“So who did I kill just now?”, Aspen asked neutrally before placing the thing back where he had gotten it from and then dragging the limp body towards their safe-room by the legs.
River followed, looking down at the empty face and the trail of blood and brains that was left behind. A couple of teeth, too. Could the Actors slip on that? Would that be a problem?
“My brother.”
“Sorry?”
“No, thank you.” River took a larger step to open the door for Aspen, who only pushed Ling Xian inside and then wiped his hands on his clothes.
The short exchange ended the topic. It wasn’t important.
The easterner only rubbed his throat, where half an insane laugh had gotten lodged with nowhere to go.
To think that killing could be such an easy solution for all kinds of problems. He’d just have to act like he didn’t know Aspen after he woke up and hope that his brother would turn his irritation towards a guy he’d never be able to find.
He didn’t even consider throwing the guy to a shadow to kill him in reality as well – the only result that would have would be his parents going nuts, making his life even more exhausting.
“Now that that’s done… Tell me.” Aspen threw one last look at Ling Xian before fixating River with wide, clear eyes. His smile was wide enough to reach his eyes, narrowing them a bit.
A peaceful mood fell over River. He straightened his back a bit and took a deep breath. After that, he repeated his thoughts and how he had come up with them. Aspen nodded along, pleased.
The corpse was ignored, merely a short and annoying distraction that was now out of the way.
“So what shall we do now?”
“Let’s look around the school first, to get an idea of what’s where.”
River turned to walk but looked over his shoulder to make sure Aspen was following.
The cheerful murderer walked up to his side, following closely. “Your name is Tian Zhu?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Tfr.”
“Vtbeiv P mjii sbe atja?”
“Rb, P qgfofg Elnfg obg cbk.” Ktja cjwf yfibcufv ab atf vgfjwr.
“Xgfja! P qgfofg Crqfc, abb. Zs cjwf lr Alcu Jl, P vbc’a ilxf la abb wemt.” Crqfc rbecvfv rjalrolfv.
Elnfg rtba tlw jc jrxfk uijcmf. “Sjrafgc?”
“Vbwfktfgf vbkc atf ojwlis ilcf. Qjr ybgc lc atf ojg fjra, ater atf cjwf, yea kf wbnfv ktfc P kjr bcis j ofk sfjgr biv. Rbcf bo ws ojwlis jmaejiis ibbxfv ilxf fjrafgcfgr.” Lf rtgeuufv tlr rtbeivfgr. Sjrafgc meiaegf vlvc’a rela tlw jcv tf vlvc’a ilxf atja cjwf bo tlr, flatfg. “Gbc’a jrx wf kts atfs ujnf wf atja cjwf.”
They fell back into mutual silence. There was no feeling of awkwardness, as if both of them were fine with not talking as they walked once through the school. It did feel like a waste of time, but the games were pretty long and there was only so much that could happen in a school anyway.
River grabbed a piece of paper from some kind of machine and a pen he found in a cupboard, then drew up a map of the school grounds they could walk around in.
“First years on the ground floor, second years one higher and third years on the highest floor. There must be hundreds of students here? How are we supposed to find the interesting ones?” Aspen clicked his tongue and looked over River’s shoulder.
The easterner tensed momentarily at having someone else stand so close but relaxed quickly. There was nothing dangerous about Aspen coming close, contrary to other people. The irony of that fact did not escape him. “There must be something that gives us hints. I already have an idea where to look.”
River’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He had glanced into every classroom.
Likely to allow the possibility of finding the odd ones at all, every student sat perfectly uniform with a lowered head. If you looked at them from the side, their backs angled up perfectly.
Even the teachers were talking with lowered heads.
Only a handful of students had different body languages. This was hint enough for someone who kept an eye out.
He would keep an eye on these people and soon enough they’d know whether something was odd.
The Play gave them enough time for a thorough look through the school.
There was a more than loud chime ringing through the building as class ended. Aspen reacted quicker than River, scanning their environment and pulling him into a corner where they wouldn’t be in the way.
The door opened and the shadows streamed out. The three Actors from the class they were standing in front of slowly made their way out.
River looked over them.
There was Ponytail, a girl according to her body and the uniform skirt, with a cheerful gait. She was followed by Glasses – that was harder to tell, depending on the angle – who walked with her head a bit ducked.
The last one was Bun who walked with her head held high but was clearly distanced from everyone else in the class.
River looked down at the smirking Aspen. “…Ponytail, Glasses and Bun?”
“I feel like it’s easier to name them. Don’t you agree? And these names will make it obvious who we are talking about.”
“We could go with student one, two and three”, River tried weakly but Aspen rolled his eyes.
“No, boring. Hey look, Bun is walking into the opposite direction. After her?”
River muttered a “sure” under his breath and began to move as soon as the hallway cleared out a bit.
They could move, but it was kind of slow due to the amount of people. Thankfully there were weird gaps in how the shadows moved, allowing them to follow the girl by walking in these places.
“Right, before I forget”, Aspen said as he snapped his fingers. “There’s another person here. A girl. She shrieked something about not wanting to be alone with three guys the moment she woke up and stormed out of the room. I didn’t follow her since you were still sleeping, and your brother wasn’t awake then yet. On that topic, have you ever considered killing him? He’s annoying.”
The dry tone in which he said the last two sentences made it sound like he was talking about something as common as the weather.
River graced it with no answer and heard a small snort from his side.
“If he appears in another dream with us, I’ll kill him every time”, Aspen leisurely promised. It almost appeared as if he was trying to comfort River. “You don’t mind it, and he’s too loud for me. I’d rather get rid of him immediately.”
“Look over there”, River said instead of responding to his words, pointing at a scene happening farther away.
Bun had spotted someone in the emptying hallway and grabbed that person’s hand. It was another girl walking with a deeply lowered head and her arms pressed closely to her body.
“Skirt”, Aspen decided resolutely.
“…Really?”
“She has absolutely no defining features. We can call her Plain instead, if you prefer?” Aspen walked closer to the pair.
Rather than saying they were fighting, it was Bun who was one-sidedly saying things to her in a stern voice while Skirt was shivering. Some people passing by watched for a second or two, but no one stopped. It felt out of place how ignored the scene was.
“Is that our base conflict? It is, isn’t it?” Aspen circled them. “Who else had we seen that was an Actor?”
That Aspen used the word River had decided on, rather than the official descriptions, made his heart give a proud thump. It felt like acknowledgement.
River looked down at his shoes, his lips nervously curling.
“A teacher and a male student.”
“So it’s Teacher and Dude. Got it.” Aspen’s eyes never once left the two girls. After a while of scolding, Bun let Skirt go and sighed. She said another sentence, but Skirt turned on her heel and ran away. Unhappy, Bun stomped her foot on the ground.
“Do you get along with your classmates?”
The sudden private question made River look down at Aspen. He was staring up with his gray eyes, face soft with relaxation.
Author’s Note
The next game arc after this one is such a fuck-up to plan that I literally had to make a three-floor map. And I will have to share it with you because it’s near impossible to keep up with whats where if you don’t have it….
New dream~ looks interesting~
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Thanks for the chapter! ^^
You’re gonna share it.. uhh… in a footnote? in.. a… future chapter? I got confused thinking I missed the map or something. 😄 That put aside, thanks a bunch for the chapter 🐏🐑❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Oh I mean the game arc after this ^^ Not the current one
oh so I was mistaken twice, I see… but it’s fine thanks for clarifying ❤❤ Interacting with you is always such a pleasure btw please don’t stop 🐏 not that you ever mentioned it, I just don’t want you to stop
have a great day/night!! 🐏🐑❤❤❤❤