“Tap, tap, tap——“
Su Li heard rhythmic sounds in his ears. He didn’t know what they were, just as he didn’t understand why he was standing at the edge of a cliff.
His vision was filled with white mist, with only the abyss before his feet and the environnt at the cliff’s edge giving him the concept of danger.
He couldn’t explain what this scene ant or what he was supposed to do.
Su Li simply stood in place, lost in thought.
“Tap, tap, tap——“
The sound resonated like a duet.
Still that rhythmic sound, as if sothing was being struck.
Su Li turned his head to look around but discovered nothing.
He began to contemplate who he was and where he was going.
Until the words “transmigration” appeared, as if stamped firmly in his mind by an invisible hand.
Another world, all kinds of people, elents, monster beasts, regions......
Human civilization, monster beast civilization, everything appeared like a chessboard suddenly erging from the deep mist of the abyss.
Just like when a player unlocks part of a map in a ga. Though knowing new maps existed, Su Li could only stop before the [Monster Beast Society] map, unable to move forward, as if hitting an invisible wall.
But when he witnessed his companion following an NPC into the new map, questions involuntarily arose in his mind.
Was this reasonable?
Why could the Raven go through but not him?
Was it because his level was higher than mine?
This thought suddenly appeared, then was instantly erased by his ga designer instincts.
“I need to find a programr to open an invincible GM account.”
When this idea appeared word by word in his mind, the mist-shrouded monster beast civilization map dispersed as if blown away by wind, revealing everything before his eyes.
It was another world.
The expansion pack was enormous, making one doubt whether a computer could handle so many mory resources.
Mighty dragons flying above luxurious buildings, countless fish appearing along the coast, land-dwelling monster beasts standing on beaches with their backs to forests, confronting nurous aquatic creatures.
The battle began like a countdown—3, 2, 1—and when “go” appeared, dragons had their wings severed, blood raining down like showers. Land beasts were torn apart by the pincers of aquatic beasts. rmaid-like dreamy creatures extended claws as sharp as devils’, and with just one pull, crimson entrails and white bones hidden in blood appeared right before one’s eyes.
Silent roars arose among the beasts. The water-dwelling monster beasts appearing along the coast should have been endless because of the sea, but they ultimately couldn’t match the land-dwelling monster beasts charging repeatedly from the forests and lands.
Magnificent buildings collapsed with thunderous sounds, the blue sea was dyed red, and falling dragons crushed countless creatures.
In this battle, no one was victorious.
Everything was silent.
Until the scene transitioned from vivid color to black and white silent film.
At so point, nurous fla-like markers appeared in the expansion pack.
Those things eventually gathered in one place, finally gathering at the edge leading to the human civilization map.
Su Li was shocked, unable to believe that NPCs from a higher-level map were attempting to invade the territory of lower-level map NPCs.
What kind of third-rate setting was this?
Initially thinking it was an invasion.
But when the complete third-rate setting was revealed, he discovered it was rely NPCs from the monster beast civilization believing that killing human civilization beings would allow monster beast civilization to exist longer.
What the hell?
Where was the review process? Where had the expansion pack production team gone?
Was there any logic left?
Consider that novice village players couldn’t possibly withstand high-level map NPCs, right?
Not even giving a chance to level up—what kind of comprehensive (extermination) ga was this?
The most absurd thing was why high-level map NPCs would think that eliminating the lower-level human civilizations would allow them to continue?
Where was the brain, the logic? To what extent must one be crazy to abandon both?
This was so kind of pathological developnt——
A mask of pain uncontrollably appeared in Su Li’s innermost heart, but he still continued watching the follow-up in the expansion that was worse than third-rate.
Human civilization was completely occupied by monster beast civilization.
Su Li’s subconscious couldn’t help but criticize: a garbage ga that didn’t even provide buffs to disadvantaged factions to compensate for the gap in faction wars......
How dare they deceive players of their money and ti.
