IWBL: Chapter 102

Xiao Li took his attention away from the other five teammates and looked out the window. The bus was small and wasn’t like a long-distance bus. It was more like a minivan with six people, excluding the driver.

At this time, the bus was driving on a winding road. The road was very narrow and there was the sea on both sides. It was endless and the sound of waves could be heard even in the bus.

The six reincarnators didn’t know each other because they had come from different regions. No one spoke to each other and the three minute safety time passed as the bus left the road and turned towards the target town.

There was sudden braking as the bus stopped at the entrance of the town and the door automatically opened. The driver was a dark-skinned man who shouted impatiently, “Get down quickly! I have to hurry back for the next shift!”

The one in front was a chestnut-haired youth. He was Asian and looked handsome. He was the first to stand up and get off the bus. The latter reincarnators followed. Once everyone got off the bus, the driver stepped on the accelerator. The old bus spewed out black smoke and drove away without turning back.

The rest of the reincarnators looked at each other. Then the sky of the entrance immediately changed and became rippling waves. It was the beginning of the introductory CG. Unlike the past, this time the CG had corresponding English subtitles.

A group of plot characters appeared in the CG. Three men and three women were walking through the streets of the town. They were led by a young man with a Mohawk hairstyle. He was wearing a red t-shirt and his hair was like a hedgehog. The others followed him but didn’t speak.

The young man held a baseball bat in his hand and looked very disapproving. Closest to him was a young girl. She was dressed in a fitted floral dress and looked up at the other person several times, like she wanted to talk before stopping herself.

This was an old town that looked antique. Most of the street was filled with wooden doors. It was currently sunlight but the doors and windows of the homes were closed. Only the doors of a few merchant stores were open.

The girl was obviously afraid. She held the young boy’s clothes and wanted to open her mouth to ask him to leave, but she was afraid and didn’t dare make a sound. The young man walked a bit before suddenly swinging the baseball bat at the ground. “F*k, I’m not leaving. Don’t speak? Does the guide think he is making a movie?”

His voice was loud and resonate. It suddenly broke the quiet of the street and scared his friends behind him. The young girl covered her mouth and didn’t let herself speak. She took out her phone in a trembling manner and typed a few words on it. “Junchao, you…”

“What do you want to say?” The mohawk guy, known as Junchao cried out. “I’m fed up with it! I can speak if I want to!”

There was panic in the eyes of the people behind him but none of them escaped from Luo Junchao.

It was clear that these plot characters had just arrived in the town. Perhaps they were cheated by the guide or perhaps they travelled to their own death but it was certain that they hadn’t experienced the consequences of breaking the taboo.

Luo Junchao waited in place for a while. Once there was still nothing, he proudly declared, “You are a group of timid melons. Look, nothing clearly happened to me.”

The girl looked around, seemed to see nothing and let out a sigh of relief. Luo Junchao picked up the baseball bat again. “Okay, let’s hurry away. We will leave this town and go home early.”

The friends behind him followed. The worry on their faces didn’t completely disappear but they still followed Luo Junchao.

The picture so far was normal. Only Luo Junchao walked along the street and kept turning around to boast to others. “Isn’t it like I said? You guys kept saying to give up the idea of adventuring as soon as possible. It is estimated that this town is filled with older people who are deaf and mute. That’s why it’s so quiet. It is the same as a taboo—”

He said this before suddenly stopping. It was like the mute button had been pressed. Luo Junchao himself was a bit shocked. He held out his empty hand and moved it up and down. He touched his Adam’s apple and opened his mouth. He obviously wanted to talk but he couldn’t make a sound. Something had taken away his voice.

In the CG, Luo Junchao threw the baseball bat away. His hands covered his throat and his mouth kept opening, but no sounds emerged. This was the end of the CG.

The clouds in the sky returned to normal. The reincarnators hadn’t yet officially entered the town but they were united in being extremely cautious and didn’t speak.

The chestnut-haired youth pulled out his phone from his shoulder bag and typed a line in it before handing it to the rest of the group. Xiao Li glanced at it and saw a row of Japanese on the phone. The rest of the reincarnators pulled out their phones and showed languages from different countries.

There was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English and Thai. Xiao Li instantly understood the meaning of this instance world. If it couldn’t provide a translator for so many languages, simply mute everyone with a single key.

They looked at each other like six mute people. Then the chestnut-haired youth retracted his mobile phone, opened the translation system and wrote something that read: [I’m Shimizu from Japan. Please take care of me in this instance.]

