“Hey, look, that girl’s condition… it’s really strange!”
Even though the cold wind that had just swept past the dormitory building had subsided once more, allowing the dense fog to return, much like a night level in ‘Plants vs. Zombies’, the four individuals preparing to depart from the dorm’s entrance couldn’t help but notice that the girl emerging from the main gate was behaving quite… eerily.
Her steps were erratic, as though she were thoroughly intoxicated, and her twin pigtails swung wildly from side to side. Her school uniform was in tatters, the yellow shirt ripped halfway to expose a lace bra beneath, while her short skirt was riddled with holes, offering an immodest glimpse of her legs. Despite this disheveled state, she appeared utterly oblivious.
“Wow! It’s a zombie!” Xia Hua exclaimed, her voice brimming with excitement. “As a dedicated researcher of the occult, I knew it all along! The legends of Voodoo are indeed true! My months spent diligently gathering incredible knowledge from internet forums weren’t in vain after all!”
“Uh… are you referring to the zombies from games and movies,” Shirley inquired, “the ones utterly devoid of intellect, incapable of using tools, and only driven by a primal urge to bite others?”
“Exactly!”
“Well, I think the situation might be a little different,” Eileen remarked. “That student over there appears to be using a tool.”
“Huh?” Xia Hua momentarily froze, yet she swiftly realized that the girl was indeed loading something into what appeared to be a pistol. Despite her movements being somewhat sluggish and unpracticed, this was clearly distinct from the unintelligent zombies depicted in occult stories.
Crucially, through the swirling mist, they could discern the girl’s chest rising and falling, a clear indication that she was, in fact, breathing!
“I knew it,” Ji Bingyao stated, clicking her tongue, “how could such an absurdity as zombies, something that defies the laws of thermodynamics, possibly exist in this world? Given that there are still survivors inside, and they’re walking out so openly, it strongly suggests the danger has mostly receded—”
“Look out!” Before Ji Bingyao could even finish her sentence, the quick-witted Shirley had already lunged, tackling her to the ground. Moments later, several low ‘whooshing’ sounds filled the air as something streaked past the spot where Ji Bingyao had just been standing, slamming into a cypress tree behind them. The forceful impact pulverized and scattered a significant amount of the rough bark, leaving a shower of brown fragments strewn across the earth.
“What was that… a pellet gun?!” Eileen gasped.
Eileen’s sharp observation prompted Shirley and Ji Bingyao to recall Alice’s earlier comment: their dormitory building was also home to members of St. Lian Girls’ Academy’s shooting team, who competed in both air pistol and air rifle disciplines. Theoretically, these competition-grade air guns should have been securely locked away in the warehouse beside the shooting range, located beneath the gymnasium. However, it seemed the team members had not adhered to this regulation. Alternatively, it was plausible that, sensing danger, they had swiftly retrieved their weapons as a precautionary measure.
Regardless of the precise circumstances, it was undeniable that the girl had just fired an air pistol directly at them.
“Hey, hey, hey! It’s us! I’m Shirley! And these are Ji Bingyao, Eileen, and Xia Hua!” Shirley called out, waving her hands frantically in an attempt to halt the attack. “We’re not enemies, please—Woah!”
The girl stumbled a few steps forward before firing several more shots in rapid succession. Unlike the initial two, these subsequent shots were rushed and wildly inaccurate, yet they were enough to send Shirley scrambling for cover in a panic.
“Damn it, what is wrong with this person?! Are they completely mad?!” Ji Bingyao muttered, dropping to the ground to seek cover. While a competition air pistol, firing 5.5mm lead pellets, certainly possessed less power than a conventional firearm, a direct hit to a vital spot like a major artery or an eye could still inflict severe damage at close range.
The pressing question remained: why was she firing at them? Had she mistaken them for adversaries, or was she simply too consumed by terror to comprehend her own predicament?
As these two questions swirled in her mind, Shirley’s hand instinctively drifted to the pistol concealed in her pocket. While this 9mm firearm was by no means a formidable weapon, it was undeniably superior to a pre-charged air pistol that fired lead pellets. More crucially, the assailant seemed to possess no tactical awareness whatsoever; she continued to stand brazenly exposed while firing, making no effort to seek cover.
Shirley, concealed behind a tree, executed the movements of drawing her pistol, disengaging the safety, and raising her weapon in a mere two seconds. The pistol’s glowing sights locked onto the head of the girl, who was haphazardly firing her air pistol at the other two. Yet, just before squeezing the trigger, Shirley subtly shifted her aim to the air pistol clutched in the girl’s hand. A single 9mm round precisely struck the air pistol’s cylinder, sending the weapon spinning away.
“Huh? Shirley, where in the world did you learn such marksmanship?!” The other three accompanying her stared in utter astonishment.
