Rhodes Island does not exist.

“It seems quite different from when I last came here,” Skadi slowly managed to say. “Back then, all I saw was a small shop that was almost collapsing.”

“You once said that the sixth floor would change over time,” the doctor said. “Perhaps you didn’t see such a scene last time, and we didn’t see the store you mentioned this time either.”

“That’s the only way,” Skadi sighed. “But then again, this place is like a large shopping mall, so the food section should be too.”

"However, I'd better check if there are any cameras or cables like before here first." The Doctor slowly closed his eyes, focusing his consciousness to the maximum extent so that he could summon the Originium Arts that he was not yet proficient in.

Ding.

Light and shadow flickered in the darkness.

An incredible scene unfolded before the doctor's eyes.

It was a band of light like a nebula.

He had only expected to see shimmering points of light and thin lines extending from them, but he never imagined he would witness such a magnificent sight.

Fine threads flowing from all over the sixth floor intertwined in the food area, forming a net. The net itself was then twisted into strips of light, all converging in the same direction, like a celestial river.

Given this situation, it is pointless to dwell on whether there are still cameras in the food area.

Because this is where the camera ends.

All the collected information flowed here like rivers flowing into the sea, and the surging ocean was drawn in by the waves of attraction and was never to return.

"...Sir, Sir!"

"PhD!"

The powerful call pulled the doctor out of his reverie.

Daylight awakened him once more.

Summon him to go and conquer heaven and earth.

Now that I have arrived here, I open my eyes.

The world is his enemy.

"Phew! I'm sorry."

His eyes were wide open, staring at the farthest point his vision could reach, with Skadi's projection on his retina in his peripheral vision.

The dazzling starry sky almost swallowed him up.

"What happened to you just now?" Skadi's voice carried a barely perceptible concern. "I called you and you didn't respond."

"I just saw a beautiful view." The doctor's pupils gradually contracted from the astonishment he had just witnessed, and his gaze returned to Skadi's face. "This food area may not be what we expected."

"How's the camera issue?" Skadi asked.

"It's pointless to dwell on that now," the doctor shook his head. "There's no need to worry about whether there are cameras here or not."

"What did you see?" Skadi's face was also shrouded in a wintery mist as she realized what the Doctor had just experienced.

“Lines, so many lines.” The doctor recalled the visual image he had just seen. “All the cables from the cameras on the sixth floor converge here, just like the camera I analyzed before. Didn’t its cables also point in the direction of the road sign?”

“But you couldn’t see all those lines back then, could you?” Skadi said.

“That’s true.” The doctor nodded. “After all, I can only see threads that are relatively close to me, so once they’re beyond a certain range, I can’t observe anything at all—but this place is different, completely different.”

He tried to close his eyes again to relive the scene he had just witnessed, but reason prevailed and he gradually calmed down.

“Because this is the source of all the lines, it’s close enough to me.” Relying on his memory, the doctor pointed to a direction with his right hand. “If what I saw before was correct, then all the threads eventually lead to that place.”

Where he pointed, stood a building.

A building that should neatly exist in the food section of a large shopping mall.

Fast food restaurant.

The restaurant doors were tightly closed.

Its exterior is decorated with many colorful little toys, like the kind of freebies given out at a Happy Paradise party. A crystal beaded curtain flows down from above the door, exuding a lively atmosphere.

This looks like an ordinary fast food restaurant, and it almost perfectly matches the doctor's stereotypical image of such a place.

Apart from those toys.

After all, in the doctor's impression, even if a restaurant has a Happy Meal, it wouldn't hang the toys from the Happy Meal on the door.

Wait, do I remember this?

How could I still have this kind of impression?

The doctor couldn't help but frown.

Although he has lost his memory, he still retains some necessary common sense and knowledge, but it seems a bit strange to categorize such stereotypes as common sense.

“I understand.” Skadi’s gaze lingered on the fast food restaurant’s door, then she nodded. “Although I don’t sense any danger in that restaurant, what do you plan to choose now?”

"What do you mean, how do I choose?"

"Should we go to the fast food restaurant to check the situation first, or take a walk around the food section to see if there are any supplies we can collect?" Skadi asked.

“I’d like to browse the food section first,” the doctor said after a moment of thought. “But before that, I have to give you a heads-up, something I should have mentioned when I was looking at the security camera footage.”

"what's up?"

“When we discovered the camera, it meant that the person on the other end of the camera had also discovered our presence,” the doctor said. “The owner of the camera probably already knows that we’ve discovered someone is watching us, and that they even know we were planning to enter the fast food restaurant.”

"So that means our every move is actually being monitored." The doctor looked at Skadi with a serious expression.

“That makes sense. So what do you plan to do?” Skadi nodded, acknowledging the doctor’s correctness. “Well, things are already like this anyway.”

“Precisely because things have come to this, we need to remain calm,” the doctor said. “So I suggest we explore the rest of the food area first and see if the fast food restaurant reacts during our exploration.”

"In other words, you're planning to leave him hanging," Skadi said thoughtfully.

Chapter 171, The Web of Language

The food section was different from what the doctor had expected.

