Chapter 22: Another Disturbance Arises

In the driver’s seat, Nakano Masao remained silent as he skillfully started the engine.

The sharp lines of his profile looked unusually calm beneath the sunlight—almost indifferent—as though the riot that had nearly turned into a tragedy moments ago had been nothing more than an insignificant annoyance disrupting his peace.

In the passenger seat, Nakano Risa clasped her hands tightly together on her lap.

Her unfocused gaze drifted toward the trees and railings outside the window while her mind uncontrollably replayed the fear and uncertainty of hiding beneath the table earlier.

No one felt like speaking.

The car slowly crawled toward the parking lot exit along with the flow of traffic.

As expected, a long winding queue had already formed there.

After the sudden scare, most of the visitors were still shaken and only wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible.

The line advanced at a painfully slow pace, stretching time thin with tension and silence.

Looking at the endless sea of brake lights ahead, Risa grew increasingly irritated. She just wanted to go home and hide inside that nest that was, at least on the surface, familiar.

However, just as their car crept forward a few more meters with the traffic and was about to round a bend closer to the exit—

“Help—!!!”

A shrill scream filled with despair and terror suddenly rang out from the edge of the woods on the other side of the parking lot!

The sound pierced through the hum of engines and the murmur of the crowd, stabbing sharply into everyone’s ears.

The instant Risa heard it, it felt as though all the blood in her body flowed backward. Her mind went blank.

“Help! Somebody save me!”

It was Chinese!

Mandarin—slightly distorted in tone, but unmistakably Mandarin!

“How is this possible…?!”

Her heart slammed wildly and chaotically against her ribs as an icy numbness shot from her spine to the top of her head.

After transmigrating into this world, during the earliest days of her adjustment period, she had secretly researched this world out of instinct and unease.

The internet, books, television news…

She had desperately searched for a familiar anchor.

But the horrifying discovery was this: the geography of this world was completely different from the Earth she knew.

The vast Asian continent, the homeland engraved in her memories, seemed never to have existed in this parallel timeline.

The world map was filled with unfamiliar landmasses and oceans bearing strange names, and history had diverged onto entirely different branches.

The Japanese archipelago floated alone in a region called the “Western Pacific Composite Plate.” Its culture and language—Japanese—were similar to what she remembered, yet it had become an isolated civilization in this spacetime, with barely any recognizable sister cultures to compare it to.

She had believed she would never hear her native tongue again.

Yet now, on this land that had just experienced chaos, amid a fleeing crowd, she had heard such clear, desperate cries in Chinese.

Was it an illusion?

A hallucination brought on by extreme stress?

No!

The voice was too real, too penetrating. Every syllable hammered directly against the deepest part of her soul.

Was it another transmigrator like her?

Or… something else?

Unconsciously, she clenched the fabric over her chest so tightly her nails nearly dug into flesh. Her eyes desperately tried to pierce through the obstruction of cars, crowds, and trees, staring fixedly toward the shadowed woods where the voice had come from.

There seemed to be shaking branches there—and vague figures struggling.

Masao’s hand on the steering wheel paused almost imperceptibly.

He did not turn fully, merely tilting his face slightly as the corner of his eye precisely locked onto the sudden change in his wife’s expression.

She heard it.

And her reaction was intense.

Her suddenly hurried yet forcibly suppressed breathing, the slight forward lean of her body, the way her gaze abruptly sharpened and fixed itself outside the window…

Every tiny reaction was magnified and analyzed by his abnormal senses.

Was it because of that desperate cry just now?

The language sounded unusual—not Japanese. The structure of its syllables was unfamiliar.

Yet among the dull fragments of memory left by the original owner of this body, there had never been any trace that “Nakano Risa” had learned or mastered any foreign language.

So why would an ordinary housewife react so violently—almost instinctively—to a cry for help in an unfamiliar tongue?

From the back seat, Nobuhito also lifted his head suspiciously, peering through the gap between the seats at his mother’s tense back.

He couldn’t understand the language, but fear in the air was universal. And compared to the unfamiliar cries, his mother’s anxious posture—as though she might burst through the window at any second—made his heart tighten even more.

What… was wrong with Mom?

At that moment, a tsunami was raging inside Risa’s heart.

Those cries for help in her mother tongue burned into her soul like red-hot branding irons.

Reason screamed at her:

Don’t move! Don’t show anything unusual!

“Nakano Risa” should not react specially to a plea in a “foreign language”!

Maintain the act!

Survive!

But the loneliness buried deep within her as a transmigrator tugged frantically at her nerves.

That was possibly a fellow countryman desperately struggling to survive!

Jump out of the car and run over there—

The urge was so strong it nearly burst through her chest.

But if she acted in a way inconsistent with the original owner’s personality, what would her husband think?

What would he do?

After all, only moments ago, he had merely lifted a finger to make those beasts obediently retreat.

To crush her throat would be as easy as crushing an ant.

What should she do?!

What should she do?!

The violent conflict raging inside her nearly made her whole body tremble, her fingernails digging deep into her palms.

Yet just then, events intruded upon their sight in an even more brutal and direct fashion—

Crash! Crack!

The decorative low fence and dense shrubs at the edge of the parking lot were violently smashed apart!

A figure burst out like an out-of-control cannonball, stumbling into the parking area!

It was a man—tall and thin—wearing a filthy, torn blue-and-white striped outfit.

The style looked exactly like the prison uniforms commonly seen in movies and television dramas.

His hair hung wildly around his face. Dirt and some liquid—either sweat or blood—streaked his cheeks. His bare feet had been torn open by the rough pavement, leaving dark red bloody footprints behind him.

His eyes, however, shone with unnatural brightness, carrying the sharp madness of someone cornered by death.

Behind him, over a dozen heavily armed police officers rushed out in pursuit, batons and riot shields reflecting cold light under the sun.

Even more striking were two muscular men in dark combat uniforms among the pursuers.

In their hands were unsheathed katanas.

Dark red liquid slowly dripped from the narrow blades.

“Stop!”

“Surround him!”

The police shouted one warning after another.

The prisoner ignored them completely. While sprinting forward with all his strength, he suddenly raised both arms toward the trees lining the roadside and let out a hoarse, discordant roar.

Then something astonishing happened.

From the treetops, seven or eight sparrows and crows that had been perched there suddenly jerked as though pulled by invisible strings.

They dove downward in unison with shrill cries, recklessly attacking the faces and eyes of the two sword-wielding pursuers and several shield-bearing officers.

“What the hell?!”

“Get off!”

Though the birds could not inflict any real damage, the sudden assault successfully created a moment of confusion and obstructed their vision, slowing the pursuit.

But it was clearly only a temporary measure.

The police were numerous and well-trained. They quickly reorganized, shook off the birds, and closed the distance again.

The prisoner’s sudden appearance was like pouring cold water into boiling oil.

The parking lot, already shaken by the zoo incident, instantly exploded into chaos once more.

Screams erupted everywhere. Nearby vehicles blared their horns in panic. People hurriedly locked their doors.

The entire scene descended into turmoil.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the brief confusion caused by the birds, the man in prison clothes rapidly scanned the packed rows of cars and the panicked crowd.

Then his gaze seemed to lock onto a particular direction.

In the reflection of Risa’s suddenly constricted pupils, the prisoner abruptly charged straight toward the Nakano family’s car with reckless desperation.

His target…

Could it be them?!