Chapter 81: Lost |
A lone sailboat drifted across the boundless sea.
It was nighttime, and only the stars and moon lit the sky. Waves lapped against the hull, making a soft, splashing sound.
In the dark and musty cabin, a boy huddled in a corner, pressed tightly among his people.
They were stacked like cargo, bodies overlapping. The air was thick with the fermented stench of sweat and rot, and festering sores spread across their skin.
People died daily, and no one could be sure if the person beside them was still breathing. The first to perish were thrown overboard, but others remained, their bodies left to rot in the hold.
Death, disease, suffocating heat, and fear—these were the boy's only memories of the voyage.
He didn't understand why he had to endure such suffering. He'd only overheard some of the more knowledgeable of his people saying they had been captured to be sold as slaves. Once they reached land, they would never see home again.
At first, they had sung to drive away the fear and prayed futilely to their gods. But now, no one had the strength to even whisper.
If there are any gods, the boy thought silently, let the storms rage. Let no ship ever reach that shore. Let us all be lost to this sea.
But it was no god who opened the door. It was a beautiful woman in a long blue dress.
Smiling, the woman remained silent, gesturing for them to hurry out.
The boy watched as his people scrambled onto the deck. At the woman's direction, they stormed into the cabins, dragged out the unconscious crewmen, and hurled them into the sea.
A knot of unease tightened in the boy's stomach. He hid carefully in the shadows, averting his gaze, making sure not to meet the woman's eyes.
He watched as strange, eerie smiles spread across his people's faces. One by one, they leaped into the sea, as if the waves could carry them home.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out. His consciousness blurred, and when he opened his eyes again, the ship was moored at the shore of a small island.
The sky was a bizarre shade of orange-yellow, and the island was preternaturally silent.
Though there were recently constructed buildings, the beach was deserted. There were no fish in the sea. There was nothing here at all.
The boy disembarked and ventured deep into the woods.
There, before a wooden building, he saw her again—the strange, beautiful woman.
She smiled at him, her hands moving in a series of gestures.
A rustling sound broke the silence. From the coconut grove emerged hundreds of monsters covered in fish scales. Among them, he recognized several familiar faces... they were his people.
...
The vision cut off abruptly, but not before maliciously lingering on a close-up of a monster with the head of a fish and the body of a man.
Qi Si was so repulsed, the corner of his eye twitched.
Chang Xu had seen the same vision. "Yuna can control people's minds," he stated calmly. "You can't look directly into her eyes. The monsters on the island were once human. The transformation likely involves jumping into the sea."
Qi Si grunted in agreement, his mind inexplicably drifting to the dream he'd had the night before.
The girl cowering in the corner had seemed so innocent, so harmless. Who could have guessed she would end up on this dreadful island, becoming one of its horrors?
On a stage saturated with sin, one must either become sinful or be consumed by it.
And so the victim sheds their innocent guise, accepts the mantle of sin from the hand of an evil god, and perpetuates the feast of depravity—
An endless, repeating cycle.
Chang Xu had no memory of the dream. Seeing that Qi Si wasn't going to comment, he continued, "The boy who survived must have had some way to repel the monsters. That's how he made it from the inn to the top of the clock tower to die in peace. The question is, what was his method..."
He walked to the railing and gazed down at the island below. Qi Si followed in silence.
The path from the inn to the clock tower wound through a dense coconut grove; it was a long and twisting route.
In the island's center, there was a strange break in the grove—a perfect circle with smooth edges. Faintly visible within it were structures of white marble.
Qi Si pointed to the clearing and smiled. "Chang Xu, unless I'm mistaken, that's the Sea God's altar. My guess is the offerings are human lives. What do you think?"
It was an obvious conclusion. Why else would Yuna have forced those slaves—strangers to her—to leap into the sea?
Chang Xu said nothing. Qi Si continued, his tone light and teasing. "There are no fish in the sea, Chang Xu. Aren't you the least bit curious what Yuna has been feeding us?"
Chang Xu: ...Not curious in the slightest. Thanks.
He changed the subject. "It's likely Yuna made a deal with the Sea God long before the Hopeless Sea even existed, a deal that's still in effect. It must involve more than just killing players, otherwise she wouldn't have given us that Sleep Aid Soup."
