Chapter 2
Chapter 2
When Ning Shuo took the prayer script from the nearby Attendant, he was thinking about how generous the System was to provide a script.
Then he looked closer.
The entire page was filled with obscure, incomprehensible runes.
[Hahahaha, look at his face! He’s stumped!]
[Don’t even think about faking it with English. This Script has been refreshed so many times, and several players tried to gamble like that only to get offed. The Ghosts/Monsters are practically learning English by now, hahaha!]
The Attendant’s hand reached out, nearly touching Ning Shuo’s neck. “Lord Ning, please, recite the prayer.”
“Lord Ning, why aren’t you reciting it?”
“Lord Ning, you created this prayer yourself.”
“Could it be that Lord Ning doesn’t recognize…”
Ning Shuo dodged the hand and shot him a cold look. “If you interfere with the ritual again, I will have you dragged away.”
The Attendant wasn’t in a hurry. As the seconds ticked by, he looked at Ning Shuo the way a starving ghost looks at a delicacy-with a nauseating sense of hunger.
Finally, just as the Attendant was about to pounce, Ning Shuo began to chant.
[It’s over. He’s not even reciting English. Does he really think he can just mumble gibberish and the Ghosts/Monsters won’t notice?]
[As a grad student fluent in eight languages, I can confirm he’s not speaking German, Japanese, Korean, or any other known tongue. In short: he’s bullshitting.]
[To the person above, maybe there are more than eight languages in the world?]
[Wait… look at the Attendant! He actually stopped moving!!]
[Holy crap!? Did he get it right??]
[How is that possible? I’ve never seen a newbie playing a Priest actually pass this part in a Novice Script. Usually, they burn their newbie protection right here. That Fake Half-immortal already used his up early; how could he possibly get the chant right?]
[You have to clear a Script once to unlock the Forum, so this one is only used as a Newbie Script now. Has anyone seen a decoded version on the Forum? Is he actually reciting it correctly?]
[It looks like… he really is…]
Ning Shuo finished the prayer once. Glancing at the Attendant’s now-placid face, he tossed the script into the air with a flourish and recited it twice more from memory, his tone dripping with mockery.
He had completely memorized it.
[Holy shit!!]
[That was badass!!!]
[Damn, did anyone see that look he gave the monster?! He’s so cool it hurts!!]
[A True Half-immortal??]
[Don’t be ridiculous, he probably just got lucky. If you actually believe he’s a Half-Immortal, you’re just being superstitious.]
Donations flooded the Live Stream Room one after another, interspersed with skeptical comments like [Who is this guy? Why does he know this language?].
After finishing the chant, Ning Shuo adjusted his glasses and stood with his hands behind his back.
Bet you didn’t expect that. It might be obscure and difficult…
But I actually know it.
On the other side, the Attendant’s calm expression was nearly cracking.
In all his years of service, this was the first time he had seen someone provoke a Ghost/Monster like this!
Seeing the Attendant’s expression sour, Ning Shuo pulled his neck back slightly, cleared his throat, and waved his hand. “Bring out the sacrifice!”
The description of the sacrifice in the prayer he just recited roughly translated to: “The sacrifice is prepared, ensuring favorable weather.” It hadn’t specified what the sacrifice actually was.
When the sacrifice was carried up, Ning Shuo looked closely.
It was a person.
The moment their eyes met, a notification popped up on the Virtual Screen: [Player identity confirmed.]
It was another Player.
If this Player was sacrificed like this and it counted as Ning Shuo’s kill, it would clearly violate the conditions for murder.
Killing someone when murder wasn’t allowed would be a net loss for Ning Shuo no matter how he looked at it.
If it didn’t count as his kill, then the game putting an Innocent and a Murderer in such an adversarial position felt absurd.
But if he wanted to save them, how should he do it?
This was a Murder Mystery Game. Although they didn’t know the history of these identities, they were in a Script, and since the Murderer was randomized and anyone could become a victim-
In other words, every Player had a grudge against the others.
Even if they didn’t know what those grudges were yet.
Looking at the sacrifice tied to the stake, he saw attendants already piling firewood around the base.
It looked like they intended to burn the person alive.
