(TL: Iâm 95% sure this title is a pun on Detective Conan. Donât quote me on that though)
Bright lets Snake climb up and down his body as he pleases. Although heâs a head taller than the other person, he is still an adult male and thereâs not much room for climbing, but Snake climbs slowly, dedicatedly and resolutely. He is willing to spend much time overcoming the hardships, indulging in them and having his own fun.
At first Snake starts from his side, his arms wrapped around Brightâs waist and dragging his own body upwards like his legs have been crippled and heâs unable to stand. Then he moves around to the back of Bright and moves upwards sticking to it, shooting his forked tongue out as he goes leaving a trail of wetness, including some white sticky liquid that leaked out due to friction and excitement. This goes on until his hands are wrapped around the manâs neck and he is almost the same height as the man.
Then he seems to encounter a problem. The liquid he left behind made the snake-climbing frame too slippery and lowered the coefficient of friction. He does not have a good position to put his legs to propel him further upwards. He is holding his breath in and even his hissing has become short and frequent.
As time passes, the manâs face starts to redden, because of the current posture with Snake having blocked off Brightâs throat leaving him without oxygen for several minutes now. Finally, Snake has a brilliant idea and instead uses his legs to grab onto Brightâs torso, then squirming like a worm until he reaches the top and sits on Brightâs shoulders.
Bright almost thought he would be wrapped to death several timesââin the literal meaning of the wordââSnake may not possess powerful muscles, but he put most of his weight on him, especially when his legs were crossed on his neck with his face sliding along his body and his head headed downwards.
They donât have clothes on and position-wise itâs a standing 69 with their skin familiarly touching each other in a strange way. Itâs not really intercourse because nobody is entering anybody else, and itâs strictly a snake climbing on a tree; itâs not really not intercourse either because nobody can deny theyâve had an intimate time together having looked at each other at different angles with their privates having touched where they normally wouldnât, and at least one party managed to achieve a breathtaking climax from the activity.
The forked tongue, the skin and the scales slide across little Bright, waking it up vigorously, which makes Bright terrified that Snake will hate how this new âbranchâ suddenly appeared and snap it, and is smiling bitterly.
Luckily, Snake does not do so, but just slides across it with his scales every now and then. Even more fortunately, Snake does not have good stamina, and after almost two hours of climbing and leaving his scent all over the new human-shaped snake-climbing frame, heâs out of breath. When resting, he is sitting facing Bright, hugging Brightâs legs and wrapping around them with his left hand and left foot, and sleeps that way. Little Bright and its balls are within tongue reach of him. The position is too good to visualise.
After Snake has fallen asleep, Bright continues standing. With this play with the cold-blooded animal over, he has thoroughly experienced the frightening aspects of pythons, and also acquired the technique of standing while sleeping.
In the post-apocalyptic zombie game, Bright wakes up in a room of an abandoned barracks. His head is using his arm as a pillow with his backpack being hugged in his arms and his hand covering a dagger. An alert posture like this can help him react in time when he meets danger.
He brings Latiao along for a hunt, âweâll have roasted snake today.â
A few quick battles and Bright has acquired enough food. The battles are not even warm-up exercise for him anymore. He is lucky as well and acquired a nest of snake eggs.
He uses a few pieces of iron ore to fix the roasting stand in the barracks and makes the meal. A man and his dog sit on the ground enjoying it.
Latiao woofs, indicating heâs full.
âDo you really not want more snake guts?â
âWoof woof!â No.
The edges of Latiaoâs mouth are covered in oil and meat chunks. Bright finds it funny before bringing him to a stream to wash up.
Bright takes a look at the data for the pet. Loyalty max, growth max, and is very satisfied, the smile of an experienced Daddy floating up from within him.
Today, Bright continues to head north in a speed rivalling race cars. He expects to, in two days, reach his destination
The City.
More specifically, the geographical location of the City.
