Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 527 - 495 Girl

Chapter 527: 495 Girl

The peculiar creature earlier seemed to have the ability of infinite resurrection, but now it hasn’t revived and reappeared near us. It seems the flame imbued with killing intent had an effect.

The power of the strange beings in the Doomsday Era seems to be much more bizarre than the anomalies I’ve heard of in the modern world. It’s likely that they have undergone adaptive evolution to the environment of the Doomsday Era. However, even if they are strange beings of the Doomsday Era, they are ultimately anomalies, not entities that truly threaten the world. Although they have unique rules of the ’Undying Body,’ Impermanence is a ground god capable of redefining the rules of heaven and earth, and I have no reason to believe I can’t kill even this.

That being said, I must admit that the creatures of the Doomsday Era have their formidable aspects. After all, there are beings capable of splitting open the skull of a god right upon appearing. It’s fortunate that this "dark history" remains unknown; otherwise, it might be embarrassing for me to make such bold claims in the future.

Therefore, I might still need to retain some vigilance, as that infinitely resurrecting creature might appear again in the future.

"It really hasn’t appeared again... Could it really have been eradicated? Or did I misjudge it, and the creature wasn’t the same as the one in the rumors?"

The mapmaker seemed puzzled and had no choice but to set the matter aside for now. He stopped in front of a shop on the pedestrian street.

Judging by the sign hung outside, it was a hotpot restaurant, with its main entrance tightly shut. The mapmaker stood outside, gently knocking on the door in a fixed pattern, then placed his lantern against the door and took two steps back with us.

It seems this place is the mapmaker’s safe house.

I vaguely heard footsteps tiptoeing behind the door. With my keen hearing, I could roughly analyze the height, weight, and current movement of the person behind the door. The person seemed to be short and thin, lying on the ground behind the door, probably peeking through the crack. In this posture, they should also be able to see the blessing lantern placed against the door.

After a moment, the person slowly stood up and opened the door.

The person behind the door was an eleven or twelve-year-old boy. He first looked at the mapmaker, then saw me and Tan Xiang, displaying an extremely vigilant expression.

"I’m back," said the mapmaker. "They’re new companions."

The boy didn’t speak, just stared at me and Tan Xiang for a few seconds, then stepped aside. The mapmaker picked up the lantern placed on the ground and entered the safe house with us.

After all, the safe house was originally a hotpot restaurant, with many tables and chairs. In the center, there was a large round table, above which hovered a white blessing lantern flame.

This blessing lantern flame was much larger than the one inside the lantern, the latter only being the size of a finger, while the former was slightly larger than a palm.

As a light source, the brightness of this blessing lantern flame was not very high, and the safe house had a considerable area, thus the interior was only dimly lit, barely allowing the outlines of the nearby tables and chairs to be visible.

I noticed another figure beside the large round table, a girl holding a sketchbook, slightly older in appearance than the boy from earlier, but still within the scope of childhood.

The girl’s attention remained fixed on the sketchbook in her hands, showing no reaction to our entrance.

I had heard before that the mapmaker had only two companions inside the safe house, and it turned out they were two children. I now understood why the mapmaker would risk venturing out alone to gather supplies, and also why, despite having two partners, he was so eager and indiscriminate in recruiting new ones, even encouraging someone like Tan Xiang, who didn’t seem to have any survival skills. Compared to these two children, at least Tan Xiang was an adult.

Additionally, the mapmaker had mentioned having a crazy partner who knew clues about the Little Bowl. The boy just now didn’t seem crazy, so could the person I’m looking for be this girl?

"Is it her?" I directly asked the mapmaker.

"No, it’s someone else..." The mapmaker replied with a bitter expression.

Seemingly in response to his words, there suddenly came a sound of struggling from upstairs. My hearing immediately caught it, and like a bat, I visualized a blurry image in my mind—it was a person bound in metal chains upstairs, fallen on the floor, continuously writhing and struggling, trying to break free with brute force.

The girl remained unmoved, the boy frowned, and Tan Xiang jumped in surprise, asking, "What’s that noise?"

"I heard you only had two companions?" I asked.

The mapmaker sighed heavily. "It’s hard to say he’s one of our companions now. So when I mentioned it to you earlier, even though I still referred to him as a partner, there was no way to count him in."

