Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 105: Campnavia, Three Seconds of Doom
I still cannot recall how I made it back to Campnavia, something I had tried desperately to avoid during the past 768 horrible days.
It’s not that I don’t miss it, on the contrary, it’s precisely because this is perhaps the place I miss the most in the entire Falvi continent that I’ve been avoiding it for a long time.
As I once said, during this time, I haunted every corner of the Falvi continent, enjoying the stability of standing on my feet and savoring the sweetness of breathing through my mouth and nose - even if such wonderful time lasted only half a minute, fifteen seconds, or even only five seconds or three seconds.
I recorded the beauty of this continent with my own eyes, and also traced back my beautiful memories. Every hill, every plain, every cave, every village... Before this, even I had never realized that I had left so many marks in this beautiful world. Every adventure, every battle, every joke, and even every embarrassing situation became so warm and beautiful in my memory.
But the paradox is that the places of my memories that I am willing to revisit, dare to pursue and explore are only those ordinary, mundane and insignificant places. Those places that are truly imprinted in the deepest part of my soul and give me the most cherished and precious memories, are the ones I dare not set foot in.
This is a feeling that you may find difficult to understand: every time I appear in a place, I will risk being discovered by the search power of this world, and once I am discovered by it, it will completely shatter and delete the place where I am, and rebuild it. Although the place after reconstruction is exactly the same as the original one, even the slightest wrinkles on someone's clothes, or the way the gravel on the ground rolls will not be the slightest different - in fact, we all know that all of this is determined by the data codes with decisive power hidden in the source world. If the code it reconstructs is exactly the same as the original, then the appearance shown in the surface world will naturally be no different.
Yes, to you, there may be no difference between the two - you may not even notice that they have completed the entire deletion and reconstruction process in a split second.
Yet, to me, it was all so real and so important that I could not ignore it.
I cannot accept that a building that carries my important memories was brutally demolished and rebuilt, I cannot accept that a person who is vital to my life was killed and then cloned, I cannot accept that they completely deleted and then refreshed the existence of those things in which I placed countless real emotions - even if the scenery and life that reappear are exactly the same as before, for me, they are no longer the original things, but some other strange things wearing the same coat but completely different.
Don't tell me that all this is determined by the digital world of origin, don't tell me that those living people originally have no life and soul, and don't tell me that those old and dilapidated buildings originally existed only in the imagination of a certain designer.
Even more pessimistically speaking, every time the world restarts, it means that all data is refreshed and operated again. In a sense, every time the world is lit up again, everything changes again, which means that the "original" version of everything I cherish in this world no longer exists.
Yes, I understand, I understand, I know it all very clearly.
However, in this world, everyone has some things in their heart that they can't figure out, can't let go of, and can't get over. Knowing these things is one thing, but accepting them all without any worries is another.
I can accept the restart of this world, because each restart includes myself. Perhaps from a certain academic perspective, the original me has been completely destroyed, replaced by a brand new Jeffreys Kidd. However, I cannot deny my own existence. It is precisely because I fully identify with my own existence that I also agree that the world is the "same" as the original one.
However, this reconstruction after deletion is completely different. I once hid in the digital shadow of the source world and glimpsed the process of all this happening: the irresistible and violent force completely erased the original part in the blink of an eye, ruthlessly turning them into nothingness, and then filled it with a brand new piece of data that was exactly the same as the original - this was a copy and replica of everything in the original, even if they were exactly the same as the original, they were just "exactly the same". You know, the word "exactly the same" itself means that they are two different things.
Therefore, I always cherished the deep longing for her, but at the same time I was cautiously dodging, fearing that my uncontrollable impulse would evolve into an irreparable and irreversible disaster. I didn't want to lose the place where I was born at the city gate, nor did I want to lose my wise and kind alchemy teacher Mr. Edgwell. More importantly, deep in this city, on that quiet path named after the flower of love, in that warm and fragrant little bakery, there lived a beautiful girl.
Marianne, even just calling her name makes my breathing become extra gentle. How can I let the slightest danger approach her because of myself?
I must be crazy to come back here, risking everything being destroyed, to return to this place that fills me with warm memories and deep affection. I don't know how much regret and self-blame I will feel if my rash behavior leads to the erasure and reconstruction of all this.
All I know is that I can no longer stop the tormenting longing.
Missing you is fire, with your soul as fuel, it will only make you burn more and more vigorously in agony until the end of your life; Missing you is water, with time as a channel, it will only make you drift further and further away until the end of your years.
It is a kind of disease, fanatical and crazy, which makes you abandon all rationality. Even though you know everything is so dangerous, and it may even bring danger to everything you cherish most, you will still put aside everything to pursue and search for it, and use it to fill the strongest and most gentle desire in the depths of your soul.
Yes, this is exactly why I came to Campanavia. After resisting for 768 long days, I finally succumbed to the longing in my heart and returned here once again.
