Chapter 94 - A Problem with the Timeline

Main Hall, first floor of the orphanage.

"The muscle mass is completely gone! The only way to get it back is prolonged training or buying some healing items from the Auction," observed Daoloth as she helped Iron Blood bandage his arm.

"Just a flesh wound," Iron Blood replied stoically, then moved to inspect the corpse presently hanging in the stairwell.

This enemy, which was immune to all attacks and able to absorb the flesh of its attackers to regenerate its own, was a formidable foe to tackle head-on, but far from invincible, so long as one knew what rules it followed and what its weaknesses were.

In this case, the trick was to hang it back up by its intestines once more, which Iron Blood and Daoloth had achieved, with some difficulty. Iron Blood had suffered the brunt of the damage, and as a result, his right arm had been rendered useless for the time being.

The solution was fairly obvious, in hindsight, since they had come across the corpse in that very state—suspended in midair by its own intestines. It wasn't until Iron Blood sliced through the intestines that the body had come to life.

...One could say this was a case of breaking the foe's shield with their own spear, perhaps.

This time, when they doused the intestine-bound body with gasoline and set it on fire, the once-impervious corpse that could instantly regenerate from any injury was soon burnt to a pile of ash.

[ One secret source of strange activity neutralized ]

The familiar notification from the system popped up for the fourth time.

Daoloth peered up the stairwell for a moment before turning to Iron Blood. "What now? Douchey is probably on his way to the sixth floor."

Iron Blood shook his head. "Leave him be. We need to finish investigating the second floor." Despite his right arm dangling limply by his side, he seemed more determined than ever as he began climbing the stairs.

"Two more sources to neutralize, no time to wa—"

Before he could finish his sentence, another notification popped up before them.

[ One secret source of strange activity neutralized ]

———

"Whoa, no way, are you that poor? That you'd even steal shoes from a dead girl?"

Bai Zhi looked at Temperance Gentleheart with disdain.

"I can't believe you actually wore the plastic bag over your head! Are you so eager to let everyone know you're a weirdo?"

"...You knew, didn't you?"

Temperance looked at Bai Zhi seriously.

"During the Newbie Run, you brought along enough flashlights for everyone, so there's no way you only brought one gas mask for yourself this time... You were trying to keep me away from here, weren't you?"

"Nonsense, I'm not as kind as all that. See, if I let you borrow a proper gas mask, who knows if you'll abscond with it like Late Night Kitty did with my portable amp?"

Bai Zhi scoffed as he walked away from the pile of rubble.

"Even the cheapest gas mask on a certain e-commerce platform costs dozens of yuan—that's a few days' worth of food! Nobody takes advantage of me, you hear?"

Temperance Gentleheart gave up and simply followed after Bai Zhi, shoe in hand.

Soon, they left the room with its miasma of nauseating smells behind, and made their way to the end of the corridor, where fresh air came in through a vent.

"Look—" Before Bai Zhi could speak, Temperance Gentleheart spoke up, despite still looking pale and shaken. "—these shoes I'm wearing are made-to-order. They even have my initials embroidered into them, so there's no way I could mistake them for another."

Placing the shoe she had pulled from the rubble on a nearby sink, she said, "This one is an exact match! So if the shoes I'm wearing somehow ended up among the stuff swallowed by the room-monster... Am I, in fact, a spirit?"

"CPZ*... Carpenter Zhao? Tsk tsk, so your name is Carpenter Zhao! Hmm, quite a unique name, certainly makes an impression."

Bai Zhi completely ignored what Temperance was saying, instead choosing to comment on the initials he had seen embroidered on the shoe. Nodding sagely, he continued, "With a name like that, you must be pretty good at woodwork, then?"

Temperance Gentleheart said nothing.

...What fresh hell is this Carpenter Zhao bullshit?!

"Relax, you're definitely alive. For now..."

Bai Zhi took his time washing his hands in the sink as he spoke.

"Full disclosure, I do have some ideas about how everything we've been through today is connected, but they're just hunches after all. It would be a waste of my breath to talk about something I have no concrete proof for."

"Well—at least explain the shoe?" said a frustrated Temperance Gentleheart, thrusting the shoe at Bai Zhi. "When I look at it, I can't help imagining that I could have been eaten whole by that horrible room, can you imagine how I—"

"Oh, I got it."

Without waiting for Temperance to finish, Bai Zhi lifted the shoe from her hands and pitched it out the window in one smooth motion, leaving the young girl with her mouth agape as he dusted his hands.

"Now you don't have to look at the shoe, I'm sure you feel much better. Miss Carpenter."

Temperance Gentleheart was struck by the distinct feeling that this person would be the death of her someday.

Bai Zhi raised a finger. "Alrighty, the name of the quest is? Life's... Hard... Disk... that's right. Now, what do you imagine when you hear those words? C'mon, let's think big, Carpenter Zhao."

"...My name is not Carpenter-freaking-Zhao, you ass!"

Bai Zhi's mock-encouraging schoolteacher act was the last straw for Temperance Gentleheart and she yelled at him in a fit of indignation.

"Oh... Then I suppose it must be Chad Poser Zhao? I mean, you don't look like a chad, or a poser... but maybe you're into gap-moe**..."

Bai Zhi stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"I say, how cruel of your parents to give you such a name... The resentment they bear must be as deep as the sky is high***!"

After weighing the names Carpenter and Chad Poser, Temperance Gentleheart reluctantly relented.

"...I'd much prefer being called Carpenter Zhao, thanks. Anyway, 'Hard Disk' probably refers to that thing in our computers that stores all our files and stuff so they can be easily retrieved whenever we need it. Life's Hard Disk... Does that refer to some kind of save file that represents our lives? But we only just got here..."

"Have you been keeping track of time?"

Cutting her off mid-speech once again, Bai Zhi turned to look out the window.

Dutifully, Temperance Gentleheart said, "The day we received the quest and were transported to this orphanage was a Sunday, if I recall correctly. So…"

"What day do you think it is now?"