Long-term salvation

Shinohara Kazuma said nothing. He simply gathered the information and put it back into the silver box along with the video disc. While reading the information, he realized that there was no key information in it. However, from just a few words and scattered fragments, he could already vaguely glimpse the arrival of a new generation... This was the weapon Rhodes brought with him, and its power was indeed enough to shock people.

"Alright, don't waste my time, Mr. Shinohara," Rhodes said calmly. He stood up from the sofa and walked to the living room window, gazing out at the seemingly endless city in the distance. "I don't have to acquire Shinohara Heavy Industries, but 51% ownership is a must."

"51% is too high a stake. We can't afford it," Shinohara Kazuma quickly rejected. However, he added, "If Labor, the subsequent development of new models of this engineering robot, can be given greater independent authority and financial support, I can persuade the board to make concessions."

"It seems... we still have more to discuss, but before that, let's celebrate our future cooperation, Mr. Shinohara."

Rhode smiled and reached out to shake hands with Shinohara Kazuma. The latter's expression was far less relaxed than Rhode's.

"The information in this box..."

"I'll take it before I leave Japan, and to prevent it from getting lost during my trip, I'll keep it here for the next four days."

"Then... it's a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Rhodes."

Chapter 111 Red Pepper's Journey into Wonderland (3K)

The entire institute became a mess.

Chiba Atsuko thought so.

This is indeed the case. The DC mini was stolen, the director of the institute was injured due to the invasion of his dreams, and the most valuable research subject chose to leave... The Comprehensive Institute of Psychiatric Medicine is now in a precarious situation, not to mention the bold words of that handsome young man - yesterday a woman really came to the institute and directly asked to buy it out.

Although the institute's chairman, Inui Seijiro, declined the proposal, citing "let's think about it," the company clearly wasn't going to give up. Even Hayaseura Takuhiko, a member of the board and the largest investor, expressed his concerns:

Perhaps it was the force that wanted to take over the institute that bribed the members of the institute and orchestrated the theft of the DC mini?

This is indeed very likely, not to mention that a group of gangs attacked the hospital, and Asuka Iki, a research subject, disappeared without a trace in the riot, and no one knows what his current situation is.

The girl's tragic past is so pitiful, and that is why Chiba Atsuko is now worried.

"Tokita."

Chiba Atsuko called out to her colleagues and… as if to escape, she spoke quickly, trying not to let the strange feeling take over her heart:

"I'm going to use the DC mini to enter the dream world and try to find the lost instruments and any trace of Asuka Iki."

"But……"

Tokita Hirosaku hesitated. Although he looked fat and loved to eat, he was a genius who developed and produced the DC mini.

Seeing his timid look, Chiba Atsuko frowned and reached out to grab his ear, and dragged him to the research laboratory while begging for mercy. There, the director of the institute, Shima Toratarou, had been waiting for a long time.

"Although using the DC mini is quite dangerous right now, Atsuko has to do it," Shima Toratarou sighed. His arm was in a sling, and his forehead was also bound with bandages. "Both the chairman and Mr. Hayaseura agreed to the plan."

"no!"

Tokita Hirosaku suddenly raised his voice, but when he realized everyone's attention was focused on him, his voice became much weaker, only his tone was firm. Wiping the sweat from his face, the chubby genius said:

"It's too dangerous. If the DC mini falls into the wrong hands, their dream world will be very dangerous."

"Tokita," Chiba Atsuko said softly, her eyes filled with a determination and fearlessness that was no less than a man's. "That girl is missing. We must find her and ensure her safety, not to mention other things... Wait, don't say things like 'I'll go with you'. I have more experience in dreams than you do."

"Well……"

Despite Chiba Atsuko's insistence, the plan was quickly implemented. To prevent possible interference and sabotage, the entire research institute was sealed off. No one could enter or leave until this dream infiltration was completed.

It won’t take long, just one night.

Wearing DC mini, Chiba Atsuko enters the dream world.

