Chapter 48: Into Nature (7)
“Oh no, it’s coming.” Seeing the enormous yeti drawing closer, Su Qiong instinctively hid behind ERROR.
The old Su Qiong would never have hidden behind a player.
But during the few days he had spent as an animal, his small size had made him easy prey for natural predators, so ERROR had constantly protected him.
Habits really did form quickly. In only two days, Su Qiong had already grown accustomed to seeking ERROR’s protection.
His action delighted ERROR. Even while facing a powerful and dangerous Circle Lord, ERROR could still smile.
“We can’t defeat it. Let’s hide first.”
With that, ERROR grabbed a handful of snow mixed with gravel and hurled it into the yeti’s eyes.
The yeti roared furiously and covered its eyes, unable to determine their location.
Su Qiong stared in astonishment.
He needed an item to achieve that effect, yet ERROR had managed it with a purely physical attack.
The two did not retreat far. They returned to the research base and searched through the files for more information about the yeti.
Obey Me and Win had been clinging to the window the entire time, watching their battle against the creature.
In particular, when he saw Su Qiong bring out his items, Obey Me and Win trembled in fear.
Thank heavens he had not recklessly provoked this dazzlingly powerful Circle Lord back then.
“Little Shunshun.” After gathering enough information, Su Qiong casually asked, “Your level is too low. It isn’t safe for you to remain near the Circle Lord. Do you want to leave with us?”
“Yes!” Obey Me and Win had already begun treating Su Qiong as his golden thigh. He hurriedly answered, “Please take me with you! Anywhere is fine!”
“We aren’t going anywhere special,” Su Qiong replied. “We’re returning to the grasslands to find Yu Qimiao and the others.”
“The grasslands?” Obey Me and Win repeated. “The grasslands filled with player battle zones?”
“Yes.” Su Qiong nodded.
Obey Me and Win’s vision went dark.
He was beginning to regret changing back. Wouldn’t it have been better to remain a polar bear forever?
Still, compared with the Circle Lord, players were clearly easier to deal with. Besides, Su Qiong would be nearby.
Obey Me and Win flipped a coin and used the result to decide that he would return to the grasslands with Su Qiong.
Aside from Yu Qimiao, every member of the Orphan Alliance had already reclaimed their identity with An’an’s help.
They were somewhat surprised when they saw that Su Qiong had brought another player back with him.
Su Qiong had kindly guided plenty of other players, but this was the first time he had brought one back to the guild’s meeting place.
Furthermore, ERROR was standing beside him.
With how possessive ERROR was toward Su Qiong, could he tolerate this?
“Su Qiong, who is he?” Moi and Qiyi had once been hunted by other players, so they remained deeply wary of strangers.
“His ID is Obey Me and Win. I met him in the beginner zone,” Su Qiong introduced. “You can call him Little Shunshun.”
Shi Yuntian played games without using his brain and had a terrible memory. Only after Su Qiong mentioned the ID did he remember.
“Oh. The guy who tried to cut Su Qiong down the moment they met.”
The atmosphere instantly changed.
Moi and Qiyi clasped hands and stepped half a pace backward.
An’an looked toward Obey Me and Win without emotion, as though examining a dead man.
“No, I…” Obey Me and Win opened his mouth dryly, wanting to explain that he had been young and reckless, but he had no idea how.
Although he had failed, he truly had considered killing Su Qiong for experience points.
“Then Fishy pinned him down, and Little Pastry cut him apart several times,” Lu Shufan added. “It was especially humiliating.”
“Huh?” Moi and Qiyi both looked toward Lu Shufan.
“Really?”
“Of course.” Lu Shufan’s mouth never stopped moving. He exposed everything that had happened in the beginner zone, making Obey Me and Win want to crawl into a crack in the ground.
—So this was what public execution felt like.
The twin sisters finally relaxed.
Obey Me and Win’s level was lower than theirs. Even if he attacked, they should be able to retreat safely.
An’an withdrew his gaze and turned toward Su Qiong.
“You were gone for so long. Did you find any clues?”
“Yes! I saw the Circle Lord!”
For any other player, seeing the Circle Lord would have been major news.
Su Qiong’s companions, however, merely showed expressions that said, As expected.
With Su Qiong, whom the system favored, paired with ERROR, whom the system relentlessly targeted, the probability of encountering a Circle Lord was ninety-nine percent.
