop..
After that first battle, the sky had already turned dark.
This time, the environment was different from the previous squares. There weren’t any houses or forests, but a flat and endless wasteland. The endless wasteland was covered in something soft that seemed like quicksand, where a footprint about one and a half centimetres deep would be left when stepping on it. From where they were standing, there was nothing other than a few trees that they could sort of see into the distance, and those trees felt somewhat abrupt on this vast expanse of empty land.
Too deserted. Too quiet.
Just from a glance, other than the monster that Luo Qi had just killed, there weren’t any other moving creatures.
Song Gui looked over towards the trees in the distance and suggested, “let’s go over there to have a look?”
Everybody agreed.
After all, in this flat and barren land, those trees were the only thing alive.
They walked in the direction of the trees, in the same formation they had used in the previous squares, to prevent any accidents that might happen.
It had become completely dark, and since the moonlight in this square was dim, it made it almost impossible for them to see the trees that were quite far away from them.
Upon seeing this, Yuan Kejie chuckled, then opened her backpack as she walked and said mysteriously, “it’s time to open my omnipotent backpack.”
Song Gui raised his eyebrows, “you have a light source?”
“Yep,” Yuan Kejie took something out from her bag, “I have a small oil lamp. Although we could make our own torches, I thought that there might be a chance we wouldn’t be able to find any trees, so I brought along a reusable oil lamp with a cover and a box of matches from the heart square. Although it occupies a bit of space, isn’t it being used now?”
Luo Qi said, “good job.”
Lu Chu walked over to help Yuan Kejie carry her bag, which freed Yuan Kejie’s hands to light the oil lamp.
Qian Zhen, who was both tall and walking at the front took the oil lamp to lead the way.
The light from the oil lamp wasn’t too bright, but it really brought about some convenience for them.
.
As they approached the trees, Lu Chu felt an indescribable feeling.
“There’s something a
little strange,” Lu Chu immediately told everybody about what he felt.When they heard him, all of them immediately stopped.
7 turned his head to look at him,
“noticed something?”Lu Chu frowned and replied, “I’m not too sure, just a peculiar feeling I have in my heart. This feeling is similar to when we just met that monster, but not exactly the same. The closer
we get to those trees, the stronger the feeling gets.”Song Gui asked, “what about the smell?”
Lu Chu
pursed his lips, “it’s somewhat similar.”“Could it be that those kind of monsters are hiding behind those trees?” Song Gui guessed.
Yuan Kejie answered, “perhaps, those monsters evolved from those tree?”
Song Gui and Yuan Kejie threw out some wild guesses, while Luo Qi and Qian Zhen got ready to fight.
Lu Chu also made various guesses in his mind, but in the end, he just shook his head and rejected those guesses.
Lu Chu and 7 looked at each other, then said to the rest, “let’s continue to head over there to take a look. It’s better than guessing, but everyone must be careful.”
Song Gui nodded, “got it.”
They became more vigilant and continued their way forward.
As they slowly approached the trees, nothing unusual happened.
Since the night was quite dark and the range of the oil lamp wasn’t that far, they needed to be closer to the tree in order to have a clear look at it.
However, once they reached the trees and saw how it fully looked like, they all fell silent.
Song Gui turned to look at Yuan Kejie, “how are you feeling?”
Yuan Kejie closed her eyes, “I’ll need to take a little time to calm down.”
Song Gui, “then I’ll come over to ask later.”
Luo Qi looked at the tree, “disgusting.”
The
tree that they saw after walking for a long time was about three to four meters tall, and it stood upright upon this deserted and barren land. From time to time, the dense and thin green branches and leaves shook, causing rustling noises.Just from that, other than its unique environment, it didn’t seem like the tree was any different from normal trees, however, it was on the premise that one didn’t look at its trunk and branches. If they stared at it, the trunk of that tree was similar to the monster from before, densely covered with eyes of different sizes. However, compared to the those on the monster, these eyes made people more uncomfortable because they weren’t connected to a normal tree trunk.
To be exact, this tree’s trunk was completely different from what everybody expected.
Made up of blood-red sticky flesh, the trunk had eyes distributed across it, as if they could flow.
At this time, Lu Chu also knew why he had that strange feeling before. It seemed like this tree and that monster originated from the same place.
Yuan Kejie tried to open a thin slit with her eyes, turned her head sideways, and squinted at the strange tree which was illuminated by the oil lamp, then sighed, “it’s really…… hard to explain……”
Lu Chu also felt that it took the tree a tough time to grow like this.
Luo Qi pointed to the weapon on Yuan Kejie’s waist, then nodded in the direction of the strange tree,
“go ahead and try.”If Yuan Kejie wanted
to overcome her fear, then this tree would be a good tool for it.She didn’t dilly-dally,
and immediately put down the backpack, pulled out her blade, then took in a deep breath and walked towards the tree. She forced herself to stare unblinkingly at the monster, and then took the weapon and sliced at the strange tree.“Spurt–” The sound of a
sharp blade slicing eyeballs open echoed, and Yuan Kejie trembled for a while, then made the second, and third cut……After she landed
countless cuts, she finally stopped.Song Gui asked, “how do you feel?”
Yuan Kejie loosened her limbs for a bit, “it’s okay, I’ve got used to it.”
She said, ‘got used to it’, and not ‘not afraid of it’.
Luo Qi patted her shoulder, and everyone continued moving onwards.
The translator has this to add:
Have a (Belated) Happy Holidays, for those who celebrate any events during this season. Enjoy these 3 chapters.