Once again, time had gone backwards. Sands didn't mind that fact too much anymore, because he'd found something to do in this damned underground that never seemed to end, only go back. There were quite a few moral, ethical, legal, and social problems with that entertainment, but when he was done, there was no one left to judge whether it was right or wrong, so he didn't care what anyone thought.
It was a one-way street that could easily become boring, but the fact that the monsters to target varied from region to region and reacted differently depending on how he acted made it worth doing repeatedly, and the fact that he had a competitor who also targeted the same monsters and acted differently each time encouraged him to be competitive and strategic, making it a great hobby for a dreary underground.
These days, Sands was analyzing the subterranean monsters to make his hobby more effective, and his scientific temperament came into play. It wasn't just about efficiency. What is the personality of a monster, how much EXP does it have, is it aggressive, defensive, or evasive, and even if it is one way or the other, what situations do you need to put it in to make it behave differently. What are its relationships with other monsters....
For example, Mr. Mo, a monster living in Hotland, is quiet and shy, with a penchant for sweet foods. He doesn't have a close relationship with his neighbors, and it's hard for him to get close to them; if he sees someone killing his neighbor, he runs away screaming; if someone attacks him with the intention of killing him, he gives up fighting and accepts his fate easily; but if he sees his friend being attacked because he was the first one to reach out to him, he lunges at the attacker without regard for his own life, giving his friend time to escape.... Same thing.
As Mr. Sands was contemplating what to do this time, someone said.
"Why don't you do it in moderation?"
Sitting in the chair at the lookout, Sands couldn't see anything. When he got up from his chair and looked around the lookout, he looked down and saw a yellow flower looking up at him. It was the same yellow flower that grew in the netherworld of his new home, but it had a "face," a face that expressed clear displeasure.
While chasing monsters, I would sometimes be followed by something unidentifiable. The first few times I thought it was a live monster following me, but it was annoying because I was counting the number of monsters in the area, and I could feel it, even though there were obviously no more living monsters. It would disappear as soon as I realized it was following me and stopped walking, which only added to my annoyance. Maybe it was this flower. But what was this? Sands searched her memories of the old timelines. Many things flashed by.
The talking flower that had bound everyone in the timeline that had gone to the surface. A vague memory of when the talking flower had taken his soul.
I settled on a candidate. The first golden candle, the one that bloomed before the others grew - he used to trespass into unauthorized places in search of clues to stop us. Alas, there was little information that could be of any use. -The laboratory where he ran experiments to extract will from souls. -The flower is gone.
Have you ever heard of a talking flower? Sometimes, when no one is around, a flower will appear and whisper to you. Flattery, advice, encouragement, even prophecies. The Floy fan club his brother had encouraged him to join one day-though as far as he knew, there were no monsters named "Floy" anywhere underground.
And older memories, before the humans came.
Ah, the predecessors.
Sands said to Flawi, who looked at him with a frown.
"Hmm, I haven't done anything yet."
"Nothing, ha! You're talking nonsense. After all that killing, you haven't done anything?"
