IWBL: Chapter 137

Kudo was still somewhat dazed. He stared at the mosaic objects in front of him before glancing at Xiao Li and Brother Memories incredulously. He didn’t understand what to do now.

Xiao Li asked Brother Memories, “How can I restore his memories?”

Brother Memories shrugged. He was about to say ‘eat it’ before turning around to see Xiao Li’s hands on the little yellow book. He didn’t want to remember the taste of Fujiang’s memories so he gave up the idea and spoke honestly, “A minute after the memories leave me, they will automatically return to the owner.”

It was as he said. After a minute, Kudo shook his head and reached out to press a hand tightly to his temple. “W-What is this place? Hercule? Why are you here?”

He felt somewhat foggy at first but soon after regaining his memories, his face changed immediately. “I remember I was eaten by him. No, according to my current situation, the thing he wants to eat isn’t me but my memories? Or thoughts? After being eaten by him, I felt like I didn’t know anything.”

“They are memories.”

Kudo glanced at the middle-aged man with fear. The other person was touching his belly with a sad face, as if mourning the loss of his dinner. There was no meaning of attacking Kudo.

At this time, there was a subtle sound in the distance. Xiao Li glanced at the source of the sound.

Brother Memories took the opportunity to observe his face. “Can I go? I’m harmless and can’t say anything else.”

Kudo: ??

What harmless ghost? Ordinary people who met him would have their memories sucked away and become a dementia patient!

Xiao Li thought about it. “Okay, let him out first.”

Brother Memories pressed the switch code of the glass door and smiled at Xiao Li before running away. Xiao Li didn’t stop him and walked forward with Kudo.

*****

At the same time, Alice was walking in an underground corridor.

Unlike Kudo and Xiao Li, she didn’t meet Brother Memories. Rather, he had been brought out by Xiao Li before she met him and was now walking alone in the corridors of this dungeon.

The glass doors that Alice first saw were closed but she soon slowed down. It was because after she rounded a corner, the glass doors were all wide open. The room was empty and it was unknown if there had been nothing or… everything had run out. In addition to the original pungent smell of disinfectant, there was also the faint smell of earth and blood.

Alice instinctively realized that something was wrong. She slowed down and pulled a sword out of her task book. It was a slender Western sword. This was her weapon and a type of offensive item.

“Hehehe.” The faint sound of a child’s laughter came from in front of her, echoing in the corridor ahead.

At the same time, the light above Alice’s head started to flicker and went out while the child’s laughter got closer to her. Alice took one step back, then another step. There was a child in front of her with a blue dress and a horse-face mask on her face. The mask was covered with red rouge and it looked like it had blood all over it from afar.

The little girl’s voice passed through the mask to the female reincarnator’s ear. “Big sister, are you lost?”

Alive’s chest was heaving up and down and she didn’t answer. She held the weapon tightly in her hand and moved backward. The little girl’s hands were behind her back. “I’ll take you out, okay?”

The moment she spoke, the little ghost’s figure disappeared from this place.

Alice held up her long sword while moving back at the same time, successfully forcing the little girl back. The little girl appeared in the air, standing one metre away from Alice. She turned around in the same place. “Big sister, don’t you want to go out with me?”

Alice covered her chest. She took advantage of the pause after the little girl had been attacked to run away. She disappeared from the little girl’s sight but the litle girl didn’t move. Alice thought she had managed to escape and sighed with relief, but she still didn’t take back her sword. Alice could barely distinguish the layout here using the numbers at the door.

The smell of soil in the air gradually faded away. It was replaced with a rusty smell as well as the faint smell of gasoline. The overhead lights no longer shone. There was the popping of the light bulbs breaking and it became a pitch black darkness where she couldn’t see her five fingers in front of her.

Alice instinctively feared the darkness but she was afraid to turn on the flashlight at will in case it attracted a ghost. She could only walk carefully in the dark. This place was filled with boundless darkness that made her feel she was left alone in an unknown world, facing the end. Her ominous feeling became stronger and stronger.

Alice’s hair was messy and her tongue bitter as she held the wall. Just then, the shrill ringing of the telephone broke the silence and succeeded in stopping Alice from moving forward. It was a call that shouldn’t have been made at this time. It was right behind her and was the only sound in the darkness.

She turned stiffly toward the place where the telephone rang and then ran forward desperately. Who would want to answer the call of a ghost? However, it didn’t matter how long Alice ran away. The telephone ringing always followed her, as if there was a phone everywhere in the corridor. No one answered. Only the endless ringing of the phone followed Alice.

Alice covered her ears and didn’t want to listen. However, it was useless. The ringing seemed to go straight to her ears and through her brain. Eventually, Alice stopped running. She told herself to calm down. Once tangled up in a spiritual phenomenon, she had to calmly analyze things.

She gasped and took a few items from her pocket. It was just that she could never escape from the ringing phone. Now there was only one option left.

