The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Wa ...

"Aa ...

As a minor martial arts master in the famous manga "Dragon Ball" from the old civilization era once commented, once a person leaps into the air, they cannot change direction on their own and can only continue to move forward along a fixed parabolic trajectory.

Based on this basic common sense, upon seeing Alicia, Fish, who was experienced in visually estimating parabolas, not only routinely let out a scream, but also immediately deduced her landing point: which was exactly where he was.

This conclusion immediately led to two options.

Instinctively, Fish's first thought was to dodge: after all, no matter how light Alicia was, she would weigh no less than seventy or eighty pounds, and being hit hard by such a heavy thing would definitely not be pleasant! However, this thought lasted for less than a breath before disappearing from Fish's mind.

Fish noticed that Alicia seemed to have absolutely no idea how to land—she didn't retract her limbs or try to grab any vital parts to mitigate potential injury; instead, she frantically flailed her limbs in the air like a drowning duck. In this state, a crash to the ground could easily result in dislocated joints or even broken bones.

Even if Alicia herself is just an NPC whose "actual age" is only a few tens of minutes old, and all her memories come from crudely artificial implantation, she is still one of Fish's "one of his own." And in any case, abandoning one of his own is unacceptable to Fish.

So he chose to stand still, close his eyes, and spread his arms, while simultaneously kneeling on one knee, just like the first rank of musketeers in an infantry square when enemy cavalry approached, in preparation for the charge...

...Then, his foot suddenly slipped.

"Wow?"

With a sudden loss of balance, Fish lurched forward uncontrollably a few steps, chest to chest, and "intercepted" Alicia in mid-air. The two then tumbled together, rolling six or seven meters across the lawn. Fortunately, Moonbeam's body unexpectedly proved useful in this situation—the extra material on her chest effectively cushioned the fall, preventing both from sustaining serious injury.

"I'm so sorry, Karin!" Alicia said after finally managing to stand up. "I didn't see it... I have no experience..."

"This isn't the time for that," Fish grabbed Alicia's arm. "Lead the way!"

"Ah, okay!" Alicia paused for a moment, then replied—at that moment, a large group of schoolgirls whose arms, hands, or mutated tentacles she had cut off were wading out of the outdoor swimming pool and walking toward the two of them.

On the suspension bridge spanning the outdoor swimming pool, a large clump of translucent, sticky substance slowly detached from the railing made of thick cables and began to crawl slowly toward the two people along the template bridge surface.

"That is..."

"They are parasites of the 'Tai Sui'—in the wild, they first go through a fungal-like state, and then are swallowed by careless hosts by mixing into their food or drinking water, lacking the ability to move independently. However, under the premise of being able to accept the control of high-level nodes, they can also move like this," Huang Yan explained. "In addition, all hosts can secrete this parasite and allow it to parasitize new hosts."

"This is really troublesome," Fish muttered as he pulled Alicia toward the old gymnasium where the kendo club was located. "No wonder these things have spread so quickly outside."

The old gymnasium is a large building with a hemispherical roof, and it has three floors in total. The third floor is connected to a building further away by a skybridge. Although the paint and plaster on the exterior walls are somewhat peeling, it is still relatively clean overall. Several signs hang at the entrance, one of which is for the "Kendo Club".

Although Fish was prepared to smash the door or break a window with a baseball bat as he approached the gate, fortunately, the kendo club's door was only ajar, not even closed, let alone locked. However, this only made Fish feel extremely uneasy.

"Be careful. Since the door isn't locked, given the usual style of these kinds of death games, it probably means..."

"I know!" Fish, who rushed into the door, didn't even need Huang Yan's reminder. He had already lowered his head and dodged the knife that was about to be slashed at his forehead. At the same time, he rolled on the spot and used the muscle memory of Yue Die's body to stab the baseball bat out like a swift sword.

"Ouch—" A girl wearing kendo protective gear was suddenly struck in the chest, her blade falling to the ground. Seeing this, Fish immediately hurled his baseball bat like a boomerang at another girl who was charging at him with a knife. As the other girl's mask was hit hard, Fish picked up the long sword that had fallen from the person who had attacked him earlier and continued to pull Alicia forward.

"Where...where are we going?"

"Tell me, where exactly does your kendo club usually hold its activities?" Fish asked the bewildered Alicia as he ran at full speed.

"In, in the activity room on the second floor."

"Great, it seems the troublesome guys are all there."

Just as Fish had predicted, when the two climbed to the second floor, a whole dozen girls holding all sorts of weapons—all real and lethal—were already lined up at the entrance to the activity room, "waiting" for their arrival.

Clearly, the level designer, like most old-school adventure game enthusiasts, enjoys mindlessly dropping a large number of "elite monsters" near the finish line. Fish is completely convinced that, unlike the regular zombies outside, these guys each have their own special skills and unique strengths.

However, Fish didn't care about them at all. He didn't even leave the stairwell, but instead took Alicia and rushed up to the third floor.

"Kaylin! The activity room is in..."

“I know where it is,” Fish said, “but the question is, why should I follow those guys’ rules? After all, my goal isn’t to ‘win’ this game. It’s to get out of here.”

"Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?" Alicia was completely dumbfounded—after all, in her view, the school, the disaster that had just happened, and her own past were all completely real. Therefore, "Kaylin's" sudden words were completely incomprehensible to her.

"Trust me." After rushing to the third floor, Fish only said this one sentence to Alicia. Then, he raised the knife he had just grabbed and slashed open the lock on the lighting distribution box on the wall. Then, he pulled all the switches inside in one go.

