Alphonse Elric.
What a surprise! To hear the name of the third person who has been missing all this time at this very moment.
I exchanged a glance with Aoba.
"Do you know him?" The office worker keenly noticed the change in our expressions.
"No, we don't," I said.
"Is that so?" The office worker didn't seem inclined to inquire further.
Fifteen minutes later, a faint white mist emerged ahead of the two cars.
"It's fogging up?" Aoba peered outside.
Another ten minutes elapsed, and the fog on the highway grew denser and denser, commencing to interfere with normal driving. Yukio in the driver's seat and the office worker in the adjacent car both switched on their headlights and slightly decreased their speed.
"I have a bad feeling..." Aoba murmured in a low voice.
My intuition also sensed the unusual nature of this suddenly appearing white fog. This didn't seem like natural fog, yet there was no sign of danger.
Just then, Aoba's and my mobile phones began to vibrate.
Aoba retrieved her purple mobile phone from her jacket.
Since I was sitting close to her, I could clearly discern the screen of her phone. Her phone had received a new text message, undoubtedly dispatched by the mastermind. The only one who can send text messages to our phones is the mastermind. We can only call each other but are unable to send text messages. This is a fact that Aoba and I verified with each other yesterday.
Moreover, the text messages sent by the mastermind neither display the mobile phone number nor the sender's name. This aspect is entirely blank.
Aoba opened the text message.
"Destroy three of the five strongholds on the map."
There was only this single line of text in the message, and there was also an attached thumbnail.
Aoba clicked on the thumbnail, and the picture immediately enlarged. It was indeed a map of Beaver City. Five locations in the northwest, northeast, southeast, southwest, and south were all marked with red crosses. Combined with the text content of the message, it was presumably asking us to select three from these five locations and then demolish the so-called strongholds mentioned by the mastermind.
What does this stronghold imply? Judging solely from the word, a stronghold is akin to a base for human activities. Asking us to destroy it means making us adversaries of the people inside?
Who will be in these five strongholds? Patients?
Considering the current situation, this is highly likely.
Although I don't know what the mastermind's intention is in transporting us to this world, but if, as Aoba said, all this is a game, then the red-eye disease is like the core setting of the game, and Beaver City is the main stage of the game. We are human players, and the patients are the foes that impede the players' survival. There is an irreconcilable conflict between the two sides. I don't think there are all innocent ordinary people in these five strongholds. It's more probable that they are all patients.
However, the text messages sent by the mastermind to us have always been extremely brief, leaving far too many uncertainties.
"我们该怎么办?"为了防止雪穗偷听,青叶用极其轻柔的声音问我.坦率地说,我也很犹豫.如果之前的想法都是正确的,那么主谋给我们的指示就是游戏的主要任务.如果我们不完成游戏中的主要任务会发生什么?显然,我们会陷入困境.然而,这是现实,不能完全从游戏的角度来考虑.如果我是游戏的幕后策划者,看到玩家没有执行主要任务,我肯定会采取一些行动.至于它会是什么...这很难说.很难预测我们希望看到的事情发生.但就因为如此,由于我缺乏线索,缺乏证据,以及过于投机的想法,我们是不是应该回到海狸城,按照主谋的指示摧毁那些莫名其妙的据点呢?如果我能证明我的想法是真的,我会毫不犹豫地立即返回海狸城.但现在,即使是我自己也认为这个想法相当不成熟,我什至羞于提及它.让我们看看好的一面.只要我们离开海狸城,我们就会安全.目前,我们也在走出去.安全触手可及,就在一臂之遥.我们是否应该仅仅因为主脑的一条指示就回去呢?至少现在,我找不到令人信服的理由回去.从情感上来说,我也不愿意这么乖乖地回去.此外,与我和青叶不同,雪穗有一个令人信服的理由离开海狸城.如果我们突然告诉她我们想回去,她肯定不会听.
During my silent contemplation, I also took out my own mobile phone and confirmed the text message content. Sure enough, it was the same as the text message received by Aoba.
