Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 563 - 529 The World’s Malfunction 1

Chapter 563: 529 The World’s Malfunction 1

Little Bowl and I traverse through one area after another, with the surrounding scenes changing frequently.

If we were just heading to a far-off place, I could lead Little Bowl. However, since the position relationship between the survivor gathering and us is uncertain, we have to rely on Little Bowl to guide us, so I must move at Little Bowl’s pace. The only way is through normal walking.

A powerful bodyguard who can effortlessly leap 108,000 miles, and a leader with no strength to bind a chicken yet possessing a transcendent standpoint... This peculiar relationship makes me feel like Sun Wukong from legend, while Little Bowl becomes Tang Seng Xuanzang.

Although there is no White Dragon Horse by our side, nor are there Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing, the myriad monsters and demons along the way remain a mainstay. If replaced by ordinary Doomsday survivors, the difficulty of reaching a designated destination amid a journey surrounded by demons might not be less than the eighty-one hardships.

I don’t dislike this inefficient way of walking, it has its own pleasures; the endless change and lurking danger in the scenes also keep me from feeling weary.

Moreover, among these changes in scenes, there seems to be some sort of regularity.

By chance perhaps, we always seem to enter places where there are human activities... or rather, places where there used to be human activities.

There’s no need to mention cities and villages, even in the wild, one can see traces of human civilization after walking a few steps. Occasionally, when we move to a mountain, we can see stair trails overgrown with weeds. The area where the Abandoned Evangelical Hospital is located is like this as well, seemingly desolate plains at first glance but actually home to human facilities like the Abandoned Evangelical Hospital. Completely undeveloped natural areas, though not nonexistent, are pretty rare.

From what I know, in modern society, although the world is mainly regarded as "a world dominated by humans," the coverage rate of civilization on land isn’t as vast as many imagine. Even accounting for all cities, towns, and other constructed areas, the coverage rate is only around two to three percent, leaving no doubt when compared to natural areas. Even if agricultural lands are included, the total area is still far smaller than that of natural areas.

This calculation is just for land areas; it doesn’t even account for the vast oceans covering over seventy percent of the Earth’s surface.

If the chaotic spacetime of the Doomsday Era really teleports us randomly on the planet’s surface, this situation indeed raises questions. Normally, transmitting us to the center of the Pacific Ocean seems normal... No, to begin with, the fact that teleportation areas are confined only to the planet’s surface is already odd.

The mantle occupies over eighty percent of the Earth’s total volume and accounts for nearly seventy percent of the total mass, hence, the randomness of teleporting us into the mantle itself seems justifiable?

Or is it like some spatial ability users who can’t teleport a target to a space overlapping with other solid substances, hence the random teleportation phenomenon can’t embed us underground? Yet if this phenomenon only allows transmission above the surface, why wouldn’t it teleport us straight into the sky then?

Since Little Bowl seems to have a better head on their shoulders than I do, I occasionally toss my questions their way on the road.

Little Bowl "uh’d" for a moment, then said, "Brother Zhuang Cheng, you must be the type of person who has a lot of inexplicable extracurricular knowledge, yet in class, you never pay attention and often daydream about the feasibility of magical novel settings in reality, ultimately failing most of the subjects during exams..."

"I have good grades, and the Saltwater University I attended is a renowned prestigious university in the city." I said seriously.

"...You didn’t deny a single thing from the previous statement."

Little Bowl teased, then responded to my questions, "The problems you mentioned, I also asked Sister Mazao about them before, and she couldn’t answer them. After hearing about the Post-mortem World from you, I too started investigating in my own way, trying to find out if the Doomsday Era is indeed the Post-mortem World...

"Although it still hasn’t been determined whether the time and space we are in are a ’future world,’ to be honest, the more I investigate, the more I feel the sense of discord.

"First of all, in this Doomsday Era, there seem to be no ’newborns’, and the phenomenon of ’growth’ rarely occurs."

I pondered aloud, "’Newborns’... and ’growth’?"

Little Bowl stopped by the roadside. We had reached another dirt road in the countryside, where Little Bowl picked a shriveled berry from an almost completely withered bush.

"Saying there are no animals or plants in the Doomsday Era is over-exaggeration. Actually, as long as you have enough luck and observational skills, it is barely possible to gather such berries. Because these plants existed during the ’time period when Doomsday had just descended’, they hadn’t yet withered and decayed," Little Bowl said, "However, they can’t produce the next generation, not because the soil lacks nutrients, nor because of the absence of sunlight... they simply can’t reproduce for some unknown reason.

