Chapter 296: Transcript
In her previous life, Everly had once watched people inflate a bouncy castle.
The moment several industrial blowers were switched on, gusts of air rushed inside. The limp PVC fabric immediately sprang to life, swelling into the massive outline of a castle within just a few minutes.
Now, a remarkably similar scene was unfolding right before her eyes.
The instant the embryo inside the amniotic membrane came into contact with the outside air, it underwent an unbelievable transformation.
It wasn’t merely growing larger. It was as though the ten-plus years of growth it would normally require had been compressed into a span of little more than ten seconds and played out all at once.
In the blink of an eye, the embryo’s body stretched out and expanded, bursting open the incubation chamber. Transparent fins lined with bony spines sprouted from its back and belly. Its tail grew longer and thicker, while its fragile skin became covered in a tough layer of black-and-white hide…
The more Everly looked, the more familiar it seemed. Then the embryo gently flicked its translucent tail fin, and, like the tender shoots of a growing plant, two beautiful transparent streamers unfurled from it.
At last, Everly was certain.
The fully grown embryo looked exactly like the giant whale she had rescued on the deserted Atlantic island.
Wait a second… don’t tell me they’re actually the same whale?!
Afraid of being flattened by the enormous creature, Everly continued watching while cautiously edging toward the side of the incubation chamber.
“What are you? How did you get in here?!”
The tent*cles outside the chamber writhed and twisted. A newly grown mouth opened among them, demanding the answer in a voice filled with shock and fury.
“Woooo…”
The embryo—no, the giant whale—opened its mouth and let out a resonant call from deep within its throat.
The whale’s cry was deep and solemn, like the trembling of the earth’s veins or the rhythm of the ocean itself. It carried immense dignity and overwhelming pressure.
It was issuing a warning to Shelly’s tent*cles.
Everly had assumed that, judging by the tension in the air, a fight between the two was inevitable. But instead, after letting out its call, the giant whale calmly turned its head. Its beady little eyes, half-hidden beneath the black patches on its face, settled on Everly, who was huddled in the corner, watching her with quiet focus.
Its eyes were unusual. Its pupils were pitch black, while a vivid Klein blue ring encircled each iris—exactly the same as the giant whale she had met on the beach.
“Aah…”
After staring at her for a moment, the whale called again. This time, the sound was high-pitched and delicate, almost dainty. It sounded just like a tiny kitten mewing, making it hard to believe such an enormous body could produce such an adorable little voice.
Everly remembered that cry.
Last year, when she had found the giant whale stranded on the beach and gone to help it, it had made almost the exact same sound.
She recalled Mother Lamia’s parting words—that Everly should keep moving forward, and that someone would guide her to the “Door.” Instead, she had run ahead for what felt like ages without meeting a single person, only to accidentally enter this painting… and encounter what seemed to be the very same whale from before.
A rather absurd thought suddenly occurred to her.
A whale… um… can a whale really be a guide?
Apparently, yes. Yes, sister, it can.
Not only could this whale lead the way, it was also incredibly good at fighting.
“…Have we met before?”
“Aah…”
In response to Everly’s question, the whale let out another clear, gentle cry. What it meant remained anyone’s guess. Afterward, the massive, round-bodied whale leaned toward her. A concealed opening beneath one of its pectoral fins slid open, and several pink tent*cles emerged, wrapping gently around Everly’s waist before lifting her effortlessly into the air.
Everly felt her body suddenly become weightless. By the time she realized what had happened, she was already sitting atop the whale’s broad back.
Hold on… why does this whale have tent*cles too?!
Everly had encountered far too many tent*cled monsters lately. She was practically developing tent*cle PTSD.
Fortunately, the giant whale’s tent*cles were well-behaved. Their tips also concealed rows of teeth, but they remained obediently tucked away inside fleshy membranes that resembled flower petals, never exposing themselves. They looked completely harmless. In her hands, they felt no different from ordinary octopus arms—soft and springy, their surfaces coated with a thin layer of slippery mucus.
