He didn't know how much time had passed, but he finally walked out of the rugged woods and went down the mountain road. If he looked into the distance from where he was now, he could already see the lively scene in the town.
At this time, his feet were basically frozen and stiff, and he almost lost consciousness. However, the joy of surviving the disaster broke through the physical discomfort.
Although the snow was quite heavy tonight, there were still various vehicles passing by from time to time on the road. This place was no longer the weird and terrifying scene in the villa on the mountain before. He had returned to the human world again.
From time to time, a few kind-hearted people stopped their car when they saw his miserable condition and kindly offered to give him a ride to the town.
Unable to resist the warm welcome, and considering the fact that half of his body was frozen, Joshua finally got into a black car. Compared with the still snowy outside, the interior of the car was obviously warmer. a lot of.
But before Joshua, who had just settled down in the back seat, wanted to express his gratitude to the driver in front of the car, his left hand suddenly seemed to hit something hard.
When driving at night, the lights in the car would not be turned on, so he knew what he had encountered in a short while.
And at this time, a familiar piece of music was played from the car music in front of the car... Joshua remembered it clearly.
—This was the music played in the car that took Eric away earlier.
For a moment, invisible fear suddenly climbed onto Joshua's face.
In the midst of the slightly light and playful music, he slowly turned his head and looked to his side with a stiff face.
... An extremely distorted face appeared in his sight.
… … … … … … … … …
"Are we really going to fight that monster?"
Among the four people left behind in the villa area, Xia Wen secretly pulled Bai Zhi aside and asked him a little nervously.
Probably because he didn't sleep well and drank so much wine at night, Bai Zhi now looked obviously a little absent-minded, and even distracted from time to time. Xia Wen, who was watching on the side, was worried, fearing that the other party would be too drunk. And drunk.
"You have to make it clear that we are the protagonists."
Yawning, Bai Zhi turned his head and glanced at Rohad, who was holding a shotgun and guarding the window.
"In this style of story, the protagonist dies last. Where we are depends on where the main breaking point of the story is. Do you understand?"
"I do not understand."
After thinking for a moment, Xia Wen shook his head decisively.
"... In other words, the people who went out before were all cannon fodder."
Rolling his eyes, Bai Zhiren patiently explained.
"The main body of the story now is on those cannon fodders. None of them can escape. They will not come to our side until they are over. Do you understand?"
"Well... what happened to him at that moment?"
After thinking for a moment, Xia Wen asked with some doubts.
"Then he went out before..."
"Don't ask me. If you ask, you don't know. Just ask him."
"Well… "
Volume One: The Gap between Virtuality and Reality: Chapter 562 Chapter 554: Setsuna’s Hands Seize the Future
There were four people in total who chose to stay here in the villa to fight the unknown monster.
Shouka, Aini, Rohard, and Smith.
To some extent, they all have something in common, that is, the anger in their hearts dilutes the fear.
Rohard was Bob's friend, and Smith was Eric's childhood friend. The tragic deaths of their friends one after another, and the unknown monster's provocation against them, had left them with no time to think about more things.
What they want to do now is to slam the shotgun in their hands into the monster's mouth.
Bai Zhi and Setsuna said that they could understand their desire for revenge, so they both handed over the shotguns to them.
"A story itself requires a carrying subject and multiple sharing bodies to exist. If what we are experiencing now is regarded as a horror movie, then this is the style of a standard Western horror movie. .”
After yawning and glancing down the window, Bai Zhiyou deliberately lowered his voice.
"If we judge according to the rhythm of the story, the story we are staged is still in the early stages. For now, until those who fled have been dealt with, our side is the safest."
"... Do you think these people are real people or NPCs?"
After a moment of silence, Xia Wen suddenly asked.
"What do you think?"
Turning his head to look at the other party, Bai Zhi raised his eyebrows slightly.
"I think it's human."
Taking a deep breath, Xia Wen spoke seriously.
"Everyone in this story except us is a human being captured by ghost stories."
"What, you want to save them?"
After staring at Xia Wen for a while, Bai Zhi suddenly laughed for some reason.
"...Yes, don't you think it's sad that their lives are controlled by ghost stories like this?"
After gritting his teeth, Xia Wen spoke.
"Everything here is illusion, they..."
"Even if it is an illusion, as long as you live a real life, who will care?"
Shaking his head slightly, Bai Zhi interrupted the other party's words.
"Also, your view of things is a bit too one-sided. For example, are you so sure that the humans here are forced to do so rather than voluntarily?"
"… Volunteer?"
As if he didn't expect to hear this word from Bai Zhi's mouth, Xia Wen couldn't help but be slightly stunned.
"In a world that is about to be destroyed by ghost stories, ordinary people are afraid that their lives and everything may be destroyed at any time... Under this premise, suddenly there is a person who can own a peaceful world as long as he sells himself. How do you think ordinary people would choose the right to live in this world?"
While wrapping strips of cloth around a wooden stick to make a torch, Bai Zhi spoke calmly.
"So don't take everything for granted. What you think is good intentions may be seen as malicious by others in the end. Even if we rescue everyone trapped in the book, what can we do? How? Let them continue to return to a world where ghost stories are rampant and may be destroyed at any time? They could have lived in peace for a while or even longer. So if you do this, are you saving them or are you saving them? Harm them?"
