Chapter 1071: The Final Dawn
In the semi-transparent, mosaic-like area above, the chaotic mess for the first time ceased its tremors and froze in place.
In a matter of half a minute, Bohemia appeared to have lost her strength entirely. She collapsed heavily to the ground, her face drained of all color, her lips turned ashen, and her body writhed in agonizing convulsions, only able to emit intermittent sounds from her throat.
"What"s happening?" The Descartes Spirit finally regained its senses. "Are you poisoned?"
Bohemia opened her mouth, gasping for air like a fish out of water. Her breathing came in fits and starts, accompanied by raspy, unsettling sounds.
"Can"t catch your breath?" The Descartes Spirit was in a frenzy, spinning around in the air, creating a whirlwind of mosaics. "It"s strange. You"ve only eaten potato chips and a sandwich, and nothing else. How could you be poisoned?"
By game time calculations, those two food items had been consumed over 12 hours ago. If it were the food"s fault, such a violent reaction wouldn"t occur after such a long delay. "Hold on; I still need you to get me out of the Pocket Dimension!" The Descartes Spirit continued to circle around her. "Think. Did you consume anything else?"
"No... nothing..." Bohemia"s complexion s.h.i.+fted from ashen to purplish, as if the oxygen in her blood was rapidly depleting. "Save... me..."
How to save her? What was the nature of the poison, the method, and when had it entered her body?
The Descartes Spirit, who usually reveled in the joy of thinking, was now experiencing the torment of having no answers. As Bohemia grew increasingly distressed, it too was overcome by a rare sense of panic. It stared at Bohemia, writhing on the ground, for several seconds, perplexed and troubled.
Then, from the mosaic-like chaos, a vast expanse of pure white emerged suddenly. An entirely bald, plaster-like head shot up from the chaos, with a mouth stretching into a deep and infinite black abyss. In an instant, it swallowed Bohemia"s head.
Bohemia"s visible body struggled for a few moments before quickly losing its strength, becoming motionless.
The meeting room was shrouded in darkness with several overturned tables and chairs strewn across the floor. Faint light from the corridor outside cast eerie shadows on the disarray. The white, statue-like head remained suspended in the darkness, its gaping mouth stretched to an astonis.h.i.+ng extent, motionless as it held Bohemia"s head.
Amid the deathly silence, where even the breath seemed to have ceased, the only sounds were the ticking of the clock on the wall and the rus.h.i.+ng of air. These noises were stark in contrast.
The Descartes Spirit had maintained its act of "consuming" Bohemia, oblivious to the pa.s.sing of time. Without sight of the clock, it couldn"t determine how long it had been. Only when the faint light, which had gradually transformed into a bright, white glow, seeped through the partially opened door did it realize that dawn had arrived.
Footsteps slowly entered the adjacent lobby, pa.s.sed through the meeting room, and ascended the staircase to the second floor. The Descartes Spirit remained motionless. The person upstairs walked around for a while, descended the stairs, and only then seemed to notice that the meeting room"s door was slightly ajar. They hastened their steps, pushed open the door, and allowed the pale morning light to flood the room.
"Oh, you"re here."
The person stood in the sunlight, and even the unruly hair on their head was illuminated, though their face remained indistinct. However, there was no doubt that the voice belonged to the Sandwich Secretary.
"Um... Miss Winters?"
He took a couple of steps closer, and the Descartes Spirit finally got a clear view of the mask on his face. He glanced around the overturned furniture and then looked back at Bohemia"s body. After a brief pause, he adjusted his mask. In this game, the Descartes Spirit was essentially invisible, and the NPCs couldn"t see it. To Sandwich Secretary"s eyes, the snowy-white head that had consumed Bohemia"s head likely appeared as transparent air.
"Oh, she had to die in a windowless meeting room... Well, I"ll bring a fan later. Surprisingly, this method works quite well." He peered down at the scene for a moment, shaking his head. "She was quite beautiful, but this ending is such a pity... Oh, the doc.u.ments are here."
His eyes lit up, and he hurriedly picked up the stack of doc.u.ments that had fallen to the ground with the table. "No wonder he didn"t find them. Miss Winters, you"re really something. Seems like you had a premonition and knew you were in danger, right?"
The body wouldn"t answer, but Sandwich Secretary seemed to have an outpouring of words he couldn"t hold back, rambling on for quite a while. Even though he knew he was talking to a corpse, anyone listening to his tone would sense a hint of shyness and admiration.
