Chapter 74
Chapter 74
[Game loading.]
[Loading instance… *Witch’s House*.]
Xiao Huai’s eyes flew open. An endless nebula stretched before him.
A line of enormous text appeared across the black nebula.
[Identity card special mission triggered. Loading…]
System notifications began appearing one after another across Xiao Huai’s interface.
[Congratulations! You have received the identity: Holy Father.]
[Holy Father] Identity Description: Your purpose is to protect the lives and safety of every player. You embody hope and salvation and must devote yourself selflessly. Whenever a player dies, the Holy Father will receive a punishment: He will experience the pain of the deceased as though it were his own.
[Mission Description: At least one companion must remain alive when the game ends. The more companions who survive, the richer the rewards at settlement.]
[Mission Failure: Mandatory execution.]
Instance-exclusive buff acquired: [Rule Appraisal]. Determine whether a rule is true or false. Three uses available.
[Note: As the Holy Father, you are light, hope, and the nemesis of all darkness. How could the Holy Father ever stand by and watch someone die?]
After reading all the information, the corners of Xiao Huai’s mouth curved upward.
He laughed.
A bleeding-heart identity card.
In a place filled with villains, someone like that was the last person who belonged.
Such people simply did not understand what villains revered.
Everyone harbored schemes of their own. Who would trust a naive-looking “good person” who claimed to want to protect them all?
No one would truly believe him.
They might trust him for a while, but as the game progressed…
Would they not ultimately sacrifice the bleeding heart first?
A map floated into Xiao Huai’s hand.
[Topographic Map of the Pudu Desert.]
Xiao Huai closed his hand around it and focused on memorizing its contents.
Players with identity cards could acquire not only game buffs, but also items or information.
This map was an item, but it also contained vital intelligence.
At the very least, Xiao Huai now knew what kind of place the next game would take place in.
A desert.
A beam of light shone down.
Beneath the blazing sun, dunes coiled like enormous dragons, heat waves rolling off them in the glare.
Xiao Huai narrowed his eyes. The abrupt shift in space made them ache.
He was the first player to appear in the desert.
“Hello. I’m your guide, a native resident of this land.”
The bronze-skinned man wore distinctive ethnic clothing of an exotic desert style. His long robe was predominantly brown, layered over coffee-colored cloth and gauze that gleamed like stars beneath the sun.
Simple jewels and feathers decorated the front of the robe, swaying in the wind.
Xiao Huai looked at him with narrowed eyes, an unreadable trace of cunning entering their depths.
He smiled at the man.
“Hello. I was thinking… Why don’t we play a game of hide-and-seek?”
The next second, a black hole appeared beneath their feet.
The NPC’s eyes widened in terror. Before he could react, he had already fallen into Xiao Huai’s game space.
All kinds of enormous dolls were piled there. Beneath the night sky, huge boxes stood in disorderly, complicated stacks.
The guide crashed heavily to the ground, stars bursting across his vision from the pain.
Before he could understand what had happened, a cold dagger was already pressed to his throat.
The dagger gleamed like black diamond. If it pressed down even a few millimeters farther, blood would spray across the ground.
“Wh-what do you want?” the guide asked in a trembling voice.
Xiao Huai tilted his head and regarded him, a wicked glint in his eyes.
“Mm, nothing much. I only want to discuss something with you.”
He smiled faintly, his face taking on a bewitching allure that stole the breath.
The guide was nearly frightened to tears. He was only a native resident who occasionally took side jobs guiding these outsiders.
He had no desire to lose his life over it.
The guide’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “We can talk this through. Could you… could you put that down?”
Xiao Huai observed every detail of his expression.
Terror. Fear. Resentment. Grievance.
These were not the expressions of an NPC being played by a god.
In the horror game, not every NPC was a god playing a role or a boss native to the game itself.
Most NPCs were simply ordinary people who had always lived in the instance world.
The security guards at the Diamond Factory in *Diamond Magnate*, along with Sato, had all been living, breathing native residents.
They hated work and overtime and occasionally even possessed a sense of justice.
They had called players diamond fiends. What did people call them here?
“What do you call people like us?” Xiao Huai suddenly asked.
The guide answered honestly, “You? You’re… You’re outsiders.”
Xiao Huai lowered the dagger. Inside his game space, he did not need a weapon to threaten the guide, nor did he have to worry about being injured by him easily.
“What are your responsibilities as a guide? Why did you take this job?”
“Honestly, I only did it for the money. They said all we had to do was take you to the village. One trip pays five gold coins. We all fight over this work because there’s no danger.”
Xiao Huai lowered his voice. “You’re saying there is no danger in the desert?”
How could a desert possibly be free of danger?
The guide fell silent for a moment. The corner of Xiao Huai’s mouth lifted.
He was unsettling enough without smiling. The smile sent goose bumps across the guide’s body.
“I wouldn’t say there’s no danger… Only that guides like us aren’t in danger. I don’t know what happens to you outsiders at night. Sometimes, you just die in your sleep…”
It was because of the rules.
Native residents might not be able to see them, and a guide might not be bound by them.
“Who are *they*? The witches?”
The guide froze when he heard the question. He closed his mouth, even greater fear entering his eyes.
He could not say.
Speaking would kill him.
That was the restriction placed upon him.
Xiao Huai understood. He purchased an entire gold bar from the System Shop.
The guide’s eyes began to shine the moment he saw the gold in Xiao Huai’s hand.
Xiao Huai turned slightly and looked down at him. “One final question: What’s your name?”
“My name is A-Zhuolang.” The answer escaped him almost reflexively.
The sight of money had made him more than a little greedy.
“Very good, A-Zhuolang. Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
Xiao Huai smiled faintly. “Will you take them off yourself, or should I?”
He waved the dagger again.
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it myself…”
It was only an outfit. How could it be more important than his life?
A-Zhuolang changed out of his clothes. Xiao Huai handed him a casual outfit and gave him the gold as well.
A-Zhuolang immediately felt he had gotten an incredible bargain and nearly jumped for joy.
While he was still celebrating, Xiao Huai had already changed into the guide’s clothes.
When A-Zhuolang finally recovered and looked at Xiao Huai again, his gaze was utterly captivated, and he froze without realizing it.