Doomsday Wonderland

“What are you doing?” The old man asked as he reached for his chest. But Lin Sanjiu had already withdrawn her hand from the chest, holding the hotel towel in her hand.

“Who gave this to you?”

Lin Sanjiu stared fixedly at the old man, waiting eagerly for his answer. The old man gulped loudly. “Wasn’t this yours? You were the one who gave it to me, weren’t you?”

“Mine is over there,” Lin Sanjiu gestured at the chest, “I’ll ask you again: who gave this white towel to you? Is there anyone else still inside the Pocket Dimension? Is the game still running?”

“No, no, there are no more people inside,” the old man said. “I arrange all my things in chronological order… Let me have a look.” Then, the old man began to rummage through his chest. It seemed that the old man finally remembered something after he searched the chest for a while, for he looked at Lin Sanjiu and then said defensively, “I’ll tell you everything, but you must not take the towel away.”

“Just say it!”

“If I recall correctly… it was a girl. She was here long before you. I guess it has already been one or two days.”

“How did she look like?”

“She had a head of long hair, her face was small and fair—” The old man stopped talking when he saw Lin Sanjiu’s countenance.

“Where was it?” Lin Sanjiu’s heart was highly strung. “Where was the Pocket Dimension when she was here?”

“Oh, she did not walk into the Pocket Dimension.” The old man waved his hand. He tried to snatch the towel from Lin Sanjiu, but the latter moved it further away. He retrieved his hand lamely and said, “…When I saw her, she was being chased by a few duoluozhong. The nearest one almost touched her back. I don’t know how long she had been running, but her steps were clumsy, and she looked tired. My heart wrenched just by looking at her. When she saw me—oh lord, I will never forget the expression on her face at that time—her eyes glowed with so much intensity as if she had seen an oasis in the desert. She rushed to my side and asked, ‘Is this a Pocket Dimension?’ However, before I could say yes, she then said, ‘Let me in!’ Is she your friend?”

The old man was cunning. He said to Lin Sanjiu, “In other words, I saved her life. You must not take this towel away.”

“So he was worried about the towel all this time.” Lin Sanjiu was torn between laughter and tears. “Where did you see her? And where did she go? Tell me, and I will return the towel to you.”

“I saw her in the desert, somewhere pretty close to the spot where you entered the Pocket Dimension,” the old man searched his mind for a while and looked ahead. He raised a finger and pointed to a direction. “I suppose she went in that direction… I can’t say for sure. But when she came out of the game, she stepped into a puddle. I remember that clearly, as I couldn’t get it off my mind. I guess, even if she did not get out of the desert, she must be wandering around the edge.”

Following his finger, Lin Sanju saw the forest she had seen earlier on.

“It has only been one or two days, so I guess he might still be somewhere around here…”

Lin Sanjiu gave the towel back to the old man after she’d made a decision. The old man immediately closed the chest, and it looked like he was not going to be opening the chest anymore.

After that, Lin Sanjiu looked at the Potato brothers on the ground. Her Potential Growth Value had become much stronger. Throughout the entire time she had talked to the old man, the Potato brothers had been unable to regain their mobility. Aside from rolling their eyes, they couldn’t even move a muscle. Lin Sanjiu took two ropes and squatted beside them as she prepared to tie them up.

Then, the ground shook.

Stunned, Lin Sanjiu turned her head just as the ground shook again. But this time, the quake was stronger. It was as though the source of the seismic had drawn closer to her.

Well, she should call it a “group” of seismic sources.

The forest was gone. The thing that had replaced the forest in her vision was a group of Gods walking with large strides in silence toward her direction. These Gods varied in size. At a glance, there were only two body parts in her vision: two bloodless legs that stirred the white fog as they marched forward, the body above the crotch area enshrouded in the white mist. There were more coming down from the mist above, joining their brethren below by stomping hard on the ground. Some of them were tall, their heads reaching the sky, while the others were short, standing only at the height of the calves of other Gods; there were even headless ones amongst the dense crowd of Gods.

Compared to this crowd of Gods, the group of small Gods that had waged war against Puella looked like a bunch of children playing around. However, the difference was that right now, there was no enemy like Puella in front of them. It seemed that they were walking straight towards the Pocket Dimension.

As she stared in awe at the Gods, one of the Gods already stepped into the desert, conjuring up a sandstorm that blocked her vision. The sand in the wind buffeted her skin, causing her much pain.

Even though she did not have the time to tie up the Potato brothers, Lin Sanjiu was not willing to allow them to get away like this. She jerked up and yelled to the old man behind her, “Let us enter the Pocket Dimension!”

But the Pocket Dimension was gone.

“Darn it!” Time was drawing short. Lin Sanjiu looked around, and she found that the nearest God to her was merely a thousand miles away. That God had the height of a hundred stories building, and although it might be considered small-sized in this world, it needed no more than a few steps to reach her side.

Lin Sanjiu lowered her head, looking at the Potato brothers’ faces.

They don’t look nervous at all. Of course, this might be because they couldn’t move the muscles in their face to make an expression. They looked straight into Lin Sanjiu’s eyes, as if they were waiting to see her run away. It was at this moment that it suddenly clicked in her mind. She yelled, “It was you! You summoned those Gods here!”

The Potato brothers did not answer. They just continued to look straight at her.

Gritting her teeth, Lin Sanjiu did not run away. She bowed down and slapped her left hand against the younger brother’s body. Then, she activated [A Twinkle in the Sky].

The younger brother’s body suddenly shot up from the ground, flew into the sky and vanished as a twinkle in the sky. At the same moment, the group of Gods stopped their marching. Some of the smaller ones, those whose heads Lin Sanjiu could see, looked in the direction where the younger brother had disappeared.

While they were distracted, Lin Sanjiu seized the opportunity to carry the elder brother over her shoulder and turn to flee.