Chapter 16

[…Don’t sleep…it will be bad…]

After an unknown amount of time, Kono Seiryoshi opened his eyes as the system called him repeatedly.

The sound of the light ball came and went, intermittently, and he could not hear it clearly.

In order to wake him up, the system seemed to have deliberately increased the pain. Gong Ye Shengliang's throat was swollen and painful, and his eyelids were heavy. He moved his fingers and felt resistance, and then he found that there was a warm temperature on them.

Most of his consciousness was eaten by the dark worms, and the discomfort all over his body made him unable to tell whether the problem was with his brain or his body. He slowly pulled his hand out and fumbled for a lighter from his coat.

His ominous guess was confirmed; the friction between the fire wheels only produced a few scattered sparks.

This is bad... The oxygen content in the cave is already lower than outside, and the passage is blocked after the explosion. Even if there are only two of them, the oxygen inside has been consumed to the critical value.

The cave was so quiet that I almost heard auditory hallucinations. The rising and falling breathing sounds beside me suddenly changed.

"This time we've gone too far..." The person next to him whispered softly, "Do you think dying from lack of oxygen would be more comfortable than hanging?"

With his head still dizzy, Kono Seiryoshi took some effort to think, "...Neither of them will feel comfortable."

Halfway through his speech, he suddenly realized that his weak fingertips had touched the back of Dazai's hand without him noticing. When he was about to withdraw his hand, Dazai unexpectedly did not stay still, but turned his hand over and pinched his palm twice.

The touch is lighter than the brush of a feather, and a delicate tingling sensation is felt on the skin where it touches.

The health bar displayed on the system interface dropped to 1. No wonder the light ball was so anxious. Unfortunately, it was useless no matter how anxious it was. Gongye Shengliang regarded himself as an experienced loser. Whether he participated voluntarily or was forced to get involved, he had gone through many hardships, so it was difficult for him to get nervous even in danger.

"Well, so I've been looking for the most comfortable way to die." Dazai Osamu's words were tinged with a faint smile, "Are you scared? If you continue like this, you may never wake up again."

“…I’m not afraid.” Kono Seiryoshi raised his head with some effort and tried to slow down his breathing. “But I remember there are some things I haven’t done yet. I don’t know if there will be another chance.”

Silent, lightless, without any signal, closed and narrow, his physiological aversion to this kind of environment was acquired. If it weren't for Dazai, Kono Seiryoshi almost thought he had returned to the past with his inverted memory.

"What do you want to do?" Dazai Osamu's voice seemed to be closer, slow and weak, with a strange rhythm, "Wouldn't it be nice to sleep here forever? Anyway, you don't like the life of the port mafia."

The symptoms of hypoxia gradually appeared, and Kono Seiryoshi's brain seemed to be rusted, and he processed the other person's words slowly and laboriously.

He forgot that it was pitch dark in here and the other party couldn't see his movements at all. He shook his head subconsciously and said, "I still have to do it. At that time..."

He suddenly became speechless - yes, at that time.

He remembered why he said those words to Dazai Osamu in the bedroom.

In the memory, the boy in black clothes and black hair was clearly standing outside the door, just one step away from freedom, but his eyes were even more lifeless than the boy who was locked inside. There was an aura of pessimism and despair lingering around him, clearly separating himself from this world.

At an inopportune moment, Seira Kono thought of another child, who was not very similar to Dazai. That child was much clumsier than Dazai and remained stubbornly in his memory.

He couldn't help but look at Dazai, and at the child in his memory at the same time. He opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but found that he had nothing.

In this case, let's make a promise to each other. No matter what, gifts always make people happy.

So he had to work hard to survive in order to fulfill his original promise.

That’s right, Kono Seiryoshi repeated in his mind, we have to survive no matter what.

His somewhat dilated pupils were trying hard to focus a little, and the thoughts in his mind had never been as clear as they were now. He did come into this world with a purpose, but it did not affect his new and strong desires.

At least... let Dazai get out alive.

The temperature in the underground cave was extremely low, and Gongye Shengliang's body was hot and cold. He could only press tightly against the stone wall, letting the lifeless, cold stone bring a moment of clarity to his brain, which was on the verge of overload.

He closed his sore eyelids and uttered another person's name in a hoarse voice.

There was a rustling sound from the side, and Dazai Osamu touched his hot forehead with a cool finger: "I'm here."

Kono Seiryoshi closed his eyes and surveyed the system map inch by inch: "I said before that I would give you a gift, right?"

