Doomsday Wonderland

“L-L-L-Let me go!”

The consular officer ordered as he flailed in her arms. As she sprinted, the drag from her movements was so strong that he couldn’t even control his tongue, “I warn you! Kidnapping a consular of-f-ficer is a criminal offense!”

Lin Sanjiu ignored him and ran even faster.

Just moments ago, Lin Sanjiu placed her grand prize down and carried the man with dark eye circles by his waist in a split second decision. The man couldn’t even react because consular officers usually had very poor combat capabilities. After a few screams and not much of a struggle, Lin Sanjiu rushed into one of the winding alleys in the Free District.

After avoiding the crowd and running on the rooftops of a few buildings, she reached a small abandoned building and realized that no one was chasing her, even Ji Shanqing had disappeared. After she took a deep breath, she threw the consular officer up onto the roof of the building. The latter nearly fell off the slanted roof. He scrambled to keep himself from falling. The consular officer was both angry and frightened.

Raising his chin, with his haughtiness still intact, he asked, “What do you want?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Lin Sanjiu shot a glance at him and took out a card.

The consular officer smile coldly at her and mocked, “Every consular officer in the Twelve Worlds that joined the Consular Officer Association vowed to follow one rule: even if our lives are at stake, we will never issue a visa under physical force. Once a consular officer does that, they would not be able to—”

Before he could finish his self-righteous speech, a shadow the size of a human’s head flew toward him. Pow! It smacked him straight in the face. He was literally forced to swallow his words. The consular officer held his nose and whined painfully. When he held the item to look at it, he realized that he was holding a bulky sack.

“I know you guys are full of bullshit,” Lin Sanjiu climbed up on the roof and sat down beside him. She stared at his dark eye circles, “Look inside, is that enough for a visa?”

The consular officer kept quiet and opened the sack reluctantly. The moment he opened the sack, the items inside cast a red glow on his face. The consular officer froze and immediately held the sack tightly in his hand. When he looked at Lin Sanjiu once again, his eyes betrayed his shock and disbelief.

“This… This is a sack of large red crystals.” He chose his words deliberately as he questioned her, “If you have this, you can get quite a good visa from the association… Why do you need to kidnap me?”

“I like do my business deals where no one can see, is there a problem?”

The consular officer rubbed his head awkwardly, he was rendered speechless. After thinking for a while, he suddenly spoke again, “You wanted to go upstairs to get your visa previously, why didn’t you? For your information, the visas I have with me aren’t that good.”

Lin Sanjiu did not reply that question instead she wanted to try her luck and asked, “Do you have a visa for any of the Twelve Worlds.”

“No.”

“Any nameless visa?”

“No. Nameless visas are very expensive. We usually only provide them to the various organizations in the Twelve Worlds. Generally, they are richer than individual posthumans. I think you won’t get one even if you go to the second floor.”

Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly, Lin Sanjiu massaged her temples, “What do you have?”

“I will be honest with you,” the consular officer shook the sack of crystals in his hands. Showing a trustworthy expression, he said, “I don’t even have visas that will let you reach six months prior to the apocalypse. I have also issued all C-level world visas and below. I only have two B-level worlds and three A-level worlds. I also have some visas for worlds with unclassified levels… Since you’re offering so much, I won’t pursue the kidnap issue, just tell me if you want any of the visas.”

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback by what he said. She froze for a second and asked, “Why are there worlds with unclassified levels?”.

“That’s nothing surprising,” the consular officer gave her a sidelong glance, “The levels are determined by us posthumans. There are many new worlds out there which are not even listed on Mokugyo Encyclopedic Forum. Naturally, even we, consular officers, have no way of knowing their level.”

“How troublesome…” Lin Sanjiu frowned.

Kisaragi Station was only B-level according to the Twelve Worlds’ standards, but she already died once. She survived only because of her higher consciousness. Unfortunately, the side effects of her revival still affected her body. Without Mrs. Manas with her now, she couldn’t help feeling scared going to a B-level world even though she was already stronger than before.

