This Humble One, Reincarnation Stream Player

No wonder the difficulty spiked only after leaving the Ancient Castle. Damn it, how did this become my primary responsibility?

The two of them exchanged a glance, then guiltily looked away. Everyone was responsible, so no one should try to shift the blame, but the act of comparing notes felt incredibly awkward.

"The reason doesn't matter anymore, Brother Li. Tell me what to write." Yuki gave a dry cough, pulling the topic back on track.

"Players cannot harm other players until the instance ends, and then you tell me the clue. How about that?"

"Brother Li, do you take me for a fool? If we call a truce, you could still play dirty and let a Living Corpse finish me off. Plus, there's still the Crimson Moon gift—I have to cling to your thigh, Brother Li."

"Then how do you suggest we write it?"

Yuki pondered for a moment before replying, "How about changing the second half to: 'Before I leave the instance, I will reveal the path of survival to you'?"

That was fair and reasonable; if he could leave, Li Dan certainly could too.

"Fine. Now, recite these two sentences in your mind with me."

It was a simple contract, yet it provided basic security. Since neither side dared to travel together, making a deal was better.

Yuki recited the words in his mind. He watched as a bamboo slip flew into the sky and unfurled. An illusory brush began to write, projecting the content into mid-air like a hologram, visible to both parties.

[Player Yuki, you are signing a contract. Do you confirm?]

A strange voice echoed in his mind. Yuki paused for a moment, reading the few dozen characters over and over again before nodding.

"Confirm."

As soon as the words left his lips, a vague sensation emerged, as if he were bound by the laws of the game. He could neither attack Li Dan nor leave without revealing the outcome to him.

"Brother Li, happy cooperation."

Li Dan didn't even acknowledge him. This cooperation was not happy at all; at the very least, he wouldn't be getting the crucial trait he had been after.

"Watch yourself. We'll settle this debt in the next instance."

"You got it. I'll be waiting."

Yuki wore a smile as he respectfully saw Li Dan off. Only when he confirmed that Li Dan had left his field of vision did he let out a long sigh of relief.

Li Dan was no hothead who acted out of rage; he was intelligent and rational. As long as one gripped his pain points and found common ground, even if Li Dan could kill him in a second, he wouldn't strike.

"Is he gone?" Mai Sakurajima, who had been hiding behind the wall, quietly raised her head. She was also a trump card, but because of the mutual lying, any information Yuki provided had become untrustworthy.

"Yeah. He had no choice. Killing me would be meaningless beyond mere venting, and a man like Li Dan is more afraid of death than I am."

"Afraid of death? Shouldn't he be used to it by now?"

"Exactly. After experiencing the pleasure of extraordinary power and struggling to overcome hardships, even if he's far from the peak, he'll only fear death more..."

"Speak like a human, please."

Yuki rolled his eyes. He fired his Rope Gun while turning his head to answer.

"The barefoot aren't afraid of those wearing shoes!"

They had only joined the game a day ago; if they died, they died. But veteran players had performed countless extreme feats and twisted their own humanity to get this far.

To sacrifice themselves for the sake of face against a few newcomers? That was no joke!

Yuki slid to the opposite rooftop and landed right beside Hayasaka Ai. The two didn't exchange many words; a single look was enough to understand what the other was thinking.

As expected of an expert.

Well done, Hayasaka.

The plan had been formulated by both of them. Hayasaka Ai's Fool Mask had been handed over to Mai Sakurajima back when they killed the Tyrant, and it began to take effect when they passed through the barbed wire, which was why it was Hayasaka Ai who had been dragged away.

The entire process took place right under Li Dan's nose without requiring a single word of communication. The deep-thinking Li Dan had instead become the fool, handing over the initiative on a silver platter.

"Li Dan was wrong after all. I'm not the only genius newcomer capable of influencing the game's difficulty." Yuki flashed a satisfied smile, meeting Hayasaka Ai's appreciative gaze.

He wasn't being narcissistic, nor had he set up some hero-saves-the-damsel scenario, but how to put it—earning such undisguised appreciation from Hayasaka Ai was truly difficult.

"Will things go smoothly from here?"

Yuki didn't speak. He glanced in the direction Li Dan had left, using his eyes to give Hayasaka Ai the answer:

The good show had only just begun!

Chapter 46: Yuki's Qualitative Change (6K)

Li Dan was gone, and the contract was signed. Under the rules of the game, there would be no surprises, but when Hayasaka Ai saw the look in Yuki's eyes, her heart, which had just settled, rose again.

There was no reason for it; everything this man said had come to pass, or at least, nothing had gone wrong since the game began.

"I believe you."

The answer was simple, and then she fell silent, which made Yuki chuckle as he raised his fist.

"Aren't you afraid I'll play dirty this time? You were scared out of your wits last time."