Dreams are the path to the unconscious.

But what if there are conscious beings wandering among them?

Chili Pepper walks in a quirky and gorgeous world. She wears a red T-shirt and jeans, and has a cute face with a few fine freckles around her eyes. Under the slightly dim light, the girl's skin appears healthy and tanned, but she is not here to show off her beauty and youth:

The girl descended seventy shallow steps, and before her lay a constantly shifting hypercubic maze. Millions of pathways unfolded like a kaleidoscope, then rapidly overlapped and closed. Chaos took root, cruelly driving out order. Up, down, left, and right, there was a bottomless abyss of stairs and doors. No one had the courage or the longevity to explore the depths.

But these are all meaningless illusions, and Paprika knows this clearly. Every time she passes through this maze illusion, she will enter the door that belongs to her... As for other passages and doors? Haha, you must remain in awe of the dream world.

Be careful and don't overstep the line.

Chili Pepper was well versed in the rules of walking in the dream world, and had never encountered any accidents. But today was different. When her feet stepped on the solid ground beyond the stairs—the door, the door that belonged to her, disappeared.

Unprecedented panic surged into Red Pepper's heart, almost making Chiba Atsuko scream. The momentary panic made Red Pepper at a loss as to what to do. Because of this, Chiba Atsuko stepped back, trying to get back to the stairs.

The stairs disappeared and she fell to the ground.

The hypercubic dream maze suddenly revealed a terrifying face, as if all the disguises of the past had been for today... It was real now, authentic. Shadowy monsters were stirring in the darkness between every long bridge and doorway, sizing up the little man before them like a human admiring a butterfly specimen pinned to a wooden board through glass.

The most ancient fear in human emotion almost broke Red Pepper, but fortunately her mind was strong enough. After taking a few deep breaths, the girl shouted loudly:

"Tokita! Director! Turn off the DC mini and get me out of the dream!"

no respond.

"Tokita!"

No sound was heard. The dream maze sneered and deformed in front of Red Pepper, like a saw that was gradually approaching and ready to crush her. However, death was the kindest and most beautiful ending.

Suddenly, the long bridge that looked like marble that the girl was standing on began to move, connecting with other long bridges, and two doors appeared in front of her.

The front door was adorned with a silver key pattern, while the rear door was covered with undulating, chaotic lines. Sometimes the lines outlined the figure of a black man, sometimes a woman in a cheongsam, and even a faceless sphinx. From concrete human faces to indistinguishable mists, or even more indescribable concepts and emotions, the door was constantly changing, as if it had a thousand different appearances.

Looking at the door behind her, which was slowly opening a crack, Red Pepper instinctively felt fear, which made her get up and rush into the door marked with the silver key in a panic.

The moment she burst through the door, Chili Pepper found herself inside an ancient mansion, a chilly air suddenly enveloping her. A gloomy darkness poured into the corridor from the window, an invisible breeze blowing the curtains, accompanied by whispers.

After looking around the corridor, Red Pepper calmed herself down and ran down the corridor - she opened the door at the end of the corridor.

"Oh! New guy!"

The burning wood in the fireplace instantly dispelled the chilliness of Chili Pepper, and even the darkness that had been licking at the girl's fear receded under the light of the fire. The entire room was filled with an old yet vibrant atmosphere, completely different from the corridor outside.

A middle-aged man and a blonde girl were sitting on a small sofa in front of the fireplace, looking at the uninvited guests with surprise and gentle eyes.

"How rare, there's actually a newcomer here—a human! Perhaps we should have a drink to celebrate?"

As the middle-aged man spoke, a blue cocktail immediately appeared in his hand. The liquor was swirling in the goblet, and small objects like bubbles or nuts slowly rose from the bottom, separated from the liquor, and lingered on the ceiling of the room.

"My name is Lundao..."

