Rules Ch.367

Chapter 367: Epilogue — A Few Loose Ends

“Rumble… r-rumble…”

Everly stood on the inflatable dinghy, still rejoicing over her successful escape, when a violent tremor suddenly came from the island beside her.

She looked up at the sky and saw that the moving black dot above the sun had, without her noticing, disappeared from the sun’s edge.

The transit of Venus was over.

The island had begun to sink.

The enormous island was like a colossal ship on the verge of sinking. It slowly descended into the sea, emitting a low, humming vibration all the while.

Sounds from a specific frequency range reached Everly’s ears like an earthquake in the auditory realm, causing her breathing and heartbeat to resonate with them. The fish in the surrounding seawater were affected as well, frantically lashing their powerful tails and turning into streaks of silvery lightning as they fled in terror away from the island.

The island was simply too enormous. Even though only a small portion had sunk, the waves it displaced nearly overturned Everly’s dinghy.

Staying there any longer was extremely dangerous.

The inflatable dinghy was far too difficult to maneuver, so Everly decisively abandoned it. She leaped into the air and, clearing a distance of more than two meters, landed directly on Kesuye’s broad back.

Even though she’d been mentally prepared for it, the moment her feet landed, Everly was startled by the thick, springy softness beneath them. She nearly bounced right back into the air.

Had Kesuye secretly put on a little weight? Why did his blubber feel thicker than before…

She quickly regained her balance, crouched down, and patted Kesuye’s enormous head.

“Take me to my ship!”

“Eee—!”

The enormous whale let out a cheerful cry beneath the water. With a powerful sweep of his tail, he carried Everly swiftly to a safe area more than a hundred meters away.

Everly took the opportunity to glance back.

The seawater had already submerged the cliff at the edge of the island, rising until its surface was level with the island itself.

The amazing thing was that the seawater, despite rising higher than the island, could not flow onto it. A translucent, ghostly green protective barrier had appeared over the island first, forming an indestructible wall that kept the seawater out.

Presumably, that protective barrier was also how the strange and bizarre prehistoric creatures on the outer island had managed to survive there all this time.

It truly was a remarkable island—dangerous, yet possessing a fatal allure. It made people fearful, yet left them yearning to explore it…

Carrying Everly on his back, Kesuye raced across the sea. Before long, they reached the yacht Everly had rented.

By then, the distant island had completely sunk beneath the water, and the thick fog surrounding it had dissipated along with it. As far as the eye could see, the sea stretched endlessly in every direction. Aside from layer upon layer of waves, there was nothing to be seen. Even Grant’s modified ship and the inflatable dinghy had disappeared, most likely dragged down by the whirlpool created when the island sank.

Everly stood on the deck for a while before returning to the cabin. She set the yacht to autopilot and had it head toward the nearest island.

Once that was done, she began taking care of a series of loose ends.

First, Everly checked her backpack. The journey out hadn’t been particularly bumpy, and both water bags inside were still intact.

She wrapped several more layers of bags around them, then carefully locked the two portions of spring water inside the safe.

Afterward, Everly asked Kesuye to return her phone.

Earlier, in order to test the difference in the flow of time between the inside and outside of the island, Everly had put her phone in a waterproof bag and handed it to Kesuye. In the end, the passage of time on the island had been such a mess that the experiment hadn’t seemed to accomplish much.

“Eee… eee…”

Kesuye gave a soft grunt, indicating that he understood.

Everly had no idea where he had hidden the phone while in whale form. The moment she reached out her hand, he immediately extended a tiny tentacle hidden beneath his flipper. After feeling around his belly for a while, he handed her the phone, perfectly intact and still slightly warm.

Everly lit up the screen, connected to the yacht’s Wi-Fi, and opened the private messages on Chatter. She intended to send the Curse Witch, Natalie, a message asking about Bloody Mary’s condition.

After all, Bloody Mary had been captured by the alien spacecraft while helping her. It was only right, both emotionally and morally, for Everly to find out how she was doing. Otherwise, it would seem rather cold and selfish of her not to care.

But the moment Chatter opened, Everly was surprised to find that the Curse Witch had already sent her two messages:

[Bloody Mary is dead. I can feel that my contract with her has been severed.]

[Are you all right?]

The messages had been sent just a few minutes earlier, exactly when Everly had fallen out of the mirror world.

Everly: !!!

Sure enough, something had happened to Bloody Mary shortly after she was captured, which was why her mirror world had collapsed!

Everly quickly typed:

[I escaped the island safely. Bloody Mary saved me. At the critical moment, she took my place and was captured by the alien spacecraft. I suspect those aliens did something to her. I’m sorry…]

Bloody Mary had a terrible personality and had committed several brutal massacres in the past. She was, without a doubt, thoroughly evil. Her finally dying should actually have been something to celebrate.

But human emotions were complicated. Knowing that Bloody Mary had taken her place and died in her stead inevitably left Everly with mixed feelings.

The Curse Witch replied:

[There’s nothing to apologize for. She deserved to die a long time ago. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have spared her life in the first place.]

Then another message came:

[As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters. Let her die. She can always come back to life anyway.]

Natalie was right.

Bloody Mary was a recurring figure in urban-legend stories, and rituals for summoning her had long been a staple of daredevil and test-of-courage games. Her immense notoriety had granted her a powerful vitality far beyond that of ordinary ghosts. As long as there were still people who remembered the terrifying legend of Bloody Mary, she could never be completely destroyed.

For example, Bloody Mary was now in a state of severe injury, having been kicked all the way back to Hell and confined there until she recovered. Once she had healed and happened to be sincerely summoned by someone who met the necessary conditions, Bloody Mary would immediately return, bringing another storm of bloodshed back to the human world.

Thinking of it that way, Everly suddenly felt a little less guilty.