Alice’s throat tightened. She countlessly constructed many things in her heart and turned to the ringing phone.

It was an old-fashioned landline. Based on the appearance, it should appear in the phone booth, not here. It didn’t have any labels on its body or even a phone line. It was a landline that was cut off but still ringing.

It kept chasing Alice everywhere.

Alice could feel her heart jumping out of her throat. She slowly picked up the phone and raised it to her ear.

A woman’s panicked voice came from the telephone handset. “Hello, it is connected? Yes, someone is chasing me. He electrocuted my companion and I don’t know how to run away. Come and save me, okay? Help me!”

The voice from the telephone handset was amplified countless times. Alice was somewhat worried that it would attract the previous little girl. She covered the handset and spoke in a trembling manner, “How… to save you? W-Who are you?”

The woman on the opposite end of the phone stopped. Her original panic had disappeared and she smiled. “Of course… come to replace me.”

The moment she finished saying this, Alice disappeared. The phone fell to the ground and no more sound was heard. 10 minutes later, the telephone disappears and the lights above were restored.

*****

On the other side, Xiao Li was moving forward. The lights here were still on but there were nothing in the glass doors on either side. In fact, the man who ate memories was the first living thing he had seen.

However, based on the setting, there seemed to be many interesting creatures here. Xiao Li now felt a bit of excitement.

Kudo followed him and endured it. Still, he couldn’t help back the impulse to ask questions. “Hercule, can I ask you a few questions?”

“Um? What’s the question?”

Kudo hesitated. “You… how did you get that ‘man’ to return the memories to me?”

The monster seemed to be afraid of Hercule… how did this person do it? This name wasn’t present on the reincarnator rankings.

Xiao Li tried to answer him as simply as possible. “My friend fed him bad memories.”

Kudo repeated incredulously. “Bad memories? What type of memories are bad to eat?”

Xiao Li explained, “Oh, she is a ghost.”

Kudo, “……”

Once Kudo asked this question, Xiao Li thought of another possibility. “In addition to feeding him bad memories, there should be a theoretical escape possibility…”

Kudo hadn’t yet recovered from the shock as he asked, “What is it?”

“Use fictional memories to stop him.” Xiao Li placed his hands in his pocket, eyes faintly sweeping along the glass rooms on the way. “Memories are something that can be forged subconsciously. As long as you hypnotize yourself and forge countless memories for yourself. If you make the scale large enough, you should be able to make him spit it out.”

“……That sounds very difficult.”

Xiao Li reconsidered. “Ah yes, this is my relatively simple method.”

Where was it easy?

Kudo wanted to growl out but just as the phrase squeezed into his throat, he managed to swallow it back At this moment, Xiao Li’s image in his eyes changed again.

It was unknown if the ghost had felt Xiao Li’s breath. They walked forward a long distance without encountering any other living things. Xiao Li’s face didn’t show any impatience as he continued to walk forward.

As he approached a corner, he stopped and looked at the obstacle in front of him. It was a huge human face carved into a door. Its nostrils were two holes and the mouth was a huge hole like a vortex. This wasn’t the most important feature. The most remarkable feature of this face statue was that its facial features were inverted.

The place where the eyebrows should be had a bloody mouth carved and the place where the mouth should be had the eyebrows. This image looked very strange and was psychologically uncomfortable. The eyes of the statue were originally closed. Then after discovering Xiao Li and Kudo, it opened its eyes and spoke in a buzzing voice. “Hello.”

…It was polite.

Xiao Li was in a good mood and waved. “Hello.”

“You woke me up. According to the rules, you have to answer three of my questions with the truth. Otherwise, you will hang here upside down instead of me and become the next generation gatekeeper.”

Kudo thought about it. If they could delay the time, it was best not to answer directly.

“What’s in it for us to answer the question?” Xiao Li asked next to him.

The face statue replied, “You can pass through this door behind me. It contains secrets that you want to know.”

Xiao Li smiled. “How do you know the secrets we want to know?”

The face statue squirmed.

Xiao Li immediately said, “Forget it. It is estimated that you can’t answer. Just ask the question.”

The face statue choked a bit but pretended like nothing happened. “Then I’ll ask the first question. Who are you?”

Kudo replied, “Kudo.”

“Hercule.”

The face statue asked the second question, “What is the purpose for coming here?”

Kudo nervously pushed up his glasses. “For my life.”

This time, Xiao Li thought about it. “I want to… make more friends?”

Kudo, “……”

Teacher, I want to report. This person’s painting style is different from everyone else!

In a corner that no one could see, the overhead camera turned. The person monitoring it in a room stopped writing before finally writing a sentence on the paper:

[Experimenter 003 is showing abnormal behaviour. It is recommended to continue focusing on observation.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
1 Comment
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
flabbergasted
flabbergasted
5 months ago

painting…. now that I think about it, maybe Xiao Li’s ‘art’ could be compared to Lou’s (from I rely on poverty to sweep through survival games)