"So, I"ll take these for now. With these doc.u.ments, whether it"s the investigation into your death or your past, the focus will be s.h.i.+fted towards those criminal organizations..."
Sandwich Secretary sighed deeply, as if lamenting. He quickly glanced through all the doc.u.ments, organized them, and then spoke to the lifeless form on the floor, "Miss Winters, you"re truly remarkable. I won"t forget you..."
"Then you better remember this lady."
Sandwichy Secretary seemed as if he had been p.r.i.c.ked by a needle, jumping up suddenly, and his face was even paler than the statue created by the Descartes Spirit. Although there was no distinction in his eyes, the Descartes Spirit had discreetly loosened its grip earlier. Bohemia, who had slid from its mouth, regained consciousness at some point and opened her eyes.
"You—you can"t possibly still be—no! This isn"t right!" The secretary stepped back, his breath blowing up and down the mask. He remembered something and yanked off the mask, sniffing vigorously, looking even more distressed. "You shouldn"t still be alive!"
Bohemia, trembling, slowly stood up. There was still blood near her feet from the blood she had coughed up earlier. Her voice had lost its previous softness, becoming dry and raspy like sandpaper, making it painful to listen to. "It"s really an issue with the air?"
As she finished her sentence, the Sandwichy Secretary"s astonishment seemed to freeze on his face. Aside from the rising and falling of his breath, his eyes didn"t move. Bohemia held her hand to her mouth and nose, swaying with dizziness, and heard the voice of the Pocket Dimension host, "Congratulations, you"ve successfully made it to the fourth stage and cleared the mini-game once again. Now, here are the objectives for the fifth stage: First, uncover how the secretary planned to murder you; second, survive the secretary"s attempt to kill you; third, keep yourself safe until the end of your working day. Once you complete all the objectives, the prison saga will conclude."
Although the mini-game had been cleared, the current scene was a crucial moment, and Bohemia couldn"t let her guard down. She gritted her teeth, steadying herself on the table and chairs. She felt like her insides were burning, and as she tried to think about what the Sandwich Secretary might do next, the snowy white humanoid figure beside her appeared to melt, dissolving back into a chaotic mess.
The Descartes Spirit resumed its mosaic appearance and floated up sharply to claim credit: "How"s that for a quick turn of the brain? As soon as I thought about it, I knew there must be something wrong with the air - well, that"s what smoky rats are like..."
After the Pocket Dimension host"s voice dropped, the Sandwich Secretary regained his senses instantly. He surveyed Bohemia for a few moments with a face that trembled between shock and admiration, "Did you react in time to hold your breath? But looking at you, you should have inhaled some as well, right? It seems that you not only have a good mind, but your physical fitness is also beyond the norm..."
He sighed and looked at the clock on the wall.
"It"s still a couple hours before work time, so it"s a good thing I decided to come in a little early to see how things were going." He frowned as if he felt the situation was tricky and gathered his soft, s.h.i.+ny hair, "I was trying to avoid taking matters into my own hands and leave you here to die alone... I didn"t have to go to work today, I just had to play the role of an unknowing lover who waits for you miserably in a restaurant at night. Why are you making things so complicated? Now if you don"t handle it well, it will easily arouse suspicion. If you didn"t save yourself from dying like this, it would have been a convenient thing for both you and I... Someone as smart as you should know that right now, I can"t let you live no matter what."
"It would have been convenient for me if you had died, why don"t I see you killing yourself." Bohemia couldn"t catch her breath, every breath felt like a blade was churning her lungs, but she still insisted on taunting. "You want to silence me? Try me instead."
The words were said, but she knew she had no ground at all in her heart.
The gender-determined physical strength gap between male and female posthumans had long since gone, but ordinary people were a different story. Not to mention the fact that she had inhaled something - even if the Descartes Spirit had reacted quickly and isolated the air in time, the foreign substance she had inhaled had still greatly harmed her lung function.
How was she supposed to wrestle with a male with far greater physical strength when she couldn"t even breathe without pain?
The Sandwich Secretary smiled slightly and loosened the collar of his s.h.i.+rt. "I won"t be too rough," he said slowly, "I just want to get out of your way."
Oh - right. He"d been startled so hard just now by hearing Bohemia"s sudden outburst that he"d taken several steps backward on reflex and was now heading for the doorway, which was blocked right by Bohemia.
"You... you still want to put me in here, the same old trick?" Bohemia looked around and decided to poke around for information first, "What kind of poison did you put in? I clearly don"t smell smoke..."
"Smoke? Poison?" the Secretary Sandwich froze, then smiled, "If you want to know, just do it again."