Chapter 35 Thirty-five Ghosts Behind
Amuro Toru opened and closed his eyes, and immediately realized that he had regained control of his body.
He glanced inconspicuously at the bearded man who had led him half a step in pushing the cart to the door of the main laboratory. Fortunately, the other party's attention was not on him at the moment, so he naturally did not see the pause when he and Chijiang Nayue were in contact.
The spirit behind him, having regained its lightness, stretched lazily in mid-air and hung back on his back.
"I've seen the layout here before." Chijiang Nayue lazily gave instructions, "Next, after leaving this corridor, turn left two intersections, and the room with a whiteboard on the door is the archive room."
Amuro nodded slightly, but doubts arose in his heart: This was somewhat different from the handover time in their plan, so how come the little devil slipped out early?
As if she could tell what he was thinking, Chi Jiang Na Yue pouted her lips and reminded him uninterestedly: "Don't you feel that your body is suddenly very tired after using it?"
The spirit behind him symbolically climbed upwards, slowly crawling to the top of Toru Amuro's head before settling down again, and then nonchalantly gave an explanation.
"The other three roommates tied to you look like they're about to wake up. The difference between tying up four awake ghosts at the same time and tying up one awake ghost and three sleeping ghosts is huge."
"And, I'm not exaggerating - I'm very strong, even now." Akae Natsuki supported his shoulders, lowered her head upside down, and while looking at Amuro Toru, she used her hands to help guide him in the afterglow, saying in a light tone, "So if I don't leave your body, you'll explode."
Before the stubbled man looked over, Toru Amuro lowered his eyes first, covering the change in expression in his pupils, and the muscles in his arms tensed.
When he was about to find out the identities of the other three spirits behind the scenes, he started to get nervous.
Forget it... the little devil also said that he would be 'waking up soon', so the most urgent thing is to pay more attention to the archive room he is about to go to.
Akae Nayue floated down from above his head, and clearly saw Amuro Toru's expression. She could also guess what he was thinking at the moment, and raised the corners of her lips in a cunning and silent smile.
However, he was not lying.
At this moment, only Akae Nayue could see that behind Amuro Toru, who originally had nothing, three figures with closed eyes gradually emerged as he spoke.
At the same time, after Amuro Toru realized what he said, the three figures became more solid.
The Savior's eyes swept over them slowly.
Almost there.
The young man in the middle, wearing a bloodstained shirt and a jacket, has slightly softer facial lines, and his tightly closed eyes have a signature upward arc; the young man on the left, wearing a thin police uniform, is the tallest, with a handsome face, and also has a pair of droopy puppy eyes that are impressive even when they are tightly closed; the man on the right, wearing a black suit, even wears sunglasses that give him a bossy vibe, and half of the phone in his pocket is exposed.
——Morofuku Kagemitsu, Hagiwara Kenji, Matsuda Jinpei.
These three people are very familiar to both Akae Nazuki and Amuro Toru, their deceased colleagues, and they are also people who should not be here.
[…What’s going on?] As expected, Shu Zhen’s shocked voice rang in my mind, [Aka! What did you do?!]
Don't mention it, it seems like he is doing something eye-catching.
[You promised me, didn't you? As long as I can help repair these parallel worlds, then it doesn't matter what I do.] Chi Jiang Na Yue smiled with curved eyebrows and replied in her heart, [Since you asked me to help, it's normal for me to ask for some compensation.]
Shu felt that if he had a physical body, he would probably go crazy and burst into tears: [But you didn't say it was this kind of reward! ]
It was really scared to death by Xiaohong.
Well, it’s not that it can’t do this. After all, Xiaohong is the first life it created, and she has an incomparable status to it. The book will not blame the other party for this.
But why didn't you tell it in advance?
[Don't be nervous. I told you, it's just an experiment.] Akae Nazuki said cheerfully, [Since Toru Amuro, who is locked as my anchor in this world, believes that Akae Nazuki does exist as a spirit behind me, I in this world will be able to be resurrected smoothly later...]
He had been planning this since he first came to this world and decided on his image and personality. Even so, it still took him nearly two months to finally get the three real back spirits that he had forcibly pulled back to take shape.
But this is not enough for them to truly wake up and return to the world of the living.
[So, I am curious, if the person believed to be the ghost is not me, will I be resurrected? ]
Chi Jiang Na Yue half-truthfully coaxed Shu: "Look, the experiment is about to succeed, which means I was right. Anyway, this is not our world. It's just resurrecting two or three people. The consciousness of this world won't mind."
Shu asked in a daze: [What if He minds? ]
The savior who was asked said something horrifying in a casual way: "Then I don't mind if I beat him up."
[You should get what you want. You taught me that. Anyway, we have defeated more than one world consciousness together. Does it matter what He thinks?] He said innocently, [Just understand. Now He is asking us to help.]
[Let’s talk about this later…] Akajina Yue, who was guarding the spirit body behind the young man, once again looked at the three good friends who had never met in this world and who had transformed into spirits behind him, with excitement in her eyes.
[I am their best friend first, and the savior of the entire parallel universe second, dear. ]
Then, knowing how much Shu favored him, the savior gently asked: "You are on my side, right?"
