Lu Renyi paused as he pushed open the door. Once everyone inside had turned to look at him and lowered their heads respectfully, Lu Renyi continued surveying the guards who had been thrown onto the floor.
"What happened here?"
"Someone pushed open the door, threw them inside, and left. We didn't dare act rashly. We wanted to wait for you to return and decide what to do."
When the slaves who had huddled together saw their leader return, they seemed to recover their backbone. They crowded around him, hoping Lu Renyi would quickly decide to throw the guards out.
"If someone comes later and sees them here, we'll be in trouble again."
That was true. A group of guards had been openly thrown inside, yet the slaves had done nothing. If the so-called Church members who treated human lives like weeds discovered them, they would only consider the slaves useless.
Within the Church, useless trash met only one end: being thrown into the aberrants' cages as feed.
Someone had knocked an entire group of guards unconscious, then casually tossed them into a hall without caring in the slightest whether they would be punished.
Clearly, it had to be one of the outsiders.
Lu Renyi instinctively rubbed his fingertips together while wondering who it was. When he noticed the cloth covering his fingers, he returned to himself and looked at the people crowding too close in front of him.
"Wake them first and ask what happened. Otherwise, when the investigation reaches us later and they learn that we stood by without helping, they'll definitely find another way to make trouble for us."
Lu Renyi raised his chin, signaling them to wake one person. Someone quick to read the situation immediately stepped forward and roused the guard whose clothes differed slightly from the rest. He appeared to be their captain.
When the man sat up, rubbing his aching neck and shoulders, and saw the people before him, ingrained habit made him complain unhappily.
"You lowly slaves, can't you see how exhausted I am? Don't you know enough to come help me?"
One person froze at the shout and prepared to obey, but Lu Renyi reached out and stopped him.
"I doubt anyone in this situation would still congratulate himself on being a mighty man in power, would he?"
"Besides, you're only an ordinary guard whom anyone can beat or curse. After so long, you still can't even read the situation? No wonder someone threw you in here."
Lu Renyi's words inflamed the captain of the guard, but their implication forced him to suppress his anger and demand an explanation first.
"What do you mean!"
Ordinary guards and slaves were fundamentally no different. The moment they displeased a Church member, they too became punching bags. They could even be demoted to the lowest rank of slave and forced to perform the filthiest work.
"Why do you think you woke up here?"
"Someone ambushed me from behind, of course. He knocked out our entire group, and that's why..."
Lu Renyi raised a hand to stop the rest of his explanation and asked only one question.
"Do you remember who knocked you out?"
The captain of the guard stopped arguing. He did not know who the person was. Although a few fragments of memory remained in his mind, when it came to the man's precise identity, he could recall nothing useful.
Lu Renyi was unsurprised by his hesitation. If anyone had truly been that fearless, Jiang Yan's people would have dragged them out long ago.
But that also gave Lu Renyi room to maneuver. This was his territory now. He could invent a story, implant a psychological suggestion, and smooth over the conflict.
"That person worked for the government and had been planted in your squad all along. You didn't even notice until he knocked all of you unconscious. If I hadn't seen it at the time and risked myself to drag you inside, you'd already be dead."
"The elders were in a hurry to chase him, so I seized the opportunity and pleaded for you. Otherwise, do you think you'd still have the chance to become the kind of slave you despise so much? You probably would've opened your eyes to find all kinds of aberrants in front of you."
Lu Renyi took advantage of their lack of memories after losing consciousness. The others did not dare say anything because of the leader's longstanding authority, so Lu Renyi improvised freely.
By the end, even the captain of the guard himself had grown embarrassed. He stood and respectfully apologized to Lu Renyi.
He also helped wake the other guards. They likewise refused to believe that they had been demoted to slaves, but after Lu Renyi's explanation and the captain's additions, they had no choice but to accept that they had simply been unlucky this time.
