Hoo hoo hoo.
Both of their breaths were heavy, and neither had much expression on their faces.
The instantaneous life-or-death ‘infighting’ had sent their heart rates soaring above 160, but unlike ordinary people, both had recovered in just a brief moment.
So it was her.
Yuuki wasn’t surprised.
Or rather, among the new players, Ai was the teammate he had most wanted before—the versatile maid diligently trained by the Shinomiya Group.
Her intelligence, combat prowess, and even acting skills were top-notch among Ordinary Persons, deceiving both veteran players who had mistakenly believed the strong black man was the most outstanding newcomer.
Of course, if Yuuki hadn’t been a Transmigrator, he wouldn’t have known Ai’s true abilities.
As expected of someone who could play four different roles and fool several geniuses.
This was different from Mai; it was a personality derived specifically for the environment.
That instant of killing intent, it seemed she had already gotten into character.
“So ‘don’t go solo’ meant this, that perception would be interfered with by the moonlight.” Yuuki broke the silence first, his gaze dropping to the ‘petal’ extending from the axe blade: “You acted very well, no worse than that big star.”
He was very familiar with this petal; was it one of the pieces from the blossoming head?
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had gained something from the novice guidance.
“You’re not bad either. I’m curious which Kendo club has such a high level of skill. Drawing the blade is easy, but sheathing it is hard.” Ai had none of her previous lively ‘gal’ demeanor, resembling her maid form more, though with a few sharp edges added to her seriousness and efficiency.
Due to the unexpected incident, the two had essentially revealed their trump cards, so there was no need to keep up the act.
Yuuki didn’t speak, nor did he change his posture.
He merely slowly rolled his eyeballs upward, and Ai didn’t look up either, lightly licking her lips.
The next moment, both of them simultaneously leaped backward.
Bang!
A dark shadow suddenly landed between them, sending wood splinters flying from the floor.
This failed sneak attack left the Licker somewhat puzzled.
It pulled its giant claw, which was embedded in the floor, out, raised its hand to bat away three cold glints that pierced through the wood splinters, and then instantly twisted its head.
The blonde girl’s face was expressionless.
She charged forward, holding her axe with one hand.
Before the Licker could turn, she brought the axe down directly on its head.
“Don’t let its tongue touch you!”
A low growl suddenly reached her ears.
Ai, who was about to block with her hand, subconsciously shifted her body, glimpsing a blur flash past her face, and swung her right hand down in a wide arc.
Pfft.
The sharp axe sliced into its shoulder, erupting in a spray of blood.
The Licker let out a low growl of rage, raising its right arm to sweep the girl in half, but at that moment, Yuuki appeared beside its body.
He held his sword with both hands, its blade covered in faint electric arcs.
Synchronize, Reinforce—
Slash!
The reinforced blade was extremely sharp and extremely hard.
It cut into muscle, severed bone, sending one arm spinning away from the body, and Ai seized the opportunity to take another step forward, raising her axe level and slashing towards its neck.
Whoosh—
Large sections of muscle were cut open.
The Licker instinctively leaned back, then used its legs to leap onto the wall.
Before it could merge into the wall, three scalpels were pinned into its back.
“Damn it, it got away again.” Yuuki narrowed his eyes after silently counting two seconds.
While remaining vigilant, he turned to look at the girl who was leaning on her knees, panting, “Are you okay? You were a bit reckless just now. Aren’t you afraid of this monster?”
Ai’s counter-charge just now was even more decisive than his, quite like a beautiful madwoman.
“Yes, I am afraid, but precisely because I’m afraid, I must wear the mask of a brave person. Aren’t humans just creatures who switch between various forms?” She said something profound, then lightly swung her long axe, leaving a trail of blood on the wall:
“How did you know its tongue was problematic? I could have split its head open with one axe swing just now.”
Actually, Yuuki didn’t know.
This Licker already had magical characteristics and was certainly different from the original, but he dared not gamble.
This was not a Resident Evil world.
If he really got infected with the T-virus, he would be dead, with no antidote possible.
Also, no wonder this Ai felt so unfamiliar.
Not like a maid, not like a girl next door, let alone a male butler.
It turned out she had created another persona.
Should this persona be called ‘Player’?
Yuuki didn’t dwell on the persona issue.
In any case, the stronger Ai was, the better, so he nodded:
“Intuition. That tongue didn’t have much destructive power but was used for attack, so there must be something wrong with it. By the way, why didn’t you use that petal just now?”
“This?” Ai raised her axe, and a slender tentacle could be seen wrapped around the axe handle like wire.
