Alphonse Elric
It was quite unexpected to hear the name of the elusive third party at this time.
I exchanged glances with Aoba.
"Do you know him?" The office worker noticed our expression change acutely.
"No, we do not know each other."
"Is that so?" The office worker had no intention of pursuing the matter further.
Fifteen minutes later, a faint white mist appeared in front of the two cars.
"Is it getting foggy?" Aoba looked outside.
After another ten minutes, the fog on the highway became thicker and thicker, starting to interfere with normal driving. Yukio in the driver's seat and the commuters in the car next to him had turned on their lights and slightly reduced their speed.
"I have a bad feeling about this..." Aoba said softly.
My intuition also sensed the unusual appearance of this sudden white mist, which does not seem to be natural fog, but there is no sense of danger.
At that moment, my and Aoba's phones started vibrating.
Aoba took out her purple mobile phone from her jacket.
I was able to clearly see the screen of her phone because we were sitting next to each other. Her phone received a new text message, which was undoubtedly sent by the Darkroom. The only one who can send text messages to our phones is the Darkroom, and we can only call each other, but not send text messages, as Aoba and I confirmed yesterday.
Additionally, the text messages sent by the dark forces will not display the phone number or the sender's name, leaving this area blank.
Aoba opened the text message.
"Destroy three out of the five outposts on the map."
The text message contains only this line of text, and also includes a thumbnail image.
Aoba clicked on the thumbnail and the image immediately enlarged, revealing a map of Beaver City. The northwest, northeast, southeast, southwest, and south were all marked with large red Xs, and combined with the text of the message, it seems we are supposed to choose three of these five locations to go to and then destroy the so-called strongholds mentioned in the message.
What does this stronghold mean? If understood only in terms of vocabulary, the stronghold is something like a human activity base. Does destroying it mean that we are at odds with the people inside?
What kind of people will be in these five strongholds? Patients?
Given the current situation, this is very likely.
Although we don't know what the black hand's intentions are in transporting us to this world, if, as Aoba said, this is all a game, then Red Eye is like the core setting of the game, and this Beaver City is the main stage of the game. We are the human players, and the patients are the enemies that hinder the players' survival, with irreconcilable contradictions between the two sides. I don't think all five strongholds are just ordinary people without illness, the possibility of them being patients is greater.
However, the content of the text messages sent to us by the dark forces has always been very brief, leaving too many things uncertain.
What to do?
To not let Yukio hear, Aoba asked me in a very small voice.
To be honest, I am also undecided.
If the previous ideas are all valid, then the instructions given to us by the mastermind are the main quest in the game. What will happen if the main quest is not completed in the game? Clearly, it will get stuck; however, this is reality, and we cannot consider it entirely from a game perspective. If I were the mastermind behind the game, watching the players
Do not pursue the main quest, you will definitely do something, but what exactly... that is hard to say, it is difficult to expect the things we want to see to happen.
But just because of this, because of my lack of clues, lack of evidence, and overly speculative ideas, should I turn back to Beaver City and follow the instructions of the conspiracy to destroy those mysterious strongholds?
If I could prove my idea is valid, I would immediately return to Beaver City without hesitation; but now, even I myself feel this idea is very immature, and I'm even ashamed to express it.
Look on the bright side, as soon as we leave Beaver City, we'll be safe. Right now, we're on our way out, and safety is within reach, just a step away, do we really have to go back because of a single order from the dark forces? At least for now, I can't find a reason why we must go back. Emotionally, I'm also reluctant to just meekly return.
And, unlike me and Aoba, Yukio has a reason that she must leave Beaver City. If we suddenly told her that we want to go back, she would surely not listen.
In the period of silent contemplation, I also took out my own phone and confirmed the content of the text messages, and sure enough, it was the same as the text messages received by Aoba. Leave, or return?
I was torn between two choices, so I took a coin out of my pocket.
Let's leave it to chance.
I tossed a coin up in the air and watched it spin rapidly in the air; then, I caught it.
"As before, everything remains the same. In the other direction, let's go back."
Aoba heard my voice and nervously watched my right hand holding the coin.
I opened my palm.
The coin is heads.
Aoba let out a soft sigh.
Yukio noticed the unusual activity on our side and asked: "What's going on?"
"Nothing."I said.
Another twenty minutes had passed, and the fog had become increasingly dense, reducing visibility to the point where one might suspect that an accident could happen at any moment.
Yukio unconsciously slowed down the speed of the car, and the speedometer on the dashboard also dropped to less than 50 kilometers per hour.
"I've never heard of there being such thick fog here before." Her expression was slightly irritated.
Encountering such a strange incident on the way out is indeed not a good omen.
The red car that was running next to us just now has now moved to the front, and we can faintly see its taillights through the mist.
Suddenly, we found that the red sports car in front had stopped for some reason.
Yukio frowned and also stepped on the brakes, 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 one of them has become a patient? This ominous thought crossed my mind.
There was a faint tapping sound coming from Yukio's car window.
We all turned our gaze towards that direction, and immediately realized that the person knocking on the car window was a commuter driving a red car. His expression was extremely unpleasant, a mixture of fear, confusion, disbelief, and bewilderment.
Yukio lowered the window.
"What happened?" she asked.
It is hard to put into words. The voice of the office workers was trembling, "I don't know how to describe what we saw, even if I tell you, you won't believe it..."
He swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
"So, come down and see it for yourselves, and then you'll know."
He turned and walked away.
We are at odds with each other.
"I'll go down first." I opened the door on my side of the car.
"I will go down too." Yukio also opened the car door.
"You stay here, I'll go check on the situation." I said to Yukio as I turned my head.
Yukio took out a gun, waved it at me, and said, "I won't be in any danger."
