Chapter 281: Chapter 281 Book

In front of the familiar bell tower building.

About twenty selected apprentice knight teams were waiting here, with many from the new teams looking dreadful, pressured, and even losing sleep over it.

This was Han Dong’s third time at the bell tower.

Even though today’s fate event will increase the difficulty through the ‘card,’ and possibly even completely distort the original fate event.

However, Han Dong remained calm and without pressure.

The night spent in the Royal Lion Hotel put Han Dong in the best state, ready to deal with any dangerous events.

The time has come.

With the release of steam, the copper pipes descended.

The next second should have been when the ‘Clockmaker’ came out from inside, but…

But, in Han Dong’s eyes,

A red balloon was seen floating out from inside.

Then, a clown, Pennywise, in a fluffy costume and face painted white, jumped out of the bell tower door.

With a lively dance step, and leading a red balloon, he came to Han Dong.

Utilizing his big nose on Han Dong, sniffered all over.

“Hmm… a sense of danger!

You seem to be on an extraordinary adventure again… Don’t die midway, I’m still waiting for your visit in Derry Town.”

The clown pointed at his empty right arm sleeve:

“But… I always feel something bad is going to happen this time!

You cut off my arm, didn’t you? When in danger, you can use it… maybe it can help you survive. I don’t want you to die in another world just like that.”

Pop! The balloon burst.

The balloon that the clown was holding burst.

Abe snapped his fingers in front of Han Dong.

“Nicholas…are you okay?”

“I’m fine!”

When Han Dong came back to his senses, only their small team was left outside the bell tower.

“The clown…the arm?”

Han Dong had always stored that arm in a sterile lab, completely constrained by the detection device. Because of his Load Limit limit, he had to put it aside for now.

“Let’s think about it when we really meet the danger.”

When the last team entered the bell tower.

It was the usual series of inspections, waiting process… listening to the sound of millions of gears interacting inside the bell tower, the small team finally arrived in front of the Door of Fate.

When staring at the deep ‘Door’ leading to the unknown,

Winry, the blacksmith, who was here for the first time, was a little scared.

Mia immediately put her face up to it, letting Winry relax through kisses and caresses… It seemed that after last night’s enjoyment, their relationship has gotten better.

“Let’s go!”

Abe held the Fate Card (Scepter) in his hand.

Hand in hand, the four stepped in together.

“A Fate Card (Scepter) has been detected carried by a team member, do you want to use it?”

As Abe affirmed his intention,

Hum…

After a bout of ringing in the ear,

they were again in the familiar area before the start of the fate event—”Image Store”.

“Strange…isn’t it supposed to be random? Why would we come back to the Image Store?”

The previous times Han Dong was here, he used a Fate Card with the ‘Choice’ feature.

And made related choices at the Image Store.

But the card used this time lacks a ‘Choice’ feature, which only increases the difficulty.

Normally, they should have been directly teleported to a completely distorted World of Fate.

“Can’t see any of the CDs or books on these shelves…even if it’s ‘random,’ do we still have to make a choice?”

Unlike the past few times,

All the products in the Image Store were covered with thick black fog, which can’t be dissipated or see any content underneath.

A prompt from the System came.

“Please take any product on the shelf that corresponds to the ‘Fate Background’ and put your Fate Card into it for ‘fusion’…The fusion process is expected to take 30 minutes.

Reminder: Do not attempt to check the product information in any way, or the information will be erased.”

Since they can’t access any information, who chooses doesn’t really matter.

“Captain Abe, It’s your card, you make the decision.”

“Ok.”

Abe, who grew up in the Holy City, seemed to shun CDs, and went directly to the book area.

As per Mr. Black White’s request, Abe tried to pick an event with a ‘higher difficulty,’ but he couldn’t read the product information here.

Abe had a rather simple mindset, associating ‘thickness’ with ‘difficulty.’

He picked a rather thick book and placed it on the cashier’s counter.

Next, they would put the Fate Card into the book for fusion as instructed.

When Abe gently put the shiny card into the book, the golden light immediately dispelled the black fog on the book’s cover.

“Upgrading products…

Please do not casually move the book that is undergoing fusion during this process and do not touch other products in the Image Store.”

In cases where they couldn’t do anything, they could only stare at the cover of the book, which had its fog dispelled.

Two familiar characters appeared.

[Strange Tales]

The twisted font looked extremely gloomy, and the ‘mouth’ that formed the second character looked like a bottomless humanoid mouth. Inside it was a black eye as if staring at the reader.

The background picture of the book’s cover was a bizarre ‘crossroads.’

Upon detailed observation, many ‘interesting’ details could be discovered.

For example, a taxi waiting for the traffic light, the driver didn’t have hands at all.

A woman pushing a baby carriage on the sidewalk, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

It seemed that the display cabinet in the newsstand at the corner was filled with dried up human heads.

A piece of wrinkled skin hanging on the clothesline on the balcony of a household.

“Dongying… strange tales? A bit troublesome…”

Han Dong quickly identified the origin of this book.

This was not a book from his homeland in his former life, but from a small island country next to it.

Though the island country is small, it’s filled with numerous uncanny tales.

Many top directors of thrilling movies were born in this island country.

Moreover, the literary works they’ve created mostly have ‘Bad-Ending’ endings, and the ‘existences’ involved in them are almost unbeatable.

Han Dong didn’t watch much of these idealistic movies or books in his previous life.

He only heard from the internet about how scary the horror movies in the island country were, even to the point of scaring people to death.

Back then, Han Dong thought that even if it could scare people to death, it was only those suffering from serious heart disease brought it onto themselves.

Now that he thinks about it, he himself might also die in such a literary work, which seemed somewhat ironic.

“I guess, even without fusing the Fate Card… the World of Fate corresponding to this book would already be difficult.

I hope the card does not overly distort the original world, leading us to have no clue at all.

Miss Winry in our team will probably be very scared of this type of world setting…let Mia take good care of her.”

Waiting quietly.

With the gradual fusion of the card, the crossroad on the face of the book became ‘alive.’

“Fusion complete, scene is being created…”

Suddenly.

The book flipped open and pulled Han Dong and the others into it.

[Strange Tales]

Officially begins.