"I'm not stupid. Some things have nothing to do with face; who would dare wait for you to grow up?" Hayasaka Ai raised her manicured hand and bumped her fist against Yuki's, then glanced to the side. "Don't be a smooth talker. Look, Mai doesn't look happy."

Mai Sakurajima was standing nearby, looking at the two of them with a strange expression. Even though she had played a key role, she lacked that natural, seamless rapport.

But upon hearing the teasing, her expression instantly returned to normal, and she tilted her chin slightly. "Who isn't happy? You two kept me in the dark for so long. So you had already discovered the problem."

"I don't dare speak of things I haven't confirmed. This has nothing to do with trust." Yuki stood straight, his peripheral vision drifting toward the fat man in the distance.

He cowered in the corner, coughing while sitting there foolishly, wanting to come over but not daring to.

"Of course it's irrelevant." At this moment, Hayasaka Ai suddenly interjected, eyeing the girl before her with an equally strange look. "Mai Sakurajima risked her life for you; if you still don't trust her, do you even have a conscience left?"

With a hint of teasing and a touch of sarcasm, Yuki immediately shut his mouth, his peripheral vision catching Mai Sakurajima biting her lip.

The upperclassman didn't get angry—or rather, getting angry would have been even more embarrassing—so she simply grinned, looking slightly provocative. "I was just thanking him for turning the tide and fulfilling a request I promised him. Speaking of which, don't you have anything to say?"

"Heh, I have no problem with that." Hayasaka Ai had no intention of showing weakness, turning her head with a smile. "Yuki, what kind of 'perks' do you want?"

Please, when you say the word 'perks,' could you not look at me with such a terrifying gaze? It's as if I'd be a dead man the moment I made some lewd request.

And Mai-senpai, I heard you disengage the safety on your pistol. If I treat you two differently, are you planning to put a few holes in me?

An atmosphere of a slaughterhouse began to spread, but this didn't faze Yuki in the slightest.

"Hayasaka, if you have the time, wear a maid outfit for me."

Hmph, that's more like it. At least you have some sense.

Mai released her pistol, and then something even stranger happened: Hayasaka Ai didn't fly into a rage or lose her composure; a strange glint simply flashed in her eyes before she nodded.

"No problem, I agree."

Hiss, is this woman sick? Why did she accept it so readily? My bunny girl outfit is still a dark history of mine to this day.

It must be a bluff. I have to remember: it's only fair if we hold each other's dark history.

She waited to see the show, and Yuki quietly breathed a sigh of relief. This little test had been successfully bluffed through.

A maid outfit might seem shameful, but for Hayasaka Ai, isn't it just a work uniform? It had long since become her daily attire.

"Fatty, get over here."

Yuki called out, and the moment his voice fell, Robert came scrambling over in a panic. With a tiger-like pounce, he slammed his knees onto the floorboards and hugged Yuki's thigh, starting to cry.

"Brother Yuki, don't kill me! I was only acting on the orders of that bastard Li Dan. I really didn't mean to abandon you back then!"

When they crossed the railway, he had run faster than anyone, indirectly selling Yuki out. Who knew the water here ran so deep—it was actually a game between new and veteran players, and in the end, the new player had won.

Who could he even reason with? Any normal person would have sided with Li Dan.

There was no need to fake the fear; Yuki could kill this worthless fatty right now, so it was no wonder he was terrified.

"I know. If you were truly Li Dan's man, you would have been taken away just now." Yuki spoke kindly, gently patting his head. "Don't cry. I'm not as scheming as Li Dan, nor am I as heartless. At the very least, we've fought side-by-side."

Robert didn't believe a word of the first half, but he agreed with the second half. At the very least, from his observations, the relationship between Yuki, Mai, and Hayasaka Ai was very harmonious—weren't they just joking around a moment ago?

"Yes, yes, yes! From now on, I will definitely listen to you—even more obediently than Miss Hayasaka and Miss Mai!"

Mai Sakurajima immediately showed an expression of disdain. This man had been so gleeful when he abandoned the two of them earlier, and now he was acting like a sycophant, completely devoid of any human dignity.

"Mm, if you behave, I'll keep you safe. Fatty, you're a good shot; you're still quite useful." Yuki wore the same encouraging look Li Dan often used. Being able to change one's tune without the slightest psychological burden was also a skill in its own right.

"No problem! Whoever you tell me to shoot, I'll shoot!"

The fatty slapped his chest with a loud thud. Yuki couldn't be bothered to look at him and asked to himself, "Are you all wondering how to survive the final day and night?"

After the brief interlude, their attention returned to the main topic. Hayasaka Ai instantly became expressionless, returning to her player persona as she checked the time.

"There are five hours until dawn. I assume you aren't planning to wait until daylight to make a move."

The answer was, of course, impossible. The intensity after the moon set would surely be extremely high; even Li Dan didn't have the confidence to survive it unscathed, which was why he chose to turn hostile and try to seize a path to survival from Mai Sakurajima.