"The same goes for humans. Although some evil Doomsday survivors imprison opposite genders as slaves for venting desires, such actions can at most produce pleasure and pain, but not newborns.

"’Growth’ follows the same principle... I used to suspect that the reason I couldn’t grow up no matter how much time passed was because Sister Mazao occasionally used the Power of Return to reset my hunger, inadvertently resetting my physical growth progress as well... But upon thorough investigation, the ’failure to grow’ phenomenon is actually quite common in the Doomsday Era.

"Children always remain children, the youth remain youthful, and there are never any stories about the elderly dying solely due to old age...

"Of course, before that, the elderly living in this era basically don’t get the chance to die of old age. The huge lack of statistical samples in this regard is also a fact."

I remembered Tan Xiang and the wandering spirits.

Although the wandering spirit claimed to have experienced a very long time in the Doomsday Era, his appearance wasn’t notably older than Tan Xiang’s; only his demeanor had become more weathered. Even if his skin became rougher and scars appeared on his face, as long as he washed his face and shaved, I could still instantly recognize him as Tan Xiang.

"However, unlike the absence of newborns, the cessation of growth isn’t absolute," Little Bowl added. "I’ve heard that occasionally, the bodies of boys and girls in rapid growth stages manifest growth phenomena, but their growth doesn’t seem related to the time they’ve experienced.

"Some people grow up overnight; others, even though they’ve felt several years pass, show only slight growth... It’s as though their growth isn’t according to their experienced time but follows some other time system."

Her words seemed to imply something, and I instantly made a connection: "If we assume they are soul-loss patients who traveled here from the modern world, then their growth changes might be calculated based on their bodies sleeping in the modern world... because as their modern bodies grew, they might change in the Doomsday Era due to some mysterious linkage phenomenon?"

"Maybe." Little Bowl cautiously replied.

"The earliest case of a soul-loss patient was four years ago... If this hypothesis is correct, even if someone experiences growth phenomena, it wouldn’t exceed a four-year range," I speculated.

"Well... it’s hard to say." Little Bowl thought for a moment and said, "Although most cases are similar to what Brother Zhuang Cheng described, there are also a few exceptional cases. Based on my investigation, it seems there are kids around my age slowly growing to adult size..."

This went beyond my previous speculation. To account for such cases, we could only assume that the individuals were quite precocious in the modern world.

Then, I asked curiously, "I’ve wanted to ask for a while... how do you gather information? With your looks and your current situation of being wanted by the Evangelical Institute, collecting intelligence or even finding other survivors to inquire about things must be extremely difficult and dangerous tasks, right?"

Especially since Little Bowl even collected data on the birth rates and growth cases within the doomsday survivor community.

If she hadn’t sampled a significant amount, she wouldn’t have been able to make such conclusions. I also don’t think she made those claims based on ’backyard statistics’, not mention it would go against her cautious personality. Ultimately, she didn’t have many people around to consult.

"How do I investigate... I’ll keep that a secret for now." Little Bowl said, "Don’t worry, once we reach the survivor settlement, it’ll soon be shown to Brother Zhuang Cheng."

I asked persistently, "Can’t you tell me now?"

"Nope." Little Bowl smiled, "Actually, it’s not really impossible to say now, but I want to whet Brother Zhuang Cheng’s appetite."

As she spoke, she adorably winked one eye at me and laughed, "Isn’t this what Brother Zhuang Cheng likes more?"

I couldn’t deny that.

"Returning to the initial topic, though we can’t temporarily ascertain whether this Doomsday Era is the future of Brother Zhuang Cheng’s world, I think our world has experienced a massive fault. This conclusion is drawn from my own ability of Right Positioning Heavenly Phenomena," Little Bowl said solemnly, "I’m unsure if I’m expressing this correctly... Our world is like an immensely large and complex machine. In its operational process, it’s accumulated too many faults...

"No... it’s not such a mild thing. This machine was damaged by an unimaginable external force, and all the faults sprang from this. All the anomalies likely also spawned from the faults.

"Thus, the more severe the world’s accumulated faults, the more anomalies there are."

The anomalies stem from faults and errors in the world’s running process?

Did I just hear something truly unbelievable?

Listening to Little Bowl’s tone, it seemed she wasn’t just describing the Doomsday Era’s space-time but was also binding it with the modern world I was previously in.

I first swallowed my suspicious feelings whole, then posed the question: "The ’external force’ you mentioned... do you mean this doomsday?"

Little Bowl glanced at the empty night sky and then shook her head.

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