Hojo Natsuki was very touched: "The frog really likes the toy factory. It hid it so well before. It must have worked hard. It can't hide its love."
When he first saw Kurosawa Jin's car, he understood the game's wonderful design. The Porsche twister should be a real Porsche in the eyes of the game characters, and the same goes for Ferrari; but when players take screenshots and forward them to toy manufacturers for reproduction, they understand it as a toy in the picture.
This also explains why Qinwa loves his own twisting car so much, but is not interested in the mass-produced flying frog car by the toy factory.
However, it has now shown interest in the twisty car factory, which means that even the most ruthless killer cannot refuse a twisty car that can float!
Hojo Natsuki immediately switched the interface and placed the puppy Boss in front of Qinwa's house.
"Tap, tap."
The white puppy stretched out its paw and knocked on the door.
[Natsuki]: Here I come!
Qinwa maintained a motionless expression, but stood up and opened the door very quickly.
[Natsuki]：Let’s go now
[Natsuki]: Are you busy with anything else right now
The white puppy wagged its short tail.
The frog did not answer immediately. It held the door frame with its paws, with a stern frog face, and looked the puppy up and down with X-ray vision.
Gradually, the corners of the frog's mouth drooped, the upper half of its face was covered with a darker shadow, and a bright red "#" appeared on its forehead, representing anger.
It's not happy.
Although he didn't know why, in order to prevent the frog from sweeping it out the next second, Hojo Natsuki controlled the puppy Boss to flash into the living room.
But it was still useless, and the frog's unhappiness did not decrease at all.
If it was an animal with a tail, its tail would have been whipping the ground madly in anger.
The puppy approaches, it moves away.
The puppy reached out and it dodged.
His expression was also quite grim, in stark contrast to the way he had approached him a few days ago.
Boss the puppy stopped and sat at opposite ends of the sofa with Qinwa, like two quarreling middle school students. They drew a dividing line on the table and refused to get close to each other.
The expressions of the harp frog are actually very limited in terms of artistic expression. They are nothing more than expressionless, seemingly in a good mood, and varying degrees of anger.
It is easy to understand, yet difficult to express more.
Hojo Natsuki carefully observed the changes in its expression, and then associated it with Kurosawa Jin's face. After a moment, he actually interpreted it as a strange dissatisfaction - it was like a person wanted to eat fried chicken, so he ordered one, but the delivery was late due to various reasons, and the fried chicken in the delivery box had already gone cold and soft, and a piece of chicken was wrapped in tasteless batter.
This long-awaited food still has that appetizing name, but its interior is completely different from the original one. It is tasteless and a pity to throw away.
[Gin]：I’m very busy.
The frog stood up.
[Gin]：I have something to do, so I’m leaving now.
After saying that, it walked out without looking back.
Hojo Natsuki seemed to be thinking about something.
Frog... Can it distinguish between a real person and a manipulated 'doppelganger'
He called it immediately.
[Natsuki]：Wait a minute! ! Wait a minute!
[Natsuki]: I have something to give you, please stretch out your hand.
The white puppy slid over to Gua Gua, clenched his fists with his paws, and tried his best to use his small eyes to create a mysterious expression.
The frog didn't want to pay any attention to anyone at all, and even looked like it wanted to shoot the annoying puppy.
Hojo Natsuki made a pitiful expression with poached eyes.
So the frog stretched out its claws while sulking.
The snow-white dog paw rests on the thin green frog paw.
—Instantly, a warm touch came from between the fingers of my left hand.
Reminiscent of Kurosawa Jin's palm.
Hojo Natsuki:
!? "
After a few seconds, the frog realized it was being teased and became even angrier. It pulled out its claw and slammed the door in anger.
[boom-]
The effect of a door slamming is drawn on the game interface.
And that subtle touch quickly faded from his hands.
Hojo Natsuki was still surprised.
It turns out that the "electric shock" I had felt before was not really an illusion or delusion.
Can he touch the Frog... or Kurosawa Jin... through this game
Even if it’s just through the mobile phone screen.
When this idea came up, it was with an unstoppable momentum, pointing to a guess that Hojo Natsuki had long ago but had never confirmed -
Maybe…
Perhaps there is a real low-dimensional human world that exists in his mobile phone in the form of a simulation business game, which he can control.
