Kubei dreamt when he was dazed and groggy.
He went back in time to when he was in Junior High. It was a woozy afternoon, and the English teacher still had a bob cut. He was standing on the podium, writing on the blackboard with her back against the students. The chalk repeatedly hit the blackboard, making thick, heavy noises in the room.
He felt dizzy.
Kubei couldn’t see what was written on the blackboard. Everything was out of focus. He could only stare at the folds of the teacher’s shirt that was on his back. Everything else was getting further and further, but only the raised line of the buckle underneath the pink sweater was clear even to the smallest detail.
Kubei felt his neck and face itch after looking at it for too long.
Suddenly, the English teacher turned around, and Kubei saw the face of a man over 40, with spectacles and donned with lipstick. It was his boss.
The boss then pointed at Kubei and yelled, "Balala Energy, transform!"
"…."
Once again, Kubei jumped awake in shock.
This was the second time he woke up from a bizarre dream. He felt nauseated, like he was cramped in an overcrowded train for 2 hours. Fortunately, he no longer was tied at a strange place. He did not have an ache all over his body. He felt only a dull pain on his left cheek. Seemed like it was swollen, too.
Left cheek….
Kubei slowly regained his consciousness, and he remembered everything. He was punched solidly on his left cheek by Michelle, and then… He knew nothing about what happened next. He most probably passed out from the impact, had a strange dream, and woke up here.
What happened?
He opened his eyes to find that it was dark. He could see nothing, and for a moment he thought he was blind. He tried moving his limbs, and he faced no problem in that. He was lying on something that was soft.
It was similar to his small bed.
Did he teleport back? Or was everything just a dream?
He sensed his surroundings more attentively and realised that no, this was not his home. He could hear the faint tick-tock from far away, but his house never had an old mechanical clock like that. Furthermore, this quality of this bed felt more like those that were sold for more than RMB 1000 in Ikea. He touched them too many times in the malls, but he could never afford them. Hence, this must be some other place than his house.
"Hey, is anybody there?" After some consideration, Kubei decided to be more careful and asked.
There was no reply.
Kubei called again in his brain, hoping that the System would know something he did not. However, the System seemed to have vanished. If it was not for the blue triangular symbol that still shined in the space of his consciousness, he would have thought that he met with a supernatural event.
The symbol also clarified that he did not dream everything up, and had yet to travel back to his initial world.
Since he was still in this world, there was only one question left. What did Michelle do after he fainted from her punch?
He pondered on it for 5 minutes and concluded that lying around doing nothing was not going to solve anything. Regardless, Michelle did not kill him nor let the Cleaners terminate him. He survived, and that was good news. Although Kubei knew Michelle still needed him, he still felt unsure when he used the Waterball Spell.
What if, what if Michelle really did kill him?
However, he was alive now, and that was all that matters.
Kubei felt relieved after he reached this conclusion. At this point, he barely picked up his own life, why should he be worried about everything now? Since Michelle still required him, she would not be able to do anything even if he did do something improper.
Hence, Kubei got out of bed.
A pair of shoes was placed by the bed, and he felt them around to put them on. At the same time, he found a steel product by the bed. He felt it with his hands, and it was hard and heavy, shaped somewhat like a can.
Kubei followed his heart and took it with him as a defensive weapon.
He took two steps ahead and touched a door. There was a handle on the door, which felt quite modern. He tried twisting the door knob and it opened, letting some light into the room. Kubei felt more relaxed now. Anyone who could not see for such a long time would be afraid too.
However, the light was too sheer to be called light, really.
Kubei studied his surroundings using the weak lighting he got. This looked like a mansion, and outside the door was a long hallway. There was a soft scent in the air, and the window at the end of the hallway allowed some moonlight into the house. That made the house feel less spooky.
Again, it was at night. It was incredibly quiet, it seemed like everyone was asleep.
Where was this? It was very similar to the manors that were inhabited by the nobles from the 16th or 17th century. Kubei remembered he had seen them before on the television.
Thinking, Kubei took two steps forward. Suddenly, a low sound was heard from his back.
It was a low whine, and Kubei was so frightened that all of his goose bumps appeared. He quickly turned towards the noise.
At the end of the hallway, a thing that looked like a human walked slowly towards him. Why did he say it was a thing? It was because he could not see anything from the poor lighting, and the thing moved in a peculiar way. It swayed from left to right, and moved more like a zombie than a human.
Also, that whine would not feel out of place if you inserted it into Plants vs Zombies.
"Fuck, is that a ghost?" Kubei felt quite terrified.