Forget merely meeting a Circle Lord. In the previous Circle, Su Qiong had even brought one home to play.
“And then?”
“This Circle Lord can’t communicate.” Su Qiong thought briefly, then corrected himself. “More accurately, it can’t communicate for now. It’s a monster that attacks everyone it sees.”
“What happened?”
Su Qiong immediately described their encounter with the yeti.
After listening, Lu Shufan could not resist running his mouth.
“ERROR was standing on the Circle Lord’s head. No wonder it attacked you.”
ERROR looked at him and raised one eyebrow.
“So it was my fault?”
Realizing disaster had come from his own mouth, Lu Shufan instantly backed down.
“N-no, of course not…”
“Hah. Pathetic,” Shi Yuntian mocked mercilessly.
“The Circle Lord is extremely powerful. Even after using all my items, I couldn’t do anything to it,” Su Qiong honestly informed everyone. “But ERROR’s physical attack worked.”
“Su Qiong, don’t compare yourself to ERROR.”
“He used a physical attack because he has no items.”
“Does ERROR have no items because he doesn’t want them? I’m too lazy to expose the truth.”
ERROR lazily yawned, not particularly bothered by his lack of items.
It was Obey Me and Win’s first time observing an Orphan Alliance meeting up close, and he was amazed.
Although he had never joined a guild, he had heard the rumors surrounding the Orphan Alliance.
The guild was tiny, practically the smallest of the small, yet it was filled with experts. None of its members could be underestimated.
Shi Yuntian, who never used his brain but remained undefeated in combat instances.
Lu Shufan, the cowardly former streamer whose strangely allocated talents allowed him to charm NPCs.
Moi and Qiyi, who appeared frail and delicate but possessed the game’s only shared half-immortality.
Yu Qimiao, whom no one had ever seen fight, yet who manipulated every player with a single blackhearted bag.
An’an, who was forever invincible when soloing, had been the first in IF to awaken advanced abilities and weapons, and possessed at least two Circle Lord items.
And the legendary ERROR, who was targeted by the system, had no weapons or abilities, yet could not be killed by anyone.
Most importantly, the Orphan Alliance had an unofficial NPC member.
Su Qiong, the incomparably beautiful Circle Lord of the beginner zone.
Obey Me and Win had assumed that a meeting between so many experts would be tense and thrilling.
Instead…
Were they elementary school children arguing?
“May I interrupt?” Obey Me and Win finally could not bear listening any longer and gathered the courage to speak. “Don’t you need to discuss tactics?”
“Tactics?” Shi Yuntian looked unconcerned. “What’s there to discuss?”
“We haven’t just become teammates today.” The moment Lu Shufan heard the word “tactics,” he lost interest.
No matter what strategy they chose, he would definitely be the one sent out as bait.
The kindhearted Su Qiong patiently explained, “Our guild leader isn’t here. We only discuss tactics when he’s present.”
Without Yu Qimiao overseeing the situation, everyone else in the guild had such distinct personalities that none of them would listen to the others.
“Where is your guild leader?” Obey Me and Win asked.
Several people answered in unison.
“He revealed his true form.”
When Yu Qimiao chose the ID “Yu Qimiao,” he had never expected to truly become a fish and spend an entire night soaking in freezing water.
By the time the survival challenge finally ended and he was pulled from the water, he felt as though he had nearly become a frozen fish.
“Guild Leader, you’ve worked hard.” Lu Shufan offered a perfunctory word of concern before asking, “Did you get a clue?”
“Yes,” Yu Qimiao answered weakly. “The center of the sandstorm, the summit of the mountain, ten thousand meters beneath the ocean, and the edge of the polar region.”
“Your main quest?” Shi Yuntian asked.
“No. I found a way to complete the main quest the day before yesterday,” Yu Qimiao replied. “Because the survival challenge I completed was relatively difficult, I could choose the type of clue I received. I selected information about the Circle Lord.”
“Why are there four locations?”
Yu Qimiao looked at them.
“Those four locations contain the Circle Lord’s… fragments.”
Fragments?!
The moment they heard that word, everyone realized something.
The yeti Su Qiong and ERROR had encountered—the one that was impossible to communicate with and extraordinarily difficult to defeat—was merely one fragment of the Circle Lord.
If even a fragment was that hard to handle, would they have any chance of surviving against the complete Circle Lord?
“This Circle is so difficult,” Moi said weakly.
