The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Is this...a Halloween costume?" Fish muttered, looking at his costume and then at the decorations in the building they were in. The room was filled with jack-o'-lanterns, plastic bats, toy skulls, and other decorations. Besides a row of plastic chairs, there were several small basketball hoops and a bunch of mini plastic basketballs the size of melons. All the basketballs were painted with jack-o'-lantern smiley faces, and the hoops had electronic scoreboards on top.

While most of the cultural heritage of the old civilizations did not survive the disappearance of the old humans, Halloween and Christmas are exceptions—supposedly because the "Three Heroes" who founded the empire enjoyed these holidays themselves. Although the specific ways of celebrating them differed slightly, the general customs remained largely unchanged.

"Welcome to 'Pumpkin Secret Realm,' Halloween is not happy!" Just as Fish picked up a plastic basketball and examined it closely, a jarring melody and a rather unpleasant male voice came from the large loudspeaker hanging on the ceiling.

Undoubtedly, this should be the notification sound in this "game"—but what the hell is "unhappy"?

"Dear children, to help you get through this Halloween in a more challenging way, 'Pumpkin Wonderland' amusement park has prepared a special program for you: Attention, little witches! You all have a candy jar at your waist to store candy. At the prop shop, you can use candy to exchange for wands and magic potions to survive in the amusement park—but please note! If you don't have enough candy, you won't be able to continue using your wands and magic potions to fight the monsters!"

"Is this the legendary 'trick or treat' game?" Alicia asked. "But I've never heard of this game before."

“The bloodthirsty audience of the old civilization era is crazy here,” Fish said, slapping his head. “In this kind of insane game, it’s not surprising that they come up with all sorts of crazy ways to play.”

"But the problem is we have to play with them, which is not good." Alicia looked at the pumpkin-head candy jar hanging on her skirt belt and found that it was just a very ordinary plastic jar with five cheap fruit candies wrapped in plastic.

"Ah, as you've probably noticed, you all only have a very small amount of candy! That's clearly not enough for tonight's celebration! But don't worry," the voice continued, "you can earn more candy by actively participating in the games!"

"Mini-games?"

"Yes! All the mini-games have scores! At the end, you'll redeem candies based on your score! Get ready, the games are about to begin!"

After the announcement was made over the loudspeaker, the scoreboard above the basket in front of Fish and Alicia suddenly lit up, and a flashing countdown number "60" appeared on the screen next to it. Then, the number changed to "59," then "58"...

"Hmm, is it a game where you have to shoot hoops within a time limit?" Alicia said. "It's a pretty common game."

"And it's not difficult at all," Fish casually picked up a small plastic basketball painted in the shape of a pumpkin head, tossed it lightly, and it landed in a hoop, immediately showing "10" on the scoreboard. Then, he picked up several more small basketballs in succession, easily making the shot each time.

In contrast, Alicia's situation was much worse—although her status as a "kendo club member" instilled some basic knowledge of swordsmanship and physical techniques, and Fish's physique was also very suitable for sports, unfortunately, her shooting accuracy was extremely poor, making only four of her first ten shots. Seeing this, Fish had no choice but to increase her shooting speed in order to earn as many points as possible.

After the scoreboard reached "300," a series of neon lights illuminated, and the basket began to move back and forth, significantly increasing the difficulty of the shot. Fortunately, this was actually an advantage for Fish—even with the moving basket, he could still make the shot without fail, and he also discovered that he could now score 25 points for every successful shot!

"Come on, come on, come on! Keep going! That's it!" After making dozens of shots in a row, Fish became completely excited, even starting to throw the ball with both hands simultaneously, like a circus act—and as it turned out, thanks to Ange's agility, this technique not only worked, but also didn't decrease the accuracy at all. By the time the 60-second countdown ended, the scoreboard had reached a whopping 875 points!

