Chapter 221

Chapter 221: Hunter’s Invitation

Yu Sheng wasn’t very surprised to find himself in the Black Forest the moment he fell asleep and opened his eyes.

After all, the Fairy Tale Otherworld had never vanished, and Anka Aila had never stopped moving. The Orphanage’s Cursed Children had only gotten safely through that dangerous night. At any time after this, subsets of Fairy Tale could open again. The Sanctuary Wasteland and the Valley were just safety nets, meant to keep kids who fell into nightmares from suffering heavy mental damage or being directly parasitized by Anka Aila.

In other words, the nightmares were still going to come.

That didn’t stop Yu Sheng from feeling this was a bit much, and from sensing that the Black Forest was coming for him in particular.

He took a slow breath. Once calm, he felt even more sure. The Black Forest had targeted him, or rather, something inside the Forest had targeted him.

A faint wolf howl rose far away. The baby’s crying went on and on. Wind brushed through the brush. Now and then, a strange buzzing filled the air.

The weird noise made Yu Sheng wonder if he had tinnitus. He slapped his forehead and dug his finger in his ear, but the buzzing didn’t fade. Mixed with the crying, it only got more irritating.

“Is this place getting noisier and weirder?” he muttered, as if using his own voice could push back the annoying sounds, “it sounds like an alarm going off.”

Something rustled in a nearby clump of grass. A second later, a small red brown, fluffy figure popped out of the dead grass and bounced toward Yu Sheng.

“You’re okay! You’re okay! Little Red Riding Hood is okay! Squirrel is okay!” chirped Squirrel, hopping around his feet and squeaking with excitement.

Yu Sheng bent down, pinched her up, and rubbed her head with a finger, smiling as he said: “Right, we’re all fine. It was scary, but we made it through.”

Squirrel hugged his finger, then glanced around with sudden alertness. She crouched down and whispered: “Shh, we still can’t talk too loud. Anka Aila is still wandering in the Forest. Its gaze swept past here just now. Squirrel feels it is not happy. It will act up again.”

“I know,” Yu Sheng lowered his voice too and said, “but I came to look for it this time…”

Squirrel acted as if she hadn’t heard. She lowered her head and swayed, then cut him off out of nowhere: “Hunter!”

Yu Sheng froze and asked: “Hunter? What about them?”

“Hunter,” Squirrel repeated, all nervous again. The same jumpy, slightly confused state came over her, but it passed quickly. She started rubbing her face fast and muttering: “Squirrel is thinking, Squirrel is thinking… Hunter, Hunter?”

She suddenly stopped, straightened, and looked toward the Deep Forest. Two seconds later, she slapped her tail hard and said: “Hunter is by the house! Right, Hunter is at the house. They are waiting for you!”

“Hunter is waiting for me?” Yu Sheng was truly surprised. He thought of the scene he had seen during the Orphanage evacuation, that phantom which had appeared in the hall and vanished in a blink. A strong feeling that something was about to happen rose in him. He didn’t bother to ask details and said at once: “Take me.”

Squirrel raised a paw and pointed into the distance: “This way, this way.”

Yu Sheng looked the way she pointed. It was all dark Forest there, with no lamps or paths, and no candlelight from the Little House.

Even so, he chose to trust Squirrel. He could feel the blood bond between him and this little thing in his palm. This wasn’t a trap made by the Black Forest.

He ran quickly toward the Deep Forest and asked on the way: “How do you know Hunter is waiting by the Little House? Did they show up to you? Did they talk to you?”

“Yes,” Squirrel nodded hard. “Hunter appeared all of a sudden. There was no Wolf Granny. Hunter walked out of the Forest alone. They hid from Anka Aila’s gaze and made no sound, but Squirrel heard their words directly. They said to let the person who touched the Umbilical Cord and the bullet come, to go into the first Little House. They also said time is short. The Angel is going to wake up, but because someone interfered with the Angel’s link to the ‘outside,’ now there is a brief…”

Squirrel stopped. She seemed to run into some hard, complicated words. After wrestling with it, she couldn’t recall the phrasing and smoothed it over: “Squirrel can’t remember what it was called. Anyway, Hunter said they finally have a chance to speak. The Angel’s control over them is weakening. They told the one who touched the Umbilical Cord and the bullet to hurry. Squirrel saw you holding the Umbilical Cord but doesn’t know what the bullet is. Did Squirrel pass the message right?”

