Doomsday Wonderland

Sitting on a tree, Lin Sanjiu gazed down.

The tree branches and leaves grew over her head towards the sky while the trunk stretched downwards into the ground. When there was wind, her body swayed in a waving motion just like a leaf.

The earth beat along with her heart, and the chirping of birds flowed in her blood. Under her “hypersensory state”, she had become one with the universe.

Flame Arm and Tunnel cautiously walked past the tree where Lin Sanjiu was perched, but neither of them realized their target was sitting above them.

“It’s clear here,” announced Flame Arm as he pushed the goggles to his forehead. He turned around and muttered to Tunnel, “There is no suspicious heat image around.”

After hearing what Flame Arm said, the bespectacled man silently rose to his feet.

“I believe she is still in the forest.” He pushed his glasses, causing the lenses to catch the light from the sun and glint. His cheeks were deeply sunken, looking like two dark, endless tunnels that if one entered, he or she would never be able to come out again. “Behind the forest is a broken canyon that connects to a big river. I don’t think she can walk that far with only her legs.”

Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and examined both of them through the thick layers of foliage. She remained so incredibly still that she looked like a twig on the tree.

Flame Arm nodded in approval, then they began to move forward again. After they walked for several steps, the burly man couldn’t help but say, “The time for the squad to pick us up is long overdue, and we lost two of our comrades…”

“I know,” Tunnel sighed. After a short bout of thought, he flipped his collar outward and revealed a miniature black object that seemed like an interphone pinned to the inner side of his clothes.

“Vielfalt combat squad calling.”

The three of them waited in silence as the buzzing of electricity filled their ears. After a few seconds, a female voice rang out. “Hello, please report your squad and modal code for confirmation.”

“Vielfalt combat squad 21, Tunnel 08 and Flame Arm 33.”

“Identity confirmed. Please proceed.”

“We met some trouble in our mission, and we need to delay the return time. Two members from our squad, Ikkaku 45 and Lollipop 36, have gone MIA.”

“Understood. Any additional assistance required?”

Tunnel raised his head and looked at Flame Arm. The virile man compressed his lips tightly into a thin line. The corner of his lips tilted down in frustration.

“Not for the time being. I will get back in touch.”

“Alright. Good luck hunting.”

The electric hum and the footfalls of the two got further and further away until they were devoured by the silence in the woods. Lin Sanjiu retracted her gaze and sighed inwardly.

As expected, The Munitions Factory was very well organized. This team was the combat squad sent out by the factory, and if she were to defeat all of them, it would certainly raise an alarm. Now that they had reported their situation, the factory would think that the mission was still ongoing and she was still being hunted. As such, the factory would not send more people after her to search and hunt her down. And most important, the factory would not make her their primary target.

When Lin Sanjiu slid down the tree, it sounded like an occasional eddy of wind that rustled the leaves and branches.

The forest in the morning was quiet. Standing without saying anything, Lin Sanjiu pricked her ears up. Suddenly, the faint mewling of a cat rang out in the distance and was brought into her ears by the wind.

Although the [Mewling Alarm Clock] had no other uses, it performed its job dutifully as a clock. It rang out accurately according to the time Lin Sanjiu had set. It was normal to hear this sound in a household, as cats would often purr piteously when they were demanding food from their owner. However, that was not the case in the forest; it sounded strange. After the clock meowed several times, silence once again befell in the forest.

Then, a series of vague and hurried footsteps followed after.

The clock would ring again an hour from now. Well, only if it wasn’t found by the duo.

Lin Sanjiu had no idea how much time the clock could buy her. After taking in a deep breath, she slowly edged towards the entrance of the forest.

She had to confess that Flame Arm and Tunnel were prudent. There was now a large swath of spider webs crawling all over the only entrance to the forest. The spiderweb crossed all the way from the ground to the tree and then stretched towards the cliff, finally ending up in midair. Whenever there was wind, the spiderweb would scintillate under the soft lances of sunlight. It looked deadly sharp.

It was just that their effort was totally unnecessary.

