Chapter 95: Transfer

"Didn't you say these things wouldn't attack us on their own?" During a perilous exchange, Yu Sheng dodged past a "plastic" baton that swept past his eyes, simultaneously twisting his head to shout loudly at Little Red Riding Hood, who was directing the wolf pack to launch a counterattack nearby.

The baton in the plastic security guard's hand struck the wall beside them, accompanied by a string of dazzling sparks, emitting the sound of iron striking stone.

Yu Sheng turned, grabbed the plastic security guard's arm, pinned him firmly to the ground, then used great force to snap the latter's arm, but did not, as before, break him in half at the waist or twist off his head.

Because during the brief skirmish, he noticed a pattern—once these plastic dummies were truly beaten into a pile of parts, or their damage reached a certain level, they would immediately trigger their "repair," recovering to their original state within a few seconds; conversely, simply breaking their limbs to disable them could greatly reduce the threat these things posed without triggering the repair.

"I don't know what's going on either!" Little Red Riding Hood fought and retreated with the wolf pack, stabilizing her footing in a corner of the exhibition hall, fending off the constantly charging "Entity-Security Guards" while shouting quickly, "I can confirm we haven't violated any museum rules along the way; under normal circumstances, these security guards shouldn't be appearing at all!"

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, just about to say something else, when he suddenly heard another burst of hurried footsteps coming from the corridor at the far end of the exhibition hall.

Wobbly, comical figures ran out of the corridor one after another.

Erin's black "spider silk" had just trapped two plastic dummies lunging at them; before she could catch her breath, she heard the commotion coming from the corridor direction, turned her head for a look, and was immediately terrified, exclaiming: "Holy crap... more?! Are these entities spawning infinitely?!"

"Infinite spawning—until the night show ends, or all the actors are dead," Little Red Riding Hood said quickly, "or we find a way to get out of the line of sight of all the security guards; this can temporarily stop the museum from sending out more guards—they only move actively to search for intruders immediately after spawning; once the intruders disappear from their field of view, they will freeze; conversely, as long as they can still see you, more entities will keep appearing around you!"

Hearing this, Yu Sheng immediately looked up, gazing at the only other door leading outside in the exhibition hall besides that corridor.

However, that door was already occupied by plastic dummies; the entire exhibition hall had neither blind spots in their line of sight nor any gap to break out through.

We can't keep getting bogged down here.

"Retreat first! Retreat to a place without any 'Security Guards'!" Yu Sheng thought quickly, shouting loudly to the others, then immediately ran swiftly toward Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf pack, "Everyone close in on me—Hu Li, clear out a space! Temporarily block that corridor!"

Hu Li immediately agreed, then with a "Voom," her fox tails suddenly bloomed open.

Vast swathes of eerie and dangerous fox fire burned fiercely around her tails, the flames spreading like rings, roasting several approaching plastic dummies until they rapidly deformed; then the fox demon girl suddenly spun around—two silver-white tails suddenly erupted with intense propulsion flashes, detached from the fox demon's body, and flew toward the nearby corridor with a roaring shriek.

"Fox Radish Missiles!" Hu Li shouted with great momentum.

Before her words had even faded, a fierce explosion occurred in the corridor; even with the solidity of the "Otherworld," the entire building shook violently under the impact of the two great demon's tail strikes; a corner of the hall was blown down by the explosion, the walls near the corridor collapsed, completely burying the gap from which the "Security Guards" were constantly pouring out.

But just a second later, those collapsed areas began to tremble violently; steel and concrete started writhing as if alive, attempting to restore themselves to their original state, while arm and leg pairs clad in security guard uniforms suddenly shot out from between the collapsed bricks and stones; tattered plastic dummies struggled, breaking free from the burial in a terrifying posture, continuing to drill back into the hall.

But for Yu Sheng, those few seconds were enough.

With Erin on his shoulder, he reached out and pulled open a shimmering, illusory door: "Go through here!"

For him, what sieges, what encirclements with no gaps—none of that existed; he might not be able to fight them off, but he could absolutely run away.

Placing their trust in Yu Sheng, Little Red Riding Hood led the wolf pack directly through that door without hesitation; immediately after, Hu Li retreated over, and before diving into the door, she grabbed one of her own tails, aimed the tip at the remaining "Entity-Security Guards" still frantically surging into the hall, and small bursts of fox fire shot out from the tail tip like machine gun bullets: "Da-da-da-da-da—"

"Fox Radish Machine Gun!" The fox demon girl said quickly while holding her tail and firing, glancing at Yu Sheng in a spare moment.

Yu Sheng: "What kind of lousy names are these—get in there quickly!"

Hu Li immediately went "Oh," held her tail and swept one last burst across the hall; after completing the suppression fire, she turned and jumped into the door.