The Curse Witch sent another message:

[Don’t think about it too much. When the time is right, I’ll personally perform the ritual and summon her back. I’ve tested her abilities during this period, and they really are useful.]

Everly replied:

[Okay, thank you!]

The Curse Witch’s words successfully put Everly at ease, lifting much of the weight from her heart.

After ending her conversation with the Curse Witch, Everly also contacted Misha, the only person who knew about her plan, to let her know she was safe.

“…Really? You did it?! That’s wonderful, Everly! I knew you could do it!”

The moment the voice call connected, Misha’s energetic voice immediately came through the receiver.

Having just gone through such a tense and thrilling adventure filled with battles and narrow escapes, hearing her friend’s voice now gave Everly a strange feeling, as though an entire lifetime had passed.

It was only now that the joy of successfully obtaining the Fountain of Youth finally settled heavily in her heart.

She had done it. That was wonderful.

She was still alive. That was wonderful.

She was still on Earth, still able to hear her friend’s excited chatter and exclamations. Everything about that was wonderful…

This reckless journey to find the Fountain of Youth had been filled with twists and turns, one crisis after another, and dangers unlike anything she had encountered in her life.

Perhaps she’d spent the first twenty-odd years of her life being so unlucky because all that bad luck had been accumulating in preparation for the Fountain of Youth.

Everly was genuinely happy that she’d managed to obtain what she wanted. But she felt that, for a while, she wouldn’t be taking such an all-or-nothing gamble again.

She had been running for long enough.

It was time to stop and properly enjoy her life…

The signal at sea wasn’t very good. After arranging with Misha to have a proper conversation next time, Everly ended the voice call and immediately dialed Remia’s phone number.

The call was answered almost as soon as it connected.

“Gregory woke up.”

“Grant was captured by aliens.”

The two of them spoke at exactly the same time from opposite ends of the call.

After they finished speaking, Everly froze for a moment, then hurriedly congratulated her.

“Gregory woke up? That’s wonderful, Remia! I’m so happy for you!”

“Ah, thank you!” Remia thanked her first, then belatedly realized what she’d just heard. “Wait, wait, wait. Did I just hallucinate? Who did you say was captured? And captured by what?”

“Grant was captured. The aliens captured him,” Everly repeated.

No wonder Remia was so shocked. The statement really did sound like someone blurting out whatever bizarre thought happened to pop into their head. Even Everly herself thought it sounded absurd once she’d said it.

“Grant? Captured by aliens?! No, seriously, how did that even happen? Why would aliens want to capture him?!”

A string of frantic exclamations came from Remia on the other end of the call.

It was the first time Everly had ever heard Remia being this loud. She moved the phone farther away from her ear and waited until the shouting on the other end died down before recounting everything that had happened earlier.

“Ahhhhh! That explains it! That explains why Gregory’s curse suddenly disappeared just a little while ago! It must be because the aliens killed Grant!”

Everly also felt that Grant probably wouldn’t survive.

As a consciousness entity, he had already been in a difficult position without a physical body, making it hard for him to survive for long. And then there was Bloody Mary, who had been captured alongside him. She was such a powerful witch, yet she’d already been sent to Hell to sleep. It would be difficult for Grant to remain alive under those circumstances.

And even if, by some remote chance, he had somehow managed to survive, he’d probably be spending the rest of his life in the territory of an alien civilization, with little chance of ever returning to Earth.

For Everly and Remia, this was about the best news they could have hoped for.

On the other end of the call, Remia laughed and shouted with delight for quite some time. Only after she was out of breath did she hurry back to the phone and continue talking to Everly.

“Everly, Grant took over your body, and you used the Fountain of Youth, right? What are you planning to do from now on? You won’t age or die naturally, so as time goes by, you won’t be able to keep using your current identity. Why not try joining SAI? We can help you deal with those problems.”

After weighing it over, Everly chose to refuse.

The identity issue was indeed troublesome, but as long as she had money, she could probably cover it up by spending enough time and money maintaining the necessary connections. Her life, however, was something else entirely—she only had one!

Everly might no longer die of natural causes, but if someone stabbed her, she’d still be meeting God. SAI dealt with dangerous individuals like Grant every single day. She’d have to be tired of living a peaceful life before she’d willingly join SAI.

“Oh, okay… Then how about becoming an affiliate?”

“An affiliate?”

Hearing Everly’s question, Remia immediately explained.

An affiliate was someone with special abilities or unusual talents from the general public who had registered with SAI but wasn’t a formal employee. They could normally log into SAI’s internal bulletin board through their phones or computers, browse assignments they were interested in, and accept them in exchange for points and monetary rewards.

The points could be exchanged for D-grade and lower-level items from SAI’s item vault. Although most of the items were fairly niche or underwhelming, they were more than sufficient for self-defense.

“Once an affiliate completes a certain number of missions and advances to a higher rank, their identity information will automatically be placed on SAI’s protection list and classified as confidential. Our item vault also has quite a few items that can alter or disguise your appearance. With those items, you can settle down somewhere for a long time without worrying about arousing suspicion. So? Think about it?”

Remia continued trying her hardest to persuade Everly.

After hearing Remia ‘s explanation, Everly fell into thought.

The issue of her appearance really was troublesome. Take Old John, for example. He had poured so much time and effort into the gas station and the underground shelter. If he used the Fountain of Youth to regain his youth, he’d have to consider abandoning his base and moving somewhere else in order to avoid arousing suspicion among the surrounding residents.

That would obviously be a major blow to Old John. It might even cause him to refuse immortality altogether.

If there were items capable of disguising one’s appearance, that huge problem could be solved…

“I’ll think about it some more. Can I give you an answer later?”

“No problem. I’m looking forward to hearing good news from you!”

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