"I don't remember what the man looked like, but he took all of us down in an instant. I was standing farther away, so there was some distance between us. When I instinctively looked back, I saw a red mark on his hand. I don't know whether it was a birthmark."
"If it is, he'd better hope I don't find him. Otherwise, I'll tear him to pieces!"
The guards accepted that they could only perform a slave's work now, but that did not mean they would spare the person who had reduced them to this state.
Lu Renyi watched their blazing fury and smiled in satisfaction. Then he beckoned over the person who had watched in silence from the side.
"Take them to change clothes. Since they've come to my section, they can't keep wearing their old clothes. Someone might take offense at the sight, and the punishment for slaves is severe."
The man hurriedly nodded and led the guards away to change into clothes befitting their new identities as "slaves." The remaining people stayed rooted in place, staring dumbfounded at Lu Renyi after watching him fabricate an elaborate story and deceive the guards who usually towered above them.
Someone bolder directly asked the question in his heart, although his voice remained very quiet, as though he feared something.
"Aren't you afraid you'll be punished if they learn the truth?"
Lu Renyi turned and looked at the people who had automatically arranged themselves in a row around him. He considered how to continue inventing the story so that his image would seem more noble.
"Host, the comic's camera is sweeping over here."
The System knew it could not stop Lu Renyi's love of inventing stories, so it simply stopped trying and let him improvise. In any case, one or two of his stories could not change the plot.
After hearing the System's warning, Lu Renyi's eyes changed. His earlier laziness vanished, replaced by a slightly mocking expression.
"I simply don't think you should suffer a punishment you never deserved because of someone else's mistake. If I hadn't invented that story, could you have endured another round of ice water when they questioned us?"
The others remained silent, but Lu Renyi did not find it quiet at all. The System was bouncing around inside his mind, its voice deafening.
"Host, I warned you so you could establish a positive image, not so you could mock other people!"
"Aren't you afraid one of them will resent what you just said and report you? Your disguise will be exposed!"
"Really? They don't look as though they'll report me."
Lu Renyi remained unconcerned and even had the leisure to observe everyone's expression. He had always assumed that the NPCs in a city-type trial ground either had identical faces or simply wore a mass of pixelation. He had not expected every one of them to look different.
Lu Renyi observed them, and so did the System. It did not quite believe that what Lu Renyi had said would produce any positive response. Mockery was wrong no matter how it looked. There was no way it could comfort anyone.
"Huh??!"
When the System saw everyone before Lu Renyi gazing at him with moved expressions, it instinctively recorded their true emotions with its emotion analyzer.
The result still exceeded the System's expectations. Every one of them felt genuine gratitude toward Lu Renyi. None of them were pretending.
"What do you think slaves in this era have to do? Merely clean and occasionally get drenched with one or two buckets of ice water?"
"They've experienced every kind of malice. My tone just now was unpleasant, but fundamentally, I was still working for their benefit."
"I risked my life to help them. How could they possibly report me?"
The System gave a half-understanding "oh," but immediately seemed to discover a flaw.
"But Host, what you say is one thing. Whether they believe it is another. The leader's attitude wasn't particularly kind before, was it? Why would they so easily believe that you, wearing his identity, would care about them?"
Lu Renyi thought for a moment and told the others to return to their duties so no one could find fault. Only then did he answer with some uncertainty.
"Probably because I'm more charismatic than he is? So even though they still see me as the leader, they instinctively trust me a little more."
"Huh?"
"I lied."
The System sighed speechlessly. Lu Renyi heard the electronic sigh, guessed its current mood, and became a little happier.
"Putting everything else aside, what do you plan to do about the real leader? If he wakes up and returns, won't you be exposed?"
The System repeatedly prepared itself mentally and ultimately realized that it had no option but acceptance. It could only continue working tirelessly to worry on Lu Renyi's behalf.
But Lu Renyi thought the System's questions lacked all sophistication.
"If I remembered to lay an illusion over this hall before coming inside, how could I forget to cover the entire floor?"
"W-What?"