Following Shimizu’s example, the rest of the reincarnators also introduced themselves.

The South Korean female reincarnator was called Park Soojin and she was beautiful. She had dyed blond hair and delicate makeup. Park Soojin’s introduction also had a sentence added. [Shimizu, are you the Shimizu on the Japanese region’s leaderboard?]

Looking at other people’s faces, Shimizu seemed to be very famous on the Japanese rankings. Xiao Li was alone in never paying attention to this aspect. Shimizu touched his nose and showed a smile, as if agreeing.

Park Soojin wrote playfully: [Wow, so powerful.]

Next up was the Thailand brother. He was very cool and only wrote one word. [Thai.]

Xiao Li noticed that the arm that appeared when Thai wrote this introduction was densely covered with some ancient text. After Thai was an American. This little brother had blond hair and blue eyes. He was very tall and looked like he regularly exercised. Once he confirmed that the rest of them could read English, he only wrote: [Lance, exorcist.]

The other Western person was even more concise. He looked around coldly and wrote four letters: [AK47.]

He had a gun hanging from his waist.

Xiao Li looked at them writing out the translation in their small book one by one. The scene of the scene made him feel like they were a group of mute netizens meeting each other. The last one to introduce themselves was Xiao Li. He just wrote Sherlock in English.

Xiao Li’s introduction was too simple and his sense of existence wasn’t high. The rest of the reincarnators didn’t pay much attention to him. Shimizu was the first to take out a white sheet of paper and wrote in English: [Since everyone can understand English, shall we communicate in English?]

The others nodded.

Shimizu: [We all saw the title CG. Who has any thoughts?]

Park Soojin: [Apart from never speaking, there must be something us that will make you unable to speak. There are no other clues.]

[We can catch the characters and use them to explore the way.] Thai bowed his head and wrote.

Shimizu wrote smoothly: [I think it is better to find a place to live first before planning the next step. After all, this is a seven day survival task.]

The group briefly discussed his proposal. Then they destroyed the white paper filled with writing and entered the town. Xiao Li acted like a soy sauce the whole time. He empties his mind and let Shimizu take the lead as he looked at the sea beside him.

The sea, full of water and seafood, it was very beautiful…

He thought casually as he followed Shimizu.

******

The town was quiet. There was no sound. No chirping of the birds or cries of insects. There was only the sound of the waves sweeping across the sand and the reincarnators’ own breathing sound.

The inability to make a sound meant that the reincarnators couldn’t go directly to any residence or use money to communicate with the locals. Thus, their first goal was to find a hotel.

The town was strange even during the day. Generally speaking, how could human food and clothing not make a sound? What would happen if a sound was heard?

Xiao Li shook his head and restrained himself from thinking about these things. Rather, he thought about things from a different angle. Before solving this problem, he didn’t know if he could eat seafood. There was a sound when peeling the shell from a crab. Would eating shrimp be relatively quieter?

The reincarnators paid considerable attention to their feet, not wanting to step in anything that would make a sound. Fortunately, there was a hotel in this town and it wasn’t far from the entrance. The reincarnators saw the sign from afar. The words on the hotel’s sign said: Ru Family’s Hotel

It was a shabby signboard and looked like it hadn’t been washed in many days. For example, half of the characters were missing, leaving only one word behind. Shimizu took a deep breath and gingerly stepped in first. He crossed the threshold and entered with extreme caution.

The others followed. They were all experienced veterans who wouldn’t make any attempt to escape. The inside of the hotel had very dim lighting. The first floor was made of cement and there were a few tables in the hall. No one was at the front desk but there were a few jars of wine on the table.

Park Soojin carefully lifted the curtain leading to the backyard. The backyard looked like a thriving residential backyard but no one was there. There were only a clothesline, pickled vegetables and a fence. Did… no local residents exist here?

As she pondered on it, she turned around but was startled by the sudden appearance of a shadow in front of her. It was a middle-aged woman. She wore a cotton jacket and her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were dark. At first glance, she looked like a ghost.

Park Soojin covered her mouth at the initial shock and didn’t scream. She pulled out his phone, wrote a line of words and handed it to the middle-aged woman. [Are you the owner here? We want to stay here for a few days.]

The middle-aged woman handed back the mobile phone, opened her mouth and mouthed out: Yes.

Her mouth was like a black hole when she moved it. There seemed to be nothing in it.