Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 12: New Game Launch [Complete]

1446: Isn't It Polite to Shake Hands?

"Do you see the cake inside?" Lin Sanjiu asked, holding the back of the Artist's head and pointing at the car window. The Artist seemed dazed when given any command other than to draw. She rummaged through the card inventory for a while before she found the chocolate cake card the Artist had drawn in the family pocket dimension. "Isn't this card the same as that? You drew it, didn't you?"

Even without asking the Artist, she was already 70-80% sure. It was just that the reality seemed so surreal that she felt the need to confirm with the Artist himself.

The Artist moved his gaze between the car window and the card a few times before nodding. His expression looked like his entire worldview had crumbled—if he even had one.

Lin Sanjiu patted his shoulder in sympathy. As a Special Item whose innate duty was to transform real objects into drawings, the realization that his drawings could, in turn, become real must have been both bewildering and shocking, much like her feelings at that moment.

She flicked the cake card with her fingernail, her eyes fixated on the cake inside the car. However, it didn't move an inch.

"Draw me another one," she said, handing him a blank card. "This time, draw something... um, easy to spot. Draw a skyscraper."

The skyscraper card was completed within minutes. Lin Sanjiu described its details and locked them in. However, even when she climbed up a utility pole, she saw no skyscraper suddenly rise from the ground.

"Strange." She massaged her temples, feeling that the list of strange occurrences was too long. She did not know where to start—every situation defied common sense.

If this place was her card inventory, how did Advaita get her in here? And if it wasn't her card inventory, why would the chocolate cake the Artist drew appear here?

It seemed she had to ask Advaita.

"The question is, how do I get out?" Lin Sanjiu circled back to this problem, her hand buried in her messy hair, her mind buzzing. When alone, she talked to herself more and communicated with Mrs. Manas in her mind, hating the silence that felt as if she was the only person left in the world.

This space couldn't be broken from the inside because nothing had the time to achieve a broken state. She could convert intangible energy into cards but not the conceptual space. Trapped in this unique cage, she couldn't make a sound, let alone regain her freedom. Even with Conscious Mimicry activated to think like Ji Shanqing, Lin Sanjiu was at a loss.

'After all, I'm not Ji Shanqing. Some knowledge is just beyond grasp. Even if I change my way of thinking, I still won't know.' She contemplated in her grand prize mindset for a few minutes, then eventually turned off the mimicry to conserve her mental energy.

"Can I really not get out of here on my own?"

She paused for a moment, filled with unwillingness and resentment. After all, Advaita aimed to capture Silvan and take him back. It's uncertain whether she would use her as leverage. If Silvan were to suffer because of her, how could Lin Sanjiu forgive herself?

She jumped up, emptied all the items from the card inventory, and canceled their card transformation. They piled up into a small mountain in the parking lot. As the useless humanoid Special Items chatted among themselves, she, like a mole, searched inside and out of the mountain. After carefully examining each card, she would then store it back into the card inventory, fearing that she might miss something useful.

By the time the mountain had been reduced by half, the only potentially useful thing she found was a communication device from the Munitions Factory, which she didn't remember collecting.