Yu Sheng prepared to pass through the door with Erin as well.

But just then, a plastic dummy that had previously been hiding in Hu Li's firing blind spot suddenly crawled up from the side—its body deformed and twisted from the scorching of the fox fire, its eerie, stiff face shriveled and distorted by the high heat, actually appearing to have grown an expression of anger; dragging its deformed limbs, it lunged forward and grabbed Yu Sheng's ankle.

The force was like a hydraulic clamp.

Yu Sheng paid no heed, exerted force, dragged this twisted plastic dummy across the door, and severed the passage before the latter could follow.

The plastic dummy's arm was instantly severed by the door.

Silence fell around them; the crazily surging security guards, the explosions of the Fox Radish Missiles, the collapsing, burning hall—all seemed like distant illusions.

But Yu Sheng was gradually becoming accustomed to this: every time one crossed a "Door," there was an unreal sensation of the environment changing drastically; it wasn't the first or second time.

He looked up to see wide corridors on both sides, with glass cabinets storing regular exhibits lined up along the corridor walls; Little Red Riding Hood was vigilantly observing the surroundings, seven or eight shadowy wolves circling and appearing in the air around her; Hu Li held a tail in each hand, alert to any movement at the end of the corridor, looking as if she were dual-wielding Barrett rifles.

Those "Security Guards" had not pursued; no new entities had spawned in the surrounding air either—just as Little Red Riding Hood had said, as long as one simultaneously got out of the line of sight of all the security guards, the museum's "hunt" would temporarily stop.

"This is a corridor we passed through before," Little Red Riding Hood broke the silence, "I thought you would just open a door and leave this museum."

"Then wouldn't all the trouble tonight have been for nothing? —the blockers, inducers, and other medicines you shot before you came would have been wasted; from what you say, those should be quite expensive," Yu Sheng sighed, "and don't you think it's strange? Why did those security guards suddenly start attacking people on their own? This doesn't match the intelligence you had before; something must have gone wrong in this museum; it really doesn't feel right not to investigate..."

"Under normal circumstances, the most cautious option is to try to evacuate as soon as unexplained changes appear in the Otherworld," Little Red Riding Hood looked at Yu Sheng, but immediately shifted her tone, "but you're right too, so... we came for nothing. Under controllable risk, continuing to investigate changes in the Otherworld can sometimes yield great rewards."

"Mm, if the situation really gets bad, we'll just go out from here." Yu Sheng nodded, then his gaze fell on Hu Li beside him.

The fox demon girl gave him a proud smile, clearly very satisfied with her own performance in that sky-blue exhibition hall earlier.

"... Showed off well, not bad," Yu Sheng had to offer a compliment, but still couldn't help but complain, "it's just that your skills... why do they suddenly have names now? Who gave them to you?"

"Erin," Hu Li said happily, betraying her friend without hesitation, "I described the various uses of my tails to her, and she came up with lots of names for me! I have another move under development called Fox Radish Rush..."

Before the other could finish, Yu Sheng turned his head to look at Erin on his shoulder: "I knew there was no one else—what kind of lousy names did you come up with!"

"I thought about them seriously for a long time, how are they lousy names!" Erin, who had been somewhat exhausted from continuously activating her abilities just a second ago, suddenly perked up, hands on her hips, speaking with righteous indignation, "Look at her tails, isn't it vivid? I even used a very clever pun..."

Immediately after, she muttered quietly: "Actually, at first, for that move of continuously firing fox fire, I and the silly fox were discussing whether to call it Fox Radish Biu... later we felt it wasn't formal enough..."

The veins on Yu Sheng's forehead throbbed violently.

But he quickly comforted himself: at least it wasn't called Fox Tail's Biu...

Little Red Riding Hood stood quietly to the side, watching this bizarre scene before her, listening to Yu Sheng's exchanges with the puppet and the fox demon.

... Eerie, absurd, outrageous, yet somehow possessing its own logic.

Everything was out of place with the surrounding environment.

Not at all like Spirit World detectives carrying out an Otherworld operation, yet not the kind of ignorant and fearless greenhorns just sightseeing; on the contrary... she could see they were very serious.

Yu Sheng was very serious, the puppet arguing whether "Fox Radish" was indeed a clever pun was very serious, even that muddled fox demon was very serious; they treated this place, the things they were doing here, and the situations they had to face very seriously, just... with a way of thinking and an attitude that normal people wouldn't have.

From the perspective of a "normal human," Little Red Riding Hood found it hard to understand the atmosphere and actions of this "Inn Trio," and naturally found it hard to say whether their mental state was "correct" or not.

She just sighed lightly, sat on the back of a wolf, and slowly recovered her strength.

Truly a strange experience unlike any other in her life... meeting a group of such interesting "people" before coming of age wasn't bad after all.

(End of Chapter)