The specific difference is that he never imagined the goods here could be so diverse and abundant.

“I’m starting to think about that little shop you told me about before.”

Standing in front of a supermarket with a sign that read "Gregorian Warehouse," the doctor looked up at the many goods on the shelves and muttered to himself.

"Don't think about that. I said before that this place is very big." Skadi let out a faint, somewhat helpless sigh. "The place we encountered before was probably a convenience store or something."

Then, she looked at the professor and added, "You can't expect a convenience store to compare to a large supermarket like this, can you?"

“That’s true, but compared to your matter, I’m more concerned about where I obtained those supplies in the past.” As he spoke, the doctor took out half a compressed biscuit from his pocket. “I plan to make a comparison.”

“Compare the brands of these compressed biscuits?” Skadi glanced at the biscuits in his hand.

“Not just that.” The doctor shook his head. “Brand, flavor, production date and shelf life, product number and barcode—we need to compare everything.”

"What's the point of doing this?" Skadi asked, puzzled. "It doesn't seem like something very necessary."

“It’s necessary.” The Doctor took a deep breath and turned to look at Skadi. “Because I recently realized something, or rather, a shortcut.”

"shortcut?"

"Well, it's less of a shortcut and more of a correct approach to solving the problem," the professor said. "Have I been mentioning things about my past self to you before?"

“You have amnesia, and so do I,” Skadi said, shrugging.

“But the nature is different.” The doctor refuted her previous statement. “You lost your memories of the time before you entered Rhodes Island, while I lost my memories of exploring here, as well as all my memories before that. So I was thinking... could I recover them by searching for traces left by my past self?”

“But actually, I’ve always been concerned about this,” Skadi objected. “You said you’ve explored this place for a long time, but I’ve never encountered anyone else.”

"Perhaps it is..."

"Because of the cognitive filter, that's why I just didn't meet you, right?" Skadi looked at the Doctor. "Are you going to bring up this theory again?"

"After all, I have no memories of the past and don't know what happened, so I can only explain it with hypotheses," the doctor argued. "If it makes sense, I even think that I might have been deliberately avoiding you in the past, which is also possible."

"..."

Skadi remained silent.

She never expected the doctor to say something like that.

"Are you saying that the reason you're following me is because you don't understand me at all?"

As a silent conclusion, she looked at the doctor and said, "You think I have an evil side that you don't know about, but the past you knew about this side, which is why you didn't want to meet me at all."

"Correct."

The doctor nodded.

His expression beneath the hood was completely genuine; he was serious.

It was as if he was expressing to the woman in front of him that he did not feel that his words were offensive, or that even if they were, he would be honest about it.

And so the two of them just stared at each other.

Under the watchful eyes of countless cameras, bathed in the reflected light of streetlights, and standing before shelves piled high with food, the two remained silent, awaiting the word that would break the deadlock.

"…well."

Skadi was the last to speak.

"Let's think about where we really are right now."

“Hunger, dehydration, and death hovered over us at any moment, like prisoners lying on an execution platform.”

"Our partnership should have been one of mutual trust, or at least I hope it was."

"Perhaps you feel that you can be resurrected and therefore don't care, but I don't have that privilege. So when I met you, when I met a living being who can talk and think normally, my heart was actually full of hope."

"But I'm not blaming you. I won't blame anyone for my own problems."

“I know we haven’t known each other for very long, so it’s normal for you to have doubts about me.”

"After all, when I asked you that question before, I actually..."

Skadi suddenly fell silent.

It wasn't because she didn't know how to continue, but because she realized something—she didn't know why she was saying these things.

Even the way the doctor looked at her started to seem strange.

No, this isn't what I originally thought.

She shook her head, a gesture she made to deny herself.

Originally, I just wanted to sigh and tell the doctor that they should still maintain some necessary trust in each other, that was all.

No, she shouldn't have even asked that question about cognitive filters; it didn't sound like something she would say.

Those unnecessary words shouldn't have been uttered in the first place.

“…Never mind, I’m sorry. Forget about those words. Just pretend I never said them.” Skadi calmed her breathing, which had become disordered due to her unusual behavior, and then walked away from the Doctor. “Didn’t you have something you were looking for? Let’s go inside.”

"Are you alright—"

"I'm very good."

Skadi interrupted the doctor's question and then walked straight into the supermarket.

The doctor could only watch her figure gradually disappear into the shadows, without uttering a word.

Thus, the conversation ended in a way that no one had ever imagined.

After that, if anyone brings up this matter again, it will probably only cause embarrassment.

—Unless something follows that carries an emotion strong enough to overshadow the conversation.

-

"Speaking of which, would you care about where all these products come from?" the doctor asked.

The atmosphere between the two returned to what it was like before they came to the food section.

They both tacitly ignored what had happened before and focused their attention on the present.

It was as if that conversation had never happened.

“No,” Skadi shook her head. “As long as I can eat it and it won’t kill me, I don’t care.”

"so."

The two remained silent.

Such silence was the norm between the two, but at this moment there was a restless atmosphere, like that of late spring or early summer.