“If you want me to issue a visa, but you don’t want to go to any of the high-level worlds,” the consular officer saw Lin Sanjiu’s hesitation so he blinked and suggested, “You can always choose a visa for an unclassified world. You can try your luck. Anyway, the probability of getting a low-level world is much higher than getting a visa for a high-level world. There are also many more low-level worlds. After I have issued most of my visa, I will be able to issue visas for unclassified worlds first and B-level worlds next. No one wants the visas for the A-level worlds. As for worlds that are A-level and above, only a few consular officers are able to issue these visas. Anyway, no one would even be willing to go.”

“That’s right. A person might not even reach an A-level world even if they leave it to random chance…” Lin Sanjiu nodded. She sighed and accepted the less than perfect suggestion, “Alright, issue me a visa.”

The consular officer immediately took a piece of paper from his cuff, he pressed it with both of his adeptly before asking her expressionlessly, “Name?”

She knew she couldn’t hide her name now. “Lin Sanjiu,” she replied reluctantly.

“San for three? Jiu for wine?” the consular officer asked, his expression did not change. Apparently, the name didn’t set off any alarm bells for him. “Okay, it is done. Here.”

Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and took the small piece of paper from him. Before she could see the card, she already converted it into a card and put it away. Following that, she gestured to the consular officer with her chin, “You will leave first.”

“Why do you have to act all secretive,” the man with the dark eye circles reacted to Lin Sanjiu’s order. He took his red crystals and grumbled as he climbed down the building, “You just need a visa, isn’t it…”

Lin Sanjiu kept quiet. She sat in the same spot while she watched him disappear into one of the alleys. After that, she stood up and ran in the opposite direction. Even if that consular officer realized that she was a ‘fugitive’ when he returned to the Consular Officer Association, Lin Sanjiu already had sufficient time to hide in the Free District. After Lin Sanjiu was sure that no one was following her, she returned to Sayo’s base only in the middle of the night.

The big shot in the Consular Officer Association probably wouldn’t guess that she would stay close to the association building after hiding for almost half a day. Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and entered the building whose neon sign was crooked. She looked around and saw Ji Shanqing leaning against box 207 just as she anticipated. He was sitting on the ground and looked bored.

When he saw his owner, the grand prize immediately stood up and started complaining. “Sis, you need to take better care of me in the future. You ran away so quickly. I couldn’t even catch up with you. I barely took two steps when I realized that there were people exiting the building. All I could do was to pretend like nothing had happened and walk slowly. I was scared to death. They nearly discovered me.”

Lin Sanjiu opened the mailbox with a clang and turned to question Ji Shanqing, “Did you see the person following me?”

“No,” Ji Shanqing shook his head and replied honestly. “The people who ran out were just some of their subordinates, I didn’t see anyone that looked like a Head of College.”

“I wonder who that bastard behind the Slaves Training Camp is,” Lin Sanjiu let out a soft sigh. If she wasn’t so afraid to raise the suspicion of that consular officer, she really wanted to ask him who the Head of College was. As she didn’t know how committed her pursuers were, she didn’t dare to investigate further.

“No matter who he or she is, once you have that visa, you will probably meet people sent by that ‘Head of College’. Ji Shanqing pursed his lips.

“This can’t be helped,”  Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. Unless she planned not to get any visas ever in her life, these people could always check where she would be going next once she got her visa.

“I’ve no choice. I guess this is what it is like to be on the run,” Lin Sanjiu who was all too familiar with this situation replied nonchalantly. “By the way, you should rent a room from the proprietor here. Get a clean room, please. It will be safer if you go alone.”

Ji Shanqing nodded. He took a few red crystals and went upstairs. Lin Sanjiu did not have the time to look at her visa even after she received it. While she took out a piece of paper and pen, she converted the visa back into its original form and placed it in the mailbox conveniently.