The finger on his forehead paused for a moment, and after a long while, Dazai Osamu replied softly, "Yeah."

Kouno Seiryoshi touched his nose and said, "This request is indeed very strange."

"Indeed, it was Mr. Mori who said he wanted to give me a gift last time." Dazai Osamu agreed, and then laughed softly at the end, "You don't want to give me a coat like Mr. Mori did, do you?"

Subconsciously, Kono Seiryoshi refused to be on par with the cold-blooded capitalist Mori Ogai who exploited his employees. He tried to sternly refute Dazai Osamu's words, but he didn't realize that his voice was hoarse and weak at this time, without any dignity at all.

After thinking for a while, Gongye Shengliang asked again, "Do you want something?" As soon as he said this, he realized something and quickly added, "Suicide doesn't count."

"..." Dazai Osamu was silent for a long time, as if he was really thinking seriously about what else was worth his nostalgia besides death.

Kimino Seira waited for a long time but got no answer. His mind was like a kite with a broken string, floating aimlessly in the chaos. Dazai could actually be so taciturn sometimes. It seemed that this question was really difficult.

So he kindly offered a step and said, "Tell me when you have made up your mind. As long as I can do it."

Dazai Osamu hummed from his nose and asked back without appreciating the offer: "Is this okay? What if I make an excessive request?"

Kono Seiryoshi: "..." Dazai has a very accurate understanding of himself.

It's not like he hadn't thought of this possibility. For example, if Dazai asked him to say bad things about Nakahara Chuuya in front of Moriou, even he would feel a little embarrassed.

Kono Seira sighed, half-opened his eyes, leaned over and stroked Dazai Osamu's head with the same technique as stroking a kidney bean: "So you have to think about it carefully... If it's too much, I won't agree."

"To be honest, I really doubt your definition of excessive." Dazai grabbed his hand and put it aside, skipping the subject.

When Kono Seiryoshi heard Dazai Osamu talking to himself, he sighed softly, as if coming from another dimension: "…It seems not bad now."

His health bar dropped to a dangerous critical value, and a string that had been stretched to the extreme snapped with a sound. His body suddenly relaxed, and the last scene before his eyes was the system warning that was magnified countless times, and the calyx that quietly bloomed after Kono Seiryoshi fell into a coma, which even he himself did not realize.

A hand with a bandage pulled back Gong Ye Shengliang's head which was about to hit the stone wall.

Dazai was already familiar with this endless darkness. He frowned, and while maintaining his support, he picked up the dolphin keychain on the ground with one hand. His fingertips rubbed the uneven surface of the knocked-off tail like smoothing a wound, and then retracted his grip, letting the edges and corners sting his skin.

He listened to the shallow breathing beside him, and the aching wounds on his body miraculously healed.

Dazai Osamu turned his head and felt the soft hair brushing against the tip of his nose. A glimmer of hope appeared in his iris-colored eyes:

"...Don't write bad checks."

--

"Are you sure it's here?"

"Yes, according to the results of the interrogation team, the end point of the map and the location of the explosion are nearby."

“Where are the staff and equipment?”

"We are ready. Two teams are searching on the west coast."

"good."

"You stay here, I'll go over."

On Okinawa Island, before sunrise, Nakahara Chuuya arranged tasks for his men, held down his hat with one hand, and jumped down the side of the boat with the other, his black coat rustling in the wind.

The handsome eyebrows and eyes of the ochre-haired boy were frozen with a layer of frost, his thin lips were tightly pursed, and he didn't want to say a word.

More than six hours had passed since the explosion, and it seemed that the perpetrators only wanted to blow up all the invaders without any regard for the consequences, without even thinking about hiding any traces. That was why the members left behind on the shore were able to discover the abnormality in the distance in the first place.

Although the news reached the port mafia headquarters quickly, it took a lot of effort to deal with the government. They did not have a supernatural license, and the location was Okinawa, more than a thousand kilometers away from the headquarters in Yokohama. It took two or three hours just to prevent the supernatural secret service from interfering.

Nakahara Chuuya was summoned to the leader's office by an urgent order. He was unable to react when he first heard the location. It was not until Ozaki Kouyo told him the whole story that his memory suddenly connected.

The first thought that popped into his mind was not to laugh at the green mackerel that often walked by the river and finally got its shoes wet, but to feel unspeakably absurd and angry - Mutsuyoshi Kono was also in the explosion.