"Congratulations everyone! You now have fifteen minutes to exchange candy for magic wands and potions. Once you're ready, please begin your battle against the Halloween monsters—you can also earn candy by participating in other games within the amusement park. If you run out of candy, remember to participate in more games!"

"Phew... 875 points, not bad." Fish wiped the fine beads of sweat from his forehead. He got about 90% of those points, mainly thanks to Ange's balance and agility!

It seems his fiancée has quite a few redeeming qualities!

"The redemption area seems to be here." As a large amount of candy rolled out of the exit next to the scoreboard by the basket, Fish and Alicia quickly packed the hard candies into the candy jar. Judging from the quantity, 5 points seemed to be equivalent to one candy, so 875 points allowed them to exchange for 175 candies. Adding to the 5 candies they already had, they had a total of 185 candies, which was quite a fortune.

Next to the candy dispenser was a device resembling a coin-operated vending machine—although vending machines hadn't been reinvented in this era, Fish had heard of such machines from Phoenix Flame. After pressing the red "Start" button, a row of "magic wand" images appeared on the vending machine's electronic screen.

"Wait a minute, this thing... it'd better be a wand!" Fish immediately exclaimed after seeing the images. "Aren't these all guns?!"

"According to the authoritative certification of the great magical writer J.K. Rowling, guns are indeed wands used by Muggles. So, there's absolutely no problem with that!" the voice from the megaphone replied. Clearly, the person who prepared this recording had already guessed how the player would react. "Please make your choice quickly."

"What the hell is all this... Glock 17 wand, worth 10 candies; Colt 45 wand, worth 15 candies; Desert Eagle wand, worth 25 candies; Uzi wand, worth 35 candies; UMP-45 wand, worth 40 candies; Remington 870 wand, worth 55 candies; M16A2 wand with a 40mm grenade launcher, worth 75 candies..." Fish read them out one by one. "Wow, this Halloween is really something."

"That's right, I've never heard of a little witch with such firepower." Alicia glanced at her witch outfit again, looking both amused and exasperated—although she identified as female, and Fish's usual figure and appearance were closer to that of a girl, wearing this witch outfit was still quite a nuisance, as Sokhov said: Read this book!

"So, the so-called 'magic potions'... are indeed ammunition." After opening another interface, Fish continued to complain—these "magic potions" were all pistol bullets, rifle bullets, shotgun shells, rifle grenades of various calibers, and even smoke grenades and tear gas grenades!

In short, although Fish wasn't sure if these things could be considered magic, it was clear that their "potential" was quite potent.

Although he was not familiar with the firearms models of the old civilization era, Fish quickly selected the equipment he and Alicia needed, relying on the performance specifications provided by the vending machine and his military experience in this era.

Since Ange is quite skilled at using various rapid-fire weapons, and her smart combat armor "Golden Soup" is a completely "turret-like" version designed to adapt to various heavy weapons, Fish chose an M16A2 "Wand" with a 40mm grenade launcher mounted on the bottom. Alicia, on the other hand, had almost no shooting experience and no time for temporary training, so she was given a Remington pump-action shotgun that was easy to use and required almost no aiming.

The remaining candy was exchanged for a Colt "Wand" as a secondary weapon. Additionally, Fish also acquired four 20-round rifle magazines, 20 12-gauge shotgun shells, three grenade launchers, and two 7-round pistol magazines from the "Potions" interface. While the quantity wasn't large, it would be enough for a while.

"Remember, this is not an automatic weapon. After firing, you must eject the spent cartridge and let the next shotgun shell be chambered. Be sure to hold the forend and pull it back like this..." After selecting the "wand," Fish made the most of the remaining time to teach Alicia how to use the weapon in his hand.

"Ah... okay, is that all?"

"Yes, the remaining ammunition can be stored in the pocket of the witch costume. Remember to reload after you've fired all eight shotgun shells," Fish said, demonstrating as he went. "It's a hassle that there are no ammunition carriers for sale here. So remember to be careful not to fall while running, or the ammunition might fall out."

