She raised her head little by little.
Boom——
The thunder and lightning exploded almost simultaneously.
The spreading accumulated water reflected an image, and in that other upside-down world, the umbrella cover suddenly released a large cluster of densely packed and overlapping tentacles, which wrapped around her waist, hands and feet before she could call for help or struggle, and instantly pulled her in.
"Clap!"
"Ok!"
Hitzfeld suddenly opened his eyes and found himself sitting in the car.
In the passenger seat, the street scene is changing… The person driving next to her is the person she is most familiar with and closest to, and she is looking at her with a look of surprise and fear.
"Aisun...? Were you asleep?"
"Seems to be."
His head hurt so much and he felt dizzy that Hitzfeld had to put his hands on his temples and almost collapsed to the ground.
"So the treatment is effective? But your current condition..."
Xia Yibing looked at her carefully and found that the girl's face was pale and there was no trace of blood on her lips.
What's happening here……
She was apparently fine when I picked her up at the intersection just now. How come she became like this just a few minutes after we got in the car?
"I had a nightmare and I feel a little sick."
Hitzfeld said simply.
"Let's go back as soon as possible. I want to take a hot bath."
"……OK."
Xia Yibing looked at her deeply.
"Then sit tight."
A noticeable push back feeling.
This is when you start competing with others for lanes.
Hitzfeld closed his eyes and avoided looking at the neon night scene outside the window.
She just felt very tired.
very tired.
The man holding the umbrella reappeared in the darkness, along with the overwhelming tentacles... the sharp teeth and limbs mixed in with the tentacles...
Who is he?
Why would I see such an illusion out of nowhere?
And the smell he mentioned, could it be...
Suddenly, she took out a bottle of perfume from her chest, sprayed a little on the back of her hand, and put it to her nose.
...It was a strong stench of corpse.
Chapter 2 Loss of Sense
"What the hell? Are you saying that she will throw up if she smells any perfume now?"
"Do I look like someone who likes to play such boring jokes on you?"
"So you suspect me? There was something wrong with the treatment I gave her recently... Oh, it was my influence, so you're looking for me to hold me responsible? Is that right?"
"It's okay if you insist on understanding it this way, but you have to admit that all this happened after the treatment started, right? Hmm? Am I wronging you in this regard? Tell me yourself, who else besides you could have had this kind of influence on her during this period of time?"
“…Stop arguing.”
He opened his eyes again and sat up from the bed. Hitzfeld looked at the people in the room expressionlessly.
Oh... the description of a room full of people might be a bit exaggerated. There are only Xia, the red-haired nurse Lu Xier, and the arrogant and sharp-tongued old loli with mixed hair and highlights - Conte Sixus.
But her bedroom wasn't very big to begin with, and with these three people and the big white dog Lily lying beside the bed, there was basically no space left.
"I want to know what happened." Hitzfeld looked at Xia Yibing, "What about what you just said about vomiting after smelling perfume?"
Her consciousness had returned to normal - quite normal, but her memory seemed to be blocked by a layer of dark fog, and she couldn't remember what happened before she fell asleep.
"Don't you remember, Aisuen?" The woman squatted down worriedly and reached out to hold her hand. "You fainted in the bathroom. When I heard the noise and rushed in, you were still retching. And you vomited once before taking a shower."
"I seem to remember something..." Hitzfeld pressed his forehead, and scenes began to emerge from the darkness. "It was in the car?"
"Yes! I've been watching you. You were supposed to go get treatment for your sequelae today as usual. You were fine when I picked you up at the intersection, but soon after getting in the car, you took a nap and suddenly woke up. You seemed to have consumed a lot of energy and told me that you wanted to come back soon..."
"Then I took out my perfume and sprayed a little." Hitzfeld took the initiative to help her complete the rest, "... and then I vomited."
"...That's it." Xia Yibing nodded. "When I rushed into the bathroom, I saw a piece of soap dropped next to me... and when I got close to you, you retched more violently, so I guessed that you were allergic to the fragrance..."
This assumption is correct.
Hitzfeld nodded mentally.
She didn't know why, but she was sure now: no matter what scent she smelled, when that smell was fed back into her brain, she would judge it as the stench of a corpse.
"So, Aisuen—" Beside her, Sixus curled her lips and walked over with a cat-like look as if someone owed her money. "We must first understand the cause of the incident—are you sure you were asleep at the time?"
"Yeah...or you could consider me unconscious."
"I don't understand. This should be a good thing for insomniacs."
"But I had nightmares in there."
"Interesting... Is there anyone here who hasn't had a nightmare? Do you think there are such people in the world?"
"I saw a weird guy in my nightmare... He was holding an umbrella with endless tentacle worms inside, and he attacked me..." Hitzfeld said in a calm voice.
