...Huh?
This "Skeleton Duke" actually initiated a conversation?
Had such an exchange ever occurred before?
Longjing Tea looked up in surprise, finding that the others were just as astonished as he was.
— That ant it hadn’t happened.
Strange, what exactly triggered this dialogue...
Longjing Tea pondered, yet his face imdiately showed a kind smile that was convincing, "We do indeed have a small favor to ask of you... "
"Oh! Please go ahead," the youth confidently said, "I happen to be very free today!"
"Then let’s get to know each other formally."
Longjing Tea extended his hand and shook hands with the youth, putting on a serious and stern face for show, "I am Longjing Tea, Assistant Inspector and also a ’Special Spell Advisor’ for Angus City."
"...Oh!"
The white-haired youth beca sowhat nervous upon hearing this.
He rubbed his hands on his pants haphazardly, shook hands with Longjing Tea and gave a slight bow, "Hello, Officer Longjing Tea! My na is Midas, a... well, a student."
...Midas? So your real na is this, you bag of bones?
Longjing Tea’s eyebrows twitched.
He was all too familiar with that na...
— The Midas touch!
And this na seed to belong to a king in Greek mythology, who wished for the golden touch and ended up turning his own daughter into gold... the origin of the term "Midas touch," though the other details were a bit fuzzy to him.
Curse it, if only he could use Baidu...
Longjing Tea faintly realized that there seed to be so secret hidden in the true na of the Skeleton Duke.
But this appearance... was this what he looked like before he beca divine?
No, no, that’s not right.
Before he beca a god, he was a giant, with not only an average height exceeding three ters but also having a single eye.
Yet Midas clearly looked like a normal human being.
He even appeared sowhat frail.
—Is he really the Skeleton Duke?
Such self-doubt surfaced once again in Longjing Tea’s mind.
"Let’s not talk about that for now," Longjing Tea thought to himself but asked the youth casually, his face under control, "It’s getting dark; do you have a place where we can stay for a while? This wilderness isn’t exactly a good place for conversation."
His words were also an indirect probe.
He was trying to test if these "NPCs" knew that when night falls, people start to go mad and attack each other.
But the youth didn’t react at all.
He had the look of "Oh crap, I think I forgot to do my howork," "Speaking of which — I was originally here to find my ntor!"
"Ah, would that delay your schedule?"
Longjing Tea asked as if concerned.
The youth shook his head sadly, "It’s too late already... But let’s still walk towards the city. This is indeed not a place for conversation."
"Hmm, but... what brought you here? Were you returning from outside the city?"
Longjing Tea continued to inquire indirectly.
Unexpectedly, this ti he hit the jackpot:
"...What ’outside’?"
The youth looked back in confusion, "[Outside]... what’s that?"
Longjing Tea’s pupils shrank slightly.
An inexplicable, unwarranted fear made him swallow.
Because they lacked a motorcycle, it took them a lot of ti to walk back. By the ti they sat down in a coffee shop, the horizon was already tinged with red—the twilight hour.
On the way, Longjing Tea also learned so information that gave him a headache.
The white-haired, frail-looking youth, who seed to be "the Skeleton Duke with lost mory," had absolutely no concept of "outside the city."
According to his descriptions, everyone in this city has never left the city—rather, they don’t even have a concept of "anything beyond this city."
This is a world fragnt with only one city.
When asked about history, Midas was completely clueless. He had never studied history... nor was he concerned about what would happen in the future.
While there’s a complete set of world logic here, it feels like a fragnted piece taken out... even reverse to a normal nightmare. In a normal nightmare, every existence feels entirely real, and one may even realize it is a nightmare.
Here, however, everyone treats the city as ordinary.
In this real world, all the people felt unreal.
When Longjing Tea asked "what are you going to do," the youth replied without hesitation—he was to show his thesis to his ntor.
But he was unwilling to share what the thesis was about with the players.
As for what would happen after showing his thesis to the ntor, he didn’t know either.
And when Longjing Tea asked him what he planned to do in the future, he was just as clueless.
—Arcadia.
Soon, the players realized what this was.
There was no "outside" or "inside," no "war" or "destruction," and even the concepts of "past" and "future" were unclear. They were vague about the past and had no hope for the future.
This was truly... a group of people who were "extrely happy" and "living in the mont."
Another thought was born in the heart of Longjing Tea.
— Were they really real people?
This was just too much like so sort of program.
Soon, while the players waited quietly,
nightfall ca quickly.
After the sun set, it suddenly beca much quieter... but Longjing Tea couldn’t imdiately discern what had changed.
"Shall we go and find so others?"
Longjing Tea asked the others.
Delicious Goose nodded in agreent.
He spoke in a serious tone, "Let’s go find that centaur first. If she hasn’t gone mad yet, we should be able to find more clues..."
"What about Midas?"
"How about letting Defu watch him? Defu has a pretty good nose," Delicious Goose said with a smile while petting the Defu, whose real na was Chocolate, "If needed, she can also track by scent..."
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Because just at that mont, Defu suddenly opened her mouth wide—her mouth expanded five or six tis its size in an instant, and she bit off and swallowed the unsuspecting Delicious Goose’s left hand and upper body in one gulp.
"...Defu?!"
Longjing Tea was imdiately startled.
— When had this happened?
And hadn’t Defu said there was no problem earlier?
But his question received no answer.
In the blink of an eye, Longjing Tea was left all alone.
Defu didn’t even speak.
"Huuu hu hu hu hu..."
The threatening purring sound rose from deep within her throat.
Her pupils glead with a wild beast’s light.
And then light suddenly flickered inside the coffee shop—as if crayons had drawn trees erging from the surrounding walls, and the light dimd.
Defu leapt high and landed among the branches of a tree drawn with crayons.
The cold moonlight fell upon her.
— Her vibrant fur looked like that of a monster, now more than ever.
But at that mont—
Coldness scattered and then gathered from the floor.
The formless chill condensed into a lotus, slowly coming together as if the petals of the lotus were closing.
A girl with long lavender hair and a face as ticulous as a doll’s calmly opened the door to the coffee shop.
The next mont—the "monster Defu," now turned into an ice sculpture, began to fade away slowly, as if erased by an unseen force.
Along with her, the witch’s barrier-like illusory walls also disappeared.
The surroundings once again reverted back to the coffee shop.
"Selicia..."
Elle voiced her surprise.
Hearing this, Selicia paused briefly.
She then revealed a sowhat ambiguous smile, squinting her eyes, "Call Captain, little Elle..."
"— You should know where we are, right?"
Her voice was deep, carrying a hint of danger.
But it was still possible to communicate sowhat.
Elle spoke anxiously, "This is..."
She had only just begun to speak.
When the door to the coffee shop opened once again.
"Selicia," the middle-aged man asked with a furrowed brow, "is there still room?"
"Oh yes, there is, Teacher!"
Selicia turned back respectfully, showing a heartfelt smile to the middle-aged man.
It was a sincere, fond, and even sowhat fanatical smile.
But the entering figure made Longjing Tea’s pupils contract slightly.
His right thumb was adorned with an ice ring that emanated a chilling cold, and he held a heavy staff in his hand. His face was expressionless, his pupils cold, his deanor as stiff as that of a puppet.
His stature and features seed to bear an uncanny resemblance to that of the "Winter Reverser," Vladimir—just much younger, like a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties.
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