Chapter 020

Chapter 20: Irene’s Intel and Advice

The portrait doll in the painting greeted Yu Sheng with happy surprise, her voice full of wonder, yet she showed none of the shock or panic someone should have when a dead person walks back in alive.

[This was not because Irene was careless.]

As expected, the problem was with him; given how many times he had died and come back in such a short time, it was not strange that something even more bizarre would happen to him.

He said casually: “I guess I stumbled my way back, but I made it.” He turned and shut the half open door, then immediately checked himself over, confirming that not only his body was fully restored, even his clothes had returned to how they were.

Frowning, and thinking of Irene’s reaction, he felt that instead of being “resurrected,” it was as if the whole “death” event had vanished into thin air.

Seeing him staring in a daze at the doorway, the portrait doll asked with a puzzled look: “Yu Sheng, are you okay? Why do you look blank? Also, tell me how you got back. Our contact kept cutting in and out on my side, and you had a bunch of weird noises. I have no idea what strange things you ran into in that Otherworld… hey? What are you holding?”

Only then did he notice he was still gripping something: a severed tail, ugly in shape and covered with pitch black scales.

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched as he said: “Crap, I almost forgot… it’s still here.”

It even writhed a little in his hand, but it no longer seemed lively. The limb had amazing vitality, yet once cut off from the main body it would slowly die.

A strange feeling rose in him, and for a moment he did not know how to explain where it came from. After a brief pause, he carried the tail toward the kitchen and said over his shoulder: “…a little local specialty.”

The portrait doll froze at his words and said: “…huh?”

He tossed the tail into the kitchen sink. After making sure it did not have the strength to climb out, he jabbed it a few more times for safety, then pressed a pot lid over it so that if it crawled out he would at least hear the lid fall. Only then did he return to the dining room with a trace of fatigue and drop heavily into a chair.

His head was a mess. There was too much to think about, and more importantly, he was really tired. But he forced himself to stay awake; it was not time to sleep yet.

Across the table, Irene watched carefully and began: “Yu Sheng, tell me what you went through in that Otherworld, and how you…”

He cut her off with a wave: “I was just about to. I’ve got a belly full of questions. First, what I ran into there: I met a young woman trapped in the Otherworld like me, but she seems to have been stuck for a very long time.”

He held nothing back and told the doll everything that happened to him in the Night Valley, including what Foxy had told him and the monster that looked like a mass of fused flesh with a very freeform shape.

He left out only his resurrection, since he had not decided how to explain that yet.

He knew he was not very close to Irene, and trust between them was limited. But he had no other choice. In this city, Irene was the only unusual being he had met and could talk to, the only one who knew anything about things beyond common sense. Other than her, he had no one to discuss the Otherworld with.

He felt he should trust the portrait doll a bit more. So far she had been fairly friendly, except for the times when she swore at him.

Irene listened intently. When he mentioned the flesh monster, her face turned especially serious. A few times she seemed about to speak, but she held back and never interrupted.

When he finally finished, the doll girl adjusted her posture and sat very straight on the chair covered with a red velvet throw, then said seriously: “First, I need to stress that I remember very little. This painting has worn away too many of my memories, so my help is limited.”

Yu Sheng nodded and said: “I know.”

She hummed in agreement and relaxed a little: “Then I’ll do my best to fill in some knowledge about the Otherworld. First, you already know that the Otherworld is a catch all term for zones that stray from order and break common sense. But do you know that the Otherworld also generates things called Entities?”

Yu Sheng looked puzzled and asked: “…Entities?”

“In short, they are the natives or products of the Otherworld,” she said. “An Entity does not have a fixed look. Sometimes it is a strange human shape. Sometimes it is a beast or a monster. Sometimes it is a flame, a gust of wind, or a stone that can run. As long as it forms in the Otherworld and clearly acts alive and can respond to outsiders, it can be viewed as an Entity.”

Yu Sheng nodded, thoughtful.

“Entities are broad in type and many in number,” Irene continued, “and they usually have obvious abnormal traits. Born in the Otherworld, they naturally break common sense and tend to be dangerous. Most Entities lack reason, or at least do not show thinking behavior that humans can understand, but a very small number might have intelligence… I cannot recall clearly.

“Anyway, ninety percent of Entities are dangerous, though their strength varies. Some might only make your nose itchy, while some are lethal to a human who merely looks at them. So there is a guess: Entities are a kind of rejection response from the Otherworld, like an antivirus program it generates to eliminate intruders. In that view, to the Otherworld, investigators and lost people from the world of order and common sense are the unspeakable monsters.”

Yu Sheng listened in silence, then realized: “So the monster I met was an Entity born in that valley?”

Irene nodded and said: “It should be.”

He asked: “Can an Entity be destroyed?”

“An Entity can be killed, but not completely wiped out,” Irene said solemnly. “Strictly speaking, an Entity is a generated product. Kill one and a new copy will form in the Otherworld. They are an expression of the Otherworld’s rules. As long as the Otherworld remains, Entities will keep appearing. Usually it takes time for them to generate, and there seem to be ways to suppress the operation of certain Otherworld zones, delaying or even blocking the creation of Entities… I do not remember the details.”

“Can be killed but not erased,” Yu Sheng repeated, and suddenly the situation felt even harder than he thought.

He was not afraid of death. The monster seemed even less afraid.

Without noticing, he had already accepted that he would return to that valley and meet the monster again. He did not know where the thought came from. By the time he noticed it, the idea, or rather an intuition, had taken root.

“Whatever. Killing it for a while is still good,” he said with a breath, then looked up at Irene: “What else do you know about Entities? Like weaknesses.”

“There is no single weakness,” Irene said, shaking her head. “Sometimes an Entity’s weak point is not on it at all but in the Otherworld itself or in the rules of that zone. Some Entities even change their weaknesses. So exploring the Otherworld and fighting Entities is a specialized, dangerous job. I suggest you find professionals to help, and I do not mean someone trapped in a painting like me.”

Yu Sheng rolled his eyes and said: “Easy to say. Where am I supposed to find these professionals? It is not like they post flyers on utility poles.”

Irene said flatly: “They do.”

Yu Sheng stared and said: “…What?”

“They have contact methods. Not necessarily flyers,” Irene said, nodding hard when she saw his stunned face. “Since the world is full of Otherworld zones and they are dangerous to ordinary people, of course there is a large group of professionals who handle them. In a big city like this, someone has to keep order both in the open and in the shadows. Officially there is the Special Administration Bureau, and in the private sector there are many organizations. I cannot remember the details, but these people are active everywhere.

“Normally they keep away from ordinary life and hide in the dark, because many Otherworld zones have strange traits, like activating when they are known, or moving toward people who fear them. So they avoid letting normal people learn anything about them. But once some unlucky person has already made contact, or an Otherworld reaction shows up in the city, these professionals have ways to pinpoint it fast and come to your door.”

Yu Sheng listened, still unsure. After a pause, he looked toward the window and asked: “So since there has already been an Otherworld reaction here, I just have to wait and your professionals will come to contact me?”

For some reason, Irene suddenly sounded less sure as she said: “…They should… I think?”

Yu Sheng heard it too and asked: “Then why have they not come?”

She said: “I do not know. They should have.”