Chapter 284: Chapter 284: Paradise
According to the staff of [Paradise].
Each team has a base of five ‘Strange Tales Points’, which can be used for shopping.
At the beginning, when nothing is clear, Han Dong and the others had to first find the ‘store’ to understand its situation, then exchange for related Strange Tales clues.
“How to get more points… we’ll have to ask in the store.”
Officially entering Paradise.
The scene within left Han Dong completely stunned.
He had assumed that when all the Strange Tales were contained in a city, the city would turn into an absolute ghost town, where ordinary people could not possibly live.
The desolation and bleakness were what Han Dong initially expected.
But in reality…
Outside the buffer room was a gloomy alleyway.
Once the door closed, it merged with the cement wall of the alley’s dead end, completely hidden.
“Is this [Paradise]?”
Exiting the dark alley.
Abundant sunshine poured onto the street, and once the pain gradually subsided… what met their eyes was a bustling pedestrian street with constant traffic.
Such a scene was difficult for Abe, who lived in the Holy City, to accept, and even felt bizarre and uncomfortable.
But for Han Dong it was all too familiar… it even made his eyes well up a little.
Huge electronic billboards,
Various different styles of clothing stores,
Many people coming and going, either watching small videos, chatting with friends, or dealing with work.
At the same time on the street, there were also vendors pushing carts with octopus balls,
Small sushi shops with rain canopies,
And a small ramen shop emitting a strong scent of pork bone from ten meters away.
“A pedestrian street…”
Han Dong had lived for about a year at the Molecular Cell Research Institute of the University of Tokyo as a ‘visiting scholar’.
He could do basic communication.
Moreover, unlike the rural village in the first movie ‘Being Possessed’, where the technology is relatively developed, basic communication in English would suffice.
“Wow!!”
Winry, being a blacksmith, was quick to accept such fresh things.
She was immediately attracted by all the streamlined designs.
“Winry, don’t run around… you guys wait here for a moment.
It’s completely different from the Paradise I imagined; there are people living here, we need to keep a low profile…”
Han Dong soon stole some autumn trench coats from a clothing store warehouse.
The rather loose cuffs totally conceal the electronic cuffs on the wrists.
Han Dong also stole some yen bills from the warehouse, which would certainly come in handy.
Leading the team into the crowd, they first went under a newsstand at the street corner.
Han Dong purchased four ‘Paradise maps’ from the owner in fairly fluent Japanese.
Winry, who was following the team, asked questioningly, “Vice captain, there are a lot of shops in this city…how can we find the ‘Strange Tales store’ we’re looking for?”
“All I know is, a shop like this would definitely not appear in the public.”
Han Dong pointed at the current location of his group on the map, “We’ll use the crossroad as a temporary gathering point and look separately… let’s meet back here in one hour.
Try to search in dark, less active areas as much as possible.
And! Don’t get into trouble…”
The last words of Han Dong were naturally for Mia.
Mia’s personality type is likely to take action directly when she encounters something unpleasant.
Mia hugged Winry next to her, “Don’t worry, this is a five-star full difficulty event, I won’t mess around… let’s go, little sister Winry.”
“Be careful! Now that we’re in, danger could be at hand at any moment.”
“I got it, what a nag!”
Dividing up to act.
The way each member acted independently was different.
Abe immediately dove into the alleyway.
By embedding his claws into the wall, he quickly climbed onto the roof.
By jumping and shifting on the rooftop, coupling his superior vision and a beast’s unique sense of smell, he searched for different areas.
Mia would release some small spiders every time she traversed through a dark alley.
Mia herself tries to forcibly obtain information from random hoodlums, asking if they know any of the secretly strange stores.
Under Han Dong’s perspective.
“The current world background, the technological level is probably a hundred to two hundred years beyond the world I lived in. They can even create such an ‘artificial city’ for Strange Tales containment.
The ‘people’ coming and going on the street do not seem real, but are almost indistinguishable from real people.
Let’s find the ‘store’ first.”
Han Dong tried to blend in with the crowd, only to find he couldn’t.
It wasn’t him, but there was something wrong with the humans in this city.
Han Dong specially bought a large hooded sweatshirt to cover the ‘Little Demon Eye’… to observe in secret.
In half an hour of searching, Han Dong found nothing.
No stores, and no Strange Tales phenomena.
Suddenly.
Thump!
The originally clear sky suddenly poured down rain, turning the whole city ‘gloomy’.
Han Dong quickly took shelter from the rain under the eaves of a supermarket.
“Is it possible that the ‘store’ is integrated with a normal supermarket?”
After a complete tour inside the supermarket, Han Dong bought an umbrella and deliberately revealed his prisoner cuffs in front of the store staff.
He did not get any response… his guess was wrong.
“Dear customer! We have public umbrellas at the entrance of our store, just scan with your phone to use.”
“No need… with the sudden downpour, there should be no umbrellas left, right?”
“There’s one left.”
Following the store employee’s hint, Han Dong looked at the public umbrella stand at the entrance of the supermarket.
The last red umbrella was left on it… with a strange aura on the surface of the umbrella.
Just then.
A worried office worker, carrying a briefcase, picked up the red umbrella after receiving a phone call from his boss.
He quickly disappeared into the downpour.
“Too bad, this umbrella costs 6600 yen.”
When the clerk turned around, he found that the money had been left on the cash register.
The young customer who had just bought the umbrella had already left.
In the heavy rain.
Han Dong was closely following the office worker who had just taken the last red umbrella.
It wasn’t just about the aura anymore.
As the man opened his umbrella, a human head appeared inside of it.
The head was tightly pressed against the man’s shoulder.
An unusually bright red lip, spouting a long grey tongue, sometimes licked the man’s cheek… the man only felt the cold rain splashing on his face, oblivious to anything else.