Frouros: I Feel Like Otto Is Crawling All Over Me / Chapter 48: Xia Ling: You May Have Lost Your Freedom, but You Can Still Be Put on Display

The orange-colored Little Vita — the Vita of Restraint —is looking at the red-clad Righteous Heart with a troubled expression.

"Sister Cheng, when have I ever lied to you...?"

Vita, Righteous Heart indignant, pouted and said, "These two older sisters outside are indeed Vita's friends, aren't they?"

"No, I'm not doubting that, it's just..."

There was some hesitation on her reserved face. If she remembered correctly, her sister Vita had indeed told her that, theoretically, no outsiders would appear in Fruos.

Although they would welcome any outsiders on behalf of the city, the fact that the two older sisters claimed to be friends of Vita made Yunxu cautious.

"Hmm, if only Lan were here, he's the smartest one around here..."

With a soft sigh, Yunxu's bright smile returned as she looked at Xia Ling and Kiana, who had been Righteous Heart.

"Hello, I am one of the seven administrators of this city, and my representative color is orange. Vita of Restraint, and you can just call me Little Orange."

"Um... it might be a bit impolite, but I'd still like to confirm, are you two really Vita's friends?"

He touched the corner of his mouth with his fingers, a hint of worry in his eyes. "After all, Sister Vita hasn't been back for a long time, and we're a little worried about her..."

"Don't worry, Little Orange, you can ask me anything, okay?"

Xia Ling gave a very friendly smile.

"In fact, you've been a bit too lenient by only asking me a few questions, which is quite a stretch, considering I've just barged into the city."

"Before we came, we were prepared to be tied up hand and foot."

"Eh? No, I won't do that..."

The gentlest of them all, Yunxu, quickly shook her head. "Even if she's not Sister Vita's friend, we can't do such a thing..."

"Wow, Xia Ling..." Kiana clicked her tongue in amazement at Righteous Heart and Yunxu's adorable appearance, and whispered to Xia Ling.

"These Little Vita that Vita taught are nothing like her, who is so cunning. On the contrary, although they are all very smart, they are surprisingly innocent?"

"After all, this Fruos is like a paradise on earth. It's clear that Vita has protected them very well."

Xia Ling's lips twitched slightly. "Moreover, don't forget that what makes up these Little Vita is not only Vita's genes, but also Griseo's colors. In fact, their personality traits may be even more related to Griseo's colors."

"So... you weren't joking when you said before that these Little Vita are Griseo and Vita's children?"

Kiana's eyes widened slightly.

"I'm not kidding you... What, seeing these Little Vita, do you have any other thoughts?"

However, Xia Ling only casually mentioned it, but she didn't expect Kiana to answer her question seriously.

"Yes, I think... these kids are actually quite cute."

"Yeah, she's cute... wait?"

A blush suddenly appeared on Xia Ling's face. "Kiana, you wouldn't happen to want to... too?"

"I... I didn't! I didn't say anything..."

Kiana quickly shook her head.

"Ahem, well, we'll talk about it later..."

For once, Xia Ling did not take advantage of Kiana's shyness to press her advantage, but instead turned her face away shyly.

Chapter 47 Fruos: I feel Otto crawling on my body

"The museum... why do you two sisters want to go there?"

While strolling through Fruos, Xia Ling easily gained Yu Yu's trust with her friendliness and understanding of Vita. After all, when it comes to understanding Vita, none of the seven little ones could match Xia Ling's knowledge.

After gaining Little Vita's trust, Xia Ling began to implement her plan step by step.

Of course, to summarize, Xia Ling's plan wasn't actually that complicated. It was simply to open the hibernation pod, rescue Griseo, and then see what Suo Lu~ Jiu V Ba O, Si Lin Ou) Ling Meng planned to do... At this point, apart from Otto's heaven-defying wisdom, all other schemes would fall into the category of "open schemes".

However, if the goal was to wake Griseo, there was no need to go to the museum. The real reason that drove Xia Ling to go to the museum was that she suddenly remembered someone she had almost overlooked.

Fu Hua's old rival, Moriarty, a criminal mastermind who developed self-awareness as a Soul Steel clone and could be considered Otto's "son".