Leave or return?
In a quandary, I took out a coin from my pocket.
Leave it to luck.
I tossed the coin and watched it spin rapidly in mid-air. Then, I caught it.
"Heads, everything remains the same. Tails, go back." I lowered my voice.
Aoba heard my voice and nervously gazed at my right hand holding the coin.
I opened my palm.
The coin was heads.
Aoba faintly exhaled a sigh of relief.
Yukio noticed the abnormal movement on our side and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I said.
Another twenty minutes passed, and the fog became increasingly thick. The visibility was so low that it made one suspect that an accident could occur at any moment.
Yukio involuntarily slowed down the car, and the speed shown on the dashboard also dropped below fifty kilometers per hour.
"I've never heard of such a thick fog here before." Her expression was slightly impatient.
Encountering such a strange thing on the way out is indeed not a good omen.
The red car that had been running beside us just now had already gone ahead. We could vaguely see its taillights through the fog.
Suddenly, we found that the red sports car in front had stopped for some unknown reason.
Yukio frowned and also stepped on the brake, stopping right behind the red sports car.
"What's wrong with them?" Aoba asked in confusion. "Why did they suddenly stop?"
Could it be that someone inside them has turned into a patient? Such an inauspicious thought sprang up in my mind.
Bang bang.
There was a gentle knocking sound on Yukio's side window.
We all looked in that direction and immediately saw that the person knocking on the window was the office worker driving the red car. His face was extremely ugly, mixed with emotions such as fear, confusion, disbelief, and being at a loss.
Yukio lowered the window.
"What happened?" she asked.
"It's hard to explain." The office worker's voice was trembling. "I don't know how to describe what we saw. Even if I tell you, you won't believe it..."
He swallowed.
"So, come down and take a look for yourselves. Once you see it, you'll understand."
After saying that, he turned and walked forward.
We looked at each other.
"I'll go down first." I opened the door on my side.
"I'll go down too." Yukio also opened the door.
"You stay here. I'll go out and check the situation." I turned to Yukio and said.
Yukio took out her pistol, waved it at me, and said, "I won't be in danger."
"We can't leave Aoba alone in the car." I looked at Aoba.
"Well... I'm fine." Aoba feebly raised her hand.
In the end, we all got out of the car.
We walked forward and saw the office worker standing in front.
Standing next to the office worker were his wife and daughter. The two of them stood there motionless. Seeing us approaching, the office worker made a gesture to slow down.
"Slow down. Don't walk too fast. Be careful not to fall."
Fall? What does that mean?
My confusion was soon resolved.
In front of us, the road surface had completely disappeared, replaced by a vast, bottomless cliff. And we were like survivors who had walked to the edge of an isolated island. Only instead of seeing the sea, we saw an endless chasm.
Yukio walked to the edge of the cliff.
Snap.
A small piece of stone broke off from the edge and fell into the abyss. After a long time, there was still no sound of it hitting the ground.
"What is this..." The office worker's wife murmured to herself.
I also want to know. What exactly is this? Why did the road disappear and turn into an impassable cliff?
Yukio stared blankly at the bottom of the cliff for a long time without making a sound. Then, she hugged her head and suddenly let out a heart-wrenching howl. The sound was filled with a very obvious crying tone and an extremely desperate emotion.
For her, taking Mr. Sanlun out of Beaver City was the only way and the last hope. But just at this moment, her hope seemed to be trampled on by the malice of heaven and became fragmented. I don't know how desperate she must be feeling, but her howl infected me, making me feel truly sympathetic and deeply sad for her.
Finally, Yukio stopped howling. She weakly knelt on the ground, as if she had lost everything, sobbing helplessly.
Aoba looked at her back and showed a very guilty expression.
"Did I... should I not have said such things to her?" she asked me.
The idea that patients could return to normal as long as they left Beaver City was put forward by Aoba. From this perspective, Aoba rekindled Yukio's hope of saving her family and indirectly led to Yukio's current despair.
"This is not your fault." I could only say so.