Ning Shuo looked down at the Player from his high vantage point, then said indifferently, “A ritual requires the right time, the right place, and the right people. The sky doesn’t look quite right today.”
The attendant, who was hell-bent on devouring him, said gloomily, “Lord Ning, you were the one who calculated this auspicious time in advance…”
“You certainly are clever. I haven’t even finished speaking, yet you’ve interrupted me time and again.”
Ning Shuo flicked his sleeve and snorted coldly. “In that case, why don’t you take over this position of Priest instead?”
The attendant immediately knelt. His expression was a fractured, hideous mess-a mixture of offensive cowering and a murderous madness directed at Ning Shuo. “Lord Ning, I wouldn’t dare. But the timing…”
Ning Shuo replied, “As I said, the timing is right. Even if the sky looks wrong, it is still right.”
[??? What is he saying?]
[I feel like he’s charging up for some ultimate move.]
[Based on what happened before, I have a hunch… Did he predict what happens next again?]
Attendant: “What does Lord Ning mean?”
“What is the purpose of opening the altar this time?”
The attendant hesitated. “To pray for rain.”
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, he paused.
The sky looked wrong…
Was it because it was about to rain?
The attendant looked up at the cloudless sky and his lip twitched. “Lord Ning, no matter how you look at it, the rain won’t be coming anytime soon-”
A drop of water suddenly landed on the attendant’s forehead.
In the middle of perfectly clear weather, rain began to fall.
The people below, unaware of the internal conflict, cheered at the success of the ritual and the arrival of the sweet nectar. Only the Live Stream Room was filled with question marks.
[Wait, is he using cheats??]
[First, he had the prayer memorized perfectly, and now he’s using a cheat to predict the plot.]
[How on earth did he know it would rain?? And I remember according to the plot, it wasn’t supposed to rain until the firewood was lit! Why did it start early??]
[Holy crap! He really is a Half-Immortal!!]
It wasn’t actually a cheat.
The game wouldn’t set up a guaranteed death trap; the prerequisite for completing a mission was not being killed by the ghosts and monsters here.
In other words, the character persona took precedence over the mission.
He couldn’t openly help another player, so for the sake of the mission, he had to have a legitimate reason that forced him to temporarily spare the sacrifice.
Since the purpose of this ritual was to pray for rain, Ning Shuo naturally guessed that rain would likely fall before the sacrifice was offered.
Even if it didn’t rain, something else would have happened to interrupt the ritual. That way, his claim that “the sky looks wrong” could be hand-waved as “the will of heaven cannot be defied.”
What a player acting as a Priest had to do at a time like this was stay calm and not lose their composure, lest the NPCs spot a flaw.
His half-baked Word Spirit ability hadn’t reached the level where he could summon wind and rain yet, but it had coincidentally collided with the System’s plot. The Word Spirit had strangely caused the System’s rain to trigger early.
However, Ning Shuo didn’t know the rain was early yet.
He secretly muttered to himself that the rain was giving him quite a bit of face, showing up right on cue without making him stall for time.
Because the rain had arrived early, and the sacrifice was a Yin-hour girl found with great difficulty through horoscopic calculations, now that the prayer for rain was successful, the sacrifice could be saved for next time.
The sacrifice was sent back to where she came from. As she passed Ning Shuo, her voice reached only his ears: “General’s Mansion, Ming Yue.”
Ning Shuo also lowered his voice: “Ning Banxian.”
Ming Yue gave him a strange look.
Good. It seemed he didn’t even need to explain which ‘Ban’ or which ‘Xian’ he was.
***
After reporting back to the Emperor, Ning Shuo finally returned to his own Palace Hall.
As it happened, he encountered a group of people on the way.
There was a young lady sitting in a carriage, accompanied by guards.
The moment their eyes met, a Virtual Screen popped up.
[Player identity confirmed.]
One of the guards stepped forward to block him, saying coldly, “How bold! Who are you, and why do you not kneel?”
The atmosphere was tense, a perfect opportunity to seize.
Ning Shuo flicked his sleeve. Although he was standing on lower ground, he gave off the aura of someone in a high position. “I am the High Priest of the Li Kingdom, Ning Banxian. Even His Majesty has exempted me from the etiquette of kneeling. I wonder which divine beings you two are, to be even more noble than the current Emperor?”