“Circle Three is obviously harder than Circle Two, but there must be a way to clear it.”
“Let’s meet each Circle Lord fragment separately,” Su Qiong suggested. “There are no guaranteed-death instances in the game. The fragments must contain clues to clearing the Circle.”
“All right.” Yu Qimiao agreed with Su Qiong and began assigning tasks. “Shi Yuntian, take Moi to the polar region. Su Qiong already tested that fragment. Find a way to determine the upper limit of its combat power.”
“Got it!” Shi Yuntian hoisted his weapon and asked cheerfully, “Can I cut it?”
“Yes, provided that you protect Moi and bring her back alive.”
“Done.” Shi Yuntian picked Moi up and disappeared from everyone’s sight with great enthusiasm.
“A…” Yu Qimiao had just spoken An’an’s codename.
“His name is An’an,” Su Qiong corrected him.
“All right, An’an.” Yu Qimiao readily changed his wording. “Choose one of the remaining three locations and take Qiyi with you. She can hear thoughts, so she may be able to communicate with the Circle Lord through its mind.”
“Mm.” An’an wasted no words and chose the mountaintop, which suited his character perfectly.
Two zones remained.
Su Qiong used a childish counting rhyme to choose the sandstorm, leaving the ocean to Yu Qimiao, who had just finished being a fish.
Only after assigning everyone’s tasks did Yu Qimiao look toward Obey Me and Win.
Without asking for his opinion, he naturally ordered, “You. Come underwater with us.”
“Why? I’m not even a member of your guild!” Obey Me and Win resisted strongly.
“You truly aren’t qualified to join our guild.” Yu Qimiao remained perfectly calm. He listened to the surrounding sounds, then asked meaningfully, “Are you sure you want to remain here?”
Obey Me and Win heard players fighting in the distance, accompanied by constant screams and wails, and immediately surrendered.
“Guild Leader Yu, please allow me to go underwater with you!”
Three Circles had passed, yet Yu Qimiao still controlled him completely.
Lu Shufan looked somewhat unhappy.
“The two of us are already weak. Why bring someone even lower-level along to hold us back?”
“You know his level is low?” Yu Qimiao made no effort to avoid Obey Me and Win as he openly plotted. “Raise his level and turn him into emergency food for Su Qiong.”
Obey Me and Win: “…”
After traveling for half a lifetime, he still could not escape his fate as emergency food.
Su Qiong and ERROR returned to the familiar habitat and faced the endless yellow sand, falling into a dilemma.
They were not afraid of the desert environment.
Rather—
Could someone tell them where the center of this place was?
At noon, the blazing sun scorched the sand, raising the surface temperature to fifty or sixty degrees.
Su Qiong crouched down and endured the heat, poking here and touching there in an attempt to trigger a clue about the Circle Lord.
His skin was delicate, and his hands quickly turned red from the heat.
ERROR could no longer watch and pulled Su Qiong upright.
“You probably won’t find a clue that way,” ERROR said. “The hint says the center of a sandstorm, not the center of the desert.”
“But there’s no sign of a sandstorm here.” Su Qiong became troubled and began missing the Guardians from the World of Order who could create one.
“I have an idea, though it might not work,” ERROR said. “If there’s no sandstorm, we can create one and force the Circle Lord to appear.”
“How? Do you have an ability?”
“We don’t need one.” ERROR sounded inexplicably confident. “Have you heard of the butterfly effect? A butterfly flapping its wings on a distant shore can create a storm.”
“I’ve heard the term, but do you know which butterfly needs to flap its wings to create a storm here?”
“The butterfly effect is an existing principle. It proves that the entire world is interconnected, allowing a tiny distant change to alter the desert. According to my calculations and deductions…”
ERROR picked up a branch and began writing beside the little holes Su Qiong had poked into the sand. He drew countless formulas resembling astronomical calculations.
Then he opened his bracelet and displayed the map of Into Nature.
“Here.”
Su Qiong looked at the map and deduced that the location should be where An’an was.
“Contact An’an and ask him for help.”
“I can, but will this truly work?” Su Qiong remained doubtful, yet still contacted An’an and asked him to create a gust of wind.
In the natural world, the butterfly effect would certainly not produce an immediate result.
However, IF greatly compressed the time required for events to unfold.