The atmosphere in the room gradually changed.
Lu Xi'er was squatting on the ground teasing Lily with a sly grin, but his smile quickly disappeared when he heard this, and he looked up at the girl on the bed.
"I didn't expect that there would be those things in his umbrella... and maybe because it was a dream, my reaction... my thinking was a little slow... so in the end..."
"He killed you?" asked Sixus.
"No, I'm not sure—" Hitzfeld shook his head, "I seemed to be pulled into another world by those things, the world inside the umbrella... It's dark, damp, and constantly squirming... It stinks... It's full of the stench of corpses..."
"Describe your nightmare in detail. Remember - all of it."
At the same time, Xixus and Xia Yibing both took out their notebooks and pens.
They looked at each other, snorted and turned away.
Hitzfeld told them everything she could remember in a calm, soothing tone, and sighed: "And then it seemed like that..."
"Dreyerman." Sixus finished recording and snapped his fingers.
"Doctor~"
"Go get your locker."
"The cabinet for nail polish materials? All of them?"
"All."
Lu Xi'er ran out pitifully, and came back a while later pushing a heavy wooden cabinet. He was so tired that he stuck out his tongue just like Lily.
"Thank you for your hard work." Sixus comforted her, "I'm not teasing you, but I need enough samples to make a better judgment."
Next, she began to experiment with those raw materials and the perfume-making ingredients that could be found here - bringing them to the girl one by one and letting her smell them.
This was a nightmare experience for Hitzfeld. The nail polish also contained fragrance, but there was obviously something wrong with her sense of smell. Almost all the fragrances smelled like corpses in her nose.
So after a few sets she couldn't stand it anymore, she didn't want to retch on the bed, so she sternly refused and terminated the experiment.
"You can give her something smelly to smell and see if she thinks it smells good."
Lil Hill suggested.
"No thanks." Hitzfeld's face fell.
"Only the processed fragrance will react, the stench is still the original smell."
Some of those materials were smelly to begin with, but they didn't change when she smelled them.
"Only processed spices will react?" Lu Xier was surprised. "Then you can't add spices to your food in the future?"
"Dreyerman!"
"Sorry……"
After scolding the little nurse, Sixus looked up.
"Only natural scents that haven't been processed in any way have no reaction... It's strange, I've never encountered this before."
"Sixus." Xia Yibing couldn't stand her dawdling here, "You can tell me whatever you think."
"I originally thought that her taste nerves... the part that connects to the brain, might have gone awry during the treatment."
"So it was you who did it—"
"It's not my fault!" Sixus retorted, "Who insisted on treating her? It's not like you don't know what's going on in her head. Can't you see whether the treatment is effective or not? This is just a minor sequelae at best!"
"'Minor sequelae'!" Xia Yibing showed a sarcastic expression.
"Indeed!" Sixus snorted coldly.
"Compared to the tentacles going out of control and crushing your brain, resulting in immediate death or eternal sleep, isn't this a good outcome?"
Xia Yibing was silent now.
“That was actually within my expectations.”
The mixed-haired loli began to pace in front of Hitzfeld's bed.
"Yes... I have made a plan... I also went to see Pussone, and we discussed a lot of the content together... The destruction of your sense of taste and smell is not an exception. In fact, we also speculate that your five senses will have problems during the process."
"Because their nerves are connected to the brain, and the tentacles are also embedded in it?" Hitzfeld asked softly.
“…That’s it.”
Sixus nodded.
"If everything goes well... I mean, if you can really control them with His Majesty's blood pressure, then you will definitely be able to return to normal."
"What if it doesn't go well?"
"The sequelae may last a lifetime." Xixus shook his head, "You can only eat food without any seasoning in the future. In more serious cases, you will have to rely on intravenous drips."
"I still have confidence in my ability to control them," Hitzfeld said, while slightly squeezing Xia Yibing's hand, in this way comforting her not to worry.
"No, the premise of all this is based on the fact that it is indeed a 'sequelae'."
Sixus changed the subject and his expression became gloomy and serious.
"What's the meaning."
Xia Yibing frowned.
Isn't it a side effect of treatment?
What could that be?
"It can accurately distinguish between fragrance and odor, and even down to natural and processed spices... I have never seen such symptoms before."
Sixus shook his head.
"This doesn't seem like a simple symptom, it's more like an evil spirit, like being cursed by something."
"But I have you guys accompanying me all this time."
Hitzfeld doesn't think so.
"What chance do I have of being cursed?"
"You have to ask yourself." Sixus said.
"Endless tentacles...worms..."
"Think back to yourself, have you come into contact with any unclean or strange things during this period?"
