Rhodes Island does not exist.

"What about the necklace?" Amiya pressed on. "Where did the necklace come from? Didn't you say at the end that everything you experienced in Iberia and Agor was a dream?"

“I did say that,” the doctor nodded. “But what do you think? Was it all a dream?”

“This…” Amiya hesitated for a moment, then stammered like a student being called on by the teacher to answer a question, “In the dream, Dr. Kal’tsit arrived on the second night, but in reality, she arrived on the first day… I don’t think Dr. Kal’tsit would do something like being late, so I think it must have been a dream.”

“But…” she began again, contradicting her previous argument, “If it was a dream, why did Miss Levini’s necklace appear so realistically in front of you?”

"Amiya."

The doctor spoke, calling her name.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Amiya immediately looked at the Doctor and tilted her head.

"Do you think that necklace is a very important thing?" the doctor asked.

“This… of course it’s important, right?” Amiya said, puzzled. “Isn’t that the keepsake that Miss Levini left for the Doctor? Oh, speaking of which, I’ve never seen the Doctor take this necklace out before. Is it still there?”

"She's gone." The doctor shook his head.

"Huh...?" Amiya looked incredulous. "Why? Was it lost or discarded by you? Although I don't think you would do something like that..."

“Neither.” The doctor shook his head again. “It just disappeared, which is why I asked if you thought it was important.”

"Disappeared...?" Amiya looked at the Doctor, unsure of what to say.

"Which do you think is more important, the necklace or the town of Asturias?" the doctor asked another question.

"What kind of question is this?" Amiya looked troubled. "On one side are people, and on the other side are towns. I think that as biological individuals, the importance of a single person is probably less than that of a town, right?"

“From a universal perspective, that is indeed the case.” The doctor nodded. “Now I’ll tell you—there is no such place as Asturias in the Iberian region.”

"Huh?" Amiya blinked.

It was as if they hadn't heard what the doctor said.

“Remember in my story, I met Dr. Kal’tsit in the tavern, and then we parted ways after completing the transaction,” the Doctor said slowly. “But when I met Kal’tsit again later, she had no recollection of Asturias at all, and said that we made the appointment in another town.”

“This…” Amiya was speechless.

“And around that time, I discovered my necklace was missing from my bag… So, Amiya, you see,” the Doctor smiled, “isn’t the problem in this town far more serious than that necklace?”

"Did you go to the Iberian region later?" Amia asked after thinking for a moment.

“I’ve been there.” The doctor nodded. “And the second time I went there was to look for Asturias, the place I remembered, but unfortunately I found nothing. It was as if the place had never existed at all; it had completely disappeared.”

"Could it have been driven away?" Amiya was still unwilling to give up.

“That wasn’t a mobile town,” the doctor shook his head. “Besides, its disappearance wasn’t geographical, but conceptual.”

"Because of all the people I asked in the Iberian region, not a single one had ever heard of this town."

Chapter 142, Chapter 141: Returning to the Infinite Spiral Land

What happened after that?

Nothing happened.

Rhodes Island's daily routine remained unchanged, and Amiya simply kept the stories the Doctor had told her to herself without mentioning them to anyone.

Although the doctor didn't say it was a topic that couldn't be revealed to outsiders, for some reason, Amiya always felt a chill run down her spine when she thought about this past event, so she gave up the idea.

Moreover, even if you tell this story to any operator, they might not believe it.

So in the end, the story is just a story.

The doctor said so, and Amiya remembered it. That's all.

Dewdrops glisten on the hillside, and larks dance in the sky.

The snail climbs the branch, and God lives in heaven.

—May everything in the world be peaceful and prosperous.

-

We're all from the same clan, so please be more polite in your speech. Don't be so reserved or aggressive; that's not good.

[Fellow tribes? Are you kidding me? When have you ever considered us your own kind? Aren't we just disposable tools you use and discard as you please?]

Alas, I had hoped for a peaceful and friendly conversation with you; it seems that will likely remain just a dream.

But in my opinion, you've always been the same.

That's enough, that's enough...

"Who?"

The doctor woke up with a start, leaning against the twisted wall.

Fine beads of sweat slid down his temples, seeping into the depths of his clothing below his neck, soaking the fibers.

"I am asleep?"

After realizing that everything he had heard and seen was a dream, the doctor rubbed his head and sat up.

The endless corridor in front of me is still the same as it was before I went to sleep.

He collapsed from dehydration and hunger, and is still being affected by these two increasingly profound negative effects.

"It sucks."

So, to conserve his energy, the professor leaned back against the wall.

He feels like a lump of mud right now.

However, thanks to his previous sleep and that dream, the doctor felt much clearer-headed now.

"We need to think about what to do."

He struggled to lift himself up from the ground, then adjusted his position to a relatively comfortable angle, settling into an odd posture.

"The first thing to be certain of is that studying the numbers on the wall did not help."

"That's what the doctor said."

From the moment he began to repeat himself endlessly in this endless corridor, the numbers he had once carved on the wall began a journey akin to the creation of chaos.

At first, the numbers were just rotated or their shapes were flipped, but as the doctor kept circling around, the numbers gradually became more and more bizarre.

The numbers increase exponentially, from single digits to two digits, from two digits to four digits, and from four digits to eight digits, with no useful pattern to be found.