If you ignore his adorable appearance, which is like that of a young Otto, this guy can be described as having an extremely wicked personality. Of course, the real Moriarty had already died at the bottom of that cliff because his Soul Steel body was damaged.

The Moriarty that Fruos possessed as Vita Collection... was actually a being with Moriarty's consciousness, existing in a form close to a projection.

In the original main storyline, Moriarty, who escaped from the museum, caused a great deal of trouble for Hua and Griseo. Although he played a role in the final battle against So later, it was more about personal grudges than that he was a good person.

Moreover, although his strength is limited, his various tricks will cause a lot of trouble for Xia Ling and Kiana's actions, so... Xia Ling plans to deal with this guy first.

"Well, this is one of the requests that your sister Vita asked me to make. A little bug got into your museum... and she wants us to help her clean it up."

"A little bug?"

Little Red Righteous Heart quickly shook his head. "I, I didn't slack off! Although I was in charge of cleaning the museum last week, how could I possibly leave any bugs in there!"

"Silly Hong... you must have slacked off last week." Yunxu sighed, rubbing her head in exasperation. "Sister Xia Ling was probably using 'insects' as a metaphor..."

"Huh? Is that so...?"

"Look at Kiana, she's just as silly as you."

Following behind the two, Xia Ling chuckled and pinched Kiana's fingertips, only to be met with a "I'll deal with you when we get back" look from the embarrassed and annoyed girl.

"But Xia Ling, you didn't seem to mention that we were coming to the museum... Did we make some unexpected discovery?"

"Certainly..."

Seeing that Yunxu had opened the "tunnel" leading to the museum, Xia Ling smiled and said, "Come on, Kiana, I'll show you something good."

Xia Ling had already found out Moriarty's location from Little Vita, so she took Kiana directly to that location.

"Oh, Otto?!"

Kiana, whose eyes were covered, thought it was some novel collectible and was secretly looking forward to it when she saw Moriarty's face, which looked exactly like Otto's, appear in front of her.

However, given the previous blunder of attacking Void Archive, Kiana didn't immediately deliver a Finality blow to Moriarty this time. Instead, she looked at Xia Ling with a puzzled expression.

"This is the thing I had to prioritize getting rid of even if it meant pausing my plans... Although he's not as terrifying as Otto, if given time, he could probably develop into something like a piece of chewing gum, constantly following people around and making them sick."

"So..."

Under the watchful eyes of the two Little Vita and Kiana, a jet-black energy ball appeared in Xia Ling's hand.

The withering power instantly eroded the display stand, erasing Moriarty's display case along with the person inside.

"That's it?"

"No, quite the opposite..."

Xia Ling, having eliminated the booth, shook her head in slight distress.

"He seems to have gotten ahead of us and has already left."

"Gurgle... f phosphorus D dream thing also shrimp 807 durian attraction... I have a terrifying feeling like a cockroach scurrying under the bed and disappearing..."

Kiana felt goosebumps rising all over the projection's body. After all, an "Otto" right under your nose wasn't so scary, but if this Otto disappeared... she wouldn't be able to sleep well.

"It's alright, we're not too late..."

Xia Ling gently touched the marks left by the decay and slowly said, "Moriarty is not a fool. He has been imprisoned here for more than a hundred years. He should have enough knowledge and guesses about the situation in Fruos."

"Although we don't know how he escaped, if he wants to turn the tables or gain leverage in negotiations with us... he doesn't have many options."

"Little Orange, Little Red, did you have any companions that you haven't seen today or yesterday?"

Although she didn't know exactly what had happened, she understood the seriousness of the situation from Xia Ling's fragmented words. After a moment of contemplation, she said, "I don't think I've seen Lan and Little Yellow..."

"The Vita of foresight and the Vita of true form... Moriarty, that guy, really has a twisted sense of humor..."

"What, are there anything special about these two Little Vita he picked?"

Kiana asked, puzzled.

"No, one of these two Little Vita is the wisest among the Vita, and the other is the most naive one..." Xia Ling shook her head. "But unfortunately, no matter how wise they are, these Vita ultimately grew up in a utopia."

"That's why I say he has a twisted sense of humor; besides his need to plunder the powers of the Vita..."

"He probably wants to use his experience as a 'master of crime' to gradually shock the kind-hearted Vita with the evil."