Until suddenly, Su Li discovered that monster beast civilization had also begun to collapse.
All the green dots symbolizing life on the map dimd one by one.
The entire world fell into deadly silence.
No longer a silent film with sound turned off, but a world with wind, rain, sunlight, flowing water, yet no intelligent life.
Su Li: ???
“Tap, tap, tap——“
The chanical, rhythmic sound rang out again.
Always silent, maintaining an expressionless face, with only so reaction deep in his heart, the otherwise quiet Su Li couldn’t help but say: “Garbage ga.”
Garbage world.
And then——
The young man lying face up on the bed looking at the ceiling suddenly found a moon appearing on his ceiling.
Su Li: ???
The dream scene gradually dissipated, repeatedly blurring, but the tapping sound in his ears beca increasingly clear.
After sitting up in bed, Su Li realized that it was his window being repeatedly knocked on.
What was sowhat creepy was that the Raven was raising his head, staring in the direction of the window, motionless.
Su Li hesitantly asked, “...A ghost, or... a phantom? A skeleton?”
The Raven finally turned his head toward Su Li and said, “Just a fool who doesn’t know better, disturbing people’s sleep in the middle of the night.”
So it was a person.
Su Li walked to the window and opened it, then saw... Ophelia, who was holding a mirror, continuously using moonlight reflection to create a disco effect in the room.
Su Li... Su Li felt that all his questions accumulated over the past month amounted to about this much.
He refused to invite the grand princess into his room, only saying, “You could have chosen to visit properly. Why knock on the window in the middle of the night?”
Just as Ophelia was about to put the mirror into her alchemy tool, suddenly the entire world shook as if it were a toy held in the palm of a god.
Ophelia completely lost her noble deanor from the shock. She struggled to form a rope by condensing water elents, tying herself to Su Li’s window, then waited with the young man inside for the monster beast-caused earthquake to subside.
After everything beca completely quiet, she said, “I don’t think people in this small building would let in.”
Su Li: “So you thought I would let you in?”
But Ophelia shook her head and said, “I don’t care about that.”
She looked up at Su Li leaning against the window and said, “I ca to find you only because I want to know if you already knew there would be many humanoid monster beasts appearing in Amikbi.”
In her view, the young man standing by the window, his right hand pressing on his left upper arm, smiled bitterly when he heard this and said, “...That’s really a difficult question to answer.”
But before that, Su Li also wanted to know sothing.
“Before I tell you the answer you want to know, first tell , we who were scheming against each other not long ago, are we really the kind of people who can climb through each other’s windows in the middle of the night?”
Ophelia glared at him, her golden eyes flickering. She said, “If there weren’t all these ssy affairs, or if I had already gotten the answers I wanted earlier, even if you were dead with not even ashes remaining, I wouldn’t care.”
“So, can you now tell the answer to my question?”
But Su Li pulled a chair from the nearby desk, sat down, and said, “I don’t know.”
Before the grand princess could grab Su Li’s neck and shake him violently, Su Li said sothing that stopped her.
The dream was becoming increasingly blurred in his mory, but as a ga designer, his obsession with certain settings still allowed Su Li to say, “In my view, only upward developnt is right. The weak beco strong, the weak wield blades against the strong, cultivators rise to challenges, those who defy heaven ride the wind. Therefore, in my opinion, there’s no reason for a large number of monster beasts to co to Amikbi in the short term.”
He agreed with Egbert’s guess, although when things happened, he couldn’t help but criticize.
But he never developed resentnt.
“Just like you, if you hadn’t wanted to destroy Sadina City, you wouldn’t have brought troops to surround the city before,” Su Li said with half his face hidden in shadow. Ophelia could only see one of his ears, which had reddened from the cold air coming through the open window.
Smart people tend to overthink.
When she initially surrounded Sadina City with troops, it was because the city was useful to her from every angle.
