After walking in the designated direction for about fifteen minutes,
Jiu’er finally erged from the forest "with no paths."
"—Logically speaking, walking across the plank should be feasible, right?"
"—Yeah, if you cross the maze with a plank, you don’t have to kill the ssenger Bro."
"—Then why not just walk over with ssenger Bro? You’re going to die during the floorboard room anyway."
"—Well, that’s true..."
The players were still discussing.
anwhile, Jiu’er was beginning to concentrate.
Because he knew that the instance had now... officially begun.
Jiu’er took a few steps forward on the main road.
Then he saw three branches ahead—these did not look like pathways ford by foot traffic but rather like the skewed lines of a trident that a child might draw.
A straight line as well as two symtrical U-shaped paths.
A faceless gentleman, holding a cane, stood before the fork in the road.
He lifted his head and looked at Jiu’er.
—The style of this gentleman resembled a familiar from the world of Madoka Magica.
Jiu’er thought to himself.
He had no facial features—not to say his face was smooth as an egg.
Rather, quite the opposite.
The face of the faceless gentleman was sared with crayon marks of various colors. Like a child’s drawing abandoned midway through in a fit of impatience, resulting in a haphazardly colored "egg."
Therefore, he might as well be called the "Egg-faced Gentleman."
"Sir," the Egg-faced Gentleman began, "from here on, there’s no turning back."
Although Jiu’er already knew the answer to this dialogue, it was an indispensable part of the activation chanism and couldn’t be omitted.
This was an important part of the level selection. Each ti soone arrived here, the "levels" available to choose from were different.
So, Jiu’er asked the Egg-faced Gentleman respectfully, "Then where should I go?"
The Egg-faced Gentleman countered, "Where do you want to go?"
"...Truth be told, I don’t know."
Jiu’er answered honestly.
He truly didn’t know.
"In that case,"
the Egg-faced Gentleman leisurely replied: "It’s all the sa which way you go."
"Where do these three paths lead?"
"This one," the Egg-faced Gentleman raised his left hand, "leads to a ball. And this one," he lifted his right hand, "leads to a candy house. Behind is Mr. Bear’s ho. Go wherever you wish, but rember... you cannot turn back."
—Damn (a plant).
Jiu’er just managed to hold back his urge to swear.
Why is it so hard this ti?
The live stream chat imdiately beca raucous:
"—Go dance!"
"—No, no, no, this ti we should go to the candy house. We didn’t bring ssenger, so we might be able to get farther."
There were also players who had not watched the live stream before who reacted and recognized the source of the dialogue:
"—It’s the Cheshire Cat."
"—Jiu’er’s Wondrous Wanderings? Please, spare the nausea."
—Ah, I’m on my knees begging for real-na registration in the chat.
With an expressionless face, Jiu’er glanced at the chat, and this thought crossed his mind.
This start is simply hellish.
He had already been to both the ball and the candy house.
There was no question that the ball was off-limits — the only attendees were colossal stone statues dancing. They continuously spun around in the middle of the dance floor. Cheshire Cat went there four tis, but even then, he couldn’t figure out exactly what he was supposed to do before being crushed to death by a statue.
All he could discern was that the statues seed to be chasing him, although they each followed different rules.
So statues would chase him by the shortest distance, others would target where he would be in ten seconds, others aid for where he had been five seconds before, and yet others would patrol a fixed route unless he ca close enough...
It seed there was only one solution to this.
However, once he entered the dance floor, there were no safe zones.
Though Cheshire Cat was not incapable of solving it, being chased by a bunch of statues five or six ters tall threw his brain into such disarray that he couldn’t think clearly — he didn’t even understand what he was supposed to do.
Was he supposed to find sothing?
Or find an exit?
Or just survive in there for a certain amount of ti?
All were unknown.
Let Jiu’er handle this one.
Luck favors the brave... thought Cheshire Cat to himself.
As for the candy house... that was simply a deathtrap.
That was also why he killed the ssenger — he didn’t choose the route; the ssenger did.
If he didn’t have the token, then Cheshire Cat wouldn’t be able to see the "Egg-faced Gentleman" at all, and there would only be the path straight ahead.
And if he could choose, the ssenger would surely choose the candy house.
But that so-called "candy house" was in reality a trap.
The corridor right after entering featured an illusionary floor; so of the tiles were just slightly more transparent. Accidentally stepping on them would an falling straight through to your death.
The first room was the high-temperature room.
The key was hidden in a pile of enormous cakes, and the temperature inside the room kept rising. If he couldn’t find the key, he would be baked alive.
Next ca the candy slide — a handrail-less slide, reminiscent of a roller coaster. If your hands weren’t cleaned properly from the previous challenge, you’d be flung out directly into a cauldron of boiling candy.
After that was the cookie room, also known as the certain death room — the ceiling would descend in response to the weight within the room. With one person, it would stop halfway, but with two, it would descend completely, however, the door to the next challenge was located around two-thirds of the way up.
You had to abandon all your weighty belongings to barely make it through to the next room.
Moving on, there was a "log bridge" resembling sothing from a variety show. It was made up of sticks of brittle biscuit you’d break with one step, complented by blistering hot syrup shooting from cannons on both sides—
...Cheshire Cat didn’t make it past this point.
He didn’t know what ca next.
He only knew this was every troubleso child’s nightmare...
Adults typically aren’t as adept at such tricks.
To this day, Cheshire Cat hadn’t even seen the "Mill."
He just kept dying continuously at this junction... that was, the second save point.
The only one who ever really saw the Mill was Jiu’er.
That ti, Jiu’er died because she touched the miller’s daughter’s toy with hands dirtied by mud.
Incidentally, she also died later from touching the toy with blood-stained hands.
Yes, she died twice in the sa place...
However, Cheshire Cat had not forgotten his main mission.
—To test traps with his life.
So this ti, he would choose a path he hadn’t taken before...
"I want to move forward," Cheshire Cat answered.
The next mont, the Egg-faced Gentleman disappeared. The paths on both sides vanished along with him.
It was as if everything before had been just an illusion.
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