Chapter 384: Invisible Person |
'Where exactly is this place?'
Shirayanagi Ayaha struggled to her feet. She raised a hand to rub her head, brushing off the dead leaves clinging to her hair.
Of course, she knew what a welfare institution was—it was just another name for an orphanage. But why had the world before her eyes turned completely black and white, like a portrait of the deceased?
It filled her with a deep, unsettling sense of dread.
She looked down at herself. Fortunately, she had not turned black and white.
"Over here! Pass the ball!"
"Hahaha, the ball is mine!"
"You are so stupid, I told you to kick it over here—"
"I didn't do it on purpose..."
Oh, that wasn't right. Thinking about it carefully, she had just seen the weeds on the ground rustling in the wind...
But this was so incredibly strange. A black-and-white world, an unfamiliar place... and even those noisy, boisterous voices were speaking Chinese?
'Where is Carole? Where is A-Gen?'
However, the most important thing right now was to figure out her current location. Since there were people in this orphanage, she might as well go over and ask.
With this in mind, Shirayanagi Ayaha walked toward the front gate. She knocked on the large iron door. To her absolute astonishment, the seemingly rusty and loose iron door remained perfectly still. It did not make the slightest sound in response to her knock.
She clearly felt the physical sensation of touching it, yet it was as if an invisible membrane was preventing... or rather, resisting her from interacting with anything in this world!
In fact, the moment she knocked on the door, she faintly realized something...
Shirayanagi Ayaha swallowed her saliva, staring at the iron door in front of her. She reached out her hand once more, but this time, she didn't knock. Instead, she tentatively touched and pressed against it. Then, her hand passed straight through the metal, magical like the legendary wall-penetrating technique!
Shirayanagi Ayaha's eyes widened. She wanted to gasp in shock, but after suddenly realizing that this black-and-white world was inherently abnormal, the surging wave of astonishment quickly subsided.
"..."
After a moment of silence, she chose to phase directly through the door and enter the orphanage.
The clamor she had heard earlier was coming from the main courtyard behind the gate. Shirayanagi Ayaha saw several children dressed in old, slightly dirty clothes kicking a ball around. Incidentally, just like the world itself, those children were completely gray and white.
And the ball they were kicking wasn't a soccer ball or any kind of sports equipment. It was just a light, bouncy leather ball with a watermelon pattern printed on its surface.
Even so, the children were having a blast.
The ground in the courtyard behind the gate wasn't much different from the outside. Forget about a lawn—it wasn't even paved with concrete. It was just a massive expanse of bare dirt. At best, it was slightly flatter than the wasteland outside and devoid of overgrown weeds.
The facilities and conditions were terrible. Shirayanagi Ayaha found it hard to imagine how the orphans living here managed their daily lives...
She walked toward the children playing with the ball. Yet, even when Shirayanagi Ayaha stood right next to one of them, they remained completely oblivious. It was obvious they simply couldn't see the beautiful, impeccably clean girl standing there—a girl wearing an exquisite school uniform whose very art style completely contrasted with this place.
"Hello?"
Shirayanagi Ayaha tried greeting the closest child, even reaching out to tap his shoulder, but unsurprisingly received no response.
She scratched her beautiful hair in frustration, completely at a loss for what to do next.
She couldn't communicate with anyone, she couldn't interact with any objects, nobody could see her, and no one could hear her voice.
In this bizarre, grayscale world, she was like a wandering ghost. She could do absolutely nothing and had no idea how to leave.
'Could it be that I will never be able to go back?'
This terrifying thought inevitably bloomed in Shirayanagi Ayaha's mind.
If that were really the case, she would rather just drop dead right now!
She shook her head vigorously. No, things weren't that dire yet. At the very least, she knew far too little about this strange, grayish-white world. Perhaps a way out was hidden somewhere, just waiting for her to discover it.
'Maybe this is just an unconventional escape room?'
She cast a few more glances at the children still rowdily kicking the leather ball around. After confirming that they truly had no intention of noticing her, Shirayanagi Ayaha reluctantly left, deciding to explore the interior of the orphanage's buildings.
After all, her spawn point in this world had been right outside the orphanage. Following standard game tropes, this orphanage most likely held profound significance...
In a room that appeared to be the dining hall, an old master was rolling out dough. Shirayanagi Ayaha couldn't tell what kind of food he was making, but judging by his trembling hands as he worked, she figured the children's daily meals in this orphanage probably didn't taste very good...
In a room that was likely a dormitory, the air was somewhat stale. It was a large hall with ten or twenty beds lined up right next to each other. The bedding on the beds was mostly covered in patches. Shirayanagi Ayaha pursed her lips and turned away.
Just as she turned around, she heard a ringing sound. It wasn't the rhythmic, melodic chime of an electronic device like a mobile phone or an alarm clock. Instead, it was the chaotic clatter of someone forcefully shaking a bell.
Shirayanagi Ayaha looked toward the source of the noise. The person ringing the bell was a tall, thin middle-aged man. As he rang the bell, the group of children who had been playing with the ball in the courtyard all swarmed toward his direction—straight into the last building Shirayanagi Ayaha had yet to explore.
'Perhaps that is the classroom where the orphans receive their foundational education?' Shirayanagi Ayaha guessed inwardly.
So, she followed behind the children. Relying on the fact that no one in this grayscale world could see her, she swaggered boldly into the room.
Just as she had suspected, it was indeed a classroom.
Old wooden tables of varying heights were arranged rather haphazardly across the room. The children who ran into the classroom scrambled to sit in their respective seats, waiting for the teacher—the middle-aged man who had rung the bell—to come in and start the lesson.
There was no podium in the classroom, and the blackboard was just a small piece hanging on the wall. Shirayanagi Ayaha's gaze swept over it once and quickly moved on. What drew her attention far more were the tender young faces sitting at the school desks.
That was until her eyes fell upon a child sitting by the window in the corner of the classroom, resting his cheek on his hand and gazing out at the sky. Her eyes shot wide open.
In a daze, she felt as though that child perfectly overlapped with the figure in her memories who also loved staring out the window at the sky!
Moreover, as the middle-aged man entered the room, forcing the child to withdraw his gaze and look toward the front of the classroom, Shirayanagi Ayaha was stunned to discover that the child was staring right back at her with an equally surprised expression...