Lu Renyi looked so relaxed that the System thought it had misheard him.
"You used this entire floor as the projection point for your illusion? How is that possible? The Fifth Elder's perception alone is difficult to fool, never mind all the other elders. They would discover what you were doing the moment you acted."
The Fifth Elder stared at the two different kinds of ability energy spilling from his lounge and repelling each other. He could not suppress a cold sneer.
"This intruder probably failed to investigate what my ability is. Casting an illusion on my territory? What arrogance."
The Fifth Elder now stood at his lounge entrance. Vast psychic power poured from his body. The two illusions, previously evenly matched and squeezing against each other, immediately shifted into a completely one-sided suppression.
Someone behind him immediately began flattering him, loudly praising the Fifth Elder's strength. Another person was puzzled and asked why the intruder would choose to cast an illusion.
"An illusion-type ability doesn't merely create illusions. A powerful ability user can directly layer an illusion over anyone and alter that person's state."
"With sufficient psychic power, they can even use the illusion to alter the appearance, physique, and thoughts of every outsider who steps inside. Then making us slaughter one another would be easy, and that's assuming the illusion doesn't slowly expand."
"This intruder is that kind of person. The illusion he created is exceptionally powerful. If my own illusion hadn't already been present in my lounge, I probably wouldn't have noticed it immediately either."
The Fifth Elder looked rather pleased with himself as he spoke. The unknown intruder was certainly capable. Unfortunately, he had broken into the Fifth Elder's lounge.
"If he had entered someone else's lounge, perhaps this plan might have succeeded."
"Only by entering the Fifth Elder's room could I succeed."
Lu Renyi raised a hand and caressed the window he had wiped earlier. Under the sunlight, the glass cast multicolored light across his face. Under the System's confused gaze, he slowly withdrew the illusion he had placed over the hall.
But no one around him reacted abnormally. It was as though Lu Renyi had not performed a dramatic transformation before their eyes. Even the guard captain from earlier assumed he was standing there because the window was dirty and hurried over with a cloth.
"What does it matter if he discovered the illusion I deliberately placed in the lounge? It was only a smokescreen. I began laying the illusion over this floor as soon as I entered."
"Creating a conflict, drawing people away, and running around everywhere were only ways to check how far the illusion's range had spread."
"Originally, I didn't know a high-level illusion-type ability user was here, so I planned to make do with the Grand Elder's lounge. I didn't expect to be so lucky and find a genuine illusion expert here."
"With him covering for me, the separate illusions I arranged by area can slowly merge. Even if they truly notice something is wrong, that expert's assurances will stop them from considering this possibility again."
"Besides, our great protagonist's group is here to serve as a shield. I should have the floor's detailed layout very soon."
The sunlight hurt Lu Renyi's eyes, yet he continued standing there. As he looked down from above, his expression gradually became unfamiliar to the System.
The System had originally assumed Lu Renyi was merely an unlucky man it had struck by accident. At most, he had a clever mind and decent luck, which allowed him to live with the protagonist and become involved with several members of the protagonist's group.
But from the incident with Zhou Cheng to the present, Lu Renyi always pretended not to care while displaying abilities that exceeded the System's expectations. No matter how it looked, something was wrong.
The System had obtained Lu Renyi's identity records when it first decided to bind itself to him and even asked its colleague responsible for information verification to check his identity.
The result showed no problems whatsoever. Lu Renyi was an ordinary supporting character who had lived in this world for eighteen years, was slightly more outstanding than average, and had received the role of cannon fodder.
That was all.
But now, at least in the System's view, Lu Renyi should not possess such strength. How could cannon fodder destined to die a year and a half later possess power like this?
Because of that trust, the System had even let Lu Renyi fool it when Tang Hui previously mentioned that he was a dual-ability holder. It trusted the System's internal records too much.
But was Lu Renyi truly ordinary?
"Host, I want you to answer one question honestly. I believe you understand what I mean."
"Are you truly only an ordinary ability user?"