Chapter 200 - The Missing Companions

Cheng Xiu placed his hand on the door and sent a trace of Qi into it.

The wall flashed blue and then revealed a passage way that lead to what seemed to be a white room.

Cheng Xiu frowned. "That…"

Yaksha gave her a curious look. "Is something the matter?"

She shook her head. "No. It is just that, I opened the door in a way I wasn't even aware that I knew."

Yaksha nodded. "Your knowledge that is related to the dungeon must not have been hampered and even if they were, it is not to the extant that you have forgotten how to access the dungeon."

The man started to walk into the passage way. "Let us go."

Cheng Xiu nodded and followed after him.

The entered the white room.

The sound of water splashing about made her look over at the side.

A man in blue robes and a black mask that had blue patterns on it was fighting against what looked like a feral rat. The man held a trident in his hand, slashing away the water arms that came to attack him.

Cheng Xiu blinked. So this was their companion?

Her arm raised towards her face and touched the mask on her face. Why were they all wearing masks? Was it some kind of a secret code?

The man who was fighting seemed to have felt their presence at that moment and looked behind him.

On seeing Cheng Xiu and Yaksha, the man ran over, leaving the humonoid rat to continue its movements…which seemed to be to climb the wall.

"Sister Xiu!" the man exclaimed. "You are alright!"

Cheng Xiu froze. Xiu? Why would he use that name? Did they know each other in real life?

"You know each other in real life?" Yaksha asked, his eyes holding a light of suspicion.

The man in the blue robes blinked at Yaksha. "Lord Yaksha…what are you talking about? Of course we do! Didn't we already discuss that?"

Yaksha frowned. The man's words and the tone that he used meant that he did, in fact know Yaksha.

But…

"Why was your memory not tampered with?" Cheng Xiu asked him. "And how do you know me?"

The man blinked at her with his warm brown eyes. "Memory tampered? What?"

Cheng Xiu scowled. "How do you know me in the real world?"

"We are both in the same college," he explained. "Do you really not remember?"

Cheng Xiu shook her head. "How did we meet?"

The man tilted his head. "You approached me when you thought that I looked familiar to you."

Cheng Xiu raised an eyebrow. "You wear mask even in real life?"

"What? No!"

"So you did not wear masks before…why are you wearing them now?"

The man tilted his head. "Because we have become famous now?"

"Oh?" Cheng Xiu wanted to ask more but Yaksha cleared his throat.

The two looked towards him.

"We will get our memories back after we have finished whatever conditions it was that made us forget things. There is no need to ask about unnecessary things and waste our time hear."

Cheng Xiu frowned. "How would you know what I asked was unnecessary or not?"

"Just a guess," the man said, "Now what we need is the details of the dungeon."

Cheng Xiu scowled as she heard his words but let the matter slide for the moment. After all, he was right, and she had to acknowledge the fact that he knew more about this game than she did so he would be able to at least guess a logical conclusion from the little that he heard.

Her own unfamiliarity with the game made it impossible for her to make accurate guesses as he did.

The man introduced himself as San Zhe.

Cheng Xiu's eyes widened. As it turned out, her memories of the real world was not tampered with and she knew who he was.

Cheng Xiu and Yaksha listened in silence as San Zhe explained to them what all they had encountered until that moment in the dungeon.

Cheng Xiu's expression turned weird when he reached the part of the talking utensils and the giggling Torch that they encountered.

"What is it?" Yaksha asked her. He could see from her expression that she felt familiarity with that part of the story.

"There should be more," Cheng Xiu said.

"More?" said San Zhe. "What do you mean?"

Cheng Xiu thought about what her instincts were telling her. Could it be that she encountered the utensils after the three of them were separated? If that was the case, then wouldn't it mean that she did have her memories at that moment? So what happened later? Was the memory loss a result of those animated objects? Or was there some other hidden factor that she did not know about?

Cheng Xiu shared her thoughts with San Zhe and Yaksha.

The two gave her words and guesses some thought.

"It is most likely that you did have your memories until you approached me," Yaksha said at last.

Cheng Xiu looked at him in surprise. What did he mean?

Yaksha smiled. "Do you remember what I told you about the Nest?"

"That it is a very complicated place or something," Cheng Xiu shrugged. "It belongs to the witch of the dungeon but we can also do things here….I think."

Yaksha laughed. "Almost. I think that the witch of the dungeon has decided that at very specific spots, the players would loose their memories."

"You mean…" Cheng Xiu's eyes widened in surprise. "That Counter."

The man nodded, his eyes glittering in pleasure that she was able to keep up with his thoughts. It was a very rare thing to happen to him.