Su Li knew this point, so his saying this could only an that humans had sothing useful for those high-level monster beasts.
Moreover, since Su Li used her as an example, it ant the disastrous impact of this exploitation on people would definitely not be any less than what she might have brought to the rcenaries when she surrounded Sadina City with troops.
At that ti, Ophelia wanted the rcenaries to continue being her slaves. After destroying the rcenary City, she could also gain extrely high prestige and corresponding noble support.
Even if she couldn’t destroy it, cooperating with Su Li could also improve her situation, which was then controlled by the Pope of Light.
Ophelia would bet that Su Li understood these things more clearly than she rembered them.
That ant the appearance of monster beasts would have at least three angles of aning.
She understood, so she said, “This ti, don’t tell you’re still going to follow the monster beasts?”
When Sadina City was besieged, Su Li followed her, which resolved the city’s crisis.
Now that Amikbi was under attack, surely Su Li couldn’t still follow the monster beasts?
But Su Li calmly replied, “You can remove the ‘don’t tell .’”
“In fact, there’s only this one choice,” Su Li said, not troubled by having only one option in a single-choice question.
What he was thinking instead was how easy it was to talk with Ophelia.
“But have you considered that this kind of behavior will always put you in danger?” Ophelia couldn’t agree with this approach.
“Isn’t it said that a gentleman doesn’t stand beneath a dangerous wall?”
Su Li quickly turned his head to stare at Ophelia.
The grand princess was startled. “Wh-what?”
She stiffened her neck and said, “What? Am I not allowed to read ‘No One Understands Lord Su Li Better Than ’?”
Self-exposing Ophelia ultimately only received an expression from Su Li who pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve social embarrassnt.
But Ophelia didn’t care about this gesture.
There was still a long ti until dawn. She and Su Li had plenty of ti to talk.
Today, Ophelia felt she must understand the answers behind Su Li’s actions.
And his true intentions for his next moves.
This was the most important thing. After Ophelia’s eyes deepened montarily, she straightforwardly expressed all her questions.
Su Li was also generous in answering her.
No matter how vicious Ophelia might be, she wouldn’t necessarily accept the terrible reality that all humans were about to be exterminated.
“Have you considered whether informing ordinary people about the world’s truth might affect the upper class’s control over ordinary people?”
“Of course I’ve considered that question.”
Ophelia was puzzled. “Then why still say it?”
Su Li laughed softly. He lowered his head then raised it again, saying, “Of course because, for those in the upper class, what they need to do is, after revealing the truth, anticipate different developnt directions and still possess the ability to control the situation.”
“And this kind of control cannot be exploitation of the people’s minds.”
“Only in this way can we have a qualified social system.”
Disguising, burying, hiding—these actions were rely planting a bomb with a lit fuse rather than truly defusing the bomb.
Su Li tilted his head to look at Ophelia. “People who sufficiently trust their managers, and managers who sufficiently trust their people, can truly be of one heart.”
“I even feel that if one day I tell everyone in this city that the world is about to end, that they will all die after a certain ti, the rcenaries’ reaction would definitely not be to scatter in all directions, causing chaos.”
Ophelia was even more puzzled. “How could people not do that?”
In the heart of a self-interested person, all people are self-interested.
“Of course they wouldn’t do that,” Su Li said decisively. “They would only be united, jointly resisting the coming death.”
Whether resistance was useful or not, the past image of the managers would cause people facing choices to select what they believed the managers wanted.
Su Li hadn’t engaged in conversations with people for a long ti where he didn’t consider the future but only discussed the past. To Ophelia, whose mindset, growing environnt, and world had caused different logic, he said, “Do you know how many assassination attempts Euphia faced when she was reforming the rcenary Alliance’s war mission rules?”
“Do you know how many like-minded people died alongside the leader of the Lion’s Club when they were opposing Euphia?”