No one could have predicted that such a thing would happen.
Only the office worker's seven or eight-year-old daughter ran to Yukio's side, hugged her, and comforted her in a low voice.
"What's wrong with her?" The office worker came over and asked.
I hesitated for a moment and briefly told him about Yukio.
"Her father has become a patient, and you put him in the car?" The office worker was surprised. He looked at Yukio and then sighed deeply. "Really... so unlucky."
Yes, so unlucky.
Whether it's Mr. Sanlun becoming a patient or the current situation, it seems that fate is tormenting the Sanlun family.
Now that leaving Beaver City has become impossible, it seems that we have no choice but to consider following the text message instructions of the mastermind.
After a long time, Yukio finally stood up and returned to our side.
"Let's... go back." Her demeanor and voice were filled with an inescapable weariness.
"Go back where?" I asked.
"My home." Yukio said in a depressed tone. "There are many empty rooms at home. Would you still like to stay there?"
"Of course!" Aoba immediately expressed her stance.
Yukio gave Aoba a very forced smile.
We and the office worker's family returned to our respective cars. The two cars adjusted their directions, with the fronts facing the way back.
"What are your plans next?" I asked the red car on the opposite side.
"What else can we do?" The office worker was also greatly disappointed by this experience. "After returning to the city, we plan to collect food and then lock ourselves at home... Maybe we will also be infected with the red-eye disease and become patients at some point..."
If we stay in Beaver City, anyone could become a time bomb. It's not surprising to become a patient at any time. It's no different from quietly waiting for death.
Even I, a superpowered person, am no exception.
The car started up, and we left this cliff.
...
Half an hour later, both we and the office worker's family left the area shrouded in fog.
Along the way, no one spoke, and the atmosphere was very silent.
"Eh?"
Suddenly, Aoba made a sound.
"There are people ahead." she said.
It's not strange to see people on the highway. We occasionally see patients wandering on the road. If we can't avoid them, we just run them over. But the situation is different now. The person blocking our way this time doesn't seem to be an ordinary patient.
About two hundred meters ahead, a person in black was standing motionless like a tree, looking at our side.
One hundred and fifty meters... one hundred meters... fifty meters...
He never moved, just silently looking at our side.
"Is it a normal person?" Aoba wasn't sure.
That person clearly noticed us approaching, but didn't make any movement. If it were a patient, they wouldn't be so well-behaved.
Yukio didn't mean to slow down. She just adjusted the driving direction slightly to ensure that we wouldn't hit him.
Suddenly, he raised his hand, palm facing our side.
In the next moment, an orange-red fireball appeared out of thin air in front of his palm and quickly grew to a size of one meter in diameter.
This extremely unexpected scene drew my attention to him. What's going on? Is he a superpowered person? Judging from this posture, he seems to be about to attack us. My intuition is also warning me that he has a strong hostility towards us.
But why?
There is not much time left for thinking.
"Yukio, be careful!" I shouted.
"I understand." Yukio gripped the steering wheel tightly.
When the distance between us was only thirty meters, the huge fireball was ejected from in front of his palm, as fast as a football being powerfully kicked by a player. We were approaching him, and the fireball was attacking us. The relative movement relationship made the distance between the two sides shorten even more quickly.
In just a blink of an eye, the fireball hit the red car driven by the office worker next to us.
Boom!!!
A violent explosion suddenly rang out. The firelight illuminated the surroundings extremely brightly. The red car was completely destroyed, and the flying debris cracked the window glass on our side.
Screech—
Yukio stepped on the brake. The car we were in swerved. I held Aoba tightly to prevent her from being thrown out of her seat due to inertia.
The car finally stopped with difficulty.
I let go of Aoba and immediately got out of the car and looked at the wreckage of the red car.
The wreckage was burning. The car body became tattered and charred. A charred arm was exposed outside, motionless.
The whole family of three died inside. No one survived.
I turned to look at the culprit.
He raised his palm again, aiming at me, and another scorching fireball condensed.