contemporary romance
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
After traversing across various slopes of differing heights lined with tall buildings, Lin Sanjiu walked into a narrow, meandering alley. Suddenly, the pedestrians on the road, along with the shops along the streets, disappeared with a blink of an eye like melting snowflakes.
The bustling scene of seasonless city life filled with a seemingly endless amount of curiosities and human activities gradually faded to the background. With fewer people around, the surrounding noise died down and it became quiet. At the cusp of dawn, Lin Sanjiu could only hear the crisp “clip-clop” sounds as the faun trotted through the misty morn.
“How much further is it?”
Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help asking after they had walked for some time. At the same time, her eyes drifted and paused for a moment on the faun’s back. There was a cloth-printed picture of a smiling mermaid with open arms on the faun’s hooded cape.
“Just another five minutes,” the faun replied. His reply was somewhat muffled because of his cape. “You are nearing the border of our base.”
That was actually the longest consecutive line of words Lin Sanjiu heard the faun say. “Our” naturally referred to the “Smiling Mermaid”, which was the most influential faction in the Cyber District.
Previously, when she asked the map store owner about the most influential faction in the district, he reacted as if he was guarding a grave secret. Remembering this, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help feeling a little worried.
However, Lin Sanjiu kept quiet and followed the faun without voicing her opinions, as if a chosen freelancer who didn’t have the right to question the head contractor. As they walked, Lin Sanjiu started thinking about the possible risks involved with this “job”.
—
When she first asked the faun about what the job entailed, she did not expect that he would answer her directly. “We are entering a pocket dimension, are you up for it?”
“Entering a pocket dimension? But why?”
This immediately stirred her curiosity. Unfortunately, even after following the faun for some time, Lin Sanjiu could not get the answer to her question. The faun seemed to be a man of few words. Throughout the journey, the faun replied to her with the same few words no matter how hard she tried to question him. If he had not revealed earlier, while they were in the basement, that the reward for the job was 80 big crystals, Lin Sanjiu probably wouldn’t even follow him.
Considering her current capabilities, she didn’t have much to fear. Tempted by the reward of that many crystals, she immediately agreed to follow the faun.
—
As the two people walked farther, the symbol of the smiling mermaid became more and more common. It was on the walls of buildings, on street corners and on various signs—signaling to Lin Sanjiu that she was reaching the depths of the faction’s territory.
When Lin Sanjiu noticed a guard tower from a distance and the black walls surrounding the tower, the faun turned around sharply and brought Lin Sanjiu in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going now?”
“Old Goat, here!”
Before Lin Sanjiu could ask the faun her question, a voice suddenly rang out from the murky silence. Shocked, Lin Sanjiu looked up and noticed a head peeking from the left corner of the street. “Yo, you found a person this time?”
Lin Sanjiu was surprised to see someone whose appearance was even weirder than the faun’s.
The faun gestured for her to continue following him and replied the other person with a casual “yeah”, without expressing any surprise.
“Say, that personality of yours… One is better than none. That’s an improvement,” the other person sighed and immediately turned to Lin Sanjiu. He observed her and nodded, “Considering her height and that aggressive look, she should be alright. But that pair of wings is really strange!”
“…”
Even though having two skeletal wings on her back wasn’t anything normal, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t really accept being criticised in such a manner by the person before her.
The outfit of that person could be considered normal but he or she was wearing a blue and white porcelain vase on the face. As half of the person’s face was covered by the round base of the vase, Lin Sanjiu could only see the person’s eyes under the messy black hair. On top of that, the person’s voice had a strange frequency and buzzed within the interior of the vase. As a result, Lin Sanjiu could not figure out the gender of that person even after staring for a long time.
From her observation, the porcelain vase did not even interfere with the person’s movement one bit. He turned around and brought Lin Sanjiu and the faun into a small path. After following the winding path, somehow, they reached a piece of vast vacant land.
There were already five people waiting there. They all looked different and were wearing different outfits. Markedly, none of them had a Smiling Mermaid symbol on and none of them had the strange fashion sense that inflicted the residents of the Twelve Worlds Centrum. They were probably selected freelancers just like Lin Sanjiu.
“Oh, just one question,” Lin Sanjiu chased up with Porcelain Vase and asked, “Why are we entering a pocket dimension?”
Porcelain Vase’s black eyes widened as his eyes swept across both the faun and Lin Sanjiu, “You don’t know anything? You don’t know anything and you just followed him? Hey, Old Goat, didn’t you tell her anything?”
After being stared by Porcelain Vase, the faun raised his hand and scratched the back of his head in a rather obvious manner. Lin Sanjiu finally realized that he might be embarrassed.
“Nevermind… Come with me. You will know in a minute,” Porcelain Vase let out a long sigh and brought Lin Sanjiu to the open space before them.
After waiting for some time, a few Smiling Mermaid members appeared bringing other people with them. Lin Sanjiu quietly counted the number of people standing with her in this open space and found out that there were already close to forty people. Seeing that they had a sizable number of people, Porcelain Vase walked in front of everyone and shouted out to the various small clusters of posthumans, “Welcome everybody!”
Everyone turned their attention to him immediately.
“I think everyone is clear why we gathered you here today,” as he said this, Porcelain Vase threw a glance at Lin Sanjiu and continued, “There are three different types of pocket dimension with different rules within the Smiling Mermaid territory. One of them is very unstable and is currently still in an evolutionary state. Its size and scope have been constantly changing and our goal today is to enter that particular pocket dimension.”
“Our aim, this time, isn’t only to survey the boundaries of the pocket dimension and how it affects people. We need to record the rules and the events within the pocket dimension. As it is currently in a rapid evolutionary state, we need to gather the detailed information about it to prevent unnecessary accidents.”
“I think some of you already know the rules, but let me go over it once more. There are 36 people here on our grounds. After a one-on-one knockout battle, we will filter out half the number. The remaining 18 people will have to face five consecutive fights with members of our organization. Anyone who can last for five rounds can then rest and enter the pocket dimension.
“You can keep any rewards you receive in the pocket dimension. After you provide us with information about the pocket dimension, our organization will reward you with another 80 big crystals.”
“If anyone wishes to back out now, please inform us—no one? Alright, please make your preparations and the elimination round will begin in a bit!”
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