Chapter 48
Chapter 48
[Hot-Tempered Stick]
Two key traits appeared in the corpse’s description:
High-temperature resistance and a violent temper.
The latter was actually a hidden attribute–fire-element amplification.
Items acquired from instances all displayed similar panel information to help people understand their uses. No one knew where the information came from or why it appeared, but it had proven invaluable in humanity’s struggle against anomalies.
Now, as Qin Lan rubbed the stick vigorously, sparks burst from its lower end after only a second.
With the dry grass and dead branches gathered from the cave, he managed to start something that could just barely be called a bonfire.
The flames danced and crackled, driving away a little of the surrounding cold.
With help from that pitiful source of warmth, the young woman’s eyelashes finally trembled, and her eyes opened.
Her gaze was unfocused. As her consciousness cleared, the first emotion to surface was fear.
“Go away! Go away… Don’t come any closer!”
Her limbs flailed instinctively as she tried to get up and flee, but she was too weak to manage it.
Only after seeing the people beside her clearly did she gradually calm down.
“Who… who are you?”
Wariness remained in her eyes, but she was far more composed than she had been in her initial panic.
Qin Lan went straight to the point.
“We’re travelers from outside the town, and we came to help you.”
“I already smashed the Glass Slipper to pieces. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
At his signal, Luo Yue stepped forward and showed the young woman two of the fragments.
The sight triggered such a violent reaction that the young woman almost began struggling again, but she managed to steady herself.
“It… it was shattered?”
“How is that possible? How did you do it?”
Her face turned pale, and her eyes immediately reddened. “My family… my neighbors… They were all killed by those things…”
“The town’s residents were made into shoes. The children were stuffed into boxes and turned into–”
Qin Lan interrupted her.
“That’s enough. I know. I’ve already seen what they did.”
“What I need now is for you to tell me exactly what happened. What caused all of this?”
The instant Qin Lan spoke those words, a notification appeared in his mind.
[Hidden storyline triggered: Abyss Town.]
[Warning: Continuing to explore this hidden storyline will drastically increase the instance’s difficulty.]
[Warning repeated: Continuing to explore this hidden storyline will–]
[Are you sure you want to do this?]
The fourth message was not a notification at all. Strictly speaking, it was a whisper.
Qin Lan’s expression changed. He sprang to his feet like a startled bird and scanned his surroundings, searching for the source of the voice.
Luo Yue retreated two steps in alarm. “You… You heard that too?”
Yes. It had not come from the instance’s notification system. Some unknown existence had issued them a warning.
The whisper had sounded as if it were right beside their ears and unimaginably far away at the same time.
“Good lord…” Qin Lan’s face turned solemn. “This instance has some depth to it.”
“So rescuing these characters from the town’s residents triggers a hidden questline?”
This was the first time Qin Lan had encountered anything like it.
Things had become complicated.
Worry filled Luo Yue’s eyes, and she hesitated. “If continuing will raise the instance’s difficulty that drastically, should we really go on?”
“It’s already a 3-Star instance. If it gets any harder, a peak 3-Star anomaly might appear.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Luo Yue lowered her voice even further.
“Maybe even a 4-Star anomaly.”
When she had discovered that this was a 3-Star instance, she had not shown much concern. Now, however, she was genuinely nervous.
“Can we win?”
“We will.”
Qin Lan glanced at the silent little girl, then at the young woman lying on the ground. His voice was calm but unwavering.
Whether they could win or not, he had to try.
After witnessing Matchstick Bro’s crimes, Qin Lan no longer saw Fairytale Town as merely another instance.
He wanted justice for its innocent dead.
Of course, justice was not his only reason.
A rare 4-Star anomaly was practically an invitation to grind out another round of attribute gains.
And if he truly could not win, an expert was still waiting outside.
Luo Yue might not know that Lu Xingshan had arrived, but Qin Lan certainly did.
If a 4-Star anomaly appeared, he could die quickly enough to reach the limit of his gains, then stall until that old bastard intervened.
What could be more perfect?
Besides, their enemy might not reach 4-Star. If it was merely an above-average 3-Star anomaly, Qin Lan might still have a chance to win by resurrecting again and again to erase his mistakes.
However he looked at it, continuing was worth the risk.
“Tell me. What happened to this town? Why did it become like this?”
“And what should I call you? Ash Girl? Lady Ash? Little Ash?”
Qin Lan crouched beside the young woman.
“Ash… No, I’m not Cinderella…”
She shook her head in confusion. “My name… I forgot my name… But I’m certain I’m not the person you’re talking about.”
Qin Lan raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with Luo Yue. Both saw the other’s surprise.
The young woman frowned and sank into thought.
“There are many things I can’t remember. It’s as though a fog is hiding them… But I do remember that there was never a palace in this town before.”
“It was only an ordinary town.”
“Some people farmed, others raised livestock, and the road into the city was not far away. There was a bus stop just a few miles down it…”
At the words “bus stop,” Qin Lan’s expression became even stranger.
Did that phrase really belong in a story like this?
It sounded like someone had pulled out a blue-flamed Gatling gun in the middle of a medieval cavalry battle.
“But one day, everything suddenly changed…”
The young woman’s body trembled involuntarily.
“A palace appeared from nowhere. Snow began to fall, and all those horrible, twisted things emerged…”
“The children were taken away. The adults were turned into shoes and worn by those… real, gigantic shoes. The giant shoes drove their heels down people’s throats and through their entire bodies…”
“I escaped, but I couldn’t get out.”
“The blizzard hid every road leading away from town. No matter which direction I took, I always ended up back where I started.”
“That horrible Glass Slipper kept hunting me too…”
The young woman shuddered.
Qin Lan narrowed his eyes. He pieced together everything she had told him and arrived at a deeply disturbing conclusion.
Just as she had said, this place had once been nothing more than an ordinary mountain town.
Then some “thing” had descended and transformed it into Fairytale Town.
It had forcibly turned the entire town into an instance.
And that “thing” had just warned Qin Lan to stop.