"I agree," Qi Si said, already backing toward the stairwell and starting down. "To make the most efficient use of us players, she probably wants us to accumulate a sufficient amount of sin before we die."
Chang Xu followed close behind him. At the word "sin," he glanced over. "You seem to know a lot. I don't recall seeing any of this on the game forums."
Without looking back, Qi Si chuckled. "It sounds like you know something about it too, don't you? How about we both lay our cards on the table and see who has the better hand?"
"How do you know?" Chang Xu pressed.
The smile never left Qi Si's face. "Take a guess."
"..."
The silence stretched for a long moment, but both of them knew it was foolish to get caught up in these questions inside a dungeon.
Everyone has secrets they can't afford to share. When you're holding back, you're in no position to demand the other person show their cards.
In silence, Qi Si reached the bottom of the clock tower and pushed the door open.
Chang Xu fell in line behind him without a word, resuming his role as a silent shadow.
Against a twilit canvas, the slender, gray-black structure looked like an ink stain smeared across an oil painting, fracturing the vivid green and dark yellow sky.
Before the clock tower, the two figures, one behind the other, were mere specks moving slowly away from the towering landmark.
They had only taken a few steps when a song in a strange tongue rose up behind them, as if the towering clock tower itself had burst into song.
"In fear, in prayer, I see only the ocean and the souls of the drowned..."
"They say there's no return, no return, our homeland lost to view..."
"Oh gods, please save me, in this crowded hold, where corpses and cargo lie..."
"They say to abandon hope, abandon hope, for the dream of home has died..."
Chang Xu's brow furrowed as he listened, a deep sense of unease washing over him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Qi Si produce a recorder from somewhere and begin to fiddle with it earnestly.
"What are you doing?" Chang Xu demanded.
Qi Si offered a sincere smile. "It's a nice song. I'm recording it for later."
The boy had carved the lyrics into the wall before he died, Qi Si mused. He was probably trying to leave a message for whoever came next.
And that line, "Oh gods, please save me," connected neatly with the other clues—
Qi Si remembered it clearly from his dream: it was the phrase the faithful had cried out most often. The only thing that can overcome faith... is a faith even more fanatical.
Chang Xu didn't remember the dream, and even if he had, he likely wouldn't have made that connection.
He gave Qi Si a complicated look, thinking that his temporary teammate might not be entirely sane.
Qi Si seemed to read his mind and sighed. "I see a therapist every six months, you know. My next appointment isn't for another two months."
Chang Xu: "..."
Just then, the clock tower bell began to toll. A single, cold *dong* fell from the heavens and struck the earth, sending out ripples of sound.
After seven deliberate tolls, the lingering echo was carried on the sea breeze, slowly mingling with the wind until it finally faded.
"The bells are ringing. So noisy."
Qi Si suddenly pressed a finger to his lips, his mouth splitting into a strange, hyena-like grin. "Tell me, Chang Xu... are those prayer bells, or a death knell?"
...
Inside the clock tower, Xu Ruozi followed Bai Yanduan up a narrow, dusty staircase, climbing one slow step at a time.
They were both veteran players who had cleared seven official dungeons. In the real world, they were just junior employees at big corporations. In the game, they had just gone bankrupt after a bad investment, forcing them to queue up for another dungeon.
After a brief chat, they discovered their worldviews, skill levels, and recent misfortunes were strikingly similar, so they decided to explore together.
The altar was out of the question. Both had been dragged into the Weird Game after sudden deaths in the real world, and their only goal was to survive one day at a time. Clearing a dungeon safely was far more appealing to them than earning points.
But they couldn't justify simply hiding and doing nothing.
After weighing their options, they quickly agreed to explore the clock tower.
Silence, decay, a suffocating stillness... all of it was compressed into the dark, narrow space, creating an unsettling atmosphere.
Xu Ruozi tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous habit that did nothing to calm her.
The suffocating silence was crushing her. She had to break it. After a long hesitation, she finally spoke. "Yanduan, don't you think it's weird? We haven't seen a single soul..."