"Can I see him now?"

Though I was curious about the blessing lantern flame inside the safe house, I was more concerned about the clue to the Little Bowl.

"Of course, let me put my things down first."

The mapmaker took down his backpack and removed his burlap cloak. The boy beside him dutifully picked up the things the mapmaker had taken off. The mapmaker instructed the boy to organize the supplies in the backpack and then use some of the canned food inside along with the remaining ingredients in the safe house to prepare a meal. The boy, like a block of wood, said nothing and just nodded silently.

While the two interacted, I walked over to where the girl was. She was looking down at a picture book, seemingly unaware of my approach. The picture book was filled with childish doodles, and I wasn’t sure if she had drawn them herself.

Her eyes were vacant and her lips slightly parted, reminiscent of a patient in a psychiatric ward. Her pupils seemed unfocused, making it difficult to tell if she was actually looking at the picture book or just pretending to be reading while daydreaming. Due to the low light, it was hard for an ordinary person to make out what was on the pages without squinting their eyes to look closely.

Considering my position as a guest, I thought I might need to show a friendly attitude and said, "You can’t see clearly like this, can you? It’s bad for your eyes in such dim light. Let me help you?"

Upon hearing this, the girl remained unresponsive, like a wax statue. I took the initiative and summoned a small fireball as a new light source. Thinking that the dimness of the safe house might be intended to help hide it in the surrounding area, I made sure the brightness of the fireball wasn’t too high, just enough to illuminate the pages of the picture book close to the girl.

Perhaps feeling the new source of light and warmth, the girl finally reacted, slowly moving her neck like a plant welcoming daylight, turning her face from the picture book to my direction.

To be precise, she turned towards the small fireball in my hand.

She didn’t seem afraid of the brightness and slowly widened her eyes, staring at the fireball for several seconds. Just as I was about to remind her to protect her eyes, her slightly open mouth suddenly opened wider, and a sharp cry came from her throat.

"—Ah!!!"

Her reaction was so intense that it was like a person afraid of snakes being bitten hard on the nose by a flying snake. It was hard to imagine that the girl, who had been so silent, could now have such a large fluctuation in emotion. She screamed while kicking her legs to retreat in her seat, lost her balance, and fell heavily to the ground.

"What happened!?"

The mapmaker had looked over when I summoned the small fireball, and he also seemed confused by the girl’s inexplicable reaction. He hurried to the girl’s side and bent down to help her up.

I briefly explained what just happened, and the mapmaker’s face seemed full of question marks. After thinking for a moment, he said, "In any case, I’ll take her inside to rest for a bit..."

He carried the girl in his arms and took her to a room deeper in the safe house.

Probably spending time calming the girl’s emotions, it was a while before he came back.

He looked at me with a very strange expression.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"...I saw everything earlier, you meant well, but..." the mapmaker said wistfully, "that child is a bit special. She used to be part of another survivor group, possibly even with her parents.

"But one day, a ’strong anomaly that can manipulate fire’ attacked her group, and she was the only one who survived. After that, she became dazed, as if she lost her spirit. I protected her, yet to this day, I can only get a few words out of her, and most of the time she is silent."

"That strong anomaly that manipulates fire, is it specifically...?" I felt a connection forming in my mind.

Speaking of strong anomalies that manipulate fire in the Doomsday Era, the only one I knew of was the Catastrophe Demon.

The Great Demon is one of the many endless anomalies rampaging across the Doomsday Land, and could even be called the king of anomalies in this era.

Of course, fire manipulation is not a rare power, and the number of anomalies fitting this description in the modern world is countless, let alone in the Doomsday Era. Mazao once mentioned to me in a chat that she had some unidentified knowledge in her mind, suggesting that the total number of anomalies in the Doomsday Era might vastly outnumber the total human population in the modern world by hundreds or thousands of times. So it could be just my ignorance.

But according to my constant experience, all unfortunate coincidences end up ahead on my path.

The mapmaker glanced at me and then answered, "...I don’t know either. She never told me."

Then he turned around, picked up the blessed lantern, and said, "Let’s go upstairs first. Didn’t you want to meet my crazy partner? I’ll take you to see him now."

He moved towards the stairs, and I followed. The boy had already gone to prepare the meal, and Tan Xiang, not wanting to be left alone, quickly followed us.