Chapter 204 – The First Gathering of the Shelter Wasteland

Chapter 204 – The First Gathering of the Shelter Wasteland

At last, princes and princesses had stopped falling from the sky, along with all the other bizarre things that had been raining down.

Yu Sheng silently withdrew his gaze from the heavens and looked at the figures in the clearing ahead who had already calmed down and were now resting quietly or conversing in hushed tones.

Around them, the ground that had once been covered by rose thickets, artillery smoke, raging flames, and other such things had completely returned to the wasteland’s original appearance. Those things that had briefly spread from the nightmares had failed to leave any trace in this “shelter.”

A supremely proud tabby cat was strutting through the crowd with its chest puffed out and head held high, inspecting the surroundings as if on patrol. Several “guards” clad in armor, mage robes, and leather gear and wielding various weapons followed at its side. Only when it reached Yu Sheng did it nod, rubbing its head against his leg. “Mm, I am satisfied, meow.”

Yu Sheng couldn’t help but glance at the guards flanking the “King.” These “attendants,” dressed like a standard adventurer party straight out of a storybook, looked surprisingly human at first glance—though their expressions were slightly stiff. When he turned his gaze toward them, these “adventurers” even responded with solemn nods.

“We are the King’s blade!” the “warrior” in medieval plate armor suddenly declared with booming conviction.

Eileen jumped in fright, then muttered under her breath, “…They look just like real people.”

“We are the King’s blade!” the “female archer” in leather armor, hearing Eileen’s muttering, also suddenly bellowed with the same booming yet somewhat wooden delivery.

The fine fur on Hu Li’s ears bristled slightly as she retreated behind Yu Sheng, greeting these guards summoned by the King with an awkward wave. “Um… hello.”

“Hello!” the “mage” in long robes shouted. “We are the King’s blade!”

So those were basically the only lines they had.

The cat King strutted away with its “adventurer guards” in tow, continuing its patrol across the open wilds. Yu Sheng heard footsteps behind him and turned to find Little Red Riding Hood approaching.

“The ‘King’ summons different types of guards. The adventurer party is just one combination—sometimes it summons an imperial guard or a royal knight order. They’re all formidable fighters,” Little Red Riding Hood explained casually to Yu Sheng as she watched the tabby cat recede into the distance. “As for exactly how many combinations exist, even the King itself doesn’t seem to know. The most baffling combination I’ve ever seen was when it summoned a whole bunch of old men who looked like they were about to keel over from old age…”

Yu Sheng was immediately baffled. “Huh? It summoned a bunch of old men? What’s the point of that?”

“They’re ‘sycophants’—they can fulfill any request the ‘King’ makes within a set period of time, functioning almost like an omnipotent wish-granting machine.”

Yu Sheng’s jaw dropped. “…Holy shit, that’s insane.”

“But the ‘King’ only ever makes the sycophants conjure up a massive pile of dried fish treats, then dismisses them.”

“…Holy shit, that’s even more insane.”

“Are you starting to feel like our abilities are actually quite interesting?” Little Red Riding Hood wore a peculiar smile as she gazed alongside Yu Sheng at their resting companions, speaking slowly. “Even I’ve never seen them all drop into the same place at once like this before. It really is… unexpectedly chaotic.”

Yu Sheng fell silent for a few seconds, momentarily at a loss for words.

If you set aside all the danger and corrosive forces lurking behind everything… Fairy Tale was indeed quite… fairy tale-like.

“Come on. As the ‘master’ of this place, it’s time for you to make an appearance,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a smile, patting Yu Sheng on the arm before dragging him toward the others. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

Yu Sheng walked over, and the young men and women gathered on the grass immediately fell silent. Every gaze turned toward him as the members of Fairy Tale rose to their feet, bowing courteously and wordlessly in thanks. Even that perpetually proud tabby cat had somehow slipped into the crowd at some point, lowering its head in greeting.

“Uh, hello everyone,” Yu Sheng said, suddenly a bit nervous. Even though the people before him were all sixteen or seventeen years old—some even younger—a group of “kids” (minus the cat), when all those gazes converged on him, he found himself freezing up. This time, the eyes focused on him carried a noticeably more intense warmth than when they’d last met. “…I won’t bother with long introductions since you all know me already. Anyway, this place is the ‘Shelter Wasteland’ I told you about. You’re safe here, so rest to your heart’s content. That’s it. I’m done.”

The circle of teenagers broke into cheerful laughter, and some clapped in a scattered, haphazard way.

This was the first gathering of the Fairy Tale organization in the Shelter Wasteland.

Yu Sheng retreated and sat down on the ground beside Little Red Riding Hood, who couldn’t help but grumble, “That opening speech of yours was seriously lame.”

“I’m not good at that kind of thing,” Yu Sheng said offhandedly, his gaze sweeping the surroundings. “Not everyone’s here, right?”

Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “Right. Not counting the ‘King,’ Fairy Tale currently has sixteen guardians in total. Only nine are here right now.”

“The others…”

“Some are still on night patrol shifts in the real world, some probably didn’t enter their dreams tonight, and others… probably won today,” Little Red Riding Hood explained in a low voice. “We won’t know the specifics until tomorrow’s morning meeting when we can ask in person, but there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully. Eileen, floating in midair, suddenly piped up: “Wait, they can actually win?”

“Of course they can!” Little Red Riding Hood replied immediately. “It’s not like we’re always getting chased around helplessly every time we enter a nightmare. There are times when we have the upper hand too. Granted, the nightmare’s power generally becomes overwhelmingly strong in the later stages—but even at my level, I do win occasionally!”

Eileen thought about it for a moment, her picture frame swaying in the air. “Oh… I’ve never seen you win though.”

A vein instantly popped on Little Red Riding Hood’s forehead.

Yu Sheng quickly intervened. “Just ignore her. She’s got a real talent for getting under people’s skin.”

Then, before a certain puppet could spout more nonsense, he immediately changed the subject. “Alright, now that we’ve confirmed the shelter plan works, it’s time to talk about serious matters. There are some things I need to tell you—about that squirrel, and about the Twilight Angel called ‘An-Ka-Ai-La.'”

The moment she heard this, Little Red Riding Hood’s expression turned grave—and even Eileen, who had been gearing up for another round of verbal damage, immediately landed obediently on the ground. She planted herself between Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood like a memorial portrait, her face deadly serious.

Yu Sheng didn’t beat around the bush and laid out all the intelligence he’d obtained from Squirrel.

Halfway through, Snow White was drawn over and sat down to listen. Then the “King” wandered over too, its feline face solemn as it crouched on the grass.

Little Red Riding Hood’s brow was deeply furrowed.

Among everyone here, she had known that “Squirrel” the longest and was the most familiar with it.

Squirrel was the guide for every Little Red Riding Hood, and the only “friend” every Little Red Riding Hood had in the Black Forest. She had been curious about this before, had asked questions—but it was only today that she finally learned why there was a mysterious “Squirrel” in the Black Forest.

At the same time, she now knew where the paths, the lanterns, the hearth fires, and the candlelight in the Black Forest had come from.

“Do the other ‘subsets’ have this kind of gradual growth?” Yu Sheng asked with some curiosity.

“Every subset undergoes gradual changes and refinement—that’s not unique to the Black Forest. And the ‘intensity’ of each subset increases along with the growth of us ‘characters,’ just like the Big Bad Wolf in the Black Forest. That lunatic in the Bloodstained Court wasn’t that powerful from the start either,” Snow White nodded, then shifted her tone. “But ‘Squirrel’ is indeed unique to the Black Forest. In the Bloodstained Court or the Eternal Ball and other ‘stages,’ there’s no similar entity.”

Yu Sheng gave a slight nod, his expression contemplative.

As more and more intelligence and clues came together, he was increasingly sensing the Black Forest’s special nature among all the Fairy Tale subsets.

“Squirrel” was trapped in the Black Forest. The Deep-Dive Squad from seventy years ago had also landed in the Black Forest after piercing through Fairy Tale’s outer shell, transforming into the “Hunter” there. And from what he’d learned about the other Fairy Tale members, the Black Forest’s pattern of “distortion” seemed quite distinctive. The combination of forest and Big Bad Wolf clearly wasn’t as outlandish as the other subsets, but instead exhibited a kind of underlying stability…

This made Yu Sheng wonder—what had caused the Black Forest’s uniqueness?

…Could it be related to the “fairy tale book” that Squirrel had given to An-Ka-Ai-La? Was “Little Red Riding Hood” a special chapter in that book?

After a moment of thought, he broke the silence again. “When you go back, search that orphanage thoroughly—especially places like the basement and the oldest structural parts of the grounds.”

Little Red Riding Hood instantly grasped Yu Sheng’s intent. “…You suspect that traces ‘An-Ka-Ai-La’ left in the real world are still in the orphanage?”

“It’s a possibility we can’t rule out. True, it’s been a very long time, and many of the orphanage’s buildings have been renovated. But traces left by a Twilight Angel don’t necessarily fade with time. Some things… might very well be ‘imprinted’ on this world,” Yu Sheng said, thinking aloud. “Squirrel recalled that the glowing object once ‘merged’ into the open ground in the middle of the courtyard. And Little Red Riding Hood, didn’t you see eerie thorn-like shadows on a wall near that same clearing before? There might be a connection between the two.”

Little Red Riding Hood immediately recalled the suspicious shadows she had seen in the corners of the orphanage walls, and her expression grew heavy.

“I understand,” she said with a solemn nod. “As soon as we get back, we’ll organize a search.”

(End of Chapter)