After placing Everly on its back, most of the tent*cles withdrew. Only two thicker ones remained, one on each side, wrapping snugly around her waist like a pair of safety belts. Once she was seated securely, they stayed perfectly still.
Everly remained on guard for a while before finally accepting that she was actually riding on the back of a giant whale.
Its back was unbelievably broad and sturdy.
She was seated between the whale’s blowhole and the transparent dorsal fin on its back. A layer of lubricant-like slime coated the whale’s skin, making it incredibly smooth. Without the tent*cle seatbelts, she probably wouldn’t have been able to stay seated.
Beneath the whale’s skin lay a thick layer of blubber. Its hide was firm, fine-textured, and pleasantly elastic. As a mammal, the whale also radiated a natural warmth. Altogether, this “giant sofa” felt like sitting on a warm, oversized blob of jelly—a wonderfully strange sensation.
One moment Everly was marveling at how stable the whale’s back was.
The next, the “giant jelly” went boing! and charged straight at Shelly.
They were clearly indoors, with no seawater anywhere in sight. By all rights, the whale should have ended up stranded on the floor just as it had on the beach.
But it didn’t.
Some kind of invisible fluid seemed to flow through the air, steadily supporting the whale’s enormous body and allowing it to swim as effortlessly and gracefully as if it were gliding through the open sea.
The giant whale locked onto the mass of Shelly’s tent*cles. With a powerful flick of its tail flukes, its streamlined body shot forward like a cannonball.
Everly lurched to one side. Before she could even react, the whale’s solid head had already slammed full force into the writhing bundle of tent*cles.
Then, like a beast bringing down its prey, the giant whale opened its jaws, clamped down on one of the tent*cles, and began tearing into it with savage bites.
Everly had seen what happened when Shelly was attacked before. In the world of Under the Moon, Mother Lamia had severed Shelly’s head, and rainbow-colored tainted blood had poured from the wound in its neck. Anything splashed by that corrupted blood had its colors drained away, reverting into a lifeless blank canvas.
So when the whale bit off one of Shelly’s tent*cles and vivid paint once again surged eagerly into the whale’s mouth, Everly’s heart skipped a beat. She thought the same fate that had befallen Mother Lamia was about to happen to the whale.
She quickly realized she had worried for nothing.
Corrupted blood streamed from the severed tent*cle, smearing the whale’s mouth and head, but it didn’t affect the whale’s ferocious chewing in the slightest. The enormous tent*cled monster wasn’t even enough to fill the whale’s teeth. After only a couple of bites, it had been swallowed whole.
As for the paint clinging to its chin, the whale had its own solution.
Hovering in midair, it lifted its head and shook it vigorously from side to side like an oversized dog, the motion adorably clumsy.
With a loud splash, splash, the filthy paint was flung away, splattering across the laboratory equipment and floor. In an instant, the whale’s head looked as good as new, once again smooth and spotless.
“Aah…”
Its cleaning complete, the giant sofa beneath Everly hummed with a deep vibration as it uttered another string of incomprehensible whale-speech.
By now, Everly was almost certain that this giant whale was the “guide” she had been promised.
Recalling her previous experiences communicating with unusual beings, she thought for a moment before reaching out and gently patting the whale’s head.
“Maybe I should explain the situation first. Right now we’re inside a painting created by that tent*cled monster. Someone told me that I need to find a special ‘Door’ hidden by the creature. Only by passing through that Door can I leave this world inside the painting and return to reality. Can you help me?”
“Wooo…”
The giant whale gently nudged Everly’s palm with its head. Then it opened its mouth and let out another long, resonant whale call.
When the cry ended, Everly heard a series of bubbling, blurp blurp water sounds coming from below. Before she could figure out where they were coming from, the whale’s permanently smiling mouth curled upward. It opened its jaws and—ptoo!—forcefully spat out a huge mouthful of colorful liquid.
The instant the liquid struck the floor ahead, it corroded a well-sized patch of the laboratory floor, exposing a circular piece of blank white canvas.