Perhaps trying to find a pattern in these random numbers on the wall is simply nonsense.

"And rather than choosing whether or not to study the numbers on the wall, it's definitely more important to choose whether or not to live." The doctor looked up at the empty, dark ceiling and exhaled a long breath.

He now fully understands a fact.

Within Rhodes Island, death is not a terrible end, but rather a less-than-gentle form of compromise.

When death becomes a tool, then those who use it will no longer have any need to feel fear.

However, the prerequisite is that those who use it must first be able to afford the cost.

"If you're going to die, then how exactly should you die?" The doctor glanced at the pickaxe beside him, his gaze fixed on the tip, unable to look away for a long time.

In his mind, the image of a man who died by piercing his own skull with a pickaxe was slowly emerging.

For some reason, he suddenly found the imagined scene somewhat comical, and couldn't help but laugh.

"It seems that without the right tools, committing suicide is a pretty awful thing."

He smiled.

This seemed to be the first time he had laughed heartily from the bottom of his heart.

After all, there's nothing to be happy about on Rhodes Island; happiness doesn't belong here, it only belongs to those who have left.

"So, if choosing to die is harder than choosing to live, then I'd rather continue living."

The doctor chuckled twice, shifted his position, and let the skin and muscles that had been aching from sitting so long rest.

Then, he suddenly opened his mouth and shouted a sentence.

"Hey! Actually, you're listening and watching, right?"

Under the combined pressure of dehydration and hunger, he shouldn't have spoken like that.

But for some reason, he always felt that if he didn't speak loudly enough, he wouldn't have any impact, and if he didn't have any impact, then the strange thing that controlled this corridor wouldn't pay attention to him.

This corridor has been manipulated.

Even the most dull-witted person should understand this after running around here for more than ten hours.

In other words, the corridor's loop wasn't pre-arranged, but rather the result of human intervention and adjustment. The bizarre creature made entirely of eyes that initially followed the doctor was the corridor's manager.

—Although this is the case, all of this is still just speculation, and there is no concrete evidence.

Therefore, it was precisely because there was no evidence that the doctor shouted loudly into the corridor.

"How about it? After running around like this for more than ten hours, you must be enjoying it, right?" He leaned against the wall, and the dazed feeling caused by dehydration and hunger allowed him to ramble on without thinking.

“Actually, I’ve always known.” He closed his eyes slightly, his other hand loosely gripping the pickaxe handle, his fingers casually clasped together. “But I was just playing along with your act, not exposing you.”

The dazed feeling brought on by physical torment and the clarity brought on by sleep and dreams overlapped at this moment.

Clarity allows his thoughts to flow and memories to surface in his consciousness, while trance allows him to act in a state that is different from his usual self.

"The reason this corridor is in an endless loop is not because you are prolonging it, but precisely because you cannot interfere with it, which is why it has become such a chaotic mess." He forced out his voice and spoke to the air.

"That bottle of Originium I placed in front of you must have been driving you crazy by now," he chuckled, shaking his head like a drunkard. "Because your original plan wasn't to make things this way, but to play with me until you were done, then turn me into part of this corridor and digest me. After all, this corridor is like a digestive organ to you, in other words... I'm inside your stomach, right?"

-

Thank you segment.

Thank you to General l and Nan Yuan Hui for the razor blades and monthly tickets, thank you.

Chapter 143, Section 142: The First Dialogue

In fact, the PhD student knew nothing.

If he really knew, he wouldn't have wasted so much energy pointlessly in here.

He simply had a new idea while in this overlapping mental state.

In other words, he was gambling.

And for some reason, ever since he woke up from his dream, he has been able to vaguely see things in this spiral corridor that he normally cannot see.

Although he still cannot distinguish what those illusory figures that he sometimes sees and sometimes doesn't are, he knows that something must have changed about him.

"I'm thinking about it."

He channeled all his energy into his language center, devoting himself wholeheartedly to his gambling career.

“Since you can make different words appear on the walls and change the corridor, that means you have the ability to think, right?” The doctor adjusted his breathing and words, and said, “Unlike those mud or phantoms outside, which only follow their instincts but can’t actually do anything.”

“Although I died once and paid the price with my memories, even with my understanding of this place being like that of a newborn, I have still noticed some details and rules here.” The doctor looked up at the dark ceiling and said, “A strange being with intelligence like you must be able to communicate with people, so… how about we make some terms? If you think we can make terms, then write what you want to say on the wall. Don’t show me those messy numbers and characters anymore.”

He had already met the owner who controlled this spiral staircase.

The body, resembling a spiderweb of countless eyeballs, was unsettling, and its persistent stalking of the trapped person was even more bizarre. Judging from the doctor's earlier deduction, it was probably a behavior similar to toying with prey before hunting.

But now, it can no longer hunt.

Because its body was sealed by the Originium left by the Doctor, it was completely locked in place.

The reason the doctor dared to say so much to it was because of this prerequisite.

"Move! Move!"

The professor urged himself on silently.

He sincerely hoped that the strange creature could understand him, thus proving that his hypothesis was correct.

And so a minute passed.

Three minutes passed.

Five minutes passed.

The wall remained the same wall, and the chaotic characters on it, like incantations, still lingered there, silently mocking the Doctor.

Even so, the doctor simply stared silently at the wall, his expression completely unchanged.