Chapter 219: Suspicious Mrs. Manas
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
The three people lay on the floor quietly. After a while, Lin Sanjiu realized that her surroundings grew silent. She immediately flew up from the ground to look and found the siblings with their eyes shut. Both of them had fainted. Reno and Rena' wounds were worse than she thought, especially Reno, who released those explosives too close to himself. His legs were covered by countless metal shards. Blood mixed with fat cells oozed out from his wounds making his pants stick to his legs. Lin Sanjiu wanted to, but couldn't even check his wounds.
With their body conditions, they naturally weren't going anywhere.
After searching the two siblings, Lin Sanjiu found a knife. She morphed herself into two fingers to pinch the knife. Then, she used the knife to cut Reno's pants, revealing his large patch of ghastly-looking wounds. The 'gear' which had been damaged appeared no different from normal tattered clothes. Lin Sanjiu cut off a few cleaner bits of fabrics and cleaned the area around his wounds before stopping. There were quite a few pharmacies nearby, but the rubbing alcohol and medicine in those stores were already corroded by black matter long ago. She didn't have the courage to use those things on the siblings, who were now very weak.
And just like that, Lin Sanjiu stayed by the unconscious siblings' side, guarding them a little anxiously. Based on her own judgment, she fed them some water they had with them and placed headrests made of rags under their heads... This was the limit to what she could do. The siblings could only depend on their own body constitution to recover.
The skies grew dark once again. Considering this, daylight in Kisaragi Station World only lasted for four to five hours. In addition to that, there were always gray, gloomy clouds in the sky, creating an atmosphere which seemed devoid of life.
Darkness came over them, covering the scenery with a quiet dark shadow.
"This is weird... Are there really no survivors in this world?" Lin Sanjiu thought to herself, overcome by boredom, as she circled the siblings.
Corpses eventually attract flies. In the same manner, the two half-dead humans on the ground attracted quite a lot of duoluozhongs. Sometimes, when Lin Sanjiu wasn't as vigilant, she might even find a greenish shadow looming between the siblings. She had to chase them all away every ten minutes or so and even exorcised a few duoluozhongs. They gave her quite a bit of trouble.
Originally, she told Mrs. Manas to keep a lookout for her so she could do a bit of training. However, she was called to 'chase away flies' every few minutes. Naturally, she couldn't do anything else but let her higher consciousness recover at its own speed. Luckily, her training over this period of time was not in vain, and the recovery speed of her higher consciousness was now much faster.
Under the tar-black skies, two motionless bodies lay under the pale, white light that shone from the interior of the train station. A skull floated around them, as a few vertebrae slowly formed from the top of its spine. "If anyone saw us, they would probably think that a duoluozhong had just killed two people, right?" When that thought disappeared from Lin Sanjiu's mind, she suddenly heard Mrs. Manas grumbling, "If you are that free, can you think of something more positive?"
"Huh?" Lin Sanjiu made a meaningless sound in her head.
Almost as if lazy to explain herself, Mrs. Manas activated Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness scanning ability and presented the image to Lin Sanjiu. The area it covered was much wider than what Lin Sanjiu had seen previously, so she was a little shocked by that.
"Stop acting like a country bumpkin." For some reasons, Mrs. Manas sounded very unhappy. "Your ability has improved, so it is just common sense that you can now scan a wider area... Is this something very shocking?"
That was theoretically true. However, Lin Sanjiu had been 'conserving her resources', so she always kept her scanning range only within the radius of a few meters. Because of that, it had become something habitual to her. When her scanning range was pushed to nearly one kilometer in radius, she couldn't really adapt to seeing that much detail in such a large area. At the same time, Lin Sanjiu found out why Mrs. Manas was unhappy.
"Croaker!" Mrs. Manas mumbled.
At the edge of her scanning range, about a kilometer away from them, there was a row of office buildings. There were a few black shadows standing on the rooftop of one of the buildings and they were pointing at the train station. With a single thought, Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness allowed her to zoom in on the people. The small black shadows instantly became clear in her mind.
Well, now she knows why she was called a croaker. Her question about other survivors was now being answered directly by the image in her head. The few people leaning over the edge of the roof of that building had cautious faces. The person who seemed to be the leader of the team said something as he pointed to Lin Sanjiu. Then, he made a killing gesture with his arms.
Even though Lin Sanjiu could not hear them, from what she saw, she could sense that they were telling each other something like, "There is a powerful one in front of the train station. Guys, don't show any mercy."
"Huh? Why are these troublesome things happening..." Lin Sanjiu first reaction was to make a grievous comment, "Don't tell me everyone can actually see my higher consciousness form?"
"Of course not," Mrs. Manas replied.
"I mean, these two kids are fully geared to gain experience in this place. It isn't that weird that they can see me. But, why can some random people there see me?"
"If these two kids have their own methods of seeing you. There are definitely other ways in this world that would allow people to see higher consciousness entities. Explaining why you meet people that can see you consecutively... Um, coincidence." Mrs. Manas answered unhurriedly and sounded quite irresponsible. With her keen intuition, Lin Sanjiu immediately sensed that something was amiss.
"Are you hiding something from me?" Lin Sanjiu asked skeptically. In the meantime, the small team that was still some distance away wouldn't reach her so quickly. She had some time to prepare.
Suspiciously, Mrs. Manas grew silent for a while before she replied, "I didn't." Her voice sharpened, making it rather obvious that she was faking innocence. After looking at the people in the image, Lin Sanjiu weighed her priorities and decided to let the matter with Mrs. Manas rest. If she thought about it carefully, that teacher probably hid more than one thing from her. Lin Sanjiu was determined to find a good opportunity to count these debts. She suppressed her suspicion and split her body into two long 'ropes'. She decided that she would move the siblings to another place before those people came. She always felt that it was unnecessary to engage in any random meaningless fights.
