Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 991 Welcome to the Different World?

A group of people were walking on a dead silent street. The strangely shaped ruins of buildings around them and the lush shadows of trees above their heads made them feel like they were actually walking in the ruins of an ancient era. There were huge rocks collapsing everywhere, pressing the street down ten centimeters, and vines and weeds grew from the cracks, covering up the traces of people in the past.

The broken skyscrapers were like grayish-white towers, blocking the road ahead, forcing everyone to take detours, walk into narrow alleys, or even bend down and crawl under the arched ruins before they could move forward.

From the windows and faults of these collapsed buildings, towering ancient trees grew, crushing the rooms and leaving rubble and stones all over the ground. Their roots have become thoroughly entangled with the buildings, forming a harmonious state of mutual blending of natural and man-made objects. Under the gloomy tree canopy, a large number of aerial roots covered the walls and streets, like steam pipes in a huge mechanical fortress, coexisting with parasitic plants such as moss, lichens and mistletoe, and a primitive and lonely atmosphere permeated the mottled light and shadow.

They didn't know where to go, so they followed their intuition and headed towards the center of the ruins. Along the way, everyone was amazed at the sights they saw and was extremely curious about what was buried under the ruins, but they didn't dare to dig easily, for fear of offending the majesty of the goddess left in the sanctuary. The young queens occasionally looked up and tried to find a familiar feeling from the devastated scene, but it was all specious and far less real than a dream.

Only Alice was particularly active, even a little excited. Sometimes she climbed up the nearby ruins to look around, and sometimes she picked up a broken iron plate on the ground and tried to read the words on it clearly in the light that penetrated through the branches. At first, Lingge could keep her quiet, but the further they went in, the more impatient the golden-haired maid became. She even looked like she was expecting something and could not even listen to the young man's words.

"Ah!" After going around a lonely broken wall, Alice stepped on the roots of a white oak tree and shouted excitedly, "I found it!"

Found it? Found what!?
Everyone was startled and hurried to follow her, but when they got to Alice, they found that there was nothing special in the direction she was pointing, only an old, dilapidated building. The wall full of glass curtain windows was broken and collapsed, with more than half of it missing. The remaining part was occupied by aerial roots, vines and ivy extending from the cracks, covering the entire view lushly, like a dark green waterfall.

The street leading to the building was wide, with some broken poles and cables in the middle, and the top of a pole kept switching between red, yellow and green in a disorderly manner, making it difficult to figure out what they meant. There was even a square in front of the building's entrance, but it had long been occupied by weeds. The calf-high weeds stretched from the edge of the square to the end of the sight, covering the cracked red bricks. When the wind blew, the grass was bent, raising waves of green waves, looking as spectacular as the prairie in Lessenville.

Everyone looked at Alice, and Ling asked, "Do you know where this is, Alice?"

"Of course I know." The golden-haired maid put her hands on her hips and said proudly, "This is the largest Carrefour mall in the city. When the game console and cartridge developed by Game Command Company were launched, I won the grand prize here and got the limited edition game console and cartridge. For me, this is a blessed place!"

Ah this.

So you didn't discover anything, you just came here to reminisce about the past?

Everyone was a little disappointed, but soon realized that something seemed to be wrong.

"Wait!" Ling'er's pupils shrank: "You mean, these are buildings on Earth?"

"Yeah." Alice looked back at them and said in a strange tone, "I guessed it as soon as I saw the sky island. Why, don't you know it?"

How would we know if you don’t tell us! ?

Everyone's fists were hardened and they really wanted to beat her up, but considering that now was not the right time, they decided to forget it. Anyway, with Saint Shallia here, this guy couldn't get away.

However, why are there buildings from Earth in the Heavenly Cathedral? Moreover, they are all such old and dilapidated ruins. Could it be that something happened after Alice left Earth?
"How would I know?" Alice shrugged, looking indifferent. Although she was an earthling, she obviously didn't care much about her hometown. Linger had already noticed this unusual indifference, but at that time he just thought it was a common trait among game players, who treated the virtual world they imagined as a playful one, but he didn't expect that she treated reality in the same way.

While Lingge was still thinking, Alice couldn't wait to run towards the ruins of the building called Carrefour Mall, and the others hurriedly followed. Once they knew that the buildings in front of them were from another world, especially from Alice's world, they looked at them with some novelty and suspicion, and were very interested in their original appearance, names and uses.

A shopping mall, as the name suggests, is a place to buy things. It sounds a bit like the large department store in Linville City, except that the building is much larger. This is also reasonable. After all, the technological level of the Earth world where Alice was born is far superior to that of the Mirror Star World - if magical technology is not counted.

The group followed Alice, looking around curiously. At this moment, this ruins submerged by steel and trees had taken on a mysterious atmosphere from another world in their eyes: a four-wheeled iron box parked in the weeds, covered with vines, was it a magic chariot, but why was it so small, not even equipped with weapons; a dimly colored banner half hung on the treetops, half lying on the grass, with the words from another world on it looking particularly mysterious, only Lingge, who had learned some knowledge of other worlds from Alice, recognized the meaning of a few words: discount promotion...

Walking to the glass curtain wall of the mall, Alice reached out and pulled away the vines and creepers that looked like waterfalls, revealing a large black device hanging on the wall. The transparent screen was flashing colorful garbled characters, dazzling people. The golden-haired maid said disappointedly, "It's all broken. I wanted to see what new shows are available recently."

The entire mall was reduced to ruins, why do you think the goods inside survived?
Lingge couldn't help but complain.