"Don't say your name in the dream world," warned the blonde girl, who was wearing a large, pointed witch's hat. A black cat was napping at her feet. "And don't tell us where we are... You should practice your abilities more, instead of forgetting them every time you wake up."

"My bad, my bad. I'll write a line on my arm before I go to bed next time."

The middle-aged man had an awkward smile on his face. He pondered for a moment, asked Red Pepper to sit down, and introduced himself:

"Lovecraft, you can call me that, I'm a writer."

"Witch," the blonde girl said, obviously introducing herself.

"My name is Red Pepper."

"You don't look like you should be here," the blonde girl said, tilting her head slightly, looking adorable. "You come from a chaotic dream world—no, a world where the boundaries between dreams and reality are blurred. Where are you now?"

"I...you just said that you shouldn't tell others your location," Red Pepper reminded.

The blonde girl was speechless for a moment, and the blush brought by anger instantly spread across her swollen cheeks. She slapped the armrest of the sofa heavily.

In a flash, Red Pepper felt that the surroundings became as dark and dim as the deep sea. Looking up, she saw the blonde girl standing at the door of a room surrounded by countless lights, shadows and bubbles, watching her fall quietly.

"Someone will take care of it," the girl said. Her forehead collapsed inward, revealing a keyhole-like hole, from which a faint purple light shone. "Follow his orders, and you will survive."

next second.

Red Pepper suddenly fell off the bed and immediately found a pair of black combat boots in front of her.

Looking up, just like she was looking at the blonde girl just now, Chiba Atsuko found that the person in front of her was very familiar——

"Do you Japanese people like to be dogeza?"

Rhodes, who was wearing an all-seeing eye patch, said unhappily, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was wearing a gray-black stealth suit, fully armed and murderous.

"One more thing," Rhodes asked in a trembling voice, taking a deep breath of smoke and shooing away the rainbow pony lying on top of him. "Why is your institute full of these messed-up dream creations?! The space has changed—I almost crawled out of the ventilation duct connected to the toilet!"

"...It's wrong to trespass."

"You should survive first and then talk to me, okay?"

As Rhodes spoke, he replaced the magazine in his rifle. In front of him, a Japanese warrior taller than the door frame bent over and entered the room, swinging his long sword without hesitation!

Chapter 112 Chaotic Dream

The katana cut through the air, as if splitting the world in two.

Rod pushed Red Pepper away, letting the blade pass between them and hit the ground, shattering the tiles.

Stepping on the back of the knife, he took advantage of the tall warrior's movement to raise his hand to retract the long sword and leaped up. He reached out and grabbed the golden crescent decoration on the latter's helmet, and swung back - the revolver in his right hand was aimed at the gap between the helmet and the armor, and fired repeatedly at the neck wrapped in dirty cloth.

The bullet pierced the warrior's spine and chest, sending gold coins and gears tumbling out of his body, tinkling and bouncing across the ground. The next second, the coins and gears sprouted tiny legs and scurried away through the open door like cockroaches.

The badly injured warrior lay on the ground, grabbing and devouring the escaping gold coins like a hungry wild dog, then raised his hands to smash the gears one by one, following the smell of the gold coins and disappearing outside the door he came from.

Rhodes: "...It's amazing."

"If the blade hits you, it won't be a miracle," Red Pepper said with some fear. She stood up from the ground and now had some free time to look around:

This was still the same room where he lay down and put on the DC mini, with white decorative wallpaper, a hard and cold hospital bed, and a huge monitor... Well, the monitor was really a human head, and now it was making a "beep~~beep~~" sound with its mouth, which looked particularly creepy.

Gazing out the window beyond this room, one could see countless dream worlds connecting, merging, and collapsing. Hundreds of thousands of people were falling asleep, hundreds of thousands more were gradually awakening, and the scope was still expanding. At this moment, there was no longer any such thing as nightmares or sweet dreams. Only the chaotic, disordered fragments of the depths of consciousness swirled eternally, forming an abyss like an ocean whirlpool. No one dared to know the true nature of the abyss's depths.