“Yes. That’s me,” said Yu Sheng with a nod.

He answered Squirrel while he sorted her mixed and incomplete report and thought fast.

As an entity, Hunter had always acted strictly by the Black Forest’s rules. They only showed up when Wolf Granny appeared, and the only things they could do were to shoot and kill Wolf Granny, or to kill any Little Red Riding Hood who had fully “wolfed out.” In all the records so far, there had been no case of Hunter speaking. Not in Squirrel’s memory, nor in any prior Little Red Riding Hood’s.

Now Hunter had taken the initiative to talk with Squirrel. They even moved freely without Wolf Granny in play and had once stepped into the real world.

Because someone had interfered with the Angel’s link to the “outside.”

Yu Sheng lowered his head to look at his hands. He had shed a lot of blood lately to protect every child.

[So that’s the unexpected side effect,] he thought, and a smile tugged at his lips.

Even if he didn’t know the exact process, he was almost certain it had worked like this. The Blood Bestowal Ceremony he held for all the Fairy Tale kids had disrupted Anka Aila’s link to the real world. That disruption gave the members of Fairy Tale the protection it was meant to, and by accident, it also gave Hunter an opening.

So they had been seeking a chance to act freely all along. Under that Hunter’s Garb, there was still a light of humanity and reason.

Far off in the Forest’s shadows, the outline of the Little House finally showed.

Yu Sheng drew a steady breath and slowed near the Little House. He kept walking but watched the swaying grass and leaves with care.

Hunter might not mean harm, but the Black Forest was alive. He had to be careful in case the Forest reacted badly when he met Hunter. After all, he had come in by dreaming. He had neither Irene nor Foxy with him, and not even his “Reason.” If something happened, it would be easy to die on the spot. [Dying isn’t the real problem. Delaying the work is.]

The area was very still. Even the wolf howls had faded a little. Only the faint baby’s crying and that strange buzzing went on, but Yu Sheng had mostly gotten used to the noise.

He felt Squirrel trembling in his palm.

She feared this place, the symbol of every Little Red Riding Hood’s “ending.”

“If you’re afraid of the house, you don’t have to come in,” said Yu Sheng, gently stroking Squirrel’s head as he tried to set her on a nearby stump, “wait outside.”

“No,” said Squirrel. She flipped and grabbed his finger, dangling and wobbling in midair while pretending to be brave: “Squirrel Knight fears nothing.”

Her body still shook, but that fear had softened. The shadow that once sent her into a panic had become something she could try to face.

Yu Sheng paused, then smiled.

“Okay, come in with me. But if you still get scared after we go inside, wait for me outside. A Squirrel Knight who knows when to retreat is still a brave Squirrel Knight,” he said.

“Okay… okay,” said Squirrel.

Yu Sheng set Squirrel on his shoulder, stepped forward a few paces, and pushed the old, dark wooden Door.

A soft creak broke the quiet as he leaned in to look.

Dim light fell through the windows. Red cloaks of all sizes and shapes hung everywhere. In the middle of them, a figure in Hunter’s Garb stood in the center of the room.

They held their head slightly down. The hood was an empty darkness. When Yu Sheng walked in, the hood moved a little.

An invisible gaze seemed to come from the empty hood.

“Uh, I’m here,” said Yu Sheng as he walked toward Hunter, a bit stiff as he greeted them, “Squirrel said you were looking for me.”

Hunter nodded.

Such a simple motion still made Yu Sheng’s breath catch for half a beat. They really responded.

“What do you need me to do? Do you have something to say to me?” asked Yu Sheng.

Hunter was silent for a moment, then suddenly took two steps forward.

They stopped before Yu Sheng. Under Yu Sheng’s quick, wary look, the empty sleeve of that Hunter’s Garb lifted like a hand and pointed at themself.

“Put it on,” said a hollow, blurred voice in Yu Sheng’s head.