Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 799: Start

"What?" Clearly, 134 couldn't understand what Charles was getting at. The question came out of nowhere and didn't make any sense to her.

When Charles reiterated himself, 134 couldn't help but burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

"Charles! Don't tell me you are actually planning to smear that shit onto your ears!"

Charles' voice went cold by a notch. "I have no time for your jokes. I've promised Tobba that I won't make things difficult for you, but if you are going to deliberately get in my way, then don't blame me!"

Despite her defiant tone and attitude, 134 eventually gave in and gave Charles the answer he wanted. After all, as much as she didn't want to admit it, Charles could easily just off her with a single word.

134 explained that shortly after their surprise attack on Charles, the green centipede had emptied its stomach in that desolate, gray wasteland.

Being of his position, Charles didn't need to personally take care of a trivial task like finding shit on the Core. With a quick call, the army stationed at the Colossal Hole Fortress on the Core was prepared to embark on their mission.

The fountain pen's tip drew a circle around the word "ear," and Charles' eye finally settled on the final word on the paper—eye.

A vivid memory of the colorful island surface in Charles' mind. He remembered the ropelings, and Linda had even saved an abandoned baby from them.

The Foundation's facility complex was located in the middle of the island and right in the center of it housed a group of creatures whose colors exceeded the human visual spectrum. And these creatures would kill anything that could even visually perceive their existence.

Back then, Charles had accidentally stumbled upon an old research record and his vision was unintentionally enhanced. His visual spectrum expanded far beyond the norm and caught the attention of those creatures.

To survive, he had no choice then but to gouge out both his eyes. The remnants of those eyeballs were likely still on the island—if they hadn't been devoured by rats.

Though it would be difficult for him to personally retrieve his eyes, it didn't mean that he couldn't send someone else to carry out the job.

Soon, the closed door swung open once more, and Norton, controlling his green centipede form, scuttled along the walls into the room and perched on the ceiling.

His razor-sharp mandibles clicked against each other as he loomed above Charles, seemingly sending a greeting.

Having no eyes but yet gifted with an extraordinary sense of perception, Norton was the perfect candidate for the job of retrieving Charles' eyeballs.

"Alright, let's start from you then," Charles muttered, tapping his pen against the word "eye". He then flipped through the pages of his diary until he reached the page that had a portrait of Sparkle.

"Sparkle, come over for a moment. I'll need you to teleport me to an island," Charles said as he unrolled the map charted by the Narwhale on the table.

In an instant, Sparkle appeared with a burst of white light. Dressed in a white sundress, she sat on the edge of the tabletop, her pale legs dangling playfully as she swayed them.

"You're asking for help again, huh? In that case, free one day to help me in return."

Charles tucked his journal into his coat and chuckled. "Sure, my sweet girl, whatever you want."

The next moment, all three occupants in the room vanished without a trace.

***

Hope Island's school.

Nene sat in her seat, her brows furrowed in confusion as she watched Teacher Jennie stumble through her lesson at the front of the classroom.

Molly, her deskmate, stealthily tugged on Nene's sleeve and whispered in a soft volume, "Nene, it looks like Teacher Jennie is not familiar with the new teaching material too."

Nene glanced down to look at the sprawled-open new textbook on her desk. She wasn't surprised that Teacher Jennie was struggling with it—the knowledge within was just too strange and unfamiliar. They were far more complex than anything they had learned before.

She remembered seeing the notice in the town square that it was the Governor himself who ordered the change in the learning materials. He had mentioned that the old curriculum contained too little useful knowledge, and the students wouldn't be able to make any practical use of that knowledge nor be useful after they graduate.

Nene didn't really get what the Governor meant by those words, but since this was his order, she would just do her best to learn these new concepts.

Ring~~~~

The moment the bell rang to signal the end of class, Jennie exhaled in obvious relief. She tossed the chalk aside and darted out of the classroom faster than any of her students.

"Teacher Jennie! You haven't assigned any homework!" a bespectacled boy sitting in the front row called out. The moment his words fell, everyone in the class turned to glare at him with traces of fury in their eyes.

When Nene and her classmates exited the school gates, they all wore the same frustrated and bitter expressions. Eventually, homework was assigned, and that meant that their time to play after returning home had been cut short.

As they gathered at the school's entrance while waiting for the tram, they all muttered their complaints at the bespectacled boy. If not for there being other teachers standing nearby and waiting for the tram as well, it was highly likely that the bespectacled boy might be beaten up by now.

However, the bespectacled boy felt that he didn't do anything wrong. He clenched his right fist as a determined gaze flashed across his eyes behind the glasses. "You don't understand! We may be young, but it's our duty to help our esteemed Governor build a better Hope Island. What's wrong with a little hard work?"

His declaration not only drew the attention of students from other classes but also the teachers nearby.

Just as the bespectacled boy continued to debate with his fellow classmates, a few trams pulled up to the school entrance. The students rushed to board in a frenzy, and by the time the bespectacled boy realized what was happening, the tram was already filled; he had to wait for the next batch.

Loaded with students, the trams glided smoothly along the newly built tracks that fanned out like petals from the heart of the island to its various districts.

One of the teachers on the tram, holding onto a handlebar, flashed a warm smile toward a colleague, saying, "The Governor really had this all thought out. He knew how inconvenient it was for students living far away to come to school, so he had the tracks laid across the entire island. In the past, I had to ride my bike for over an hour just to get to class. Now, it's no longer this tiring."

Her colleague nodded in agreement. "Indeed! And the trams are free too! They don't get benefits like this on the other islands. Even if the trams are built, not everyone could afford to take them."

As they chatted, their conversation caught the attention of an elderly man sitting nearby. Puffing on a pipe while reading a newspaper, he chimed in, "The trams are good and all, but the planning department is surely run by a bunch of idiots. Look at how the tracks twist and turn all over the place. What a waste of steel, and it makes the journey extremely inefficient."

Another passenger scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Quit that trash talking. You are all just words. If you're so smart, why don't you design something better?"

The man's belittling comment had the old man furiously folding his newspaper. He glared at the passenger and retorted, "You think I can't do it? If I were in charge, the tram system on Hope Island would be hundreds, no, thousands of times better than it is now!"

Being on board the same tram carriage, Nene watched the intense conversation with great interest. She didn't understand much of what the adults were saying, but she enjoyed listening to them bicker.

In fact, she was so engrossed in the drama that she almost missed her stop.

After bidding goodbye to her friends, Nene hopped off the tram. She hummed a cheerful tune as she skipped down the street toward her house. Even after all this time, everything still felt like a dream to her. Life was so good that it almost didn't seem real.

She could attend school, her mother had a stable job, no one could hurt them anymore, and they never went hungry.

Sometimes she would find herself wondering if their lives should be a little worse so that their current happiness could last a bit longer.

The moment Nene reached her house, she noticed that the front door was ajar and there was a bicycle parked outside.

We have a guest? Who is it? Curiosity stirred within Nene as she carefully walked toward the door.