Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 217

Chapter 217

The Miner Doll in Bella’s hand had been crafted from a member of the newest batch of Trial-takers. That foolish Trial-taker had failed to find the Toy Room in time and had spent the entire process screaming and shouting. Bella had caught him, dismantled him into a doll, and imprisoned his consciousness within the Miner Doll, leaving him with no hope of escape.

Without Gu Huaiwei around to cause trouble, the efficiency of the Anomalies in the Library Instance had increased significantly.

Of the five Reporters, two were already dead.

Bella’s feet dangled in the air, hovering off the ground.

With the closure of the previous Instance, Gu Huaiwei should have long since departed. Bella never expected her to double back for a surprise attack.

Bella stopped pretending. Her neck began to swell like a growing tumor, and she opened her foul-smelling mouth to threaten Gu Huaiwei.

Gu Huaiwei felt the Bella in her arms grow heavy, as if she were filled with lead.

“Clack, clack, clack… Let me go! I’m Daddy’s favorite daughter! If you treat me like this, Daddy will tear you into pieces and lock you in the Toy Room’s treasure chest!”

“But your father wants to burn you to death.”

“Clack, clack, clack… Impossible…” Upon hearing those words, the corruption on Bella’s body intensified. Her form seemed to rust, gradually rotting away. “Daddy built the Toy Room for me; it’s impervious to fire and water. No matter what happens, I just have to hide inside the Toy Room.”

Gu Huaiwei remembered Fang Zhao mentioning that Bella was unable to enter the Toy Room.

Illusory flames appeared in the Corridor once more.

The shouts of “fire” from downstairs grew more urgent. At first, they sounded distant, but as the flames drew closer, the screams seemed to ring right in her ears.

Gu Huaiwei held Bella in her arms. As the girl’s feet dangled down and her toes touched the roaring flames, she let out a piercing, agonized wail.

“It hurts… Daddy… Clack, clack, clack… Bella is in so much pain!”

This fire could harm both Trial-takers and the Anomalies within the Instance.

Gu Huaiwei carried her through the raging fire, rushing toward the Toy Room on the sixth floor.

The wooden door to the Toy Room was blocked from the inside; there must be Trial-takers hiding within.

Gu Huaiwei set Bella on the ground. Even though Gu Huaiwei had tried to shield her from the flames, Bella’s body was covered in burns. Large patches of her skin were charred and ulcerated, and the swollen tumor on her neck began to shrivel.

She smelled delicious.

A fragrance of roasted meat wafted from her entire body.

The moment Bella touched the floor, she immediately began crawling toward the entrance of the Toy Room.

The entrance to the Toy Room was a low Dog Hole. An adult would need to crouch and crawl on their hands and knees to get inside.

A thin wooden board blocked the opening.

Bella hammered on the door with all her might. An Anomaly’s strength was actually quite formidable; if Gu Huaiwei hadn’t had her constitution enhanced, she probably wouldn’t have been able to carry her.

Gu Huaiwei could have kicked that small wooden door open with a single blow.

But for Bella, it was a door that would never open.

“Daddy… Clack, clack, clack… open the door.”

“There’s a fire outside… Bella’s eyes hurt…”

The Rules bound the Trial-takers, but they bound the Anomalies just the same.

Bella had been burned to death when she was alive.

On the sixth floor of the Library, only the Toy Room could provide refuge from the fire. However, on the day the fire broke out, the Library Director had ordered the Toy Room door to be nailed shut with wooden boards from the inside.

Before she died, Bella was just a little girl.

Even if she clawed at the door until her hands bled, she couldn’t open those nailed-shut boards.

This Instance had gone through many cycles of Samsara.

Sometimes Bella could find the Toy Room, and sometimes she couldn’t.
Every night of the fire, every night of hide-and-seek, she would wander between the attic and the corridor, repeating her tragic fate.

Gu Huaiwei had taken photos of the insurance policy earlier.

She placed the accidental death insurance policy, which the Library Director had taken out for Bella, right in front of the girl.

Bella, who had been screaming in agony just a moment ago, suddenly fell silent the instant she saw the policy.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, patches of skin peeling off her face and falling to the ground.

“Big sister, I don’t know how to read. Can you read it for me?”

Gu Huaiwei read every clause on the insurance policy aloud. Not only that, fearing that Bella was too young to understand, she thoughtfully explained the meaning of each term.

Bella began to laugh.

No human sound came from her throat anymore.

“Kaka… kaka…”

The laughter grew louder and sharper.

Her entire body began to swell within the fire, like a massive balloon suddenly bursting. Inside was a mass of black flesh and blood-no internal organs, only tumor-like lumps of meat.

And within that pile of flesh lay a shimmering Gray Crystal Gem.

Gu Huaiwei picked up the gem and tucked it into her pocket.

Bai Miemie tilted her head and asked, “Sister Gu, is that Anomaly dead?”

Gu Huaiwei shook her head.

She wasn’t entirely sure.

From Fang Zhao and Han Zhusheng, Gu Huaiwei had learned that every Anomaly possessed an obsession. She had exposed the Library Director’s facade of fatherly love, and Bella had learned the truth behind her death. If it only went this far, Bella’s obsession likely hadn’t vanished.

For an obsession to dissipate, a Trial-taker usually had to bring the crime to light.

Gu Huaiwei was somewhat curious – if a purified Anomaly was taken out of an Instance, would they be able to obtain their freedom?

Gu Huaiwei returned to the attic, but Bella was nowhere to be found.

In this particular Instance, Bella had vanished.

Just as Gu Huaiwei was preparing to leave, the searing heat on the sixth floor cooled down. Water began to flood into the room from the windows, and a biting chill seeped in. The room grew colder and colder, and cracks of frost even appeared on the walls.

However, she didn’t feel the cold.

Gu Huaiwei pulled her sister’s mirror from her pocket and aimed it at the corridor. This water and frost, much like the previous flames, were merely illusions brought about by the Instance’s pollution.

The sound of a wheelchair echoed in the corridor.

The Library Director appeared at the other end of the hallway, pushing his wheelchair.

Bella’s death had triggered the Instance’s plot progression.

He pushed the wheelchair forward, the rubber wheels making a faint sound as they rolled over the water-soaked wooden floor.

He acted as if he didn’t see Gu Huaiwei. The corners of the thin blanket draped over him dipped into the water. Despite his limited mobility, he continued to push the wheelchair back and forth in the corridor, searching for the Gray Crystal necklace Bella had worn.

“Uncle Director, we meet again,” Gu Huaiwei tried to strike up a conversation, but he didn’t respond.

“The necklace… where is the necklace?”

The Library Director was like a pre-set program, executing only the single command to find the necklace.

Gu Huaiwei followed persistently behind him. She was still thinking about the inheritance he had promised her before the end of the previous Instance.

“Uncle, when are the Firefighters coming to the Library to inspect the fire safety facilities this time? Does the agreement we made in the last Instance still count?”

The Library Director seemed to have amnesia, offering no response to the previous agreement.

However, the words “fire inspection” made his hands stop pushing the wheelchair.