"After all, even that clever Little Vita probably has never seen such a guy... who does evil everywhere just because he finds it interesting, without any motive or warning, and indiscriminately disgusts everyone. Such a guy is simply inconceivable to these Little Vita."

"Ah?"

Kiana was dumbfounded.

"How could there be such a guy? Even Otto wouldn't go that far..."

"There are some historical reasons why he turned out this way, probably because he wanted to gain recognition as a clone... But the bigger reason is probably that this is just his nature."

Chapter 48 Xia Ling: Although you've lost your freedom, you can still be used as an exhibit.

"Is this the desolate landscape outside of Fruos?"

After failing to catch anyone at the museum, Xia Ling quickly asked Yun Xu to take her to a forbidden area outside of Fruos —which was actually the place where Griseo crashed.

Since these junior agents were unable to enter the Ark, and Moriarty was no exception, his methods of exploring the Ark's facilities in the original work were extremely primitive—using the permissions he acquired to control the Paradise Guard and dismantle the Ark's components for research.

Based on Xia Ling's recent conclusion, Moriarty clearly hasn't had as much time as in the original story, and breaking the Ark's seals won't be easy for him. According to Xia Ling's calculations...

He has probably only just finished deceiving Huang and scheming against Lan, and is now stuck in the stage of dismantling the gate.

Of course, Moriarty couldn't have imagined that Xia Ling would come to him so quickly. After all, according to conventional thinking, even if it were to explore a forbidden area, it wouldn't be this fast.

Xia Ling's actions far exceeded the level of simply following the map; it was essentially like having a cheat code on top of speedrunning.

"We've arrived... just as I thought."

Outside the forbidden area, at the entrance of the Ark, Xia Ling indeed saw the Swarm of Paradise Guard attempting to forcibly demolish the Ark's gate.

"Kiana, you handle these guys, I'll deal with Moriarty."

After giving a brief instruction, Xia Ling closed her eyes.

"Let me see where you are... Found you!"

Using her powers of consciousness, Xia Ling easily located Moriarty and the two Little Vita hiding in a blind spot not far away.

Before Moriarty even had time to take hostages, Xia Ling had already teleported in front of the three of them.

"Wait, you..."

"Your methods are too primitive, my dear master criminal."

Xia Ling pulled one of the Little Vita behind her with one hand and shrugged.

"But it's not your fault. You died too early and didn't get to see the Herrscher and technology that followed, nor did you know about the information gap between us... You know what? To me, your methods are like coquetry, all soft and weak."

Xia Ling wouldn't hold back when dealing with such utterly wicked people. In fact, having clashed with Otto for a full month, she could easily defeat these guys who had only half-learned Otto's style.

After all, back in Kolosten, although Otto didn't say it, he was already training her as his junior. Strictly speaking, in some ways of doing things or planning, Xia Ling was more like Otto than Moriarty.

"You couldn't have been this fast... I shouldn't have given anything away."

Moriarty's expression was somewhat unpleasant. For someone who prided himself on being intelligent, the thing he hated most was Xia Ling, a completely unreasonable variable.

"This is what I meant when I said that you and I are on completely different levels in terms of information access... I had already done my best to understand you before I came here."

Xia Ling shook her head regretfully. "For example, you want to satisfy your excessive desire to show off, and kill Little Yellow, who trusts you the most, right in front of Little Blue, so that Little Blue's calculations all fall through, in order to demonstrate the evil you are so proud of?"

"Although I don't quite understand your perverse sense of humor, there is at least one point in your philosophy that I agree with."

Ignoring Moriarty's sudden change in expression, Xia Ling continued, "True villains don't rely too much on scheming. You know... generally speaking, violence is far more convenient than intelligence."

"So, now it's your turn to experience the bitter consequences of being crushed by absolute power and having violence trump strategy, isn't it?"

"The ability to foresee the future...?"

In response to Xia Ling's sarcasm, Moriarty slowly squeezed out a sentence through gritted teeth.

"That's... an ability that's like cheating."

"Well, there's no way around it. People can't comprehend those incomprehensible methods beyond their own comprehension. Just as you used your malice to override the comprehension of little Vitas, I can also use the same methods to directly disrupt your plans."

"However, I would like to offer you one more piece of advice..."