Previously he has discovered that the terrain of the real world is similar to the games, and he has since hypothesised that the game world is what the real world looked like in the past, which also fits with the narrative of the game where a zombie virus erupted and cities were destroyed. The world was left with ruins and in this dire situation, a group of brave and talented individuals stepped forth to make an outpost while leaving behind trails of blood. For humanityâs survival, they decided to go to where City is and rebuild civilisation.
Bright has found the similarities between the two worlds and plans to use it for something. Even if the continents might have drifted by now, or the City has terraformed it by now, and what he is doing will become meaningless, but he doesnât want to give up that easily. He will reconsider once he has tried. With the sixth episode over, he has acquired a certain amount of freedom, and managed to look up and remember the exact coordinates of the City, and starts to put his plan into action.
In the giant warm sauna room, metabolism goes faster than normal. Blood vessels under the skin also expand rapidly. Blood flow will almost become five-fold, and clearly making more blood pump into the heart. If any drunk person were there it would have made their hearts more stressed out.
When Snake wakes up, he is not feeling well. His body is numb and his muscles hurt. His mind is sinking and exhibiting signs of a hanover. The next second he starts recalling the friendly interaction he had with his snake-climbing frame yesterday and his mood improves. He does not immediately let Bright go and instead is staring at the lively 20-odd centimetres and showing his forked tongue as if wanting to glomp odown on those round balls.
âYouâre awake.â The manâs low voice rings above his head. Snake lifts his head and can see the sharp edges of the personâs chin, his dry, peeling lips and his nostrils. His focus lingers on the lips for a while before moving on to the brown pair of eyes. They are slightly reddened and blood can be seen in his whites. Having lost his moisture in this high-temperature environment and then standing here all night, he is already tired.
A certain part of Snakeâs mind is oozing out blackness, going such beautiful body, such tough bone structure, itâs a shame heâs not made into a decoration.
To open and have him put his arms in a straight horizontal line, showing his strong shoulders that are perfect for climbing. To plant seeds under his skin so that branches grow out. To change his blood into a green colour. To take away his tongue and modify his throat so that a trunk could be grown from inside him making him more like a tree. And then, to design an emblem to carve his name onto his skin.
At last, put him at the front lobby for guests so that they all praise his artisanship.
He just has to wait until Gentleman loses his interest.
Annoying. He doesnât want to wait.
Snake snaps his fingers and immediately a robot appears with two test tubes. Bright drinks one after seeing Snake drinking it. The cool medicine has a mint taste, and his stomach starts emitting a Sprite-like chill as soon as it enters. The fatigue and other negative debuffs have all disappeared.
âWhat a pleasant morning.â Snake sighs in comfort.
Bright answers with silence, his focus on the robot.
He has seen a similar type.
The first time he was called by the Shithead after his performance with the Dog-ear Boy, Bright was brought somewhere like an interrogation room, where one such robot could be seen.
Bright tries asking innocuously, âthis is good. Where can I buy one?â
âItâs not for sale,â Snake says confidently, âI designed it myself and only gave a few away to friends. This is the newest generation and itâs smart like an on-call butler. It can even be personalised according to the tastes of the user, setting commands and executing missions. Like right now, when it has diagnosed my bodily characteristics and prepared appropriate medicine for that. It can even detect my goodwill towards you and prepare one for you too.â
So, this kind of robot is custom made and not a property of the hotel?
Brightâs heart starts beating rapidly. After such a long time he finally has a clue on the Shithead!
The person is sly, and normally he is like steam mixed in fog, and will suddenly turn into ice arrows one day and pierce his heart.
Bright decides to capitalise on the opportunity, otherwise, there might be no way he can find out the truth before he dies.
âThis is an Inner City product. You are an Inner City resident.â
Snake is not only the head of the animal group, but also the eyes and ears of it in the Inner City. He is slightly surprised at how direct Bright was and perks his lips up playfully. His vertical pupils look straight at Bright as if asking, so what?