One believed that using life as a price to exchange for benefits was too cruel and shouldn’t exist. That even if benefits were still what people desired, the ans of obtaining benefits could be gentler rather than fighting with lives.
The other believed that rcenaries would always face desperate situations that could only be improved with money and resources. For rcenaries, risking life to obtain money and resources was essentially just a ans to make the desperate situation co more slowly.
There was actually no positive change.
“I think so too,” Ophelia agreed with Su Li’s description of the Lion’s Club leader’s thinking.
“But that’s not right,” Su Li said. “I can’t say what Euphia did was definitely correct, after all, social developnt changes with each dynasty, each era, day by day, year by year.”
“In the past, before changes occurred, rcenaries were just swords in the hands of different nobles. When the blades t, what they got was money earned by fighting to the death, wealth that might help them through a winter, a quarter. But in the process of blades eting, broken swords would never see tomorrow.”
The Lion’s Club leader saw the present, Euphia saw the future.
“The Lion’s Club leader focused on the present, causing him to lose too many companions. Euphia’s desired future, however, ant she alone withstood all the assassination attempts.”
Fortunately, the Lion’s Club leader was decisive enough. When he understood his subordinates’ needs, he imdiately chose to rge with Euphia.
He accepted his mistake and acknowledged Euphia’s correctness.
Su Li slowly told Ophelia as if telling a story.
He couldn’t sleep. Even if he forgot everything from his dream, he could still rember the scene of a world without any trace of intelligence.
Sorting through the past was, for Su Li, also a way to see the future clearly.
But Ophelia remained silent for a long ti.
Until the sky began to turn white, Su Li didn’t retreat under his blanket, and Ophelia didn’t climb into the room or climb down the ladder. The two just sat there, one inside the room, one leaning against the window.
When the first ray of sunlight shone through the window, Ophelia finally said, “Euphia did it for the rcenaries; earlier you went to the Inner City with for the rcenary City; then do you want to go to the world of monster beasts for Amikbi?”
Ophelia actually knew the answer, but she also knew that Su Li’s answer would definitely be different from what she knew.
Sure enough, the young man rubbed his face, which had beco a bit stiff from the cold wind, and after a while, he smiled and said, “I don’t have such noble goals.”
As a ga designer, he also had the right to be a player, to appreciate the scenery.
As a designer, he might not be able to play the ga he created due to contractual reasons. But since this wasn’t a ga Su Li participated in creating, of course, he could freely see all the scenery he wanted to see.
Ophelia glared at him. Without Xiao Zuo following her, this was the only way she knew how to threaten soone.
“I don’t understand at all!” Her forceful voice sounded as if she was affirming sothing.
“Let think about how to explain this...” Su Li looked at her expression and silently shifted his gaze away.
After several minutes, when the entire sun had completely risen above the horizon, Su Li finally said, “I’m only doing it for myself.”
Those green eyes, at this mont, were like a complete mirror, reflecting his past and his future.
I’m just doing this so I won’t have regrets.
Working hard, saving enough money, keeping a cat, owning a house—all this was so his future years wouldn’t be entangled in work that was completed yet still remained, to the point where it could never be finished.
Wanting to enter the monster beast world to diate a possibility of eternal human civilization was also just for...
“I don’t want my future to be forever accompanied by death,” Su Li gazed into Ophelia’s golden eyes.
Su Li had always been a person with strong desires.
All the harsh demands he placed on himself were certainly not, as others focusing only on the present might think, being too hard on himself. For Su Li, these were simply the prerequisites to satisfy greater desires.
Su Li had always emphasized: “Don’t pin too many hats on like ‘for humanity’ or ‘for the world.’”
He sincerely believed: “I’m only doing it for myself.”
When these eight words were spoken, all the mist from his dream and all the haziness before him were completely blown away by an imperceptible wind.
Ophelia couldn’t tell if it was sunlight shining into Su Li’s eyes or if his eyes had always been filled with starlight.
.......
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