"Understood."

"In short, although we don't know if there are any other 'witches,' our safety is the top priority. So, if you see anyone you don't recognize later, remember to shoot first," Fish warned before time ran out. "Since they've equipped us with such powerful 'wands,' the enemies here are probably stronger than those in the 'Black Beast Market,' who deliberately didn't provide us with any decent weapons. We must not be careless."

"Okay, I understand."

"Also, these 12-gauge shotgun shells have a large spread, so you don't need to aim carefully. Just fire in the general direction whenever you suspect an enemy is appearing." Fish had barely finished speaking when a long, drawn-out chime echoed throughout the building, then a second, a third, a fourth…

The bell rang thirteen times before finally stopping. Then, the door of the house opened with a jarring creak.

An unsettling gust of cold wind immediately rushed in through the open door.

As the name of this "game" area, "Pumpkin Maze," suggests, the place is filled with Halloween pumpkin elements... though most of them are just plastic decorations, along with pictures on huge signs and backdrops.

Generally speaking, the entire area was designed to resemble an amusement park common in the old civilization era, featuring both inexpensive interactive games like archery, air guns, darts, ring toss, and whack-a-mole, and larger rides such as drop towers, roller coasters, carousels, and bumper cars. However, perhaps due to the relatively cramped underground space, the number of large rides in this amusement park is relatively small, and their arrangement is not very reasonable.

Worse still, the "barricades" made of a large number of plastic pumpkin heads blocked the road in a crooked manner and severely obstructed the view. Fish knew very well that although these pumpkin heads could not stop bullets with a slightly larger caliber, their existence was by no means a good thing for the side with firearms.

"Don't make a sound. Use these pumpkin heads as cover and advance slowly." Relying on his past combat experience, Fish whispered a reminder to Alicia, then, holding his "wand," he hid behind rows of plastic pumpkin "barricades" and slowly moved towards the nearest target—a carousel. But after he had walked less than twenty meters, a figure suddenly emerged from behind the carousel!

"Ee-ee-ee-ya ...

The girl who rushed out screamed was a "little witch" dressed exactly like them. It seemed that she hadn't done very well in the initial "candy-winning" part of the "game," as her only equipment was a Desert Eagle-style "magic wand." And what was worse... one of her wrists was hanging limply at her side, and her expression looked painful.

After recalling some anecdotes Huang Yan had mentioned about the impractical weapons of the old civilization, Fish roughly guessed what had happened to her: after waking up, she had obviously participated in the "candy-trading" game, but was unsuccessful and gained very little. So, to increase her chances of survival, she used all the candy she had collected to buy the most expensive "magic wand" she could afford—simply because, according to the description, it possessed the strongest firepower and largest caliber among pistols…

However, she clearly didn't know what the recoil of such a large machine meant for the slender wrists of a little girl.

According to Huang Yan, the Desert Eagle is a classic example of a weapon that looks great but isn't very practical: its huge caliber and excessive weight for a pistol make it even more difficult to use than the large-caliber carbine used to "open cans" for plate-armored heavy cavalry during the Renaissance. It only shines in various shooting ranges and exhibitions, as well as in video games where you don't actually need to hold it in your hand.

Clearly, the designers of this "game" were purely driven by a perverse sense of humor, stuffing many of these flashy but useless "magic wands" into the shopping list, specifically to swindle innocent and naive little girls.

As a result, the girl likely learned the lesson of "recoil" in great pain after firing her first shot, and then had to flee in haste.

"Don't be afraid!" Fish quickly shouted to the girl, "I'll help you!"

"No! We can't escape!" cried a girl with a dislocated wrist after slipping and falling to the ground. "We can't escape! We can't escape!"

"Don't talk such discouraging things! I'm going to—hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?!"

After another burst of cries, the girl suddenly gripped the heavy pistol with her still-mobile hand and shot herself in the heart!