Familiar

Translator: Cinder Translations

--------

The "townsfolk" in Blackstone Town had abandoned their disguise and began hunting down the survivors in the most brutal manner possible.

The fatty had never felt he could run so fast.

All those statues—they were alive!

And they had teamed up with the other "townsfolk" who had arrived, lying in wait and hanging upside down at the ceiling of the building's main hall, step by step, waiting for their prey to approach.

The building's effect as a safe zone had vanished, which was why the doctor had insisted on rushing out.

The sound of claws scraping, the flapping of wings, and various mixed noises followed them closely. The fatty wanted to turn around and look, but he didn't dare.

He feared that seeing those monsters clearly would destroy his will to survive.

These ugly creatures weren't as clumsy as they first appeared. They were fast, like a pack of wolves, relentlessly trying to bite at the two of them from behind.

Only when they reached the forest, with the cover of trees, did things improve slightly.

"Doctor, the building's restriction on them is gone," the fatty's tongue felt thick, and his face was as white as if painted with a layer of paint.

The doctor, leading the way, cleared the thick bushes with a swipe, his face strange, his eyes even stranger, as if he was conflicted about something, making the fatty feel anxious.

Around them, the sounds of scraping and branches breaking continued, as those monsters followed them into the forest.

"Doctor," the fatty hurried after the doctor, his mouth slightly open but stopping as if he wasn't sure how to phrase his thoughts. "I was thinking, since the building no longer restricts them, why didn't they attack us in the hall earlier?"

He swallowed, and the "rustling" sound in his ears forced him to speed up. "If they attacked then, I don't think we'd have had a chance to make it into the forest."

The path the doctor had chosen was steep, which helped with hiding, and also made it more difficult for the monsters to climb, given their body shape.

Compared to chasing on flat ground, their greater advantage should be in the sea.

The doctor, cautiously exploring ahead, tested a low spot to ensure it could bear his weight before continuing up. "It's a hunt," he said.

"A hunt?" The fatty blinked in confusion.

He wasn't unfamiliar with the term. When he was little, his grandparents in a small rural town raised him. On warm afternoons, his grandfather would sit in an old rattan chair, squinting his eyes while listening to radio dramas, watching him play.

Sometimes, his grandfather would excitedly tell him historical anecdotes, though he would always resist.

But over time, he had actually remembered quite a lot.

The term "hunt" was one of them.

Hunts were a common activity in ancient royal circles, especially among the Central Plains dynasties and northern nomadic tribes.

It was a team sport.

Specifically, it was when they would enclose a certain area to drive wild animals toward a designated spot and then kill them.

"They want to drive us toward the stone slab?" the fatty asked, horrified. This wasn't hard to guess.

"I can't think of another reason," the doctor said, his wounds severely limiting his movement. The dense bushes scratched his cuts from time to time.

"Doctor, what you're saying about the hunt makes sense, but I feel like... they don't just want to kill us," the fatty thought for a moment, then continued, "I feel like their goal isn't as simple as killing us."

The fatty paused, then grabbed the doctor's arm. "Doctor," he suddenly said, "Doesn't this seem familiar?"

The doctor's actions stopped. He lowered his body, using a large rock next to him to hide, and then turned to face the fatty. "Go on."

"Do you remember what we saw near the stone slab?" The fatty hurried, speaking quickly.

"You mean the invaders forcing the indigenous people of Blackstone Town..."

The fatty licked his lips and nodded. "Yes, doctor, think about it. Those invaders gathered the natives, then drove them into the forest, finally near the stone slab..."

"Doesn't it sound like our current situation?" The fatty hinted.

After a moment of thought, the doctor looked up at the fatty. There was something in his eyes that the fatty didn't fully understand. "You're right," the doctor nodded. "The objectives must be the same; otherwise, it doesn't make sense."

Squatting behind the rock, the fatty peered through the gaps in the bushes, trying to see where those monsters had gone, then sighed. "But I still don't understand what their real plan is."

The doctor leaned against the rock, the constant "rustling" sounds around them made him uneasy. The eerie atmosphere in the forest had become much thicker as the mission neared its end.

It was starting to affect his thinking.

But as he looked up, the fatty in front of him seemed to be doing better. Though terrified, his mind was clearer than before.

These two hunts, separated by centuries, clearly had a connection, but where exactly did that link lie?

And was there a way out?

Various clues began to form in the doctor's mind, separated into distinct parts, piecing together, with the meaningless ones discarded, and the new ones reanalysed.

Then, a bloodstained face appeared in his mind.

The image froze.

It was the face of a girl, not particularly beautiful, but still striking in its own way. Her face was covered in blood, and her body had been cleaved in two.

She was the elder's granddaughter.

Then, like a camera shutter snapping, terrifying smiling faces began to bloom in his mind. They were all victims of brutal slaughter, but they all wore eerie smiles.

They were the indigenous people who had been slaughtered before.

They were smiling, as if their conspiracy had succeeded.

A massive influx of information flooded the doctor's mind, intertwining, nearly overwhelming him. But in the next moment, he suddenly looked up, and his gaze turned serene.

He had found the connection between the two events.

He now understood the true objective of the monsters following them.

Killing them wasn't the goal. The true purpose of these creatures was to drive them to the stone slab, where they would be killed, just like those "indigenous people" who died with smiles on their faces.

They just wanted to escape.

It was a cycle.

(End of the Chapter.)

---

Read (NS) on Pa.treon@CinderTL - c314.

Early Access at $1.

Translated (4) Series, (1.8K+) Chapters, (2.25M+) Words.