Chapter 14 A Small Bag of Trash

It was a small bag of trash—a black trash bag, its opening tied in a tight knot. On the side of the bag, a very small, scuffed hole was visible, and in the hole, one could see a flattened paper cup.

Duncan stared blankly at the familiar little bag of trash, his mind filled with confusion and endless questions. He had indeed speculated that the "great void" appearing inside the Alice Manor might one day change. When he heard the headless butler mention "alien intrusion" just now, he had wondered what kind of bizarre and indescribable thing had entered the manor, but this situation… he had never imagined it.

That bag of trash was his—just recently, when he vaguely realized that the barrier between himself and his hometown might already be an insurmountable chasm, after he had carefully and thoroughly cleaned his studio apartment, he had sorted out that bag of trash and thrown it into the black mist outside the door.

Now it appeared inside the "great void" of the Alice Manor, in the form of an "invading alien object."

With a complex and subtle feeling, Duncan took a step forward, towards the "invading object."

The huge void at the end of the corridor, left by the disappearance of the room, was like a bizarre and terrifying abyss. The ground and walls around the edge of the void were fragmented, like twisted, sharp teeth. The black bag was at the end of the broken ground. Frankly… Duncan even found the scene a bit comical.

However, the servants in the manor were extremely nervous. The terrifying headless butler even exclaimed in a somewhat flustered manner after seeing Duncan walk forward: "Guest! Do not approach that place! It's very dangerous!"

"Dangerous?" Duncan didn't even know what expression to make. He glanced back at the butler, his mouth twitching. "It's just a pile of quiet… waste."

However, the butler and servants still stood at least ten meters away as if facing a great enemy. The buzzing whispers were filled with panic and fear. Although they all lacked heads, Duncan seemed to feel their blank, confused gazes, wanting to peek but constantly avoiding it due to fear.

It was as if… what they saw was not a harmless black bag, but something more terrifying, more indescribable.

"Gues… Guest…" the headless butler suddenly spoke, his voice low and trembling. "Don't be deceived by appearances. Slowly keep your distance from it, move towards me, be careful, don't awaken this growing shadow…"

Growing shadow?

Duncan instantly frowned slightly, seeming to confirm the "guess" that had flashed through his mind a moment ago—what these servants saw was something else?

He turned his head and looked at the black bag at the edge of the broken ground.

In a certain instant, he saw the black plastic bag suddenly… "flicker" for a moment.

Just like the screen of a malfunctioning monitor, or as if a layer of gauze suddenly covered the surface of the thing, Duncan saw it flicker for an instant, and in the extremely brief change of light and shadow, it seemed… to turn into something else.

Duncan quietly watched it, as if expecting it to undergo more changes—then, the second flicker appeared.

This time, he captured the fleeting image.

He saw a mass of fluctuating shadow covering the floor not far away. The edges of the shadow trembled and quivered as if countless sharp thorns were spreading out. Black substances were churning and spreading out from the center of the shadow, and countless eyes and countless tongues were hidden there.

However, as long as he concentrated, the thing would immediately turn back into a pile of unremarkable "waste," and the bizarre image seen in a trance would seem like just a hallucination lingering on the surface of the brain.

Duncan silently watched this scene, many guesses gradually gathering in his heart. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly turned his head and said to the "butler": "Has there been an 'alien intrusion' here before?"

His voice was inexplicably hoarse.

"Occasionally," the butler hurriedly replied, "The manor is closed, but for some reason, things from the 'outside' always connect to this place. They… often bring a lot of trouble."

"Bring a lot of trouble?" Duncan frowned.

"Yes… Alien objects do not belong to the manor. They are like diseases to this place. The invading substances can cause some parts of the manor to decay or become distorted, and it often takes a long time to recover…"

Duncan listened quietly, thought for a moment, and asked: "Then how do you deal with these alien objects?"

"The manor will 'digest' them on its own," the butler replied, "You can wait patiently by the side. The cleanser should appear in a moment and should be able to properly handle the invading alien object."

"Cleanser?" Duncan's tone was questioning.

"It is part of the manor, the oldest part. It is responsible for removing destructive 'entities' from the manor, and then the manor will slowly return to the state before the alien object invaded… Ah, it has appeared, guest, look—"

The butler suddenly raised his arm and pointed to the ground not far away.