Not long after An’an created a mountain wind in the specified direction, Su Qiong watched the sand before him begin spiraling into a vortex, raising an overwhelming sandstorm that blotted out the sky.
ERROR did not hide. He charged alone into the center of the storm.
Although Su Qiong disliked dirt, sand was not a sticky liquid and could be brushed away easily, so he followed.
Layers upon layers of violent sand spun around them. The storm looked spectacular from outside, yet its center contained a perfectly still clearing.
Within that clearing, a gigantic monster formed from sand slowly revealed itself.
Its appearance resembled the yeti. The only difference was that the yeti was covered in pure white fur, while this monster’s body was coated in yellow sand.
The sand monster seemed furious. It looked at Su Qiong and ERROR with rage-filled eyes.
That made sense.
It had been sleeping peacefully, only for the two of them to forcibly awaken it. Of course it was angry.
Even an ordinary human would become furious after being woken by an alarm on the weekend.
“Hello, I’m Su Qiong.” Facing the enraged monster, Su Qiong greeted it politely. “Would you like to talk with me?”
The sand monster clenched one fist and slammed it toward the place where he stood.
Su Qiong leaped aside while muttering, “Apparently not.”
ERROR looked at him in amusement.
The answer was painfully obvious, yet Su Qiong appeared genuinely disappointed.
The sand monster’s attacks became increasingly violent. Left with no choice, Su Qiong used his bandages to restrain it.
However, the moment the bandages touched its body, the sand monster dispersed that section into countless grains of sand, making it impossible to bind.
The vines were equally ineffective.
Su Qiong even used the pink diamonds, but thousands of sharp fragments could not defeat millions of grains of sand.
Even ERROR’s physical attacks had little effect.
“It’s so powerful.” Su Qiong felt completely helpless.
“Its strength is comparable to the yeti’s. We simply don’t possess an ability that counters it.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Stay calm. This Circle almost completely reproduces reality, so an NPC’s weakness should also be related to the real world. Think about it. What does sand fear most?”
“Water?”
“It isn’t a fire monster.” ERROR considered it. “You’re probably half right.”
“Huh?”
“It may be afraid of cement.”
Sand was required to mix cement. Flowing sand could be embedded into walls and turned into solid structures.
The sand monster must have understood them because it became even angrier. It raised a towering wall of sand and tried to bury them beneath it.
“There.” ERROR smiled. “It’s panicking.”
“What use is that? Where are we supposed to find cement now?” Su Qiong was clearly more anxious than the sand monster.
“What I mean is…” ERROR looked toward the creature and slowly said, “It understands our conversation.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the sand monster visibly paused.
Su Qiong reacted as well.
That was right.
Both the yeti they had met earlier and the sand monster now had acted as though communication was impossible, leaving them helpless and assuming the only way to clear the Circle was to kill the Circle Lord.
But when ERROR mentioned cement, the sand monster became even more enraged, proving that it understood what the players were saying.
—Su Qiong did not know that ten thousand meters beneath the ocean, a certain companion whose only notable talent was language had already begun providing the Circle Lord with “talk therapy.”
“Were you pretending not to understand?” Su Qiong sounded slightly aggrieved. “Why won’t you speak with me?”
The sand monster did not answer. It raised even more sand, attempting to drive Su Qiong and ERROR away.
Su Qiong refused to give up. He expanded the pink-diamond barrier, not to imprison the sand monster, but to enclose himself and ERROR and block the sand rushing toward them.
Protected by the barrier, he advanced step by step.
The sand monster retreated repeatedly, somehow falling into a disadvantage during the confrontation.
“You must have some kind of desire if you became a Circle Lord. If you refuse to communicate and drive every player away, how can that wish ever be fulfilled?” Su Qiong flicked his wrist, drew back his wand, and pointed it directly at the sand monster. “I order you to speak!”
His voice remained soft, yet the words carried extraordinary authority, making ERROR look at him several times.
The little marshmallow had grown.
He had finally remembered that he was a Circle Lord.
With the wand pointed at the tip of its nose, the sand monster unexpectedly showed fear.
The surrounding sand vanished. It turned and fled, its body growing smaller and smaller as it nearly disappeared into the desert.
Su Qiong had worked so hard to summon it. How could he simply watch it escape?
He immediately transformed Gangan into a coffin and trapped the sand monster inside its space.
“My item is so useful!” Su Qiong happily praised himself. “I can’t believe Lu Shufan disliked such a wonderful item.”
