Mystery: emerging from the wilderness of knowledge

Chapter 666: The Game of the World Tree (Part )

Audrey moved closer to the steamy glass window and suddenly noticed a little girl huddled in a corner. She was wearing very light clothes and her body was covered with a layer of white snow. She was holding a wicker basket tightly in her arms, but she couldn't see what was inside.

Noticing Audrey's gaze, Renekton glanced out the window and asked casually:

"Do you want to help her?"

Audrey came back to her senses. The figure of the little girl made her feel inexplicably sad. She lowered her voice and asked:
"Is she part of the story, too? It seems like a somewhat sad story?"

"Yes." Renekton responded with a slight nod.

Klein, who was sitting across from the dining table, also noticed this. He followed Renekton and Audrey's gaze and looked out the window, where he saw the little girl curled up in the corner.

He looked a little strange and asked, "The little match girl? How should I interact with her? Help her light the matches, or give her food?"

Renekton shook his head and did not answer the question directly:

"You need to explore on your own. Maybe with your help, the little girl will successfully see her grandmother. Or maybe, with your help, everyone in the town will see her grandmother."

Is this the little girl who sells nuclear bombs? Klein's mouth twitched. He thought this was a bit ridiculous, but he also felt that Renekton could really do such a thing.

He wanted to ask something else, but Renekton suddenly stood up and said:

"Other people are coming. I will go to the square to guide them. You are free to explore and leave or stay in this town. I wish you a pleasant experience."

As soon as he finished speaking, Renekton's figure instantly melted into rays of "light" composed of vast and pure knowledge, and surged away from here.

"What do we do next?"

Audrey looked at the "world" dressed up by the magician. Whether it was the familiarity with the story that he had just shown or his identity as a great adventurer, he was undoubtedly the most experienced of the three.

“Let’s go out and take a look.” Klein answered thoughtfully.

Then he got up from his chair, took a piece of toast from the table and walked out of the restaurant.

Audrey followed immediately, and Leonard stood up reluctantly. He really didn't want to stay in the snow wearing thin clothes. Without the physical fitness of a Beyonder, the weather outside was really freezing.

As soon as they reached the door of the restaurant, the three were stopped by the waiter, who asked them to pay before taking the food out of the restaurant.

Klein returned to his seat with a plate of toast on his face with an expressionless face. Audrey and Leonard, who were following behind him, were embarrassed while the other was trying not to laugh.

After he stopped smiling, Leonard asked, "What should we do now? Should we go out and find that little girl?"

Klein shook his head and said, "What we should think about now is how to get out of this restaurant, unless you have the money to pay for the food."

"I don't even know what the currency of this world is."

Leonard shrugged, but still reached out and fumbled through his thin clothes, trying to find some gold coins or other things that could be used to pay for the meal.

Audrey looked helplessly at her gorgeous evening dress, which didn't even have a pocket.

I never thought that one day I would be forced to stay in a restaurant because I couldn't afford the meal. This is really a wonderful experience. As the thought floated in her mind, she looked at Klein, who was dressed as a magician, and asked uncertainly:

"Mr. World, you are a magician now. You should have some gold coins on you as magic props, right?"

Klein nodded heavily and said:

"Yes, but I can't use it. Just like the Wandering Poet's harp, it is part of my identity and cannot be discarded or traded."

"Are we going to run away?"

Leonard looked at Klein in disbelief. Even if this was not the real world, his moral standards would not allow him to do such a thing, especially with acquaintances around.

The three of them looked at each other in silence for a moment. Klein suddenly looked at Leonard and said:

"There is another way. Find Paris Zoroaster. He will most likely be able to sense some of your situation."

Leonard answered Klein silently with his eyes: Do you think this is reliable?

While they were struggling, a rabbit dressed as a postman, carrying a cross-body bag and riding a bicycle with two tires came straight through the wall and into the restaurant.

Under the puzzled and curious gazes of Klein and the other two, it took out a few gold coins from its messenger bag. The front of the coins had an eye surrounded by stars, and the back had different numbers of carrots. It handed them to the three of them and said,

"This is the initial funding for the three of you. I'm very sorry, but I'm not very familiar with the routes in the fairy tale world, so I'm a little late."

As soon as the words fell, the postman rabbit rode a bicycle that was just the right size for it and left the restaurant through the wall.