A mass of mud-like substance appeared there at some point, slowly wriggling and spreading out.

The "mud" was dark in color, but it had a metallic texture. Its surface seemed to be mixed with countless crystalline particles, constantly refracting starlight-like, tiny specks of light as it slowly wriggled—it wriggled, spread, and slowly approached the invading "alien object" as if conscious.

A part of its edge deformed, forming tentacle-like extension structures. It used these structures to actively touch and probe forward, and then slowly "covered" itself on the "growing shadow."

Duncan did not interrupt this process. He just stared intently at this scene, not letting go of any details.

The "waste" itself was of no value to him. Why the waste appeared here, the bizarre phenomenon he had just observed, and the secrets hidden in the manor were the key.

For him, the key information was already available when he saw that small bag of trash appear in the manor.

The devouring was silent. The "soft-bodied creature" called the "cleanser" quickly completely covered the small bag of trash, and in Duncan's perception, he could vaguely feel… something disappearing into the "soft-bodied creature" with metallic texture and tiny specks of light.

The surrounding servants seemed to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, the next second, Duncan saw the "soft-bodied creature" that had completed the devouring suddenly slowly turn "around." Its edges swelled and subsided, and a raised structure that looked like a head was now steadily pointing this way.

The corridor instantly fell into tension and dead silence, and all the servants tensed up and quieted down.

The "cleanser" wriggled over. Under Duncan's gaze, it approached like a mass of living mud, seemingly slow but actually fast.

He could feel neither goodwill nor hostility.

Duncan gradually tensed up. Faint, emerald-green flames were already flowing between his fingers. He was wary of this thing called the "cleanser" and was already quickly thinking about how to solve this mass of "mud" without damaging the "Alice Manor" as much as possible and leave this place if the other party attacked.

However, the cleanser just stopped about two meters in front of him.

The "mud" stopped in front of Duncan, and the soft-bodied structures spreading around it slowly gathered. It seemed to be cautiously observing something. Perhaps it was just his imagination…

Duncan even felt that he saw confusion in a mass of "slime."

It was rational. It was trying to observe and understand the uninvited guest in front of it—but it couldn't understand.

It was as if the existence of the uninvited guest had exceeded some kind of "logic" built into the manor.

After a moment, the cleanser seemed to end some kind of "dead loop." It abruptly shifted its attention away from Duncan, turned away as if nothing had happened, and slowly wriggled towards a dark corner not far away.

Duncan blinked, looking at this scene in confusion. After a long time, he turned his head to look at the butler: "What does this mean? Does this 'cleanser' not welcome me?"

"This… I haven't encountered this either," the butler's voice was also quite confused. "This is the first time I've seen the cleanser have these extra activities after performing a cleanup. Under normal circumstances, it would never linger after completing its work…"

Duncan frowned, did not ask much, but turned and walked to the edge of the broken corridor, to the place where the cleanser had just performed the "cleanup mission."

The small bag of "trash" had completely disappeared. After undergoing bizarre and mysterious changes, it had been decomposed and swallowed by bizarre and mysterious forces, leaving no trace.

But how did it get here?

Duncan stood on a broken floor tile at the edge of the corridor, leaning his head out and looking at the vast and endless darkness outside.

For a moment, he even felt that he was about to see his "cabin" in this darkness—it might be floating not far away, wrapped in a cloud of mist, like… the countless other fragments of the old world in this world.

However, he saw nothing. There was only boundless darkness at the end of the corridor. The great void inside the Alice Manor did not seem to lead anywhere.

Emotional impulses almost made him step outwards, to seek the so-called answer in that darkness, but at the last moment, the power of reason pulled him back.

He instinctively sensed the risk from that endless darkness, and his intuition told him—now was not the time, he could not yet return safely from that darkness.

"Guest?"

The headless butler's voice came from behind, interrupting Duncan's wild thoughts.

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief and took a step back, returning to the relatively stable corridor.

"I should leave," he said softly, "Take me back to the garden."

In the real world, Duncan suddenly blinked—his senses quickly returned, and he was fully awake within two seconds.

Alice was still sitting obediently in front of him.

In the real world, only a moment had passed.

(End of this chapter)