The lights in the stadium suddenly went out.

"What are you doing?" Huang Yan asked. "I have to remind you, the lack of light alone won't stop the 'Tai Sui' hosts from moving—because they don't need visible light to detect targets. Besides, it's currently daytime here, and the light coming in from outside..."

"That's not important," Fish said as he closed and locked the stairwell door from the inside. A moment later, a frantic shoving and banging on the door came from outside—the guards on the second floor, realizing he hadn't forced his way up, immediately chased him to the third floor. But they were temporarily blocked.

"Um... this door probably won't hold them off for long," Alicia said. "Besides, we're trapped on this floor too."

"Trapped? I don't think so," Fish shook his head. "Give me some time, and I'll find a way out."

"Exit? But...where is there an exit here..." Alicia was even more confused.

"Miss Huang Yan, is your probe still working?" Fish didn't answer the question, but asked Huang Yan instead.

"It's possible, but we can't synchronize the information with you right now," Huang Yan said, "so I'm afraid it won't be accurate enough."

“That doesn’t matter,” Fish replied. “Tell me, can you detect any energy sources nearby?”

"Yes. In fact, I just discovered that a large energy source has been suddenly activated."

"Then tell me roughly where it is," Fish said as another violent crashing sound came from behind the door.

"Okay," Huang Yan said, "Let's move forward."

"Why is there nothing here?" Alicia asked, puzzled, as she hurried forward. The entire third floor consisted of only a straight corridor stretching forward, with no doors or windows on either side. Even someone without an architecture or architectural design background could easily see how abnormal the structure was. "I remember this floor being offices, wasn't it? Why…?"

"That's to be expected," Fish said as he walked. "Where?"

"Continue for ten meters along the left wall of the corridor," Huang Yan said. "It's in that vicinity."

"Alright," Fish took a deep breath, "let's take a gamble."

"A gamble?" Alicia was even more confused. "Kaylin, what exactly are you betting on?"

"Feel your way along the wall slowly," Fish still didn't explain. "If you touch something like a doorknob, tell me immediately, and be quick."

"But……"

"Believe me!"

Hearing Fish's words, the indecisive Alicia immediately took action. The two of them pressed themselves against the wall where Phoenix Flame had pointed out the energy source and began to carefully explore it.

Of course, Fish wasn't doing this blindly—he knew very well that the third floor was probably the key—the first floor of the old gymnasium was very empty, with nothing noteworthy except for a few ambushers lying in wait, while the second floor was the place the game designers had planned in advance for the "final trial." But he knew that even if he could defeat the "elite monster" at the entrance and pass this "trial," what awaited him next was a very terrifying prospect.

After all, the archery club member had inadvertently hinted that only one person could clear this "scene." If only two remained, a deadly duel would ensue.

Fish certainly didn't intend to give up here... after all, there were still so many companions waiting for him to lend a helping hand. However, letting Alicia be "eliminated" was also something he couldn't tolerate—after all, since Alicia was already a companion, she had become "an object that could not be abandoned" to him.

Therefore, Fish never intended to follow the script set by the game designers from the beginning. After all, why should he abide by rules set by the dead a thousand years ago?

With a loud bang, the stairwell door was finally smashed open by the surging crowd. Hearing the sound, Alicia involuntarily shuddered, but Fish remained calm. "Ignore them, keep going."

"Okay!" Alicia's lack of assertiveness became a significant advantage in this situation. She continued to grope and search, and finally found something before the group rushed down the corridor.

"There seems to be a doorknob here! But I don't see anything!"

"That's it!" Fish immediately grabbed the spot Alicia had just touched and pulled the doorknob hard. Just as he expected, the door wasn't locked at all.

"Huh? Why is there a door here?! Why can I only see walls?" Alicia was even more surprised after realizing that the door had been opened.

"Never mind that, come in!"

After pulling Alicia inside, Fish immediately closed the door behind him and began to carefully observe the room he was in: unlike the high schools outside, this looked like a typical control center, with large consoles and huge projection equipment everywhere. Beside the chairs surrounded by consoles, a series of 3D projections showed the fighting, chaos, and escapes breaking out throughout the school, as well as horrific scenes of bloodshed and death.

"This is... what is this...?" Alicia looked around in shock, even more surprised than when she first saw those ferocious and insane "Tai Sui" hosts.

After all, the sudden transformation of a peaceful daily campus life into a bloody disaster was shocking enough, but the fact that such a place existed within the school was, to some extent, far beyond the boundaries of Alicia's comprehension.

However, Fish understood perfectly what this place was—after Huang Yan explained the characteristics of this "game" to him, everything became clear: although the "game" itself could be operated in the central control room of the underground facility, such complex activities would inevitably have a control center nearby for real-time control and monitoring to prevent accidents.

Of course, besides that, this monitoring room is probably also the place where the final survivor in the game "claims the prize"—this can be seen from the elevator in the center of the room that goes straight to the second floor. As for the door not being closed, that's also expected: most of the NPCs' subconscious minds have been pre-programmed with the idea that "there is no need to go to the third floor," so they won't actively run here. Even if someone arrives by accident, the "Virtual Paradise" system will make them completely unable to see where the door is.

In short, if Fish hadn't come up with the idea of ​​shutting off the power supply to the old stadium and letting the backup power in the control room activate automatically, thus using the Phoenix Flame to find the approximate location, he and Alicia might not have found the place even if they had searched all day.

"Alright, Alicia, we're safe now," Fish patted his still-shaken companion on the shoulder. "I'll end this."

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