The situation was just as he thought. After entering the mall, everyone was amazed by the gorgeous shapes and luxurious decorations that could be vaguely seen inside, but all the goods seemed to have been damaged to varying degrees in the collapse, either broken into pieces or intact but unusable. Alice also deliberately went to the area selling so-called electronic products to take a look, and found that the game consoles and cassettes she had been dreaming of were all broken into pieces. She immediately wailed, saying that her dream of buying for free was also shattered into pieces.

It doesn't sound like a serious dream.

"It's boring." The golden-haired maid sighed, "Let's go, there's nothing to see here."

"I think it's quite interesting." Yieta said, looking around constantly. She was lucky to come back to the outside world after many years and see the scene of the other world. This may be an experience that many people cannot experience in their lifetime. But perhaps because of this, she seemed a little reserved and kept following Lingge and Saint Xia Liya closely, as if she was afraid of getting lost. The other sisters have already started. For example, Olvera was studying the propaganda poster posted on a pillar, trying to analyze what the text on it meant; Gloria was holding her pistol and gesturing at a glass display case, as if she wanted to try whether my bullet was stronger or your defense was better; even the always calm Xino was holding a colored cube and turning it around, trying to restore its six sides to the same color, having a lot of fun; as for Rolena, it goes without saying that she was eager to put all the goods here into the empty sea shell to see what changes would happen after alchemy combined with the substances of the other world.

The proprietress, the bartender, the countess, Sister Livia, and the little girl... no matter how mature their original personalities were, they were all exploring this new world with great interest. The only two people who could remain calm were Ling Ge and Saint Xia Liya.

The difference is that Ling Ge suppressed his curiosity forcibly, while Saint Xia Liya, from entering the Holy Temple of Heaven till now, has always had a thoughtful look in her eyes, as if she is thinking about an extremely important question. Before that, it is better not to disturb her.

"Where do you think we should go next?"

Linger looked at the golden-haired maid and asked, "Since this is the world you live in, you should know it very well, Alice, do you have any good suggestions?"

"I don't really know that much." Alice scratched the back of her head, a little embarrassed. Of course, with her personality, she was probably pretending. "After all, I've been playing games at home all the time and rarely go out. For example, if it weren't for buying the latest game consoles and cartridges, I wouldn't bother to come to this Carrefour mall. Eh?"

Suddenly, her eyes lit up: "Speaking of this, I have thought of a good place to go. Anyway, I don't know what to do now, why not go there and take a look?"

Ling Ge raised his eyebrows, having guessed what place she was talking about. He originally wanted to scold her for abusing her power for personal gain, but then he thought that what Alice said was not unreasonable. That place itself was full of suspicious points. In the absence of other more suitable options, it would not be impossible to go over and take a look.

"Then lead the way." He signaled the golden-haired maid with his eyes.

Alice's eyes lit up, and she immediately asked her companions to turn around and follow. The others were still reluctant to leave and wanted to play some more... ahem, I mean to stay a little longer, maybe there would be some unexpected discoveries. But the golden-haired maid patted her chest and assured them that the fun was still to come, and it would be right to follow Alice. How could I, a local, lie to you?

Although they were skeptical about the last sentence, when they thought about the important things they had to do on this trip, they had to let go of their nostalgia, left the mall and set off again, beginning their journey across this steel ruin.

They walked through the commercial street that was once prosperous but now deserted. Alice found a bag of candy in a store and shared it with everyone. The proprietress, who was a professional in dessert making, commented that her food was not as good as hers, but the little girls liked it very much. They walked through a shabby amusement park where even the track of the roller coaster was broken. Leticia instigated Metien to ride on the carousel wrapped with vines. She and Shemi pushed from behind and ran very fast, making the girl on the carousel giggle, thinking she was really riding a horse. They walked through a park surrounded by a sea of ​​trees. The fountain pool in the park was slowly withering in the ancient woods, and the bottom of the pool was full of rusty coins. Alice asked everyone to pick up a coin, and then throw it back, and made a wish by the wishing well without water.

"Although it is a superstition on Earth," she said, "this is the Holy Temple of Heaven. With the blessing of the goddess, maybe it will really come true?"

"The beliefs of Earthlings are really strange." The little bat commented: "If I could realize my dreams by flipping a coin, I would have realized 10 million dreams long ago."

Is it great to be rich?

Alice glanced at her, refusing to admit that she was a little sour.

The group continued to move forward, until they were accustomed to the new and strange things from the other world and were a little bored of the unchanging ruins of the sea of ​​trees. Suddenly, Alice stopped and stopped in a huge shadow, but this shadow did not come from the towering treetops above their heads, but from a building over a hundred meters high.

It should be the only building that has retained its intact appearance in the entire ruins. The dark blue glass curtain wall looks like a whole, and there is no trace of splicing and layering from the outside. One can't help but sigh that the construction technology in the other world is so amazing that such a high-rise building that is almost a work of art can be built.

However, more importantly, it shows no signs of being eroded by time.

Not to mention parasitic plants such as vines and mosses, there is not even a trace of aging on it, and it is as new as when it was first cast.

Looking up, there was a huge advertising screen hanging outside the glass curtain wall of the high-rise building. The alien characters flashing back and forth on it were recognized by not only Ling Ge but others as well, because Alice's game console had the same characters, and the golden-haired maid often forced everyone to play games together -

Game Instructions.

"arrive!"

Alice turned around, put her hands on her hips, and stood proudly under the skyscraper. At this moment, her figure seemed to overlap with the skyscraper. The contrast between the grandeur and the smallness highlighted a strong sense of shock, so that the wild smile on her face was misinterpreted by the light as a mysterious and confident smile: "Welcome everyone to--"

"Game Command Company, headquarters building!"

Give me some meow