But at the corners where the dream fragments touch each other, there will be another scene -

There were mandrills beating gongs in their hands, wobbly refrigerators, cute girls with big eyes in miniskirts, half-eaten meat buns... and a dozen skinny old men carrying a giant shrine. They lifted the shrine into the top of the vortex in a flash and merged it into the uneven milky white light curtain without causing any ripples.

A woman clutched her face, weeping, while several men danced and clapped around her like circus clowns. But the next moment, a driving Dim Sum Daifuku slammed them all into the air, sending them soaring like a baseball through the bustling crowd of weirdos below. The woman's limbs disintegrated mid-air, and a piece of paper with a crying face painted on it was nailed to the front of her head, while underneath, a complacent smile clung to her.

The head flew past Rhodes and Red Pepper and fell into the abyss below.

You are in Limbo

[You are in the shallow level of the confused dungeon]

You are in Limbo

【you……】

Are you walking on the edge of the abyss? The "seawater" of the shallow world surges endlessly, rushing onto the beach and then receding. From where you stand, you can't see a single ray of light, as if taking a step forward would mean drowning in the deep sea.

Rod, with a wooden face, reached into his clothes and took out a pack of cigarettes, but he immediately discovered that a tiny, human lip had emerged from the cigarette holder and was pouting as if expecting something.

Rhodes: “…”

"The dream is spinning out of control. We need to deal with it quickly," Red Hot Chili Pepper took a deep breath. Seeing Rhode throw away his cigarette case with disgust, she said, "Let's try to leave first, then shut down the DC mini's master control program. Cutting off the power to the institute will also work. If we just cut it off externally, the backup generator will automatically start... In short, we still need to escape from the dream world first."

"Where do you get the money to buy something this high-end?"

"It was brought by Hayaseura Takuhiko, a director of the institute's board of directors. He also invested a large sum of money in dream research," Red Pepper rubbed her brows with her hand. Everything in front of her was beyond her expectations, and coupled with her worries about her relatives and friends in the real world, she was now in a state of confusion.

Hearing the name, Rhodes touched his chin and said nothing more. Instead, he pushed open the half-closed door and said to Red Pepper from the doorway:

"Let's get out of here first."

"But leaving..."

"There's no such thing as a dream world or a real world these days, Ms. Chiba Atsuko. They're all intertwined in this research institute—I've already seen two people in white research coats giggling foolishly while embracing their dream creations—but you're absolutely right about one thing. We must address it quickly."

Rhodes interrupted Chili Pepper a little rudely. He looked at the corridor and saw that the tall warrior had shrunk to the size of a child, with his armor tied loosely, looking a bit like a Japanese farmer who had performed the "Rakumusha Hunting" ritual.

The warrior screamed when he saw Rhodes, picked up the gold coins in his arms, and staggered away around the corner of the corridor.

Arriving in the corridor, Rhode saw the shadows of geckos crawling all over the walls. The shadows grew larger and larger, eventually covering the walls on both sides with a flowing black layer, making the entire corridor dim. These shadows crawled from the corner at the end of the corridor and moved in one direction.

"Let's...let's first look around the institute to see if there are any other people who are as 'awake' as we are," Red Hot Chili Pepper pressed her brow. She found Rhode's words a little hard to accept. "Then we'll go to the basement and partially cut off the power, and shut down the backup generator. Damn, I don't even know if we're cutting off the power in the real world!"

"Perhaps there's no need to cut off the power," Rhode said, thinking of the shadows he had just seen, which still lingered. "Finding the mastermind behind all this is the right choice. In other words, this option is more feasible."

"Let's go and see where these shadows came from... My intuition tells me that the mastermind behind this might be related to these black disgusting things."

As he spoke, Rhode raised his foot and ran in the direction where the shadows were crawling. Seeing him like this, Red Hot Chili Pepper had no choice but to raise his foot and follow him.