Night World Players

Chapter 31 Isolated Utopia
As far as Laster could still remember, the first time he saw this border town was after he entered Deep Blue Harbor and was trapped in the time loop.

At that time, his mental state was extremely bad. He wanted to stop the evil god from coming and break the hopeless cycle. He tried various methods, but failed again and again...

Finally, he fell into the abyss of despair.

During that time, Rast began to give up on himself and resorted to self-mutilation to give up on himself.

He used to lie in bed all day and all night, numbly feeling the sun rising and setting, until the cult's advent ceremony was completed and the evil god's majesty destroyed everything.

He had also tried various ways of dying, such as jumping off a tall building, being eaten by the Iron Cross, and falling into the furnace of a steel mill... After death brought a restart, the cycle would continue over and over again, repeating between life and death hundreds or thousands of times.

The loop restart mechanism of Deep Blue Harbor prevents Last from truly dying. At most, he can only be in the state just before death. However, as a human being, Last seems to be already dead, just waiting for a long time for his soul to weather and decay until it is completely annihilated, leaving only a breathing and heartbeat body.

It was at that time, in the gap between two time cycles in Deep Blue Harbor, that Last came to Canaan and met Amis.

It was the blonde girl in front of him who accompanied him when he was like a vegetable, and helped Last regain his sense of reality as a human being little by little in the peaceful border town of Canaan.

It was also Amis who repeatedly and tirelessly reminded and urged... to supervise Last to stop self-harming and suicide.

Don't randomly seek out the opposite sex to vent your desires.

Don't try hallucinogens, which once you become addicted may cause you to never turn back.

It allowed him to slowly transform from a confused and numb ghost into a human being again.

After that, Last also tried to study the existence principles and appearance mechanisms of the world before him.

He discovered that this border town called Canaan was somewhat similar to the little prompt theater that would appear after playing badend many times in the love game he played in his previous life.

One can only enter it when one dies in Deep Blue Harbor...at the end of the previous cycle and before the next cycle begins.

Moreover, Canaan's appearance is not fixed. He will only appear when his mental state is extremely unstable, he has a tendency to self-destruct, and he is on the verge of collapse.

In a sense, this world called Canaan is like his own inhibitor, ensuring that his spirit does not completely collapse...

This is just Rast's own guess, and there is no way to verify it.

However, it was precisely by using this conjecture that Rast found a way to actively enter Canaan -

He set up a hypnotic suggestion for himself. As long as the suggestion was initiated, he could directly simulate the state of being on the verge of mental collapse, and then come to Canaan in the gap between the two restarts of the night world.

After that, Rast would return to Canaan regularly, and he never felt desperate and confused like before, nor had nightmares again.

Because no matter how much storm he suffered in the Deep Blue Harbor, or how desperate the difficulties he encountered, Rast had an utopia that was isolated from the world, a haven for his soul...

And the blonde girl named Amis was waiting for him there quietly.

"...Rast...Rast?"

The girl's call brought Last back from his memories.

He saw that the dinner dishes had been placed on the table, and the owner of the sky-blue eyes had a worried look on her pretty face as she looked at him with some concern.

"Sorry, Xiao Ai, I was a little distracted just now."

Rast smiled and began to devour the dishes on the table in front of him.

Compared to some of the high-end meals he had eaten in high-end restaurants in Deep Blue Harbor, the dishes on the table in front of him could only be described as homely and simple.

However, compared to the time when he was enjoying those gorgeous and exquisite dishes, everything in front of him made Rast feel more real about life. He was no longer just eating to provide nutrients for his body, but was truly living in this town as a resident.

"How does it taste?" Amys asked softly.

Rust nodded: "Very good."

"That's good." Amys breathed a sigh of relief.

"Laster, did you remember something just now?"

Amys looked at Luster with a look of hesitation, and after a moment's hesitation, she spoke: "The back mountain we went to this afternoon, we often went there to play when we were very young."

"Once I was lost in the mountains by myself. Everyone in the town was called to look for me, but we couldn't find me..."

"In the end, it was you, Rust, who found me in the cave in the heavy rain."

As she spoke, she seemed to recall something, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly: "However, at that time, heavy rain triggered a flash flood, which cut off the way up the mountain. We were trapped in the cave and couldn't get down, and the adults couldn't get up either."

"Finally, we stayed in the cave all night until dawn, when the adults came up the mountain to look for us."

Luster put his hand to his forehead.

Heavy rain, muddy mountain roads, dark and cold caves...

There was also a little girl curled up in a dark corner of the cave, her eyes full of fear and vigilance, like a kitten with its fur standing on end... It was not until the two people's eyes met that the vigilance in the little girl's eyes slowly dissipated, as if she had woken up from a nightmare and recognized the people in reality.

And on that cold night with heavy rain, he wrapped the only coat he had around the two of them, using each other's body temperature to keep warm and get through that difficult night.

That was indeed his own experience. He had really been to that dark cave and snuggled with the girl in front of him in the corner, warming each other.

But when Last wanted to recall more deeply and search for the whole picture of the past, the picture in his mind was fragmented and turned into blurred colors that kept fading away, and waves of pain came from his mind.

"I'm sorry, Luster."

"I shouldn't have told you this since I knew you had forgotten some of your memories."

Amys spoke anxiously. She looked at Last who was covering his forehead. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but was afraid that it would affect Last. Finally, the white hand stopped in mid-air, and her sky-blue eyes were full of regret.

Luster shook his head and drove those broken images out of his mind: "Sorry, I have some vague impressions, but I can't remember them clearly."

He put a piece of black bread in his hand into his mouth: "But I really want to recall everything that happened in the past."

Rast was not sure what the Canaan in front of him was. Was it the real world? The echo of the night world? Or was it a dream, a memory, or an illusion?

However, if he wanted to explore his past, enter Deep Blue Harbor, and be trapped in the past before that infinite loop... Canaan was Rast's only clue.

According to Amis, and according to Rast's inexplicable familiarity with Canaan, this is the hometown where he grew up.

However, no one knew what kind of unexpected events had occurred that led him to appear in Deep Blue Harbor, and Canaan became a very distant world, like a fantasy.

He thought for a moment and asked softly, "Xiao Ai."

"Have you ever heard of the term... 'the library of fools'?"

(End of this chapter)