"I… "
Xia Wen opened his mouth weakly, recalling the vast collection of hundreds of thousands of books in the previous big library. Xia Wen seemed to want to say something, but in the end he couldn't say anything.
"Don't worry, I don't mean to accuse you. In fact, it's a good thing that you have this kind of thought in your heart. It means that your heart at least has not become indifferent or numb."
While soaking the wrapped cloth strips in fuel, Bai Zhi curled his lips.
"Actually, someone else asked me the same question before... That guy's tone was more aggressive than yours."
"... Setsuna? When you went to get the shotgun with him before?"
After thinking about it for a moment, Xia Wen couldn't help but be slightly stunned.
"So the reason why he chose to leave the villa before..."
"Oh, maybe he holds the future in his hands."
Then he reached out and pressed his forehead. Bai Zhi answered in an extremely perfunctory manner.
Xia Wen: "..."
… … … … … … … … … … …
There were three people who chose to leave the villa in the snow, Joshua, Abel, and Claude.
In order to reduce the number of targets as much as possible, Claude chose the opposite path to Joshua. In terms of wilderness survival skills, Claude was the best among them.
However, he also seemed quite unlucky. Not long after traveling in the wind and snow, he accidentally fell into a big pit because of the snow.
Although he was not injured due to the cushioning of the snow and the thick clothes he was wearing, his left foot was sprained.
Forced by desperation, he was destined to be unable to move forward, so he had to choose to find a hiding place nearby. In the wild in this heavy snow weather, if he did not find a qualified shelter as soon as possible, he would be killed abruptly. Freezing to death here.
However, he was quite lucky. It didn't take him long to find an uninhabited cabin nearby. According to his judgment, this cabin should be used by hunters who came into the mountains to hunt. left.
It was quite dark inside the wooden house. Even if he brought a special flashlight, he could not penetrate the darkness. However, compared with the ice and snow outside, the inside of the wooden house seemed much drier, and the temperature also rose slightly. .
After blocking the door with a stick and sitting down against the wooden door, Claude couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief.
But at this moment, he clearly heard the second voice besides him in the wooden house.
... It is difficult to use any specific adjectives to describe that sound, but after hearing that sound, Claude felt his hair stand on end inexplicably, as if a weak electric current passed through his body, and his whole body felt numb. Numb and numb.
And just when he realized something was wrong and hurriedly wanted to open the door to escape, seven or eight hands suddenly stretched out and grabbed his feet in the darkness.
Claude could clearly feel that the things grabbing his trousers were human hands... But which human being would have seven or eight hands
And just when he was screaming and being dragged deeper into the darkness by those hands, the cabin he was living in was suddenly violently kicked open, and a figure reached out to grab him at the critical moment. back collar.
At the same time, what looked like a simply made Molotov cocktail was thrown from his hand into the darkness by the figure who suddenly broke in.
As the flames rose, Claude felt that the seven or eight hands holding his feet disappeared without a trace, and he fell into the snow outside the wooden house together with them.
And when he turned around with some fear, he happened to see the expressionless face of Abel getting up from the ground.
—The other party just saved him.
Volume One: The Gap between Imagination and Reality: Chapter 563 Chapter 555: Deadlock
"Abel? Why are you here?"
After coughing a few times, Claude struggled to stand up from the snow.
"How could you even think of hiding in such a dark, airtight place?"
He didn't mean to answer the other party's question. He glanced at the burning wooden house in front of him and asked the other party with an expressionless face.
"Uh... In this environment, it would be more dangerous to expose the body to the cold wind and snow. My foot was sprained again... By the way, you'd better not go in there, there are strange things in there."
Seeing that Abel in front of him actually wanted to step into the wooden house, Claude quickly started to explain.
"I had a weird feeling inside, as if I was being shocked. At the same time, there were many hands reaching out from the darkness, trying to pull me in... "
He ignored the other party at all and came to the door of the cabin in an instant. Because of the flames rising inside, the layout of the cabin could be seen at a glance.
However, when Setsuna's eyes accidentally fell on an object that fell in the wooden house, even with his character, the corners of his mouth twitched violently.
"..."
Deliberately blocking Claude's sight behind him, he bent down to pick up the thing and stuff it into his cuffs. He turned around in an instant and walked away from the burning wooden house.
"Where are you going now?"
Seeing Abel turn around and leave after saving himself, Claude quickly asked.
"Why don't we get together and take photos of each other..."
"Go back to the villa."
Stopping, Setsuna spoke coldly.
"You have been targeted. If you continue walking, you will be dead. Decide whether you should continue walking down the mountain or go back with me."
"...I understand, I will go back with you."
Looking back at the burning wooden house, Claude showed a wry smile on his face.
"By the way, thank you for saving me before, I..."
Looking at Abel, who had no intention of replying and continued walking towards the way he came from, he sighed slightly, and Claude followed him.
As time went by and the night gradually deepened, the wind and snow outside became heavier and heavier, making their way back more and more difficult.
Fortunately, Setsuna was concerned about Claude's health, so he deliberately slowed down, otherwise he would have disappeared long ago.
Ten minutes later, a scorched black place buried by wind and snow appeared in front of them.
"This is the wooden house that was burned down before, and we walked back..."
Looking blankly at the familiar place in front of him, Claude murmured to himself.
"..."
He frowned slightly and said nothing for a moment.
After thinking for a moment, he turned over and took out a large roll of nylon rope from his backpack, and then tied one end of the rope to a tree next to the cabin.