Klein and the other two looked at each other, not knowing where to start their complaints. When they paid and brought the food from the restaurant to the alley outside the glass window, the little girl who had been huddled in the corner had already left.

"This..." Audrey was stunned for a moment, her eyes quickly searching the street.

Soon, she saw the little girl in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of a cake shop. She was staring at the cake in the window and swallowing her saliva.

"She's over there."

As she spoke, Audrey took a step forward, and the little girl's figure suddenly shattered and turned into a dim flame that was blown out by the wind and snow.

When Audrey came to her senses, she saw a burning matchstick in her hand.

She turned her head in panic and looked at the "world" and "stars" behind her, and found that they were looking at her in confusion.

Klein noticed the extra burnt match in Audrey's hand and thought of a mysterious reappearance that Renekton had used before. He then spoke:

"You just fell into a hallucination, or we all fell into a hallucination. This is very similar to a mysterious reappearance that the 'occultist' can master. I saw the 'White Tower' use it before."

"Mysterious reappearance? If she has such a powerful match, why would she be hungry?"

Audrey expressed her incomprehension of the little match girl's behavior.

Klein shook his head and guessed, "Perhaps it is necessary to follow the original storyline."

After a two-second pause, he added:

"I suspect that the real and effective knowledge mentioned by the White Tower refers to the knowledge that can draw power to complete the mysterious reappearance. If we want to obtain this knowledge, we will inevitably be affected by the power contained in the knowledge itself."

"It seems that it will not be easy for us to find her."

Leonard curled his lips and sighed, and suddenly, in the snowy sky, the sound of crisp bells came from a distance.

Jingle bells~ding bells~~
As the sound of the bells got closer, the three saw several reindeer pulling a red sleigh passing through the sky. On the sleigh was a fat old man with gray hair and beard. He was wearing a bright red suit and a red pointed hat with a small white ball hanging on it on his head.

He was carrying a huge red cloth package on his back, which was filled with gift boxes of various sizes. There were also many red gift boxes piled on his sleigh, so many that they seemed like they would fall off at any time.

“Santa Claus?” Klein murmured in disbelief.

He thought of the story of Santa Claus, and then stretched out his hands towards the sleigh passing through the sky. Since it was a mysterious reappearance, perhaps even children could get gifts.

In his sight, a red gift box really fell down, landing towards them and landing in the hands of Miss "Justice" who also stretched out her right hand like him.

Klein blinked in confusion. Is this reasonable? We are all adults. Is the Ice Queen more noble than the magician?
After complaining in his heart for a while, Klein reluctantly accepted the fact that Santa Claus treated him differently. He looked at the gift box in Miss Justice's hand with some curiosity.

Audrey looked at the heavy gift box in her hand and said in confusion:

"What is this? Was it given to me? Or did it fall off the sleigh, er, reindeer sleigh?"

“Since it’s in your hands, it should be a gift for you. Let’s see what gift is inside.” Klein responded calmly.

Audrey nodded and tore open the ribbon that wrapped the gift box. A piece of paper fell out with the ribbon, with a line of words in Loenese on it:

To the most noble Snow Queen, Merry Christmas!
“What is Christmas?”

Audrey asked curiously, then opened the gift box, revealing a sleigh model inside.

Audrey took the model in her hands and praised it from the bottom of her heart: "What a delicate model, it's in no way inferior to the works of those masters."

Klein stared at the model consisting of three reindeer and a sleigh, thought for a moment, and suggested to Audrey:

"Try to use the magic of this identity. Since it's a gift from Santa Claus to the Snow Queen, it shouldn't be too bad. Maybe it's a special prop."

"Let me try."

Audrey nodded, holding the model in both hands, and tried to concentrate and mobilize the magic power of the Snow Queen in the same way as using extraordinary abilities.

A thin layer of frost quickly covered the surface of the model, and it suddenly became heavier and fell from Audrey's hand. The moment it touched the snow, it expanded and turned into a real sled.

"How magical." Audrey exclaimed. She could feel a faint connection between herself and the sled.

Leonard looked at the sled that suddenly became a real thing in front of him and said in disbelief:
"Could that Santa Claus just now be a powerful 'craftsman'? Any gift he gave was a magical item."

(End of this chapter)