Chapter 204

Chapter 204: The First Gathering in the Sanctuary Wasteland

At last, the sky stopped dropping princes and princesses.

It stopped dropping anything at all.

Yu Sheng slowly lowered his gaze and looked at the open ground ahead. Everyone had calmed down. Some sat resting quietly; others spoke in low voices.

Around them, the ground that had briefly been covered in rose fields, artillery smoke, roaring flames, and chaos had already returned to the wasteland’s original appearance. Nothing the nightmares brought in managed to leave a trace here.

A proud tabby cat strode through the crowd, chest out and head high. Like it was on patrol, it inspected the surroundings once, with several “guards” at its side—armored, robed, leather-clad, carrying all kinds of weapons. When it reached Yu Sheng, it gave him a satisfied nod and rubbed its head against his leg.

“Mm. I’m satisfied, meow.”

Yu Sheng glanced at the guards clustered around King. At first glance they looked almost human, only their expressions were slightly stiff. When Yu Sheng looked at them, they nodded back with grave seriousness.

“We are the King’s blades!” the warrior in plate armor declared loudly.

Irene jumped, then muttered under her breath, “They look like living people…”

“We are the King’s blades!” the leather-clad archer echoed, stiff and loud, as if triggered by her comment.

Foxy’s ears puffed. She edged behind Yu Sheng and offered a cautious greeting. “Uh… hello.”

“Hello!” the robed mage shouted. “We are the King’s blades!”

So their dialogue range was… limited.

King marched off proudly with its adventurer guards, continuing its patrol of the plain.

Footsteps approached behind Yu Sheng. He turned and saw Little Red Riding Hood walking over.

“King can summon different guard combinations,” she said casually, watching the tabby cat go. “Adventurers are just one set. Sometimes it summons royal guards or a palace knight order. They’re all strong. As for how many combinations there are… it doesn’t seem like even it can say for sure.”

Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “The most useless combination I’ve seen is when it summons a bunch of old uncles who look like they’re about to die.”

Yu Sheng blinked. “Summon old uncles? What are they for?”

“They’re sycophants,” Little Red Riding Hood said. “They can fulfill what King asks for—like an almost universal wishing machine—for a limited amount of time.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes went wide. “…Holy shit. That’s insane.”

“But King only makes the sycophants conjure up a huge pile of Little Fish jerky,” Little Red Riding Hood said, “and then sends them back.”

Yu Sheng stared. “…Holy shit. That’s even more insane.”

Little Red Riding Hood smiled strangely as she looked over the gathered companions. “Do you feel like our abilities are actually pretty interesting? Even for me, this is the first time I’ve seen them all land in the same place. It’s really… unexpectedly chaotic.”

Yu Sheng didn’t know how to respond.

If you ignored the danger and the corrosion underneath it all, fairy tale really was… pretty fairy tale.

“Come on.” Little Red Riding Hood patted Yu Sheng’s arm. “As the master here, it’s time for you to show your face. Everyone’s waiting.”

Before he could protest, she dragged him toward the others.

As Yu Sheng approached, the boys and girls gathered on the grass quieted. Their gazes turned to him. The fairy tale members stood and bowed in silent thanks. Even King appeared among them at some point, lowering its head in greeting.

“Uh… hello, everyone,” Yu Sheng said, suddenly nervous. They were mostly teenagers—some even younger, aside from the cat—but with all those eyes on him, he found himself stumbling anyway. This time their attention carried a heat that hadn’t been there before. “I won’t introduce myself. You all know me. In short, this is the sanctuary wasteland I told you about. You’re safe. Rest as much as you like. That’s it. I’m done.”

The older kids burst into laughter, and someone started clapping in a messy rhythm.

This was the fairy tale organization’s first gathering in the sanctuary wasteland.

Yu Sheng retreated and sat down beside Little Red Riding Hood. She leaned over and muttered, “That opening was really lame.”

“I’m not good at this,” Yu Sheng said, scanning the group. “Not everyone’s here, right?”

Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “Yeah. If you don’t count King, fairy tale currently has sixteen guardians. Only nine are here.”

“The others…”

“Some are still on night duty in the real world,” she said quietly. “Some maybe didn’t have Dream Entry today. And some… probably won today. We’ll have to ask at tomorrow’s morning meeting to know for sure, but it should be fine.”

Yu Sheng nodded, thoughtful.

Irene floated nearby and suddenly blurted, “You can win?”

“Of course we can!” Little Red Riding Hood said immediately. “It’s not like every time we enter a nightmare we can only get chased and beaten. We have times when we take the upper hand too. Even though later-stage nightmares get overwhelmingly strong—even at my stage, I still win sometimes!”

Irene’s picture frame swayed as she considered that. “Oh… never seen you win.”

A vein popped on Little Red Riding Hood’s forehead.

Yu Sheng hurried to smooth things over. “Don’t mind her. She’s really good at getting under people’s skin.”

Before Irene could fire back, he shifted the topic fast. “All right. Now that we’ve confirmed the shelter plan works, it’s time to talk business. There are things I need to tell you—about Squirrel, and about the dark angel called Anka Aila.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression turned serious. Even Irene, who’d been brewing her next round of emotional damage, dropped to the ground and stood between Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood like a framed portrait, face solemn.

Yu Sheng didn’t drag it out. He told them everything he’d learned from Squirrel.

Halfway through, Princess Snow White sat down to listen as well. Then King padded over and crouched on the grass with a grim cat face.

Little Red Riding Hood’s brows stayed tightly furrowed.

Here, only she had known Squirrel the longest—been closest to it. Squirrel was every Little Red Riding Hood’s guide, and also the only “friend” she had in the black forest. She’d been curious and asked before, but not until today did she finally learn why the black forest had a mysterious Squirrel at all.

At the same time, she learned how the paths, streetlights, hearth fires, and candlelight in the black forest came to be.

“Do the other subsets also grow and change like that?” Yu Sheng asked, curious.

“Every subset changes and becomes more complete over time,” Princess Snow White said with a nod. “That isn’t unique to the black forest. And every subset’s strength rises step by step as we characters grow—just like the Big Bad Wolf in the black forest. The crazy woman in the bloodstained court wasn’t that strong at the start either.” Her tone shifted. “But Squirrel really is unique to the black forest. On stages like bloodstained court or eternal ball, there’s nothing like it.”

Yu Sheng nodded slowly.

The more intel and clues gathered, the more he felt how special the black forest was among all fairy tale subsets.

Squirrel was trapped in the black forest. Seventy years ago, that deep dive squad drilled through the fairy tale shell, and the avatar whose identity was “Hunter” landed in the black forest as well. And among the fairy tale members Yu Sheng had encountered so far, the black forest’s distortions felt strange in a different way. The forest-and-Big-Bad-Wolf setting wasn’t nearly as absurd as other subsets. Instead, it carried a faint stability—almost like it wanted to remain coherent.

It made Yu Sheng curious.

What caused that specialness?

Could it be connected to the fairy tale book Squirrel gave Anka Aila back then?

In that book, was Little Red Riding Hood a special chapter?

After a moment, Yu Sheng broke the silence. “When you go back, search that orphanage carefully—especially places like the basement, and the oldest building structures on the grounds.”

Little Red Riding Hood understood immediately. “…You think traces Anka Aila left in the real world might still be in the orphanage?”

“Can’t rule it out,” Yu Sheng said. “It’s been a long time, and a lot of the orphanage has been renovated, but traces left by dark angels don’t necessarily fade with time. Some things might stay imprinted on this world.”

He paused, then continued, thinking aloud. “Squirrel remembers that the glowing object once ‘merged’ into the open ground in the middle of the yard. And you mentioned you saw a strange briar shadow on a wall near that open ground before. Maybe those two things are connected.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression darkened as she recalled the suspicious shadow she’d seen near the orphanage wall corner.

“I understand,” she said at last, nodding solemnly. “When we go back, we’ll organize people to check.”