Everyone who is addicted to virtual works has had similar unrealistic ideas, and even seriously imagined how to survive if they were to travel to the two-dimensional world in the future. Hojo Natsuki is no exception. Therefore, when he first entered the holographic world, he accepted the setting that animals have human bodies well.
Hojo Natsuki thought for a moment, figured out something was wrong, and went downstairs.
The basement is his independent studio. In addition to the large mainframe and several large screens, the workshop is littered with components and semi-finished products with exposed wires. He had previously investigated this Kyoto-based game company and even asked a private detective to pretend to be a venture capitalist to visit the site. The feedback was that everything was normal and there was nothing unusual.
Hojo Natsuki began looking for the living room surveillance footage from the day the game cabin arrived and quickly looked through it.
He joked with Dazai and drove him away.
Enter the holographic cabin and close the holographic cabin.
Dazai climbed over the wall from the backyard, opened the holographic cabin, took a look, and closed it again.
He pressed pause.
Something is wrong.
Dazai Osamu's reaction when "opening the holographic cabin - closing it" was obviously that he saw that there was nothing in the holographic cabin, so he closed it without interest.
"Otherwise how could he not be annoyed with me?" Hojo Natsuki thought.
So he immediately called Dazai.
This person was very lazy and called two or three times before he got through.
The other party said lazily: "... Hello? I'm going to take a nap, hang up if you have nothing else..."
Dazai Osamu: “Ah, yeah.”
The answer was very careless.
But the point of the problem does not lie here.
"I sent you a message, why didn't you ask me when I entered the cabin?" Xia Shu said, "You touched the switch of the game cabin, didn't you suspect that [No Longer Human] made the supernatural power attached to it ineffective, causing me to be locked in the game cabin?"
Dazai replied as a matter of course: "Natsuki-kun, that's because I don't care whether you live or die. Even with the effect of [No Longer Human], you would have come out soon. Are you here to settle the score now?"
Hojo Natsuki cursed and retorted: "Nonsense! How could I not know that you have no conscience! But you didn't even ask a single question and didn't care about the situation at all. Don't you feel that you have been reduced in intelligence?"
Faced with this kind of situation that had never happened before, under normal circumstances, Dazai Osamu would definitely ask a few simple questions to get a general idea, and then reply with an infuriating "Then you try to get out as soon as possible, I'm going to go on a date with a cute lady/commit suicide/eat... Good luck!" - In fact, this person had already made a judgment and decision in a short period of time, and if things went off track, he would act in time to prevent it from sliding to an irreversible point.
Dazai Osamu thought for a few seconds: "What you said seems to make some sense. But in such a simple situation, do you really want me to serve you like this? Isn't the Hojo cadre a little too useless?"
But Hojo Natsuki ignored his taunts and stared intently at his palms. Golden light lingered between his slender fingers like flying fireflies, stirring up waves and ruffling his black hair, causing the hem of his shirt to sway in wave-like arcs.
Points of light converge into thin
The golden thread gradually weaves out a square outline, turning from light into solidity.
Soon, an old book fell into his palm.
The 'Book' of Yokohama records the past and future of the parallel world.
Hojo Natsuki took a deep breath and opened the title page.
"Your cognition has been affected. So have I." He said to Dazai as he flipped through the pages. "You didn't doubt when you should have, and you remained silent when you should have questioned. I'm the same. It's even more obvious in me, to an incredible degree. This kind of influence is at the rule level, so you won't deliberately think about what's wrong until someone points it out. Of course, this is my initial guess."
"I was trapped in the game and couldn't get out, but after checking, I didn't find any supernatural powers or magical fluctuations. This certainly doesn't rule out the possibility that it disappeared automatically after taking effect, but there is more tiny evidence, which I have previously glossed over as 'illusion' or 'accident'... Let me tell you the conclusion directly. The world we live in is connecting to a lower-dimensional alien world in a game-like way. The game cabin is actually a jump point for time travel."
Dazai Osamu said nothing.
Hojo Natsuki found the page belonging to the current parallel world, turned to September three years ago, and scanned the pages quickly.