"It can't be left to Aoba alone in the car."I looked at Aoba.
"Uh, it's fine with me." Aoba weakly raised his hand.
We ended up getting off the car together.
We're moving forward, and see the office workers standing in front of us.
The office worker's wife and daughter stood beside him, both standing there motionless. When they saw us approaching, the office worker gestured slowly.
the gesture.
"Slow down, don't walk too fast, be careful not to fall."
Fell down? What does that mean?
My doubts were quickly resolved.
The path ahead has completely vanished, replaced by a vast and bottomless cliff; we are like castaways on the edge of an island, not seeing the sea, but an endless chasm.
Yukio reached the edge of the cliff.
A small piece of rock broke off from the edge and fell into the abyss, and it took a long time before the sound of it hitting the ground could no longer be heard.
"What is this......" the office worker's wife murmured to herself.
I also want to know, what is this exactly? Why does the road disappear and become an impassable cliff?
Yukio stared blankly at the bottom of the cliff, not making a sound for a long time; then, she hugged her head and suddenly let out a heart-wrenching wail, her voice tinged with a very obvious sob and an utterly desperate emotion.
For her, taking Mr. Sanli out of Beaver City was the only way, and the last hope, but it was at this moment that her hope was trampled by the malice of the heavens and shattered to pieces. I don't know how desperate her mood was, but her wailing infected me, making me feel sympathy from the bottom of my heart and deeply saddened for her.
Finally, Yukio stopped her cries. She knelt weakly on the ground, as if she had lost everything, sobbing helplessly.
Aoba looked at her back with a very remorseful expression.
"Am I... not supposed to have said those things to her?" she asked me.
The idea that leaving River Beaver City could restore the patient to their original state was proposed by Aoba. From this perspective, Aoba rekindled Yukio's hope to save his family, which indirectly led to Yukio's current despair.
"This is not your fault."
No one could have foreseen that this would happen.
The young office worker's daughter, only seven or eight years old, ran to Yukio's side and hugged her, quietly comforting her about something.
"What's wrong with her?" asked the office worker who was passing by.
I hesitated for a moment and briefly told him about Yukio's matter.
"Her father became a patient, and you put him in the car?" The office worker was taken aback, he looked at Yukio, and then sighed deeply, "That's... too tragic."
Yes, that's very unlucky.
Regardless of whether Mr. Three Wheels has become a patient or the current situation, it seems that fate is tormenting the Three Wheels family.
Given the current situation, since leaving Beaver City has become mere talk, we have no choice but to consider executing the instructions in the coded message.
After a long time, Yukio finally got up and came back to us.
"Let's... go back." Her demeanor and voice were filled with lingering fatigue.
"Where are you going back to?" I asked.
"My home," Yukio said, feeling dejected. "There are many empty rooms at home, would you still be willing to live there?"
Of course! Aoba immediately expressed his stance.
Yukio gave Aoba a very reluctant smile.
We and the office workers all got back into our respective cars. The two cars adjusted their direction, with the fronts of the cars facing the road back.
"What are you planning to do next?" I asked the red car across from me.
"What else can we do?" The office worker was also very disappointed with this experience. "After returning to the city, we plan to collect food and then lock ourselves up at home."
You never know when you might get infected with Red Eye and become a patient......
Staying in Beaver City, anyone would become a time bomb, and it would not be surprising when they turn into patients, which is no different from waiting to die quietly. Even I, a superhuman, am not an exception.
The car started up, and we left the cliff.
......
Half an hour later, we and the office worker's family all left the area shrouded in mist.
The whole way, no one said a word, and the atmosphere was very silent.
"Huh?"
Suddenly, Aoba made a sound.
"There is someone ahead." She said.
It is not unusual to see people on the highway. We occasionally see patients wandering on the road, and we just hit them directly without avoiding them. But the situation is not like that now
This time, the person blocking us is not an ordinary patient.
Approximately two hundred meters in front of us, a person dressed in black clothing stands motionless like a tree, watching in our direction.
150 meters......100 meters......50 meters
He never moved, he just silently watched us.
"Is this a normal person?" Aoba was not very sure.
That person clearly noticed our approaching, but did not make any move. If he were a patient, he should not have been so calm.
Yukio had no intention of slowing down the car, he only slightly adjusted the direction of travel to ensure he would not collide with him.
Suddenly, he raised his hand, his palm facing us.
In the next moment, an orange-red fireball appeared out of thin air in front of his palm, and it quickly grew to a diameter of one meter.
This unexpected scene drew my gaze towards him. What is going on? Is he a superhuman? Judging from his posture, he seems to be...
He is planning to attack us. My instinct is also warning me that he has strong hostility towards us.
But why?
There is not much room left for contemplation.
Yukio, be careful!
"I understand." Yukio gripped the steering wheel.
As the distance between the two parties was reduced to only thirty meters, a huge fireball was launched from the palm of that person, flying at a speed as swift as a football kicked forcefully by a player. We were approaching him, while the fireball was attacking us, and the relative motion caused the distance between the two to shorten even more rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, the fireball hit the red car being driven by the office worker next to us.
Bang!!!
Suddenly, a violent explosion rang out, the flames illuminating the surroundings brightly. The red car was completely destroyed, with flying debris shattering the windows of our vehicle.
Yukio slammed on the brakes, and the car we were riding in skidded. I tightly hugged Aoba to prevent her from being thrown out of her seat due to the inertia. The car finally came to a stop.
I released Aoba, immediately got out of the car, and looked at the wreckage of the red car.
The wreckage is burning, the vehicle's shell has become dilapidated and charred, a charred arm is exposed, not moving at all.
A family of three died inside, with no survivors.
I turned and looked at the culprit.
The man raised his palm again, aiming at me, and another scorching fireball formed.
