Rhodes Island does not exist.

"Don't use such obscure jokes. Even the former emperor of Ursus would find the jokes you're using outdated." Skadi frowned and covered her nose with her hand, pretending to smell something unpleasant.

"I'm sorry." The doctor adopted a gesture of aristocratic courtesy and sincerely apologized.

The topic returned to normal.

"Anyway, I'll go open the door." The Doctor, carrying a pickaxe, climbed over the fast food counter, glanced at the empty kitchen behind the counter, and shook his head.

"What are you expecting? Do you think there will be hamburgers, fries, fried chicken legs or something like that later?" Skadi retorted, noticing the Doctor's subtle movements.

"Otherwise, it just feels like something's missing from being a fast food restaurant, don't you think?" the doctor countered.

"Even if you did, would you dare to eat it?" Skadi rolled her eyes at him.

“I can go without eating, but it has to be here.” The doctor shrugged, placed his missing finger on the doorknob, and gently turned it clockwise.

"Click."

The small door was slightly ajar.

The doctor stood behind the door, slowly opened it, and remained silent, raising his right hand to signal Skadi to be ready to engage the enemy at any time.

At that moment, all the previous banter and jokes between the two seemed to have never existed, and the atmosphere changed dramatically in an instant.

The small door with the sign "staffonly" gradually opened.

Illusory shadows seeped out from the crack in the door.

Everything around was deathly silent.

But in the end... nothing happened.

The atmosphere remained absolutely peaceful until the doctor fully opened the door leading to the backstage area.

"You're lucky."

Skadi lowered her hand that was holding up the greatsword.

Behind the door was an perfectly normal corridor, dimly lit, making it difficult to see the view at the deepest part.

"Looks like it's time for the usual dungeon exploration again."

Skadi climbed over the counter to the Doctor and patted him on the shoulder.

"Stay close to me from behind."

Chapter 200, Chapter 199: The Electronic Cemetery

The two naturally turned their backs to each other, as if they had done this countless times before.

"Keep an eye on what's behind us. Although there's no door in this corridor, Rhodes Island can't rely on common sense." Skadi held her greatsword in a half-parry position and slowly moved towards the end.

"Don't worry, I've even activated Originium Arts." A pale green light flickered in the Doctor's eyes as he pressed his back against Skadi, who was moving forward. "Although, to be honest, I think it would have been better not to activate them."

"why?"

"It's almost blinding," the doctor said bluntly. "Can you imagine? Hundreds and thousands of camera cables are now distributed above us, below us, in all the walls and floors around us. The road we are walking on is less like a corridor and more like a cable conduit designed as a corridor."

“Really? Then turn around and look at the scenery over there,” Skadi suggested. “I want to know in what form this scene you’ve described will enter the end.”

"Why do you speak so formally?" the professor frowned.

"You've known me for a while now, haven't you?" Skadi naturally raised the corner of her mouth slightly, revealing a smile that was merely a facade.

"That's true, after all, we..."

"us……"

The professor suddenly fell silent.

It's like liquid that was flowing in a pipe was suddenly stopped by a tap.

Strange, what are we... again?

His previously clear thoughts were now completely blocked. He felt that he and Skadi did have some deep memories, but he couldn't grasp the thread of those memories no matter what he did. For a moment, he felt extremely distressed.

"Do you have something to say?" Skadi, however, didn't seem to grasp the meaning behind the Doctor's words and simply waited for him to turn around and check the situation ahead.

"No, it's alright, let me take a look."

Suppressing his inner anxiety, the doctor turned around in the narrow space and followed the radiant lines upwards, then instantly closed his eyes.

"How is it?" Skadi asked with a hint of concern.

I don't know if that concern was for the doctor's eyes or for the situation on the other side.

"It's beyond the limit," the doctor shook his head. "I can't see anything except a vast expanse of colorful light; my eyes almost went blind."

"...Thank you for your hard work." After receiving the doctor's report, she nodded calmly, then nudged the doctor's left shoulder with her right shoulder.

"With your words, it wasn't all for nothing," the doctor couldn't help but laugh.

“Don’t tell boring puns at a time like this,” Skadi sighed. “Even if you wanted to be a comedian, there’s no stage for you to perform here. And those old jokes too, let’s put them away.”

“But since you can understand my old jokes, that at least means you’re still one of my target customers, right?” the doctor continued. “After all, people from different generations wouldn’t be able to answer such old jokes.”

"what……"

Skadi could only shake her head at those words.

She couldn't refute the doctor's statement, since she was the one who made the initial comment and was in the wrong.

“It seems that perhaps we did know each other before we entered Rhodes Island,” she murmured, pausing for a moment as she looked up at the ceiling.

"Probably, I have that intuition too," the doctor chuckled.

“But it won’t be the right time for us to catch up soon,” Skadi said.

The doctor felt the muscles of the person whose back he was pressed against tense up for a moment.

"The last door is right in front of me."

Skadi held her greatsword with one hand, blocking the god, while extending her other hand to grasp...

She didn't grasp the doorknob.