She hesitated for a moment before answering: “Because using a chaos item comes at a cost, and I wasn’t confident of a one-hit kill.”
Cost?
chaos item?
Yuuki was stunned for a moment.
His Newbie Gift Pack (newbie gift pack) had given him skills, not a chaos item, and the name sounded very dangerous. The source of this chapter is g.com.
But now was not the time to analyze information.
Since Ai had also received a newbie gift pack, there was a chance.
“If I’m not mistaken, there’s more than one monster.”
“Hmm? Why?”
“Because I had contact with it just now and left behind a section of my right index finger.” Yuuki looked at the forearm remaining on the ground, its five sharp claws still twitching.
“If it doesn’t have skills like super-speed regeneration, then it proves this isn’t the one I encountered earlier.”
As his words fell, a dead silence filled the dim stairwell.
Ai’s eye twitched slightly, and after a long while, she finally managed to blurt out, “It seems this Reincarnation Game doesn’t care about Player Yuuki’s survival at all.”
Yuuki nodded slightly.
He had already figured it out from the Beginner’s Guide (newbie guide), the lack of friendly fire, and the absence of difficulty prompts—this game had no newbie protection mechanism whatsoever.
A few hours of rest were an illusion, just as Tip Three stated: Time will flow ceaselessly, just like your lives and hopes.
“We wasted too much time in a false sense of security, while the difficulty silently increased. Coupled with our gains, perhaps some kind of anomaly has occurred.”
“High risk, high reward, and high reward also brings high risk?” Ai’s eyes flickered.
“Possibly, but we don’t have the luxury of regret, and we need to hurry.” Yuuki lifted his head, letting his serious expression show in the dim moonlight.
“Miss Hayasaka, do you trust me?”
“Yes, I’ve met many experts in various fields, and you give me a similar feeling.” Ai replied without hesitation; she had no choice.
“Alright, follow me.”
Yuuki nodded in satisfaction.
At a time like this, wasting more words would be suicide.
He turned and walked to the other side of the stairs, practically jogging down them.
This led to the basement, and there were no doors blocking the way.
Yuuki immediately smelled a musty odor and instinctively covered his nose and mouth.
The ceiling was five meters high, and there were many doorless rooms on both sides of the corridor.
The lack of windows made it feel very enclosed, and various sundries were piled everywhere, so it wasn’t spacious.
Even though it was several meters underground and had no windows, the crimson moonlight still seeped in from the ceiling, casting a dim red veil over all the objects.
Pervasive, no, it penetrates even without holes, but just as I thought, the light is much dimmer.
Yuuki finally showed a hint of a smile, only to be poked by Ai’s elbow.
“This isn’t a good place to fight that kind of monster, is it?”
Professional.
She immediately recognized that the Licker was an agile monster that loved complex environments like this.
“There should be two basement levels; let’s continue deeper.”
“How do you know…?” Ai paused, then saw a wooden sign on the wall.
Her eyes darted, and an idea formed.
“You want to avoid this moonlight?”
“Yes, the gifts from the Red Moon naturally move under the moonlight, which is understandable.”
“A guess?”
“No, I just counted.”
Yuuki didn’t explain, advancing deeper into the basement with Ai back-to-back.
The girl’s confusion was soon resolved.
Clang.
The sound of something falling was very clear, followed by a dull ‘thump-thump-thump,’ like a gecko scurrying.
Her eyes slowly moved upwards, identifying it as the sound of something crawling.
“They’re here.”
Yuuki had indeed guessed correctly.
The monster from before wouldn’t have bothered with such a complicated approach; it could appear silently above its prey, making people afraid to even blink.
Yuuki still didn’t speak, merely quickened his pace, his ears twitching slightly.
The ‘thump-thump-thump’ sounds were chaotic, and with the echo, he couldn’t pinpoint their exact location, only roughly judging that they were still at a certain distance.
Ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters.
By the faint wall lamps, he could already see the other end of the basement, where an arched stone gate and a mottled stone staircase led deeper.
Thud.
His footsteps abruptly stopped, causing Ai, who was moving backward, to bump into his back.
She didn’t know why the man had stopped, but she understood that the current situation was somewhat off.
‘That monster hasn’t pounced yet.
It can’t be escorting us deeper underground, can it?’
The same thought appeared in Yuuki’s mind.
As he stopped, he suddenly looked up, vaguely seeing something hidden in the shadows.
It was motionless, like it was hibernating.
The moonlight was dim, making it easy to mistake it for a doorframe, but the moment Yuuki’s gaze swept over it, it moved, extending an arm with only four sharp claws from the shadows.