They were still sharing their daily lives yesterday, chatting about when the coast was best for enjoying the breeze, and the last message on the chat interface remained on a vivid emoticon.

All the plans and the thoughts that had not yet been expressed were completely interrupted by the unexpected accident - in fact, it might not have been an accident.

"I don't think Dazai-kun didn't anticipate the trap behind this," Mori Ogai stood up from his seat and patted him on the shoulder, "but the situation is urgent, so I still have to trouble you to go over there, Chuuya-kun."

Zhong Yuanzhong didn't know what expression he had as he rushed to Okinawa as quickly as possible, but he estimated that the situation was not good. His subordinates, who usually could still joke around, were silent all the way, and the atmosphere in the cabin was so depressing that they dared not even breathe.

The deeper we went, the more obvious the traces of the explosion became. Gravity made the collapsed boulders move in our hands like a child's play blocks, and they were easily manipulated to make way. Nakahara Chuuya waved away the flying dust and suppressed the anxiety in his heart.

It's not that easy for that villain Dazai to die, Nakahara Chuuya told himself again and again that as long as that guy is not dead, the people with him will be fine.

He himself found it ironic. Normally he wished that Dazai would die quickly, but now he secretly prayed that the bastard would survive. If Dazai knew about this, he would probably make fun of him for years.

……but.

Nakahara Chuuya took a deep breath and touched the inner wall of the cave with his gloved fingers. The red light emanating from his body enveloped the entire area.

However, if Kimino Mutsushi was fine, being laughed at by Dazai would not be a big deal.

As if his thoughts were being answered, when a cap-shaped stone about seven or eight meters wide was uncovered, Nakahara Chuuya caught a glimpse of a gray-silver color that was completely different from the color of the cave.

He immediately saw the man leaning against the pile of rocks, his face looking peaceful as if he was sleeping.

Nakahara Chuuya's tense nerves suddenly relaxed, and before his face could show joy of relief, he was interrupted by a discordant noise.

“Ahem…”

Dazai Osamu coughed while covering his mouth and nose, and raised his head to complain angrily: "We came too late, Chuuya, did you fall into a ditch on the way?"

"Huh?! Who is to blame——"

Nakahara Chuuya's angry voice suddenly stopped, his eyes widened in shock, and he couldn't move as if the pause button was pressed.

No wonder I didn’t notice that Dazai guy when I first came in. It’s not just because he was dressed in black from head to toe, but also because he had his back to Nakahara Chuuya, and his figure almost merged into one with another person.

The stone controlled by gravity stayed motionless in place. Dazai Osamu stood up by holding onto the stone wall behind him, and looked at Nakahara Chuuya at the exit with a half-smile. The unconscious gray-haired boy was half-held in his arms without knowing it.

For a moment, Nakahara Chuuya felt that he was provoked.

He couldn't tell what caused his irritation. He just felt that Dazai Osamu's hypocritical smile was particularly annoying at the moment. However, there was a more important thing that forced him to ignore the inexplicable resentment in his heart.

Nakahara Chuuya quickened his pace, his heart pounding as he observed the injuries on Kono Seiryoshi's body, and cautiously reached out to take the unconscious gray-haired boy.

Dazai Osamu, who was a bit faster than him and looked half-dead, suddenly moved sideways and happened to stand between the two of them, leaving Nakahara Chuuya empty-handed.

"Chuuya, you should take the communicator with you." Dazai Osamu's cold voice cut off Chuuya Nakahara's anger, "Tell them to bring the boat over, and act quickly."

Nakahara Chuuya was startled, but reacted quickly and looked in the direction Dazai Osamu was looking.

The first rays of morning light shone on the sparkling sea, and also revealed a hidden pit covered by rocks behind them.

The high and loud cry of the seagulls penetrates the layers of clouds, countless tiny dust particles dance in the sunlight, and the goddess of dawn Aurora gently touches the sleeping eyes of the travelers and whispers blessings. *

The purpose of their trip shone brightly in the sunlight; it was the gold that had been buried in the cave and finally saw the light of day.

The author has something to say:

*The element symbol Au for gold comes from Aurora, the goddess of dawn and light in Roman mythology, and means "brilliant dawn".

I only found out about this bit of knowledge when I was looking up the gold, it's quite interesting (so I couldn't help but get a second-year syndrome in the last two paragraphs orz)

By the way, Chuuya, you have developed a new skill (thumbs up)