Plan Successful
After confirming he had no tasks, Moonlit Night found an inconspicuous corner and sat down to rest. Lin Nieran set aside the map in his hand and picked up a pen and notebook. When he looked up, he saw Moonlit Night put away his long saber and focus on boiling water for tea.
"Did you like making tea in the past?"
He knew all these cards had pasts, but his current clearance wasn't high enough to view them.
Moonlit Night looked up. "Original, are you trying to get information out of me?"
Lin Nieran said nothing, but the smile on his lips faded a little.
Moonlit Night immediately surrendered. With a hint of a smile, he said, "All right, all right. You're the original, after all. You can do whatever you want."
"Tea is nice, but I wouldn't say I like it. It's just that, in our era, the people who could brew and drink it were all rich and powerful. I was only copying them."
"But I'm pretty good at making it. Would you like to try some later?"
Lin Nieran said, "Sure."
As he lazily answered Moonlit Night, he concentrated on putting a ✓ beside the first step of his plan in his notebook.
"Sure~~"
A mocking voice suddenly sounded beside his ear. His mouth twitching, Lin Nieran glared at the masked young man who had appeared behind him at some point, then went back to what he was doing.
The system, 007, had appeared suddenly. In the space of a few days, he had conducted a simple investigation of the weird entities around him. After learning about his target and finding out what the protagonist group had been up to, he chose the swimming pool.
Even after timing all those arrangements, he couldn't be sure they would actually draw in anyone from the protagonist group.
But so far, the first step had gone reasonably well.
The ten-pull the system had given him was guaranteed to produce character cards. He was fairly lucky and drew two.
One was the S-rank Moonlit Night, and the other was a low-grade F-rank card: Human Puppeteer.
Of the others, two were weather cards, Sunny and Rainy. There were also two ID cards, which could give character cards plausible identities in the human world and prevent them from being exposed.
All that remained were four crystal-clear candies that didn't seem to be of much use.
Lin Nieran had actually considered many ways to make his first appearance before the protagonist, but he had rejected them all.
None of the people in the protagonist group were simple. Sharp as they were, even a slightly deliberate move could make them suspicious. What he needed to do was give them a vague but threatening impression and let them investigate him of their own accord.
He picked up the map again and studied it carefully.
The descent of the weird had divided the world into many smaller regions, which fell into three main categories. The first was the weird zone. As the name suggested, it was an absolute forbidden zone that had fallen to weird and supernatural entities, where humans could not survive.
Second were residential zones, peaceful areas suitable for humans that would not be invaded by weird entities. He lived in one now. Official forces were stationed there, and as long as people didn't court death by running into a weird zone, they would generally be safe.
Third were danger zones, usually areas close to weird zones that had once been residential zones before being contaminated by the weird. The Sushui Danger Zone, for example, had originally been called the Sushui Residential Zone.
It wasn't that people couldn't live in danger zones, but there was always a chance of a weird entity invading. Many people with no money, no power, and nowhere else to turn chose to live in them.
Life was still a burden, but at least no one in a danger zone would ask them for rent. As long as they stayed away from places affected by the killing rules of weird entities, they would generally be safe.
Nothing could be allowed to happen in the residential zones established by the authorities. Too many prominent ordinary people lived in them. Weird zones were too dangerous, and many weird entities had deadly rules. Lin Nieran didn't want to go through life in a weird zone again.
So after considering his options, he decided to go to Sushui District, which had only recently become a danger zone.
Lin Nieran had read the information the system gave him and knew the experiences and personalities of everyone in the protagonist group. Every one of them was a heaven's chosen. Heaven's chosen all had one thing in common: they were doubly conceited.
Conceited people were more willing to trust their own minds. Once a seed of suspicion was planted, it would give rise to countless possibilities for them.
No matter what possibility they considered—whether it was his identity, his weapon, or the hard-to-notice "pattern" and his "movements"—as long as they were suspicious, his plan had succeeded.
007's idea could also have worked, but allies who came to them of their own accord were rarely valued. He couldn't bring himself to suck up to the protagonist group. Showing goodwill after demonstrating strength often received a more enthusiastic response.
Now it seemed the first step had been a great success: he had gained recognition, and the weird entity had been killed.
What he needed to do next was remind them of his presence from time to time and "build a relationship."
Early the next morning, before Lin Nieran had woken up, a thunderous pounding sounded on the door of his little shop.
"Boss! Boss, open up! Lives are at stake!"
Whoever was knocking was using considerable force, and their voice was loud and frantic. Lin Nieran was a light sleeper to begin with. Jolted awake, he quickly got up, went downstairs, and opened the door.
It was lively outside, with a crowd gathered.
The sky was still pitch-black, but the streetlights had driven away all the surrounding darkness. The Jiang City official cleanser base beside his shop was bustling. Many people were fully dressed and checking their supplies. Although most were still chatting and laughing, the worry between their brows was hard to shake.
Something had happened.
Lin Nieran looked at the people crowding his doorway. "Where's the weird entity?"
"Fix this saber for me first." The woman holding a saber handed him the dark-red blade, and the people behind her followed suit, offering him their weapons.
Knowing the situation was urgent, Lin Nieran wasted no words. He opened a drawer and took out a red glove as thin as a cicada's wing, slipping it onto his right hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the masked fellow appearing again.
"You're going to use this weird entity again." A hint of displeasure lurked in his scarlet eyes.
Lin Nieran ignored him in front of the crowd. After putting on the glove, he took a moment to adjust to its icy feel before saying to the people, "Leave your weird-forged weapons for repair. Take any other weapons to another repairer. Don't waste time here."
Weapons were now divided into two main categories: ordinary weapons and weird-forged weapons.
Weird entities couldn't be killed. They only lost their energy and returned to their initial form, which people called weird objects and humans could make use of.
Humans had no powers of their own, and firearms couldn't kill weird entities either. But they could use the rules of the weird to kill or injure them. That was what weird-forged weapons were for.
His job was to fuse weird entities suitable for forging into weapons, producing weapons of varying power that could injure weird entities. Although they couldn't kill weird entities outright, they were enough for many people to defend themselves.
His gloves were something his father had left him: a pair of gloves capable of repairing weapons, with a weird entity fused into them. They were also the reason he had been able to open a weapon shop here.