Lu Shufan, who was currently attempting to persuade the sea monster, sneezed heavily.
It seemed Su Qiong would hold that grudge for the rest of his life.
Su Qiong walked to the coffin, lifted the lid, and stuck his head inside.
“Are you willing to speak now?”
The shrunken sand monster curled into a miserable little ball under his questioning.
The sand ball rolled around, confirmed that it could not escape the coffin, and finally spoke in resignation.
“Yes. I understand you.”
“Then why…”
“But I don’t want to talk to you!” the sand ball roared angrily. “Humans are hypocritical! Scheming! Not even a punctuation mark in your words can be trusted!”
Judging by its tone, the sand monster deeply hated humans.
No wonder it had always refused to speak despite understanding them.
ERROR opened his mouth and barely released one syllable before the sand ball interrupted him melodramatically.
“I’m not listening! I’m not listening! Human mouths are full of lies. I refuse to hear your falsehoods!”
ERROR silently closed his mouth and sent Su Qiong a look.
Su Qiong blinked twice and said sincerely, “That’s right. Human words can’t be trusted.”
ERROR: “?”
You certainly know how to hold a conversation.
Hearing Su Qiong insult humans on its behalf, the sand ball formed two tiny eyes out of sand and looked confused.
Wh-what was happening?
“But I’m not human.” Su Qiong unwrapped his bandages and shaped them into a humanoid form. “This was my original appearance.”
“That’s right,” ERROR cooperatively added. “A cunning human insisted on giving you a body.”
“…” Su Qiong looked speechlessly at ERROR.
There was no need to cooperate that thoroughly. He rather liked his body.
The sand ball was right. Humans truly enjoyed lying.
“It’s true. My body was exchanged through the system. Look at my bracelet if you don’t believe me!” Su Qiong handed over his bracelet and displayed the page showing the exchange for his body.
The sand ball saw that the body cost five million KPI, then examined Su Qiong’s refined and beautiful appearance. Unexpectedly, it became tempted.
“Then… can I exchange for one too?”
“…”
Little sand ball, moments ago you were loudly declaring your hatred for humans.
“You want to become human?” ERROR teased in a half-joking tone. “You made so many animals become humans. Why didn’t you create a body for yourself?”
“I didn’t do that.” The sand ball snorted and explained, “They stole human identities because their willpower was strong enough.”
“Willpower?”
“Yes. Some had their habitats destroyed by humans and their mothers or children killed. Some lived in environments polluted by humans until their species gradually mutated. Others were driven toward extinction because of human interference. That gave them powerful will, allowing them to steal human identities and force humans to personally experience what it feels like to be an animal helplessly slaughtered by them.”
After listening, Su Qiong could not determine whether its actions were right or wrong.
“What about you?” ERROR asked. “Is your willpower not strong enough?”
“Rather than willpower, I’m more like a collective embodiment of the resentment left by every innocent animal that died in this desert. Many animals never understood why they were killed merely because they possessed hard armor or beautiful feathers, then skinned and dismembered after death.”
“Humans are responsible for all of it.”
“…I’m sorry.” ERROR lowered his lashes. “Actually, I have no right to apologize on behalf of humanity.”
“An apology is useless,” the sand ball said furiously. “I hate all of you.”
“Mm. Those humans really are awful.” After insulting them on its behalf, Su Qiong continued, “But not every human is evil.”
The sand ball became angry.
“That argument again. I’m tired of hearing it. You only defend them because you don’t want me to blame all humans.”
The ball bounced inside the coffin, every grain of sand exploding outward.
“Humanity should simply be destroyed!”
“This is your Circle. You can certainly destroy humanity and allow the world to continue without humans.” Su Qiong looked at it curiously and asked, “Then why haven’t you done so?”
The sand monster suddenly fell silent.
After a moment, ERROR abruptly spoke.
“Because when you say those things, you’re already thinking like a human. You simply refuse to admit it.”
“I’m not!” the sand ball shouted in denial.
“There is no concept of right or wrong in the animal kingdom. Only humans possess one. You use human reasoning to place humanity in opposition to yourself, yet you remain incapable of destroying it.” ERROR’s tone was leisurely, but every word cut like a blade. “Is it because, once humanity goes extinct, your existence can no longer be recognized?”
Su Qiong thought for a while before understanding.
“That’s right. Only humans can recognize an animal’s thoughts.”
