Trying to Save my Favorite Character from His Tragic Fate

Chapter 42: The Witch's Game: The bell tower

In suspense, the five of them got out of the inn fully prepared to be jumped by a horde of ghouls. However, the ghouls on the street act like they were still human. Those that used to sell fruits and vegetables still sold fruits and vegetables despite the ones buying them cannot eat them anymore. Most of them resumed their usual daily mundane activity like nothing actually happened.

"This is disturbing..." Nate commented on them as he walked by the canopy tents that sold different kinds of merchandise.

"Not really, they just decided to live as humans till the end," replied Ian.

"Yeah, many of them loved their mundane lives. It seems like being ghouls would not have changed their will to remain as humans even if it is just in their hearts until the end," says Laurel.

"Not that I mind since at least they are not attacking us..." blurted Nate brushing off the topic.

Ian smiled sadly, and Kyrie walked closer to him.

"They decided to stay true to themselves in their own way," says Kyrie.

"Yeah," Ian said while feeling slightly comforted.

Imogen remained silent and did not comment at all. For her, this sight was way too common, and it will become common in the future. Laurel looked at the indifference in Imogen's face and wondered what is going on in Imogen's head.

"Did you see this often?" asked Laurel.

"huh?" Imogen turned her head surprised.

"You seem to have experienced this a lot," says Laurel.

"Yeah... I did see this kind of thing a lot. Sometimes, you just get used to seeing this," Imogen replied, a bit flustered.

Every round, she felt weird when she meets Laurel again. She can feel the familiarity, but also knows that the Laurel in front of her is still considering her as a stranger. She is the only one carrying all the memories and emotions, but the counterpart does not know a single thing.

"Must have been hard for you," says Laurel while she shily reached her hand to Imogen's back and gently patted her back.

Imogen smiled at Laurel, and her eyes glistened. Despite Laurel not carrying all the memories that Imogen had of them together, Laurel kept being someone that Imogen cannot help but feel warmth towards.

"I was lucky that I was not alone during all those times," says Imogen while looking at Laurel.

The daily mission became more straightforward than the first day since there were ghouls who will jump on Kyrie and the group to get a chance to dig their teeth on some flesh. Despite the killings happening in broad daylight, none of the ghouls that acted as humans ever stepped in to do anything. In fact, they almost complained that the five of them are littering in front of their shops. Yes, it was littering bodies. It is incredible to see how powerful human attachments and sentiments are. Their lingering human emotions no longer fit in their changing bodies of another nature, but they still hold on to them, even if it meant for them to reject reality.

Kyrie and the rest followed the gold line on the ground that seems to be guiding them somewhere. He watched the ghouls walk on top of the line like they did not see the flashy strange line on the ground. Looking at how oblivious everyone other than the five of them seems about the gold line, Kyrie is sure that only they can see the gold line. It might be something to do with the daily mission because the five of them were the only ones who accomplished the mission. Last night, they did not see other humans fighting against the ghouls as well, so they concluded that most likely, people rejected that such a crazy game was actually happening. Even if they might consider that such a game is happening, they will prefer to live one more day than die.

They stopped in front of tall stone doors from the bell tower that was located in the center of the town. The gold line went underneath the stone doors into the bell tower. The bell tower stood up like a sore thumb amongst the buildings that surrounded it. This bell tower was not here the day before, because there is no way for anyone to miss such a magnificent structure, especially the doors. If anyone would say anything about the carvings on the doors, it is belittling even if they were praised for being beautiful. To be more precise, the building itself looked otherworldly. The building was thoroughly decorated by carved out images. Surrounding the first floor of the building, each side, there were three circular columnseach column richly decorated with detailed carvings of organic shapes that had similitude to flowers and plants. The two stone doors are made up of one image of a gorgeous woman. Her expression was gentle and calm as the soft sunlight from dawn, pleasing and soft on the eyes. Her body was decorated with delicate, simple robes and fine jewelry, and her hand was wrapped around by a snake. Flowers framed the picture.

[What a beautiful woman goddess Phanes was! The aesthetics of this world does not disappoint me. Of course, aside from abominations of that Oscar. I am still bothered by the contradictions of his appearance and his magic attributes. I should really suggest him to dye his hair.]