Damn, I really guessed right.
“Scatter!”
Bang!!
Shattered rocks exploded in the middle of the corridor.
Fortunately, the warning was timely, and the two jumped to the sides a step ahead.
Yuuki landed on his backside, and as a A fishy wind (foul wind) blew in his face, he grabbed a piece of tattered cloth nearby. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Synchronization.
Reinforcement.
Entry-level Reinforcement Magic wasn’t particularly useful; it had a cooldown, and strict requirements for the size and material of the item being reinforced.
For example, steel and cloth couldn’t be compared in terms of hardening.
But this supernatural power still saved Yuuki’s life.
The hanging ragged cloth unfurled like a sheet of iron, and with a crunching sound, it was immediately pierced by the sharp claws.
However, the one second it bought him was enough to roll to the side.
It took one second to pierce through?
Thump—
A few gravel (gravel) hit his face, stinging.
He saw the Licker step on the spot where he had just fallen, its head twisted, its saliva-covered tongue extended.
Swish.
A silver flash, the already prepared blade cut it in half.
Yuuki sprang up with a carp-like move, gripping the sword with both hands, twisting his body, and slashing horizontally.
The sensation of cutting muscle transmitted through his palm.
The Licker’s reaction speed was clearly faster than his; it had already leaped onto the ceiling a step ahead, with a cut an inch deep on its lower leg.
But it wasn’t afraid of pain.
With a ‘thump-thump-thump’ sound, it circled him like an alligator patrolling a lake.
Reaction speed is twenty percent slower than before.
Yuuki didn’t look up, nor did he stand still and wait.
He rushed out of the room in two steps, forcing another one-armed Licker away from behind, and gave Ai a hard shove on the back.
“Run!”
At this moment, no one dared to hesitate.
The two ran wildly, feeling as if their legs were spinning like fiery wheels.
This time, there was no deliberate luring; the ‘thump-thump-thump’ sounds followed them like a death knell.
The two monsters chased them down the corridor.
One of them, with a severed arm, was slightly slower, but the ferocious aura still prevented them from looking back.
Passing through the arched doorway, Yuuki saw the stone steps descending deep underground.
They were about three to four meters wide, with thick walls on both sides.
Every twenty steps, there was a small platform, and the first platform seemed to have a dividing line.
The crimson moonlight penetrated to its limit there; beyond that, there was only the dim light of the wall lamps.
There was no time to think too much.
The two Lickers also rushed into the doorway, their massive bodies almost filling the space.
The severed tongue they spat out was only a dozen centimeters from Ai’s back.
The hairs on the back of the girl’s neck stood up.
She followed Yuuki, leaping down two or three steps at a time, and then, as she stepped onto the platform, she heard another low growl.
“Turn around! With all your might!!”
Her brain hadn’t even processed it, but her body instinctively turned around.
This wasn’t about trust, but a survival instinct.
Adrenaline surged.
She saw the two Lickers push off the wall, instantly leaping nearly ten meters.
Even without much space to dodge and weave, their speed far exceeded human capabilities.
Thump.
The stone steps at the dividing line cracked underfoot.
Taut thighs contracted and expanded like springs, inevitably delivering a powerful impact.
No good, I don’t have time… hmm?
She saw the two monsters spring forward, but this leap was much weaker than before, only covering less than five meters, landing just in front of her.
She didn’t know why, nor did she want to know.
She swung her axe in a wide arc, activating her chaos item.
[Frontal Lobe Fragment]
Pfft!
The axe blade struck the Licker’s raised arm, embedding deeply into the bone.
This was not a fatal wound, but a swaying petal grew from the wound, proliferating wildly as if watered by fresh blood.
What was originally thumb-sized became as thick as an forearm, then it tore and split, like a large, bizarre cluster of flowers cutting through flesh.
Ai felt a tearing pain in her head, as if her mind had split into many pieces like the petals.
She no longer had the energy to deal with the one-armed Licker climbing along the wall, only seeing its gaping maw bite towards her face.
“Duck!”
With a furious shout, Yuuki, behind the girl, leaned forward, his right hand gripping the hilt of his sword tightly.
With a ‘clang’ like a dragon’s roar, the long sword left its sheath.
Synchronization.
Start.
The long sword, far surpassing the strength and sharpness of Damascus steel, whipped towards the Licker’s open mouth like a whip with Yuuki’s swinging right hand.
It plunged into the gaping maw, cut through muscle, and went deep into the chest—
Cut in two, blood rained down!