Before she could look at the visa, she suddenly felt her body palpating. It was as if every muscle in her body had been electrocuted, and she started shivering. A strange yet familiar feeling she had not felt in a while suddenly enveloped her. She suddenly lost control of her limbs and fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Lin Sanjiu didn’t feel any pain. She didn’t even realize that she had fallen. It was as if her consciousness was also wavering with the shivers. She didn’t know how long had passed. When the strange feeling finally subsided, Lin Sanjiu realized that she had fallen to the ground at some point. Ji Shanqing was staring at her. His face was pale, and he looked very frightened.

“Sis,” when Ji Shanqing saw Lin Sanjiu opening her eyes, he called out to her with a sobbing voice. “What happened to you? Please don’t die. I don’t know what will happen to me if you die!”

“He’s so straightforward, it’s infuriating.” Lin Sanjiu propped herself up with one arm. She looked around the entrance hall filled with lockers and was grateful that there was literally no business there.

“It’s alright,” Lin Sanjiu could feel that her body was gradually recovering from the tremors. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help but sigh, “My abilities just leveled up.”

Ji Shanqing stared blankly as he watched Lin Sanjiu summoning a card to her hand which was still trembling.

[Congratulations on leveling up!]

Introduction: If you don’t level up, you might think I’m a pushover! You finally reached the 3rd level after such a long time, I hope Lin Sanjiu will accept this with a grateful heart.

Active ability: Planar World

Level-up Count: 3

Forecast date of Next Level-up: You might have better luck winning a lottery!

Level-up benefits: The maximum weight of each item you can convert is now three tons. You can now convert up to 32 items. Wow, the number finally exceeds what she owns! This is a mockery to the poor! If you look carefully at the pictures on the card, you will realize that they have improved tremendously! All the pictures look life-like and accurate. It makes one happy just looking at those beautiful color pencil sketches. Please note that there is an additional black space under each picture. At this level, the blank space is useless, so don’t think too much about it, Lin Sanjiu!

Even though her [Planar World] had increased by a level, there weren’t any new functional cards like her [Diary Card], so Lin Sanjiu was a little disappointed. Lin Sanjiu looked at the card in her hand many times before she sighed and grumbled, “This ability is just too lackluster.”

If she didn’t include her [Diary Card] and her [Nostradamus’s Card], the only attack she could use with her [Planar World] was to throw a card and convert it back to its original form. In some sense, even though [Planar World] had already leveled up thrice, there wasn’t any visible improvement from the time she attacked Ren Nan.

“Is my ability just for storage?” Lin Sanjiu mumbled disgruntledly as she thought of Puppeteer. “Isn’t this disparity too large… I need to search for more information about Active abilities on the Mokugyo Encyclopedic Forum tomorrow.”

Anyway, ever since she was in her own world, [Hyperthermal Hell], she didn’t have much control over her fate, so she was unclear about many things. Since she was in one of the Twelve Worlds, she definitely had to take the opportunity to understand more.

Ji Shanqing had little knowledge about Active Skills. He examined Lin Sanjiu a little worriedly. When he was sure that she was alright, he heaved a sigh of relief and helped Lin Sanjiu up.

“Have you booked a room for us?” Lin Sanjiu asked as she retrieved her visa.

“Yes. I booked it until the day you have to leave,” Ji Shanqing replied. He noticed the visa in her hand, and both of them suddenly fell silent.

Lin Sanjiu blinked her eyes. After she was certain that she didn’t read the words on her visa wrongly, she looked at Ji Shanqing. Ji Shanqing looked back at her, confused. His intelligence and wit were apparently useless in this regard.

After some time, Lin Sanjiu spoke hesitantly, “An apocalypse world called [Meat Elysium]…”

As she spoke she wrote a few words on a piece of paper and left it in the mailbox before closing the locker, “What do you think it’ll be like?”