Chapter 144: Welcome to Hell (Part Two)

Good.

Observing the girl’s reaction to the face before her, Felen silently nodded, then made another note in his notebook.

Never assume that someone who has lost their memories cannot be made to yield information; the so-called amnesia in movies is often just a gimmick. There are several kinds of memory loss. One is total amnesia, which is a complete regression back to infancy. Another type involves the loss of self-awareness and personal history, while the fundamental basic knowledge still remains intact within the brain. The elven maiden before him belonged to this latter category. However, this did not mean she was completely oblivious to everything. Even if she had truly lost her memories of self, Felen could still glean a thing or two simply by observing her reactions to his tests.

And the elven maiden's reaction just now illustrated a crucial point very well. A person who has lost their memory—even if they do not remember their own face—will, at most, feel a sense of strangeness or doubt upon seeing it in a mirror, but they will not react with such extreme astonishment. After all, the information and knowledge they have absorbed throughout their lives are already etched into their brains; their subconscious has long since told them what a human looks like: one nose, two eyes, a mouth.

So, under what circumstances would a person react with genuine shock upon seeing their own face?

That would be waking up one fine morning to find themselves transformed into a Martian.

In Felen's view, the elven maiden’s earlier expression was the result of a direct conflict between the visual data received by her eyes and the foundational information stored in her subconscious. She had appeared utterly shocked, intensely surprised, and completely unable to accept it. This clearly transcended the ordinary scope. Furthermore, the elven maiden's face could hardly be described as frighteningly ugly; on the contrary, she possessed an otherworldly, ethereal beauty, extraordinarily lovely, and graced with a unique aesthetic that humans simply did not share.

Yet, even so, she had reacted so intensely—much like a human seeing an Avatar for the first time... Hmm... This was becoming truly interesting.

"Very well, thank you for your cooperation."

After adding another entry to his notebook, Felen finally closed it and looked down at the elven maiden with a smile.

"Now... as a return courtesy, you may ask me a question. Let me state in advance: I know nothing of your origins, nor do I have the slightest clue about your background. Therefore, if you are hoping to learn about your identity from me, you are barking up the wrong tree."

"I see..."

Hearing Felen's reply, the elven maiden looked visibly disappointed. It seemed she had indeed been hoping to find out about herself from him. However, since no clues were to be found here, she had no choice but to try a different question.

"Then... I would like to ask, why am I with you people?"

"It's very simple. We discovered a cryo-pod, and after thawing it out, we found you lying inside. Since you still had vital signs, we brought you out with us."

"A cryo-pod?"

Hearing this, the elven maiden's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Why would I be in a cryo-pod?"

"......"

This time, Felen did not answer her question. He merely spread his hands and shrugged. It did not take long for the elven maiden to realize how foolish her question had been. If Felen did not even know who she was, how could he possibly know why she had been placed in a cryo-pod?

"Then, then... where are you taking me? I mean... are we going to look for the police..."

"There are no police."

Before the elven maiden could finish, Felen interrupted her with a gentle smile.

"Eh?"

Faced with this completely unexpected answer, the elven maiden froze, but Felen simply continued.

"Hmm... I don't think you quite understand the current situation, Miss. The truth is, there are no longer any police, no armies, no nations in this world... Though I am not entirely certain what memories you still retain, I can tell you quite clearly that the world existing in your mind has completely perished."

"Wh—what do you mean by completely perished?"

Hearing this, the elven maiden's face drained of color in an instant. She stared at Felen with wide, terrified eyes and asked, "What does that mean?"

"Precisely what the words imply: completely perished. Nations have collapsed, and as for humanity... well, the vast majority are dead now. Whether even one percent of the survivors managed to live through it is questionable. That is our current situation. If you happen to have any memories of movies involving world-ending catastrophes, just try applying those mentally... and you will have your answer."

"I—I don't know anything about movies... or disasters..."

Murmuring to herself, the elven maiden turned her head to look out the vehicle window. Outside, all she could see was a desolate wasteland beneath a canopy of endless, gloomy clouds. From afar, the howling wind drifted over, making the scene feel like something out of another world against the backdrop of the overcast sky.

"Am—are we still on Earth?"

"You can rest easy about that. Even if we wanted to leave Earth right now, we wouldn't have the means to do so."

"...Phew..."

Hearing that she was still on Earth, the elven maiden seemed to release a breath of relief. But almost immediately, she turned back to Felen with a fresh wave of anxiety and asked, "Then, then why has it come to this? I mean... what happened...?"

"Nobody knows."

"Eh?"

Perhaps Felen's answer came too swiftly, catching the elven maiden off guard. But once she processed it, she quickly realized something was amiss with what he had said.

"No—nobody knows?"

"Indeed, Miss. Up to this point, all we know is that a great cataclysm swept across the entire world, leaving humanity decimated and reducing everything to ruins. Aside from that, we know nothing at all. In truth, we cannot even determine the exact death toll; after all, this is not the era before the disaster—we cannot communicate to gather news from other regions. While we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that only this continent drew the short straw... looking at how many years have passed without a single foreign warship or aircraft appearing here, that should tell you enough."

"How can that be..."

Hearing this, the elven maiden slumped like a marionette with its strings cut, sitting limply on the bed with a vacant, dazed look in her eyes. And it was hardly surprising. To wake up knowing neither who you are nor where you belong, only to discover that the world you once knew has been utterly destroyed—such a blow was more than most people could bear.

Yet, Felen felt no pity for her. Through his series of tests, he had confirmed that the elven maiden was not faking her reactions. If she were putting on an act, she would have exaggerated it far more; true, involuntary shock in humans differs vastly from what they intentionally try to portray. The performances of actors in films and television often fall quite short of reality for precisely this reason. The heavy truths Felen had intentionally dropped on her were designed to test her spontaneous reactions, and she had passed them all. Not only had she reacted entirely naturally, but her responses also indicated that her psychological age was quite young—somewhere between seventeen and twenty years old.

Of course, that referred strictly to her mental age.

Yet Felen knew that despite how distressed the elven maiden was acting right now, once she calmed down, she would begin to doubt his words. That was only human nature; people invariably trust their own common sense far more than absurd realities. But Felen knew the true trials for the elven maiden were yet to come.

He needed to make her understand just how difficult it truly was to survive within this living hell.