“Just lucky!” Shirley replied, opting not to reveal the truth. After all, while the principle of three-point aiming was common knowledge, achieving such precision with a small-caliber pistol typically demanded extensive training. Yet, she had accomplished it purely on instinct, as though guided by muscle memory—a feat that left even her utterly bewildered.
The disarmed girl slowly glanced around, then, like an elderly woman, she tremblingly made her way towards the air pistol lying on the ground, attempting to retrieve it. Naturally, Ji Bingyao afforded her no such opportunity. Leveraging the explosive sprinting speed she had cultivated through years of obstacle course training, Ji Bingyao swiftly surged forward, pinning the girl firmly to the earth.
“What’s the situation?!” Shirley asked.
“I… ugh… it’s… it’s utterly foul! Truly, unbelievably foul!” Ji Bingyao wailed immediately after pinning the girl down. For reasons unknown, the girl was emanating a bizarre, acrid stench. This odor wasn’t the putrid smell of a corpse, nor the reek of excrement; instead, it was akin to the chemical secretions of a startled caterpillar, only magnified many, many times in intensity.
“Huh, is this student ill?!” Driven by an irrepressible curiosity, Xia Hua stepped forward for a closer look, only to immediately wrinkle her nose in disgust. The reeking girl was not merely clad in rags but utterly filthy; her face was devoid of color, her mouth askew, and her expression disturbingly vacant. Most unsettling of all, a peculiar dark green, greasy liquid was oozing from nearly every major orifice of her body: her tear ducts, her nose, the corners of her mouth… and her nether regions. The white underwear peeking out from beneath her torn green plaid skirt was so thoroughly saturated with this fluid that its original hue was entirely obscured, while the sickening stench permeated the very air around them.
“I’ve never encountered an illness quite like this,” Shirley murmured, carefully approaching to touch the girl’s forehead. The girl’s skin was searingly hot, so much so that it almost burned Shirley’s hand. “Student, what’s your name? What exactly happened here?”
“Ho… hu…” The girl, from whose nostrils and the corners of her mouth a viscous green liquid continuously flowed, opened her mouth, attempting to bite Shirley’s hand. Shirley, thankfully, managed to evade her. Witnessing this, Ji Bingyao swiftly produced a handkerchief, forcefully stuffing it into the girl’s mouth. She then tore off a section of the girl’s already ripped skirt hem, twisted it into a makeshift rope, and bound her hands and feet.
“Be careful not to get bitten,” Eileen warned. “This… it could be the result of a neurotropic viral infection, perhaps something akin to rabies.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but that’s not the case,” a familiar voice emanated from Shirley’s pocket. “My dear Miss, has Mother not yet informed you about the ‘World of the Insect Cage’?”
“Insect… cage? What does that even mean?” Eileen muttered. Simultaneously, Shirley retrieved the source of the voice from her pocket: the peculiar ‘magic wand’ she had acquired upon waking in her dormitory earlier.
“So, you don’t actually need a phone to communicate with us?”
“That’s right. But this ‘magic wand’ has no video function, and at the time, I really wanted to see Mother’s expression, and perhaps save it to share with my other sisters,” Salome said. “If Mother had shown a little more regret then, and understood her own mistakes, perhaps I might have considered offering her some assistance… Unfortunately, Mother, you continue your performance, persisting in your pretense as the kind and innocent victim, and that’s rather disheartening…”
Shirley swallowed hard. While her yandere ‘daughter’s’ words remained as perplexing as ever, she had, intentionally or not, just revealed a few crucial facts. Firstly, the ‘magic wand’ could not transmit images to her, yet she had discovered the events unfolding here, suggesting she possessed some means of observing others’ actions outdoors—even through such dense fog—but not indoors. Secondly, the ‘magic wand’ had likely been recording all this time, meaning Salome had overheard their entire previous conversation.
For a fleeting moment, Shirley felt an urge to discard the peculiar device, but she resisted. After all, they were currently in an unfamiliar environment, utterly clueless about what lay ahead. A valuable source of information like this could not be simply cast aside.
“Since you know what’s happening here, please tell me how to help this student?” Shirley asked. “Also, what exactly is this ‘World of the Insect Cage’?”
“My dearest Mother, I perfectly understand your desire to portray your innocence before these new victim—ah, no, I mean, female friends. But are you truly sure you wish to waste our precious time in this manner?”
“Please answer my question!” Shirley finally snapped, a flicker of impatience crossing her face as the bound girl convulsed, expelling more viscous green fluid from between her legs. “Otherwise, please be quiet!”
“Alright, alright, I shall continue playing along with your charade then,” Salome’s voice, accompanied by a smacking sound, came from the ‘magic wand’. “In short, this young lady is beyond saving.”
“Beyond saving?!” Ji Bingyao cried out. “But she clearly still has—”
“Clearly still has vital signs? Unfortunately, she isn’t merely sick, nor is she suffering from mental derangement. If anything, she has been ‘assimilated’,” Salome explained. “Assimilated by the ‘Insect Cage’.”