"The Counter at the Nest must be the Place that we would have lost our memories. After all-"

"Brother San did not go there," Cheng Xiu finished.

Yaksha laughed again. "Exactly."

She turned towards the door, and looked through it towards the counter where the frail woman hunched over a few books.

"She must be the one to do it then."

"Naturally."

"Why hasn't the door close yet?" San Zhe asked them.

The others looked towards him.

"What do you mean, Brother San?"

"That…last time, the door disappeared. We were stuck in the room until we defeated the Rat Counsellor. Why hasn't it closed yet this time?"

"There could be two reasons," Cheng Xiu said to him. "The conditions to clear this part of the dungeon could be different or may be, there is still someone else who has to come in."

"Who?" San Zhe asked her. "I promise you, Sister Xiu. It really is just the three of us. There were no other players or NPCs with us. Who else could there be?"

"Them," Cheng Xiu said, pointing towards the three shadows that were running into the white room with them.

San Zhe's eyes widened as the Spoon, the Fork and the Torch came jumping into the room.

Cheng Xiu looked on curiously as the spikes of the Fork turned towards her in an accusatory way.

"You left without us!" it shouted at her.

The door that led to the outside world disappeared.

Yaksha raised an eyebrow. He looked towards San Zhe. "You said that we were chasing these things before?"

San Zhe's figure froze. "Yes."

Yaksha hmmed. "It seems more like they are chasing us."

San Zhe sighed. "I have no idea what happened."

"I will tell you," the Wooden Torch said to them, its silvery flame flickering this way and that as it recounted how it met Cheng Xiu again near the Chasm and how she promised to help her.

"We thought that we had escaped," the Torch concluded.

"But we didn't!" the Fork wailed. "Oh! Human! You were right! There was more to the fight! We have to kill the Rat Counsellor in this room as well before we can escape! I was so angry! I thought that we had gained our freedom!"

Cheng Xiu frowned. "Do you know what I had planned? And do you know why I can't remember anything?"

The Fork stopped crying abruptly. Its spikes shook like it had heard something very interesting.

"I don't!" the Fork said happily. "But Spoon does!"

The Spoon, who was thrown under the bus by its pig teammate, jumped back as all two Humans and the Lord looked at it intently.

"That…" the Spoon was confused on what to say, "The counter. There is a spell on it to erase all the information that the Queen deemed as dangerous. It is activated when the woman at the counter feels your Qi signature."

Cheng Xiu gave it a curious look. "Thank you. What else? What did I discover while fighting the Rat Counsellor for you guys?"

Cheng Xiu was careful on what she said. She said the words 'For you guys' specifically to remind the three of them that she had helped them.

She tried to suppress the guilt and shame that she started to feel at having manipulated the three of the objects the way she did.

"That the red lights of the torches is made by sacrificing our blood," the Spoon said, its voice very weak. "That the Queens are using this method to sustain themselves and to hasten the progress of the Wall Climbers."

Cheng Xiu's eyes widened. That was some big news!

San Zhe sighed in regret. "Why is it that every time I fight a dungeon, it is just a fight and every time you fight, it is to reveal some secret plot going on that no one had been aware of?"

Cheng Xiu shrugged.

She turned to the three objects again. "Why was my memories of Brother Yaksha and Brother San Zhe erased though? Why would that be considered dangerous to the Queens?"

"Because it is," the Spoon said.

"United, you are strong," the Torch said to her. "And that means, finding a way to keep you separate."

"But that plans seemed to have failed," the Fork said with a laugh.

The Spoon hit the spikes of the Fork with the bulging part of its body. "Those are the Rat Queens you are making fun of!"

"Sorry," the Fork said in a weak voice.

Cheng Xiu sighed. "How do we get our memories back?"

They remained silent at that question.

The Fork looked at both its friends. Seeing that neither was answering the human, it laughed.

"Neither of you guys know it?" the Fork asked with a laugh.

The Spoon shushed it. "The Queens will-"

"By killing the Counter Lady of course," the Fork said to Cheng Xiu, "She is the one who activated the spell after all."

Cheng Xiu laughed. "What a nice utensil. Thank you, Little Fork."

"You are welcome!" it said with pride in its voice. "I thought it was a common knowledge among the Persona Objects here. After all, we all have the Red Torches here."

"A bit stupid," San Zhe commented as he looked at it. "But really adorable. I feel pity for it."

Don't we all, Cheng Xiu thought as she looked at the Silver utensil.

"Lets go then," Cheng Xiu said to them.

"Go where?" the Fork asked.

"To kill the counter lady ofcouse," Cheng Xiu said to it.

"But the door closed?"

"Did it?"

"Yeah?"

"What a pity."

***

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