If Yue were to hear what Kyrie is thinking about, she would have just facepalmed. Yue was called back to stay next to Vita since Yue is still a god despite not having any essence. There was a complaint about Yue from other gods that Yue is getting involved way too much, causing the wheels of fate to turn weirdly. She looked reluctant to go, but it is not because of her attachment to Kyrie. She is just a useless glutton and cannot part with food.

"Wow! Do you think I can take some of the carvings apart?" Nate marvelled at the carvings.

"You really collect anything that catches your eyes," says Kyrie.

"Yeah... haha. I always liked to collect things," says Nate while touching the surface of the carving on the wall while looking a bit sentimental.

"How are we going to enter?" asked Laurel looking at the giant stone doors, "these look really heavy to push open."

Imogen touched the doors, and unlike how Laurel thought, the stone doors reacted to Imogen's touch by opening themselves to invite the five of them into the bell tower. When peering inside the opening doors, there was only darkness. However, as soon as the doors opened fully, the torches inside lighted themselves up, showing the gigantic hall inside. They walked into the hall where the floors were covered in a red carpet. The walls were red with tiny gold decorated flowers. The most peculiar sight of the hall would be the statue of a giant gold serpent that hangs from the ceilingthe statue carved of a snake reaching towards the ground as its lower body was wrapped around branches. The figure covered the entire ceiling with the giant body of the snake. The carving looked realistic due to the fine details, and the eyes were made out of red gemstone. Once everyone was inside, the bell in the tower rang, and the doors swing shut. A stone door also slid down to block the way towards the stair to the second floor.

Then, the room started to move. All of them began to slide to the right side of the room when the room started to turn like the floor they were standing was no longer attached to the ground. The right wall soon became where they were standing, but the room continued to move. When the room stopped moving, they were standing on the serpent statue. They were standing on the ceiling and now looking up to the floor that they stepped into when they entered into the bell tower. The serpent from their viewpoint was now reaching towards the sky. Then, harmonious sounds of hissing came underneath the statue. Hundreds of snakes creeped out of the figure. They rattle their tails but would come closer. Usually, snakes would warn but keep themselves away. However, these snakes were rattling their tails and slither towards Kyrie and the rest.

Without hesitation, Imogen drew her sword and started to slice the serpents apart. The rest followed suit. However, no matter how they cut the snakes apart, the parts would regenerate into more snakes.

"Don't cut them apart! They are duplicating if we cut them apart!" shouts Kyrie.

Soon, the snake started to wrap around their legs and move up towards their body. The grip and sliding sensation of the snakes moving up their bodies was enough to shake their hearts. Nate let out screams of panic as the snakes wrapped around him till his chest and continued to move up.

"No... No! Get off! Ahhh!" Nate screamed as he tried to take off the snakes from his body.

Kyrie looked at Imogen, also struggling to keep the snakes away despite being the most successful at it. Kyrie looked around for clues. There must be clues. Kyrie hit the snakes away from Ian and continued to backstep. Although these snakes were not biting them, the snake seems to want to somehow wrap the person around with their bodies, but why?

"There must be clues. Everyone... Think! There must be a way to stop the snakes!" screamed Kyrie.

Nate collapses down with his entire body being wholly wrapped around snakes. Kyrie frowned, looking at Nate being crushed. He looked at Ian, and they both understood what they wanted to do. Ian ran towards Nate and started to take the snakes off him. Kyrie followed Ian and tried to swing the snakes away from them. Ian finally was able to take off the snakes from Nate's face helping Nate to be able to breathe again. Kyrie lets out a breath of relief and continues to block the snakes from going anywhere close to Ian.

"I can't think in these kinds of the situation!" whined Laurel while being extremely busy hitting the snakes off of her. She is heavily breathing and tired.

Imogen swings off the snakes on Laurel's feet. She grabs Laurel and puts Laurel behind her, where the snakes cannot get to.

[There are so many snakes, so there must be something about snakes. Snakes... what about snakes??]

The carving of Goddess Phanes appeared in his mind.

"Ah!" Kyrie realizes, "I read this somewhere before! The eyes! It must be the eyes!"

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