Clearly, the liquid was the corrupted blood the whale had squeezed out of Shelly’s tent*cles. Heaven only knew how it had managed to collect it all together just to spit it back out.
After the first mouthful, the whale gathered itself for a moment before rudely going, ptoo! ptoo!, and spitting out several more sprays.
By the time the exposed patch of canvas had widened enough for the giant whale to pass through, it let out a contented little hum. Its fins paddled, its tail flicked through the air, and, carrying Everly on its back, it plunged headfirst straight into the white canvas.
There was a soft pop.
Everly had no idea how it worked, but by the time she came back to her senses, she and the giant whale had passed cleanly through the barrier of the canvas and returned to the white plain covered with colossal trees…
“And then what happened?” Remia, sitting beside the hospital bed, asked with obvious interest.
Even a day later, recalling the experience still left Everly looking slightly dazed.
“Then the whale carried me swimming across the plain. Out of countless trees, it found the only one whose fruit had no pattern on it, and it swam straight into it with me on its back. When I woke up, I was already back in the gallery exhibition hall.”
In reality, the escape had been far more harrowing than Everly made it sound.
Back in the laboratory, the giant whale had only bitten off a portion of Shelly’s tent*cles. Shelly’s true body was still active on the white plain.
As the whale carried Everly away, Shelly repeatedly lashed out with his tent*cles to block their escape. When that failed, he transformed into the grotesquely grinning giant he had taken on in the world of Under the Moon and lunged at the whale with both hands and feet.
If the giant whale hadn’t been so remarkably capable—its evasion skills practically maxed out—Shelly would have caught them. If that had happened, Everly would probably be lying peacefully in a coffin by now.
“Why would the whale you mentioned know where the self-portrait was hidden?” Gregory asked.
So the self-portrait really was the ‘Door’…
Everly sighed inwardly before honestly shaking her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where that whale came from in the first place.”
Hearing that, Remia let out a helpless sigh.
“Well, regardless, the fact that the whale helped you leave the world inside the painting suggests it isn’t particularly hostile toward humans, which is good news for us… As for the rest, we’ll probably have to investigate further before we can uncover the truth.”
Gregory nodded in agreement.
With that, the first round of questioning for Everly came to an end.
After the two SAI agents left, silence once again settled over the hospital room. Everly lay on the soft bed, staring at the white ceiling for a long time before letting out a long sigh of relief.
During the interview, she had deliberately omitted a few details that weren’t convenient to reveal.
For example, she hadn’t mentioned Lamia’s assistance. That incident was tied to both the old Pukati case and the Golden Anchor affair. Explaining it would have been complicated, and it might also have exposed her ultimate trump card.
Although Remia and Gregory were both decent investigators, that didn’t mean everyone in the SAI was trustworthy. Today’s interview would be entered into the official record. If word got out about Everly’s ability to sense impending danger, she would feel anything but safe.
The other thing she had deliberately concealed was her prior connection to the giant whale.
On one hand, she wanted to distance herself from the Killing Game. After all, she had met the whale while escaping from the Island of Slaughter, and she had absolutely no intention of explaining why she had gone to that remote island in the middle of the sea.
On the other hand, she wanted to protect the whale.
By now, the situation was fairly obvious. The giant whale was an experimental subject that had escaped from some kind of biological laboratory. It had finally managed to flee into the ocean and live a life of freedom. It hadn’t harmed anyone—in fact, it had even saved her life. For the whale’s sake, it was better not to reveal anything about its whereabouts.
To be honest, if omitting the whale’s existence hadn’t required changing too much of the story—making it impossible for Everly to keep her lies straight on such short notice—she wouldn’t even have mentioned that the whale had rescued her.
So when the investigators asked where the whale had come from and why it had helped her, Everly simply said that it was a creature living inside the painting that she had happened to encounter after accidentally entering Life. As for everything else, she claimed she knew nothing.
As for whether Remia and Gregory actually believed her story, Everly had no idea.
At any rate, she had honestly done her best.
