The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 682: Respective Secrets

“—Fuck, why did Dove go crazy this time?”

“—Is it because Dove can’t go to the city? She didn’t seem to stay in the city for long in her previous life…”

“—Wait a minute, stop chattering. Isn’t that the Winter Insurgent?”

“—Huh? Really? Is the Winter Insurgent that young?”

“—It seems so? Does this mean that Captain of the Stone Celecia has a connection with the Ice-shredders? Can this be used as evidence?”

Although Longjing Tea and the others couldn’t see the bullet text, the live stream was still on.

Annan and the players could see their point of view, yet their messages couldn’t reach the players at all.

Not only was the bullet-text functionality disabled, but even direct messages and emergency calls were rendered useless. Even when Annan tried to assign them missions, there was no response.

Judging from the situation, the Book of Divine Transporter was incomplete. It didn’t have the “table of contents” yet. It was not enough to support the players’ resurrection in the dungeon instance in another world.

You May Not Be in the Service Area.jpg

In a sense, the players should be thankful that this dungeon instance in another world followed a “day cycle” mode, where everyone would return to the start after they die.

Otherwise, things might have gone wrong by now…

Outside the dungeon instance, Annan observed the players through the third-person view… He had more or less figured out the mechanism of this dungeon instance.

The trap of this dungeon instance was simple.

That was, “overlooking the things we see in daily life.”

When Longjing Tea woke up, he was in the bathtub, having seemingly taken some kind of pill to end her life; Dove woke up in a jungle with a deceased hunter lying at her feet; while Delicious Wind Goose woke up in a Swordsmanship Hall, the exact location was actually a study within the hall.

Before him, there were scattered bottles of alcohol, the stench of booze on him… and a letter with the word “Failed” written on it.

Wandering Child did become a millionaire, but his family was in a mess. There were suspicions of his wife having an affair, one of his sons turned out to be a classic good-for-nothing who was addicted to gambling, and his daughter became an ATM for her boyfriends, leading a chaotic personal life.

None of the players revealed these hidden details to each other.

Once these clues were pieced together, the players would immediately have an idea.

Longjing Tea once thought of committing suicide due to pressure, and Dove might have taken a life in the Australian jungle. Delicious Wind Goose’s deepest regret in life was failing his college entrance examination. Wandering Child’s consistent failure at matchmaking was probably his worries about married life.

These happened to be their deepest fears of what could happen in the future or have happened in the past.

Even without understanding why, they subconsciously ignored it. Even when chatting with others, they never mentioned it… or perhaps, they dared not bring it up, even trying hard to forget about it.

Piecing it together with the initial appearances of the people from the Silver Brigade, the truth spoke for itself.

The centaur was a timid race. If possible, the little centaur girl would escape to a place where there were no people, far away from the city and close to nature — so she became a ranger of the abandoned natural reserve.

Since he was young, Arthur Searing-Fang always believed that he would eventually become a big shot in the future. With his intense ambition and remarkable abilities, he was considered to be on a path to greatness, the future Gold Rank.

But as he grew up, for various reasons, he neither became a Gold Rank nor a big shot. Instead, captivated by Captain of the Stone, Celecia, he joined the Silver Brigade.

Was he infatuated with Celecia? Would he even give up everything so far for her?

Most probably he was just running away.

Orpheus became a renowned artist because deep down he yearned for people to admire him for who he was, not for his lineage. The woman who portrayed “Lily Rasputin” even abandoned her real name, simply wished to be in a place where no one cared about her and no one recognized her.

Back in the day, Elle was infatuated with and admired her adoptive father, the famous painter Amos. She had a particular fondness for music. So, she was especially torn between pursuing music or art.

Of course, before Elle could make up her mind, Amos was dedicated to sacrificing her.

So in this nightmare, she became a musician and a painter at the same time. This was the vision fantasy in her heart.

Celecia was even more so.

The players, having never seen “Wolf’s Kiss” – the nightmare within a nightmare – were missing a crucial piece of information.

Captain Celecia, the legendary adventurer who piloted the Stoneheart Ship and sailed in the rock formations, was the ex-Austere-Winter fugitive… the leader of the Ice-shredders, Thoreau Nick!

When Celecia was “Thoreau Nick”, he was the most loyal disciple of the Winter Insurgent Vladmir. He even knew Vladmir earlier than all werewolves.

Thoreau Nick was a murderer’s child.

His father was an assassin, and his mother was an accomplice, also a murderer. When Thoreau Nick was very young, their home address was exposed, and his mother was killed in retaliation by another in the same line of work.

Thoreau Nick was in the locker at the time and witnessed his mother killed.

And his father never returned after that. Judging by the timeline, his father likely died before his mother. Most likely, his father was killed on a mission that the enemies dared to seek revenge.

Later, the child from the same village who had come to play at Thoreau Nick’s house was killed.

Ever since then, Thoreau Nick’s personality had become twisted.

He had a good talent for swordsmanship and magic, but his background prevented him from passing the political review of Winter’s Hand. Therefore, he lost the opportunity to learn Falteration Spells. The teacher in the swordsmanship hall was also unwilling to teach him because he was the child of a murderer.

“—If you learn swordsmanship, you will definitely use it to kill the innocent.”

That was the old swordmaster’s perception of Thoreau Nick.

The old man was sharp and precise just like his swordsmanship. When Thoreau Nick learned swordsmanship and magic from the Winter Insurgent, he didn’t forget to come back and kill the old man while he was a fugitive.

The old teacher’s prophecy was indeed fulfilled, and it was proved by his own dead body.

Even though Thoreau Nick’s background prevented him from learning the Falteration Magic, Vladmir took a fancy to his talent.

Vladmir went against the major sentiment and recruited Thoreau Nick as his disciple. With that, Vladmir included Thoreau Nick in the second campaign launched by the Winter’s Hand.

That was actually a kind of hard labor.

Winter’s Hand was also known as the “Children’s Severed Finger”.

They had no Winter’s Hand treatment, no access to high-level secrets, no pensions, and no recognition after death. It was just working hard for a salary.

This special force was available in almost every country.

Mainly because of the unique standing of transcenders in society, which made them precious resources and targets inconvenient to hunt down. These intricate circumstances allowed a special force like them to exist.

In other words, they became cannon fodders who didn’t even know the details of the mission in advance. Generally speaking, it was a “probation team” voluntarily joined by serious criminals whose crimes were enough to be sentenced to “exile” but not yet the “death penalty”.

In Austere-Winter, exile was a form of death.

The whole meaning of their existence was to use their remaining lives to protect the Austere-Winter Dukedom by killing people, making themselves “less wasteful”.

However, Thoreau Nick didn’t care about that.

For the first time in his life, he felt needed and recognized.

Like a tamed dog, he devoted all his allegiance to his “teacher”, Vladmir.

In fact, his capability had long been able to pass the Winter’s Hand test. However, because of the strong fear and psychological trauma in his heart, he still couldn’t pass the Wolf’s Kiss ritual. Therefore, even though his skills in killing the opponent had long surpassed the ordinary Winter’s Hand, he could only stay with other felons in the “Severed Finger Squad” and was unable to acquire an official role.

The situation continued until Vladmir became “the Winter Insurgent”.

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