There was no way Lin Sanjiu would go to any of the residential areas nearby. Even though the residential buildings around here looked very different from where that demonic building was, she didn't want to take any risks with the siblings' current condition. Going to the office buildings in the opposite direction was also not an option. From the looks of it, they could only hide in those pharmacy stores nearby. After she found a hiding place, she started pulling the siblings toward the spot. The process was much harder than she anticipated. With her current strength, she could wrap herself around one of them and lift them slightly off the ground. However, it takes up too much energy for her to carry both of them at the same time. She thought that she could carry them over one by one. However, that was not the case. When Lin Sanjiu carried Reno and flew a few meters toward the pharmacy store she had chosen, she turned her 'head' casually and looked behind. At that point, she couldn't help abandoning Reno to rush over to Rena's side.
"Get lost! Yes, you!" Lin Sanjiu scolded before she condensed herself into a small missile and shot herself to the spot beside Rena. A little girl with two braided pigtails was facing Rena with her back. Shocked, that little thing ran into the train station before turning around and showing another pair of braided pigtails. That thing was an example of those famous ghosts who show the back of their head even when they turn around.
Lin Sanjiu was already fed up with those pestering spirits. She sped toward the child's back. It made a strange wail and the upper body of the child lost its form and became a cloud of green smoke. Meanwhile, it continued running to the depths of the train station anxiously with the bottom half of its body. Lin Sanjiu stopped herself then. After spending so much effort chasing off just one duoluozhong, she floated up once more. She looked through the glass walls of the train station and noticed that something was kneeling by Reno's side.
When Mrs. Manas 'witness' Lin Sanjiu flying between the two siblings busily before finally moving them to the pharmacy store, she couldn't help sighing.
"While you desperately move to and fro between the siblings, do you think you can conceal your tracks? I guess those people could already tell where you are heading. I guess they're coming soon," Mrs. Manas said, almost as if disappointed by Lin Sanjiu's performance.
Lin Sanjiu didn't seem to mind. She acknowledged the teacher's words half-heartedly. Next, she checked the interior of the store cautiously. She chose the smallest pharmacy store on purpose so she could keep her eyes on the siblings and protect them at all times.
"Look at them, they probably just want to board the train," Lin Sanjiu said while she slipped behind the counter. She found herself staring straight at a old man with huge eyes. She stretched her body and smacked the old man's face. The old man shrieked and disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Then, she added, "We were blocking the entrance just now, so it is reasonable to think that they had no choice but to fight with us then. Since I have avoided them, they would just head for the train. Why would they still bother me?"
Her words made sense—on the premise that the people only wanted to take the train. After about twenty minutes, Lin Sanjiu could hear some shuffling footsteps from the direction of the train station. She was guarding the siblings alone in the jet-black darkness of the night.
If she didn't focus her higher consciousness in that direction, preparing for their arrival, she would not have noticed that bit of sound. Their footsteps were very soft. Almost as soft as a cat creeping across a carpet. It was so soft that Lin Sanjiu wondered if she imagined those sounds as she looked at the image of them in her head. She started to feel a little nervous.
It was a team of four, and they were all men. Differing from her guess, they were obviously not survivors of this world. Not only were they all wearing the same dark blue combat uniforms, from their coordinated movements, it was obvious that they had been working together in a team for a long time. From her observation, they weren't particularly trying to conceal themselves, yet they moved very quietly. Apparently, they had been professionally trained.
"Who are these people?" Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself, but Mrs. Manas certainly did not have an answer.
The team of four was led by the tall, muscular man she had seen previously. They stopped outside the entrance of the train station. They spread themselves out in a semi-circle as they watched their surroundings vigilantly. The white light from the train station shone on the men, revealing their features very clearly. When Lin Sanjiu saw them so clearly, she almost couldn't curb herself from immediately waking the siblings...
"Please look at them! That is what we call fully-equipped!" Lin Sanjiu complained to Mrs. Manas emotionally, "Look at that heavy machine gun! Look at those boots! That pistol holder! And those combat uniforms!" From the tone of her voice, it was as if she wanted to just rush over and snatch those equipment for herself.
"Do you think gunpowder works here?" Mrs. Manas was surprisingly calm, "Maybe they are just some soldiers from another world. They probably haven't got the full crappy Kisaragi Station experience."
Lin Sanjiu looked at the team obsessively, so the teacher couldn't tell if she heard her.
"Hey, maybe they didn't even see you. Maybe, they can't even see the spirits here..." Mrs. Manas had not even finished her gloating remark when a woman slowly walked out from the train station.
Perhaps, the word 'walk' wasn't the best word to use. The woman's legs were twisted together like wrung clothes, as if all the bones in her legs had been shattered. She slowly 'slithered' out of the train station. As she got closer to the men, her smile grew wider. Her two black eyes sockets narrowed. Mrs. Manas seemed to be correct. The four men' expression did not change even one bit as if they did not notice the thing creeping toward them.
The woman seemed unable to control her exaggerated wide grin. She slowly stretched out her hands and was just about to touch the shoulders of the man closest to her when he suddenly moved his shoulder. Without even turning his head, he pointed his gun behind him, almost uncaringly, and shot at her. A blue flame exploded in the woman's face. Before the expression on her face could change, she already became a cloud of smoke.
"Hey! Don't waste your bullets on these things!" the person who seemed to be their leader shouted. While Lin Sanjiu and Mrs. Manas were stunned by the events that unfolded, the leader stopped for a moment and ordered, "Don't forget our mission here. I want you to spread out and search for that skull!"