Animals were simple. Their world contained only survival and death, predator and prey. They had no concepts of good and evil and would not harbor resentment.
Therefore, if the humans capable of understanding resentment vanished, the Circle Lord born from that resentment could no longer exist.
“Shut up! That isn’t true!”
ERROR stared directly at it.
“Then tell us. Why did you create this Circle? Do you want humanity to perish?”
ERROR’s gaze was calm, as though if the sand ball answered yes, he would truly carry out its wish.
The sand ball hesitated and unexpectedly appeared at a loss.
“Don’t frighten it.” Su Qiong reached out and touched the sand ball. Then he proposed whimsically, “Why don’t we bring it back with us?”
“It’s the Circle Lord,” ERROR reminded him.
Furthermore, it was the lord of Circle Three. It lost control easily and was even more dangerous than the Fairy-Tale Princess.
“I know.” Su Qiong sounded perfectly justified. “But right now, it’s only a ball!”
His eyes clearly expressed:
The little ball is so adorable. It should become my toy.
“Do whatever you want.” ERROR was helpless.
Thus, when the players gathered again, Su Qiong’s companions once more found themselves speechlessly watching him bring a Circle Lord home.
Fortunately, this time it was only a fragment.
The shock of sending Su Qiong out and watching him return with the Fairy-Tale Princess had been so severe that everyone was now accustomed to it.
Only the inexperienced Obey Me and Win nearly dislocated his jaw.
In truth, his mouth had never closed after he watched Lu Shufan “amicably communicate” with an enraged Circle Lord, provoking it into several violent outbursts.
“What did you do to it?” Yu Qimiao asked indulgently.
“Nothing.” After confirming that the sand ball would not lose control for the moment, Su Qiong took it out and whispered, “Cement warning.”
The sand ball: “…”
He claimed not to be human, yet his methods were even more excessive than a human’s.
“It had no one to talk to in the desert, so I brought it back,” Su Qiong explained. “This sand ball has a terrible temper.”
“The others don’t have much better tempers,” Shi Yuntian said roughly. His clothes were torn and ragged, making him look as though he had just returned from scavenging.
Moi, whom he had protected, was perfectly clean without a single stain.
“Before you returned, I exchanged information with An’an and discovered something,” Yu Qimiao said. He asked everyone to sit in a circle and gave the conclusion concisely. “Although they’re all fragments of the Circle Lord, they exist independently.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can think of it as something resembling multiple personalities. Each fragment is independent, and none communicates with the others.”
“So dealing with only one fragment is useless.” Su Qiong poked the sand ball. “All four fragments have to open the Circle boundary simultaneously before we can leave.”
“Exactly. That means we need to pass each of their individual trials.” Yu Qimiao sighed. “I shared the information with Xi Huaiji. She brought Extremity’s high-level players to test the Circle Lord fragments’ strength. Within only a few minutes, every high-level player suffered severe injuries.”
“They’re not only powerful. They remain inside their preferred environments, so of course they’re unbeatable,” Shi Yuntian said gruffly.
The yeti could control ice and snow, the mountain monster could control stone, and the sea monster could control seawater.
Inside their respective domains, they were naturally invincible.
As for the sand monster…
“Speaking of which, how did you capture something so powerful?” Seeing Su Qiong hold the sand ball in his palm and casually flatten and reshape it like a toy, Obey Me and Win became envious and tentatively reached out.
Before he could touch it, flying grains of sand attacked his hand, stinging like needles.
“Ah!” Obey Me and Win withdrew his hand and no longer dared court death.
“Little Shunshun, let me give you some advice.” Lu Shufan placed an arm over his shoulder. “Never question Su Qiong’s method of clearing instances. He is IF’s uniquely favored NPC, the game world’s one and only irresistible charmer. From Circle Lords down to mimetic NPCs, none of them can resist him.”
“Really?” Obey Me and Win remained doubtful.
Su Qiong’s level was so low, only in the double digits. Did the system truly favor him?
Look at the other Circle Lords. Their levels reached several hundred. They were unbelievably powerful.
“Oh? You dare question the system’s one and only favorite?” Lu Shufan snapped his fingers. “Su Qiong, show him your resurrection item!”
“Resurrection item?” Su Qiong asked in confusion.
Obey Me and Win thought disdainfully:
He definitely didn’t have one. The system was stingy. How could it possibly drop a resurrection item?