Bright is slightly hesitant but thereâs no way back down now. He says, condescendingly, âyouâre an Inner City resident yet youâre going against the show. Will the aristocrats let an outcast like you roam free?â
âIs this a threat?â Snake, or rather, Scientist, shows a mischievous expression. He doesnât wait for Bright to answer before continuing, âhow naĂŻve. Before the show has even started shooting we have been coordinating the theme of this season. We started by guiding the trends and designed this step by step in a macrocosmic manner, how else did you think the trend of becoming one with nature started in the City? As for the animal group, this is just my little hobby of interacting and sharing the pleasantries of beastialisation with my fellows. I even get free experiment samples from it.â
He starts hissing pleasurably, âthey would writhe violently on the operation table and even still be thankful right up to their death about all my help that gave them the opportunity for them to break the boundaries of the human form⌠how amusing! This time the animal group attacked the show and the show retaliated in this kind of back-and-forth that made the topic more and more popular. There have been breakthroughs in the ratings again.
âEverything is scripted.â He summarised.
The citizens of Outer City thought the show set the theme that way because they were into nature, but itâs actually the opposite. The Inner City residents have them dancing in their palms. It is absolute confidence exuded from the top of the food chain to subservient creatures.
Bright notices that he has made a mistake. He underestimated the integrity between members of the Inner City. He should classify them as another species separate from citizens of the Outer City. Whether itâs position, technology or something else, it has already compartmentalised the classes of Inner City resident, Outer City citizen and Outsider strictly and geographically. He mustnât mix them up.
If we were to compare then Inner City residents are lions while Outer City citizens are antelopes. Lions may have clashes and skirmishes with each other over territory, but they will never be on the side of the antelopes. Whichever lion wins, the antelopes are always food.
And in their eyes, he is an antelope as well. Perhaps he is stronger or has a more peculiar fur colour, but he is still food.
With the façade peeled away, Scientist is starting to look at the man with almost unmitigated desire, wanting to peel his skin off and try his innards. Bright withstands that gaze without backing off.
âIf youâre so frank about it why did you bring me here and not Inner City?â
This critical question makes Scientist speechless for a second.
He is certainly considering the attitude of Gentleman. Heâs no generous soul that would tolerate others stealing a bite of his snack. He heard about Detective having been stumped by Gentleman, and doesnât know what tricks were involved. Itâs certainly nothing lethal, but it smells like trouble.
âIâm considerate for you, after all.â Your brain fried that time, you know.
Bright wants to shout well fuck you too!
Scientist has probably also realised that lie wonât work on anyone, and compromises, âI believe I should be more lenient considering last night.â He loosens his attitude but his vertical pupils are warning not to demand anything unreasonable.
Bright ponders for a while. With how integral and xenophobic the Inner City is, he canât possibly ask for something like information on all Inner City residents. While confirming Curly-hairâs identity with Hopkin earlier, he only gave his suspicions a yes/no answer and nothing else. Bright interprets it as some kind of shared sentiment of protecting their kind in the Inner City.
Therefore, he proposes to Snake carefully, âyouâve designed the robots, so you can at least retrieve their logs? Donât deny it, smart people always leave a plan B in place.â Programmers like to leave backdoors for themselves.
Since he is nervous, Brightâs throat is slightly parching and his pitch slightly tight, âI want to know whose has been to the hotel in Outer City.â
Scientist tilts his head in a manner slightly greater than normal, looking slightly creepy. While he is suspicious of Brightâs motives, he thinks itâs nothing serious. What could an antelope do given it knows the lionâs previous whereabouts?
Most critically, of course, Scientist is unaware of Hopkin concealing his identity to toy with Bright. He inputs a command into his machinery and not two minutes have passed before Bright got what he wanted.
The equation âShithead = Gentleman = Hopkinâ is making Brightâs eyes spin around rapidly. Heâs dazed and wants to puke.