Before coming here, I made unprecedented precise arrangements, and even gave up an opportunity to descend into this world twelve days ago; I made in-depth statistics and calculations on my previous locations and the time when I was discovered, hoping to find even the slightest pattern in the emergence of this world's search force; I chose to descend at the moment when the search force's last scan had just ended, in the hope that its search force, which could erupt at any time, would not come back in a short time.
I even silently prayed for good luck to all the gods I knew in my heart - even though I knew how ridiculous all this was in this world determined by the laws of code.
I roughly estimated that if everything went well, I could stay in this city for four to ten seconds. But I didn't want to take any risks and gamble with all these beautiful things on an unknown luck. So, I only dared to stay here for three seconds.
Three seconds, this insignificant time is not enough for my beloved Mr. Edgware to shrug at you and say with a silly smile, "It's just a little accident", but this is all my humble desire and great happiness.
I first landed in an alley outside Mr. Edgwell's residence. The angle here was very good, and I could see the front door of Mr. Edgwell's house from a distance. The reason why I chose this place was that with the continuous changes in the Farwell Continent, the role of alchemy was increasingly valued by the space-related people, and as a result, more and more students joined Mr. Edgwell. I was worried that if I suddenly appeared in his residence, I might be discovered by the space-related people who came to study, so I could only take a look from a distance.
When I arrived, a thick black smoke was gushing out of the dilapidated two-story building of Mr. Edgware's house, hiding a blazing fire, which looked terrifying.
My learned teacher, he messed up that simple basic experiment again. I tried to imagine what the students who were learning alchemy knowledge around him would look like: were they shocked and panicked by this sudden explosion? Or were they scared and cursed by this malicious joke? Or were they accustomed to it and were not moved at all?
No matter what, the cute old man with a black face would definitely be shaking his head, showing his white teeth, smiling and comforting everyone present, telling them "Don't worry, it's just a small accident."
With just a thought, I disappeared from the spot in an instant. When I reappeared, I was already in a two-story building on Rose Street. This building was just an ordinary residential building with nothing inside. It was simply a useless place that those who dabble in space were too lazy to set foot in. I could come here with confidence and boldness without worrying about suddenly disturbing other dabble in space.
In addition, standing at the open window on the second floor, I can clearly see the store with the brass sign of "Santa Bakery" across the street, which is one of the many benefits of this house.
Just as I imagined, in the bright afternoon sunshine, the lovely bakery girl Marian Santa was sitting behind the counter, with her chin on one hand, quietly looking at the sky outside the window.
From my perspective, it looked like she was looking at me.
The afternoon sun shines through the window and gently touches her cheek, making her smile even brighter. At this moment, I am even a little dazed, not knowing whether it is the sun that illuminates her face or her smile that illuminates the world.
Just this sweet smile made me feel that all my previous hard work and this adventurous action were worth it - no, in fact, all the hard work I put in and the dangers I faced were simply insignificant in front of this bright smile. For this moment, no matter how much I paid, it was worth it.
I had already stayed outside Mr. Edgware's house for one second, and here I only had two seconds left for myself. Originally, these should have been the happiest and most beautiful two seconds in my life, and the most luxurious happiness I have ever known was probably nothing more than this.
However, the cruelty of this world lies in this: it always generously gives some extra luck to those who are lucky, allowing them to effortlessly enjoy the happiness that others can hardly hope for in their entire lives; at the same time, it is extremely stingy to those who really need the help of good luck, and brings the worst misfortune to them at the moment when they need good luck the most.
Just as I was about to leave, a boundless and huge force suddenly surged from the end of the source world. The force roared and rushed straight towards me, effortlessly destroying the many obstacles I left behind along the way.
Yes, the omnipresent searching force hidden behind this world was activated once again, and happened to scan the area where I was staying.
Three seconds, just three seconds after the last scan, this sharp and cunning search force restarted again, and locked my position accurately when my heart was rippling. The disguises I set up before were completely vulnerable and were easily swept away by the obliteration force that appeared later - in fact, I didn't expect them to play a role in resisting, I just hoped that they would give me an early warning as soon as possible before I was discovered.
It should be said that these disguised data traps played their role very well. When they sounded the alarm, I still had at least five seconds to escape far away and hide again. In fact, I only needed less than half a second to react to complete the whole action.
However, as I worried before, once I escaped, the killing force would lose its target and wreak havoc wherever I fled. It would indiscriminately wipe out everything here, even completely destroying half of the city, and then rebuilding it. And all the natives in this half of the city, those completely innocent people who were powerless to resist, would become victims of this disaster - including, of course, the beautiful bakery girl Marian.
At this time, Marian Santa was still looking up at the sun outside the window with a smile, unaware of the impending disaster.
How could I let such a beautiful face be destroyed by it?
However, can I surrender my life without any worries and let it be erased because of a crime that never happened?
A green tide flashed by, and I dived back into the source world. Messy data jumped and flashed inside me, revealing my trembling body.
That's because of fear, because all living things born in this world fear the greatest force that is irreversible in the rules of this world.