Then Su Qiong asked, “Which one?”
“…”
Wh-which one?!
Did he possess more than one resurrection item with maximum rarity?
Obey Me and Win was convinced.
This was not the system’s beloved son.
He was clearly the system’s father!
The system’s true father, ERROR: Worthless unfilial son.
“ERROR and I discovered the sand monster’s weakness. It became frightened and tried to escape, so I captured it,” Su Qiong said cheerfully. “You can try it too. If the sand monster loses control, threaten to mix it into cement and build a wall. It’ll immediately calm down.”
“Uh…”
“What a humiliated Circle Lord.”
The sand monster rolled around in Su Qiong’s palm, then buried its face beneath itself, unwilling to see anyone.
Although Su Qiong had dealt with the sand monster, it was ultimately useless.
The only hard part of the sand monster’s body was its mouth. It stubbornly refused to open the Circle boundary.
Even if they satisfied its desire and convinced the sand ball to open the boundary, that alone would be useless.
Into Nature possessed four Circle Lord fragments, and the other three were even more formidable.
“Speaking of which, Yu Qimiao.” Su Qiong looked toward him and once again asked the question from the previous day. “When will you reclaim your identity?”
“It’s time. I’ve decided to do it as soon as…” Yu Qimiao stopped halfway through his sentence when he suddenly felt something strange.
In the next second, his bracelet separated from his body, and a line of text appeared in the air.
[System: The animal that stole Yu Qimiao’s identity has died. Yu Qimiao’s quest has failed.]
[System: Players who fail the quest will remain forever within [Into Nature] and spend the rest of their lives as animals.]
After reading the notification, everyone turned toward Yu Qimiao in shock.
His expression changed briefly before quickly returning to normal.
“You’ll have to complete the remaining tasks yourselves.”
“Th-that can’t be real.”
“It’s my fault. I wasted too much time.” After surviving for so long, Lu Shufan now blamed himself sincerely. “I should have helped Fishy complete his main quest sooner.”
“No, it’s my fault.” An unfamiliar emotion enveloped Su Qiong. He lowered his head, his chest tight and heavy. “I should have guided him properly. I knew where the animal who stole his identity was. If…”
“Su Qiong.” Yu Qimiao interrupted him, his eyes calm and his voice as gentle as ever. “Yesterday, I was the one who chose to exchange my reward for a clue. Therefore, I should bear the consequences of that decision. There are no ‘ifs’ in an adult’s world. Just like that worn-out saying—you never know whether tomorrow or an accident will arrive first.”
“Yu Qimiao…”
“When I was forcibly sent into this game, I felt completely lost. Fortunately, I met you. Otherwise, I might have died in the beginner zone.” Yu Qimiao’s voice was far too calm for a player facing permanent failure.
He merely mocked himself.
“I suppose this is what they call a prophecy fulfilling itself. In the end, I truly became a fish.”
After pausing for several seconds, he comforted himself.
“Being the only fish of my kind in the world doesn’t sound too bad.”
The only fish of his kind in the world.
Without companions.
No matter how vast the heavens and earth were, he would remain alone forever.
“I-I have resurrection items. I’ll give them all to you.” Su Qiong opened his item inventory, took out the Mermaid’s Tear, and insisted on using it on Yu Qimiao.
The Mermaid’s Tear could revive someone whose health had fallen to zero. It was a divine-grade item.
But Yu Qimiao was not injured, so the item had no effect.
An’an took out his Blank Card and handed it to Su Qiong.
“Try this.”
“It won’t work.” Yu Qimiao shook his head. “The card is effective only within a certain range. It can’t alter the laws of another Circle.”
An item belonging to the lord of Circle One would naturally have limited effectiveness inside Circle Three.
Failure to reclaim one’s identity and being forced to remain within the Circle was an ultimate law of Into Nature. A single Order Card could not change it.
“Does Guild Leader truly have to remain here…” Moi and Qiyi panicked, their clasped hands tightening. “W-we’re willing to give you half our life.”
“Thank you.” Yu Qimiao thanked them gently and shook his head.
Only now did everyone realize that despite possessing so many abilities and items, they remained powerless before the system.
“Yu Qimiao.” Su Qiong’s voice choked slightly, his eyes wet. “I’ll save you.”
“Su Qiong…”
Su Qiong’s eyes reddened as he repeated, “I will save you.”
“…All right.”
