"..."
The scene was quiet for a good while.
"So..." The dog-headed man choked for a moment. It slowly dawned on him that the only reason those people had shown up was because the man in front of him had roped them into this mess.
Shaking his head, the dog-headed man pushed the thought aside. It wasn't that he wasn't angry, but he knew there was no point in discussing it now.
The dog-headed man held the map up to the sunlight, but his mood was clearly different from before. His grip on the corner of the map tightened.
The dog-headed man wasn't stupid. The reason he was the leader was that he was the smartest one in the bank-robbing crew. He realized the subtext of Chu Bamboo's earlier words: his old man's death was related to something out of the ordinary!
'Could my old man have been a Superpower User, too? Then why didn't I know...'
"Actually, it's not a given that you've never encountered a Superpower User before!" Chu Bamboo said faintly. "It's just that... your memories might have been erased!"
"...Huh?!" The dog-headed man's expression changed.
Chu Bamboo's expression was casual. He actually knew those Transcendents from before. In fact, by leveraging his advantage of constant resets, he had gained a thorough understanding of their family situations and personal secrets in the current main timeline.
He was even close with a few of them. For someone like him, who possessed the Power of Reset and saw the world as a dream... getting on someone's good side, digging up their secrets, killing them... it was all too easy!
And yet, even so, he had never discovered these Transcendents' true Extraordinary Power. That's right. The only reason he knew Transcendents existed... was because he had deduced it through his own powerful reasoning skills, based on various circumstances! It wasn't because he had actually seen someone with Extraordinary Power.
For someone with the ability to constantly reset... this situation was fascinating!
'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'
'These people have the ability to delete memories!'
'I must have seen them use their Extraordinary Power... it was just deleted!'
However, their abilities must be limited to just that—they don't have the power to probe and dig up a person's other secrets! Otherwise, the secret of the reset would never have been safe.
Chu Bamboo was actually fairly certain his memories had been deleted before. But... he didn't mind. It was just a dream, after all... 'Whether my memories are deleted or not, for my dream, it's probably just part of the rules, right?'
It even made him feel that this puzzle-solving game had become a bit more interesting!
After all, the more something was hidden from him... the more he wanted to know it.
It came back to the same thing: any question that arose in his dream, he had to pursue it to the very end...
Extraordinary Power hiding from him? To Chu Bamboo, it was more like beating a game completely, only to suddenly discover a hidden dungeon! An Easter egg!
'Would I even be human if I didn't dig it up?!'
For that, he wouldn't hesitate to reset time and time again! Which was why, until now...
Chu Bamboo fumbled with the Bronze Key, muttering to himself, 'Let's see what kind of mystery this realistic dream, born from my subconscious, has set up for me this time! I hope it's not too boring...'
Though if it really was boring and illogical, he could accept that too. Again... why get serious with a dream?
"Zhang Kun, we need to pick up the pace," Chu Bamboo said. They had seen those people use their Extraordinary Power. Based on his previous calculations, those people should be coming for them soon to erase their memories...
Although he wasn't exactly sure how the other party managed to do something so outrageous, or what method they used... there was no doubt that they could do it! If he could have kept his memories by simply hiding, how could he have failed to do so in the past?
"I hope they don't just illogically teleport right in front of me! There should be some suspenseful event." Chu Bamboo grumbled, full of anticipation. "Preferably one with a bit of pressure, the kind that builds a tense atmosphere..."
The dog-headed man: "..."
'What kind of nonsense are you spouting?'
'This idiot is nuts!'
'Instead of hoping things go smoothly, he's actually hoping for excitement!'
'Buddy, what we're doing is more dangerous than robbing a bank... this isn't a game.'
...
Rust-colored sunlight stained the valley... No, it wasn't just a valley, it was more like a canyon—
A man-made structure... built into the canyon?
It was just that the building happened to fill the mouth of the canyon, making it look like a mountain peak!
Dense vines and branches covered the entire man-made structure. From a distance, you couldn't notice anything unusual... In fact, even up close, if not for the map pointing them here and their careful surveying, they wouldn't have noticed anything was off.
"...Th-this, could it be! Is this an Ancient Ruin?!" the dog-headed man stammered. His palms trembled uncontrollably as excitement, anxiety, fear, and realization flickered across his face. "So that's how it is, that explains it... This explains everything! No wonder they spent so much money to get this map. Damn!"
"Boss... based on my years of tomb-raiding experience!" The bear-headed man's demeanor was completely different from before. He tore away a few vines and felt the wall-like surface, indistinguishable from the mountain, his gaze sharp. "This thing is at least a few thousand years old!"
"A few thousand years? How many thousand, exactly?"
The bear-headed man: "?"
'You think his eyes can date things back in time? If he could spit out a precise number like that, would he still be following you around robbing banks?!'
Of course, the dog-headed man clearly wasn't expecting an answer.
"What's in there...? A cell phone? Or some other Ancient Relics... We're going to be rich!" The dog-headed man felt like he was about to have a seizure.
"But Boss, the stuff inside should be those old brick phones, right?" The bear-headed man scratched his head, asking a soul-searching question. "Are we really going to steal some old brick phones?"
The dog-headed man: "...?"
'Is that something you should be saying out loud?!'
Noticing Chu Bamboo's playful gaze, the dog-headed man shivered. The gun was in his hand; he should have had the upper hand. But for some reason, he was panicking.
"What kind of nonsense are you spouting!" the dog-headed man snapped. "My word is my bond! I said I'd help him with this job, and I'll see it through... But it's not like he can just give me nothing afterward, right? And besides..."
The dog-headed man fell silent for a moment and bit his lower lip. Money was something he craved, but... what he craved even more was the truth behind his father's death.
"So, where do we go from here!" The dog-headed man looked at Chu Bamboo again.
"Why are you looking at me? Find the entrance!" Chu Bamboo rolled his eyes. He hadn't cleared this part on his last run, either!
But he wasn't worried. If worse came to worst, he could just die a few more times. As long as he made some progress with each attempt, he'd clear it eventually...
What Chu Bamboo hated most wasn't dying, but being stuck! Dying over and over before a level without making any progress at all.
"...And here I was, thinking you knew everything!" The dog-headed man snorted and took the lead, walking forward.
The bear-headed man spat into his hands twice, then began to climb, moving as fast as a monkey.
Chu Bamboo remained noncommittal, searching along the base of the mountain. 'It's a building, so it must have a door, right?' he mused. 'Can't I just feel my way along the ground and find it?'
'What's the point of climbing up?'