The 'book' records all important things, and anything not in the 'book' must be trivial and insignificant.
As the holder, Hojo Natsuki enjoys a little privilege, as it will selectively record a small amount of trivial daily life about him.
In the past three years, there has been no mention of the game "Travel Frog" in the records of the "book".
"Natsuki-kun, you are under too much pressure. Go see a doctor as soon as possible." Dazai Osamu said, "It's a good thing I left early, otherwise I would have become mentally ill because of work like you, so pitiful."
Natsuki: "The 'book' didn't record the abnormality of the game cabin."
This time the silence was longer.
“… It’s actually true?” Dazai Osamu restrained his gloomy and annoying tone and asked, “Well, let’s continue to reason according to your assumption. What did you see in that other world?”
"It's a low-dimensional alien world. Everyone is an ordinary person. There is no superpower system."
Dazai spoke out Hojo Natsuki's thoughts: "Well, it seems that it is not easy to pose a threat to our world."
Xia Shu: "That's the case at the moment."
Dazai: "What happened to you? What about the 'book'?"
"It's a long story. To put it simply, the game I play might be the real world, and the characters I can command are actually real people." Hojo Natsuki said casually, "As for the abnormality of the 'book', it is obvious that only weapons of the same level or higher specifications can affect it. So this is either an instruction from a higher dimension, or another 'Hojo Natsuki' has made a move on the 'book'."
He went on to say: “He established a channel between our world and the lower-dimensional world, with unclear intentions. … And I am like an anchor, pulling the other ship towards our harbor by gradually deepening my contact with the other world.
Dazai Osamu: "Do you think that the bridge between the two worlds is centered on the 'book', and you, who hold the weapon of rules, are responsible for gradually perfecting this bridge?"
He thought about it, and then said more carefully, "During the fusion process, our cognition was unconsciously diverted. In order to prevent you from having negative feelings towards the other world, we rewrote the 'book' and stopped this process?"
"Yes - if I follow this idea, that 'Natsuki'... wants to give me a gift, right?"
At this point, Hojo Natsuki was even a little happy, "If that's the case, it's really a big surprise. I can't guess what will happen next."
The "unknown" itself has a fatal attraction for a person who possesses the "omniscience" plug-in.
Dazai Osamu said: "If this is the case, it may be a great disaster for the residents of both worlds."
Hojo Natsuki smiled nonchalantly: "Really? Isn't that quite interesting?"
"More trouble."
Xia Shu: "Your existence itself is trouble."
Dazai:
Yes, let’s go into the water together sometime.”
"Get lost, go by yourself." Hojo Natsuki complained in disdain, and then changed the subject back on track, "… If it's really as I guessed, it's not bad."
"Only someone like you who only wants the world to be in chaos would think this is good."
"Are you introducing yourself?"
Dazai Osamu smiled casually: "No, I seriously think this is something worth worrying about."
"Is that so? Anyway, if this is the truth, this is the destiny, just accept it."
"How can you be sure it's fate?"
Hojo Natsuki stated in a matter-of-fact tone: "Because another me wrote it in the book."
The other end of the phone suddenly became very quiet.
Only the sound of a slight wind could be heard, which gradually died away.
Dazai asked in a gentle tone, "... a fate controlled by your own will?"
—Natsuki-kun, you are still so arrogant.
Hojo Natsuki didn't care at all about the subtle accusation in Dazai's words, just as Dazai didn't care much about his thoughts.
Because their friendship is similarly indifferent, and neither side will go out of their way to maintain it, it often seems like it's not there.
Compared to Dazai Osamu's idea, his speculation is more attractive.
Another "Hojo Natsuki" from a parallel world wrote a story for him, gave him a ticket to an unknown destination, and guided him to explore the secrets of another low-dimensional world.
The motive is unclear. The purpose is unclear.
Maybe there are some regrets about not being able to fulfill your wishes, and you want another self to complete it for you.
Xia Shu deduced this possibility as if it were real, and speculated with some excitement: "Hmm... What is he going to do with me? Destroy the world? Not likely. That's too boring. Why in this form? What surprise has he arranged?"
"Do you want me to meet someone?"
(End of this chapter)