Cautiously, Lin Sanjiu turned on the button on the remote controller. The section of cobweb-laden trees fell down and slowly got gobbled up by the ground. Half of the spiderwebs disappeared into the ground, leaving another half dangling outside. It seemed as if somebody had destroyed the web with a swipe of his or her hand.

After she walked down the slope, the trees rose from the ground again along with the spiderweb. The spiderweb oscillated with the wind; there were some specks of dirt on it.

Lin Sanjiu was finally relieved when she saw the old airplane. It occurred to her that the committee members did not make things warm for the old pilot.

After going through the things that happened last night, the plane looked even more miserable as if it was tired of getting dragged into the feud between humans.

The old pilot was sitting at the entrance of the cabin, his two stumpy legs that were wrapped in a pair of deep-blue trousers dangling in the air since he lost the staircase.

“You see, I don’t even have a place to put this,” when he saw Lin Sanjiu, he raised the bottle of wine in his hand and nodded at her, “I can only hold it now.”

“It simply means you should cut down on your drinking now,” Lin Sanjiu tilted her head up and replied. There was a smile on her face.

The old pilot snorted disapprovingly. “I will stop drinking on the day I die! By the way, is it only me or is your shirt a little dirty?” He sized her up and retreated from the door. “It seems like you had quite a fun night, huh?”

“Nah, it was a nightmare.” After that, Lin Sanjiu leaped up and climbed into the plane. “How about you?”

“Well,” he yawned, “The little guy let me go in the end. Perhaps they did not want to disturb the Ubume.”

“Perhaps they did not realize it’s you who reminded me.” Lin Sanjiu looked at him and smiled when she remembered the “show” he put on last night.

The old pilot wasn’t really trying to triple the fare, that’s why Lin Sanjiu could not activate the Scrooge McDuck.

“Oh, I really did want to increase the fare.”

The old pilot scratched his beard and closed the door with a loud bang. As he walked toward the pilot seat, he turned his head and asked, “Who are they? Are they tricky to deal with?”

According to Lollipop and Ikkaku, all of them, including the little guy with stubble around his chin, was supposedly dead. Ironically enough, if she did not pull Woyu down from the plane at the last minute, he would have been dead as well.

When Lin Sanjiu thought up to here, she shook her head. “They… they are not a problem anymore. Can you fly me to The Munitions Factory? I need to go there fast. If you can’t land directly at the front door, you can drop me somewhere nearby.”

The old pilot’s eyes bulged. He seemed a little surprised. “The Munitions Factory? Why the heck do you want to go there?”

“I have a friend to meet,” Lin Sanjiu grinned. “So, how much is the total fare?”

Even though they were friends right now, the old pilot was not going to give her a special offer or a mates’ rate of any kind. “Well, that ain’t going to be cheap.” After a short pause, he laughed. “However, it’s pretty easy to go to the heaven zone.”

The sachet of red crystals that Lin Sanjiu gave him did boost the plane’s speed a lot. Although the plane rattled as if it was going to break apart, it still brought Lin Sanjiu to the heaven zone after two hours of flight.

The heaven zone was not a zone.

She had been to a financial institution situated outside of the heaven zone when she was buying Exodus. At the time, she thought the heaven zone would be no different from that area. At best, the streets might be cleaner, with fewer pedestrians and stricter security.

However, she was wrong.

“This is the heaven zone! You can go down now!”

The old pilot slid the door open and the cabin instantly filled with the raging winds from the outside. His face had turned red from shouting himself hoarse. “Go down from here, and you will reach the heaven zone!”

Lin Sanjiu rubbernecked between the door and the old pilot. She refused to move a step forward.

The old pilot had expected her reaction and sighed. He scratched his chin and smiled bitterly. “Here is the heaven zone! You have to decide fast whether you want to go down or not. The claw just allotted me five minutes, and there are a lot of planes queueing behind us!”

Aside from knowing that the old pilot was asking her to get down from the plane, Lin Sanjiu did not understand any of his words.

The first thing was that this plane was hot a helicopter, so how could it hover in midair? Secondly, what was the thing outside the door?

‘This is the heaven zone?’