Instead, he withdrew his hand.

Or rather, it bounced back.

"There's something on the doorknob." Her voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible hint of disgust, but that faintness was due to her personality, so in reality she probably felt quite disgusted.

"What is that?" The Doctor subconsciously turned his head and glanced at the end of Skadi's outstretched arm.

“—Tsk.”

Even he let out a soft, displeased click.

It was a dark red mass, like maltose, wrapped around the metal handle. Although it was sticky and mushy, it did not fall due to gravity; it simply stuck there, motionless and unshaking.

"Doctor, what do you think this represents?" Skadi pointed to the dark red mass with her other finger and asked.

"Does this mean there's something strange about this? Isn't that a foregone conclusion?" The doctor frowned.

“No, that’s not it.” Skadi shook her head, then placed the greatsword at her waist and raised her right leg, recreating the scene the Doctor had witnessed at the entrance of the fast food restaurant.

"This means that we can't open the door using civilized means this time."

"boom!"

The power transmitted from the hunter's thigh muscles was concentrated in her leather boots, which delivered a heavy blow to the thin and pitiful door panel.

This time, the door was not just kicked down.

Skadi kicked the door panel away.

"Whoosh-"

The thin, paper-thin composite panel door was swept away by the force exerted by Skadi, flying into the distant, dark depths.

Unfortunately, the world behind the door is neither dark nor far away.

"these are……"

Although the view was limited to a small rectangle, it did not diminish the doctor's amazement at the spectacular view contained in the back of the fast food restaurant.

They were objects resembling tombstones, standing evenly and staggered among the countless plots of land in the bright room before us.

Beneath those tombstone-like black objects, countless fine black lines slithered and spread out, like a woman's hair and the shed skin of a snake in a deep nest, in a chaotic mess.

Even so, the doctor immediately recognized the true nature of those thin black lines.

Without a doubt, these are the surveillance camera lines that converge from all over the sixth floor, and the final destination of these lines is the row of black tombstones in the room.

"I absolutely dare not use Open Stone Arts here anymore." Thinking back to what he had seen through the door, the Doctor still felt a chill of fear.

If looking at the sun through sunglasses can cause stings, then who would dare to take off their sunglasses and continue looking directly at it?

Having courage is a good thing, but courage taken too far is foolish.

“It’s alright, I’ll go in first, you follow me.” Skadi, carrying her greatsword, stepped into the house. “I have a feeling there might be a fierce battle ahead.”

"Is your premonition... accurate?" The doctor gripped the wooden handle of the pickaxe tightly, his emotions still turbulent because of the tombstones around him.

"No."

-

Thank you segment.

Thank you for the monthly pass.

Chapter 201 Two Hundred, The Truman Show

Modern society is a graveyard for the gods.

-

A narrow path branched off from the black stone monument, the scenery on both sides oppressive and enclosed, trapping the Doctor and Skadi within, unable to extricate themselves.

“The space inside is completely chaotic,” the Doctor said, following behind Skadi. “From the outside, this fast food restaurant looks like just a small corner, but now it looks like this.”

“Just like Rhodes Island, isn’t it?” Skadi said, “A mustard seed can contain Mount Sumeru, and Mount Sumeru can be contained in a mustard seed.”

"...You're right, aren't you?"

The doctor felt as if he had stepped on something soft.

He looked down and saw a plush toy lying at his feet.

Just like those oddly shaped things hanging in the store, they are so ugly that it is almost impossible for children to play with them.

"This is?"

Seeing the professor pick up the toy at his feet, Skadi asked a question.

"I just stepped on it." The professor dusted it off. "It looks like it belongs to the owner of this place. Didn't we see a lot of toys like this outside when we came here?"

"Really ugly," Skadi gave a fair and objective assessment.

Although the evaluation based on aesthetics is by no means objective.

But objectivity is mostly subjective, so all I can say is... this toy is indeed ugly enough to be described objectively.

"You're objectively ugly" may become one of the popular phrases on Terra in the next thirty years.

"Take it with you." The doctor stuffed the toy into his outer pocket. "It might come in handy."

“I have no objection, after all, it’s not my turn to take it.” Skadi didn’t say anything, and just continued walking forward.

The black tombstones on both sides grew taller as the two went deeper, and the black pipes connecting them also began to thicken, resembling the corpses of pythons.

But soon, the doctor discovered that the thick black pipes were different from the previous monitor's connection cables.

Because they lead not to the outside, but to the deepest part of the cemetery.

"Sizzle, sizzle."

Gradually, the doctor began to hear a sound like flashes of electricity coming from the side that was obscured by the huge tombstone.

"The visibility here is terrible, we can't see anything," Skadi, who was ahead, aptly voiced the Doctor's thoughts.

"The road is almost closed up ahead." The doctor pointed to the pipes on the ground. "We can only walk across these rubber surfaces."

“It’s okay, it’s not a big problem.” Skadi shrugged.

So the two climbed up the long black snakes that were taller than them and followed them down.

"Sizzle, sizzle."