Without looking back, Bai Yanduan chuckled. "It'd be scarier if we did. In this darkness, a sudden shadow would be enough to give you a heart attack."
Xu Ruozi remained hesitant. "But I heard a lot of people say they were coming here. How can we be the only ones?"
Bai Yanduan shrugged it off. "Maybe they were all talk. They probably found a place to hide as soon as they got outside."
Their words were punctuated by a suspicious scratching sound, like bare knuckles clawing at the walls.
A chill of panic shot down Xu Ruozi's spine. She instantly regretted wearing only a T-shirt into the dungeon for the sake of convenience.
She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing at the goosebumps on her skin in a futile attempt to warm up.
She realized that Bai Yanduan was suddenly far ahead of her, his form just a blurry silhouette against the fading twilight.
"Yanduan! Wait for me!" Xu Ruozi cried out, but her voice was no louder than a mosquito's hum.
Something cold and hard rested on her shoulder. She glanced down, and her peripheral vision caught the sight of a skeletal white arm.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped.
Rustling, five or six pairs of skeletal arms emerged from the walls. They seized her limbs and began to drag her toward the stonework.
She tried to struggle, but she was completely paralyzed. Only her mind was her own; her body felt disconnected, like the crushing weight of sleep paralysis holding a dreamer down.
Slowly, she was dragged to the wall, her back pressed against the cold stone.
The gray-black stones seemed to melt, becoming soft as a bog, sucking at her skin. She was pulled in, inch by inch, until the wall had completely swallowed her.
As if waking from a nightmare, she opened her eyes to a yellow sky and a massive, ancient sailboat.
Or perhaps it was just a fleeting vision, her life flashing before her eyes. The vibrant colors lasted only an instant in her pupils before being consumed by an endless dark.
Seawater flooded her mouth and nose, filling every cavity, every crevice of her body.
She was no longer herself. She was a part of the sea, an inorganic thing.
She began to sink, deeper and deeper, until she was lost to the seabed...
...
In the coconut grove, Liu Yuhan and Zhang Hongfeng stared at the head rolling on the ground, both of them frozen in panic.
Fortunately, the head quickly fell silent. Its eyes closed, and it became as still and quiet as a real corpse.
Liu Yuhan was the first to regain her composure. She turned to the dazed man beside her, his mouth smeared with blood. "Let's get back to the inn and clean you up."
Zhang Hongfeng slowly came to his senses, though his eyes remained fixed on the head. "What should we do with this? Should we take it back to show Lu Li?"
He had a point. As terrifying as the head was, the fact that it could speak meant it was likely an important clue.
"Don't touch it," Liu Yuhan said, shaking her head. "First, it could be dangerous. Second, if Yuna sees us with it, she'll become suspicious."
Zhang Hongfeng nodded numbly.
He was still reeling from the horror of tasting human blood, but he couldn't help thinking how sharp these young people were. A rough man like him couldn't compare.
In truth, Liu Yuhan was just as panicked. She still couldn't think straight.
But her instincts screamed that she couldn't let Zhang Hongfeng risk touching the head, and her mind had automatically constructed a series of perfectly logical reasons to support that feeling.
She thought with a wry smile. Perhaps this was a talent honed by years of lying.
Regardless, they couldn't stay in the grove. God only knew if another coconut might turn into a head and drop on them.
Liu Yuhan tore a blank page from her notebook, hastily scribbled down what had happened, and secured the note to the half-repaired wooden boat.
She led Zhang Hongfeng back toward the inn at a brisk pace.
By the time they reached the clearing in front of the wooden building, the clock tower was striking its seventh and final toll.
There was no sign of the other players, who were likely still scattered across the island, exploring.
The lobby was deserted. Yuna was nowhere to be seen behind the counter. The hall was so vast and silent it felt like another dimension, a place where one could step inside and be lost forever.
Liu Yuhan shook her head, casting aside her chaotic thoughts, and stepped into the inn.
Zhang Hongfeng followed right behind her, looking around. "Where are we gonna find water to wash all this blood off?"
"The kitchen," Liu Yuhan said, glancing down at her notebook before her gaze drifted toward the counter. "There has to be water in the kitchen."