The book immediately stood up when it heard the word "dear".
“No problem!” it responded happily and loudly.
Shu and Chijiang Nayue both knew that the former had once planned to sacrifice the latter, and therefore, this was the first time in more than a year since the birth of the new world that the latter had taken the initiative to show signs of reconciliation!
[From now on, I'll leave it to you to shape their bodies~] Akae Nazuki said happily.
…
etc?
It has not been more than ten years since I developed an independent consciousness, but I always feel that something is wrong with this book, but I can't figure out what it is at the moment.
And Akae Nazuki didn't care. His gaze returned to Amuro Toru who had just walked into the file room.
"Thank you so much for taking the time to come here with me. But when I think about it carefully, I probably need to stay here for a while. You should go back and rest first." Amuro Toru couldn't change his voice, but the voice changer that Akae Nazuki prepared for him was still attached to his throat, so he easily made the voice of the brown-haired man.
The bearded man felt sleepy again after hearing this and couldn't help but yawn: "I am a little sleepy..."
"Then I'll leave." In that case, he didn't continue to be polite.
The bearded man waved goodbye, turned around and swiped his ID card again, and walked out the door: "See you later."
Only after the door of the archive room was closed again did Toru Amuro breathe a sigh of relief.
"There are more surveillance cameras here than I thought, although they all look like old cameras that can't record sound." After walking around, Chijiang Nayue came back and sighed, "It seems that I did visit this place eight years ago."
The door here is very strange. It has a white board on the outside, but there is a nameplate of the First Archive Room on the inside. There is no one guarding the room except rows and rows of archive files gathering dust on shelves.
"This is..." Toru Amuro covered his mouth and nose with one hand to avoid being covered in dust, and raised his other hand to wipe clean a plaque on the nearest shelf next to him with his sleeve.
July 2004
He realized something.
"Yes." Akae Nayue confirmed Amuro Toru's guess, "The first archive room should store research records from a long time ago."
The maiden voyage of the Linorea was in 2010, almost ten years ago, but the earliest records here can be traced back to sixteen years ago, which means that the research institute on the ship was probably moved from somewhere else.
Toru Amuro flipped through the file bag on the shelf from 2004. The papers inside looked quite old, but fortunately the handwriting was still clear enough for him to make out what was written on it.
When he had finished flipping through all the file bags on the shelf in front of him, he immediately discovered something.
"All the research records mention a code name." The public security elite frowned slightly, "Sake... I haven't heard of him in the organization."
"...Ah, it's him." Akae Nayue muttered something, and then motioned to Amuro Toru to look through the shelf opposite.
As expected, the name of sake always appears in the records on this [2014] shelf, and basically appears in the position of general manager.
"Come to think of it, I mentioned it before." Akae Nazuki stroked his chin and finally began to explain to Amuro Toru who Sake was. "Do you remember the 'Chronos Project' that Vermode participated in? The person in charge of that experimental project was also Sake."
Tokiwa Eisaku, codenamed Sake, had dealt with this man before in the main world, and had cheated him many times.
"Wait a minute, do you think there's a big difference in the number of experimental records before 2003 and after 2004?" Amuro Toru continued flipping through the pages while listening to the explanation, then said in a slightly surprised and serious tone, pointing to Akae Nazuki, "Here it is."
Chijiang Nayue's expression showed guilt for half a second, and then she became righteous again.
"Yeah, that's true," he agreed. "But I think I destroyed those."
Toru Amuro was stunned, and suddenly realized: "So that's why you boarded the ship!"
"If nothing unexpected happens, that's right." Akae Nayue confirmed, "I remember I said there were two survivors who participated in the Chronos Project, one was Bermode, and the other was my adoptive mother, Akae Yu."
He didn't mention the code name Cherry Brandy.
"They all officially started participating in the project in 2003." Chi Jiang Na Yue said thoughtfully, "Since my purpose in coming here is to destroy these experimental records related to them, then in addition to the large amount of records from 2003, if I look for them later, there should be some missing records."
Now the final piece of the puzzle to unlock the secrets of the Linorea fits into place.
The lower three floors of this cruise ship once belonged to Sake. The archives contained most of the data and records related to Sake's past projects. Some shady researchers conducted equally shady research on the ship, and the experimental subjects they captured were also locked up in the lower three floors.
Among them was information about the Chronos Project.
Eight years ago, Kaluuya killed Karasuma Renya and Black Label Whiskey one after another. After his revenge was successful, he had lost the reason to continue living, so he decided to die.
But there is one last person in this world whom he cares about - Bermode.
Kaluuya knew that once he died, the ostensible BOSS representative, Vermode, would definitely be in danger. Therefore, before he died, he had to eliminate all those who might endanger Vermode, so that he could be completely at ease.
Kaluya then deliberately exposed his whereabouts and designed to lead the Rum faction to hunt him down. He slaughtered dozens of Rum faction elites on the cruise ship and destroyed the last copy of the Chronos plan.
In the end, he had no more worries and jumped into the sea in front of Gin, and was embraced by the souls of his parents who were also buried in the sea.
This is the true meaning of the boy's words "everything is coming to an end" in Tsuda Atsushi's memory.