He felt that something was wrong with the setting of this world. He previously saw mages and the church, so what was a zombie doing here? Unless, the name of this novel was somewhere along the lines of
He felt as if he was struck by thunder.
The silhouette that resembled a human approached him gradually, and Kubei still could not see anything in the dark. He could not check if the face was as horrendous as the ones with special effects that were drawn onto the actors. However, once he got out from shock and recalled the zombie movies he watched, he realised that this thing before him was not very threatening after all.
Look at the speed it had. It was moving like a sloth; how dangerous could it be?
Hence, Kubei calmed himself down and raised the heavy item he had in his hand. He waited quietly for it to come over. Around 30 seconds later, when he judged that the distance was appropriate, he threw the can directly at the thing’s head.
Clang!
A loud sound was heard, and Kubei felt a headache vicariously from the thing.
It halted it movements. Kubei nervously glanced at the silhouette, afraid that the impact did not affect it. The can was not very heavy at all. Based on this body that he teleported into, there was only a few heavy things that he could carry.
If it was not afraid of the can, what should he do?
Not the Waterball Spell, right? He never heard of zombies that are terrified of water.
Just when Kubei was anxiously staring at the thing, a horrifying scream started from the silhouette.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
That was such a devastating cry, it resembled an old cat with its tail stepped by a 200-pound person. It echoed throughout the mansion, and the lights in every single room lit up simultaneously, the doors opened one by one, footsteps were heard from every direction.
The once silent night suddenly became rowdy.
"Why? What happened?"
"Who was making so much noise in the middle of the night?"
"That voice, it was quite familiar."
"…."
The darkness was chased away, and Kubei was finally able to clearly see his surroundings.
The strange silhouette a few steps away from him was a man with golden hair. He wore silk pyjamas, his face was one of utter shock, an unknown brown liquid dripping from his beautiful curled hair. His pearly white pyjamas was also stained with lines of the liquid.
"Ah, oh…."
Kubei’s expression turned bad once he saw what happened.
So, the setting of this world was not weird. That was a human, not a zombie.
So, the can he used as a defensive weapon was…. Not an ordinary can.
Let us just say that it was the ‘toilet’ of this world.
The people of the house slowly gathered around them, most of them clad in rough sackcloth, and a few of them in silk pyjamas. Most of them were sleepy, but once they arrived, their eyes widened in disbelief.
As more and more people gathered around them, the rowdiness settled into silence.
Everyone was staring at the gold-haired man, and they dare not breathe. Not a sound was made.
"Pfft..."
Kubei could not help but laugh at the situation, but he quickly stopped himself as he knew that it was inappropriate.
"I am incredibly sorry, I did not intend to do so," it was so painfully hard for him to stifle his laugh.
The gold-haired man snapped back into reality and touched the unknown liquid on his face. He glared at Kubei, and his voice trembled like a cock with its throat slit, blood gurgling down its throat, "You… you… I… I… I… Fuck… Fuck…."
Kubei tried hard to supress his laughter, his face twisted in agony.
The golden-haired man’s face was scarlet, his chest heaved continuously, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he wanted to finish his sentence, but his anger and despair choked his words in his throat.
"Do you want to say something?" Kubei asked with a friendly tone.
The golden-haired man seemed to be more agitated after that. He started twitching, and he pointed at Kubei with a trembling hand like a conductor for a long time. The unknown matter on his body went everywhere due to his trembling.
"Oh, don’t be too excited. Take a deep breath, and slow down." Kubei felt like he was the most considerate person in the world.
It seemed like the golden-haired man was comforted, as he inhaled deeply after Kubei’s words. Before he could exhale, his eyes rolled upwards, and he fainted with a thump onto the floor.
"…."
Dead silence.
Pin drop silence.
The people glanced at Kubei and the man fainted in the puddle of faeces, and occasionally shared eye contact among themselves, as if all this was outside of their comprehension. They were like a bunch of people under the Binding Spell, unmoving, and muted.
Awkward silence.
Awkward stench, too.
At this moment with the worst timing ever, a mechanical voice said in Kubei’s mind, "Wow, this dude is eating shit though."
The System’s attack was too sudden, Kubei could not help but lose his control. He laughed.
Every pair of eyes in the room focused on him. It was exactly how visitors would study a rare animal in a zoo. Kubei felt like he was under 10 spotlights, and he was very stressed about that.
He would be okay if they were just staring, but they were extremely quiet too. Kubei was very tense under the scrutiny.
He needed to say something.
"Um, it’s late, shouldn’t everyone be asleep?"