"Let me think. You want to avoid the final day and night, right?"

"Smart. Since the moon rising and setting constitutes one day, there is a place that allows us to instantly skip the entire day, enter the final night, and then leave that place—at which point the Crimson Moon will instantly set."

Yuki spoke eloquently, practically slapping the answer onto their faces. Everyone present was no fool; it was like piercing through a layer of window paper—they understood immediately.

"The Ancient Castle of Eternal Night!"

Mai Sakurajima blurted out, wanting to slap her own forehead. How could she not have thought of such a simple logic? Truly, being caught in the middle of the game left no time to look for patterns.

Hayasaka Ai narrowed her eyes. She hadn't figured it out either, but she understood that Li Dan must have known the answer, which was the reason for his truce with Yuki.

The answer didn't stump this veteran player, but the execution was the problem. The Ancient Castle was currently a monster-spawning point; if they truly had the ability to wipe out the Living Corpses, they wouldn't fear the final day and night at all.

How to get in, and how to get out—this clue is held by Yuki.

For a moment, she seemed to realize something, exchanging a glance with Mai Sakurajima before they both looked away, revealing nothing.

"So, we're going back to the Ancient Castle?"

"Mm, but the road back won't be peaceful." Yuki looked downstairs. In the streets, one could already see Living Corpses in twos and threes. These things wouldn't evolve like they did during the day, but as time passed, their numbers were increasing.

It wouldn't be long before the entire city was filled, and the resulting tide of corpses would be uncountable.

"Regardless, we have to hold out until morning. In other words, we still have to receive two more 'gifts' from the Crimson Moon."

The group's expressions tightened. Following Yuki's gaze toward the street, their tense expressions turned ashen.

It was as if someone had turned up the brightness; the moonlight suddenly surged, making the crimson hue between heaven and earth even more intense.

Dozens of Living Corpses were wandering at the intersection. Among them, more than twenty simply vanished as they walked, as if lost in the thick moonlight.

But the disappearance lasted only for an instant. Soon, a monster with blue-gray skin, a fat build, and a highly distended belly appeared in the moonlight, while the extra Living Corpses were nowhere to be seen.

A literal transformation of a living person—no, a transformation of a Living Corpse. It was enough to make one's breathing hitch.

"Wait a second, what is this?" Mai Sakurajima felt as if her emotions were on a rollercoaster; she had only just started to feel at ease, and now her heart was pounding wildly again.

Hayasaka Ai remained expressionless, merely stroking the handle of her axe as she looked toward Yuki, who was scanning the surroundings with binoculars.

"No wonder you insisted on finishing Li Dan's business before three in the morning."

Whether the players believed it or not, the cruel reality was laid out before them—

This was the third gift sent by the Crimson Moon.

"Random fusion? Becoming elite monsters within the horde? Hmm, simpler than I imagined. It seems that after destroying Li Dan's contract, the difficulty scaling isn't as outrageous as it originally was. That's good news."

Ignoring the looks of three people behind him who clearly thought he was a madman, Yuki let out a sigh of relief after observing the hordes surrounding the residential complex.

The big-bellied ones look like Boomers, and I just saw a long-tongued monster. Is this shifting toward Left 4 Dead?

He wasn't surprised; from the very beginning, Yuki knew the concept of "Living Corpse" encompassed many varieties, such as that thing beneath the Ancient Castle, or perhaps the thousand-year-old zombies that might appear later. He was more focused on the underlying reason:

The difficulty was indeed increasing, but the margin was much smaller than the evolution from a Licker to a Tyrant, because fusion meant the total number of the horde was also decreasing. That was better than having some terrifying monster dropped out of thin air.

If they had to deal with a horde while simultaneously fighting a monster stronger than a Tyrant, that would be a true desperate situation.

"We're going that way." Yuki pointed toward the direction of the railway line, and immediately heard a chorus of rapid breathing.

This meant heading toward "Tiger Mountain," where the density of Living Corpses was surely higher than in the old city district. Yuki offered no explanation; he fired the Rope Gun directly at the opposite apartment building, then leaped, sliding across the cable toward the other side.

As the night wind brushed his face, a hunched Living Corpse with robust arms was prowling the rooftop. Hearing the sound of the Rope Gun piercing the floorboards, it immediately whipped its head around.

Its face split open, revealing blood-stained fangs. Just as Yuki landed, it sprang into the air, leaping a full five or six meters high.

The monster traced a parabolic arc through the air, its target being Yuki's back. Before Hayasaka Ai could even raise her gun, Yuki had already side-stepped, and the whirring Chainsaw Sword slashed directly through it.

The chainsaw sliced through the raised arms like cheese, burying itself into the waist and emerging from the back. The slaughter made Yuki's heart race, and he couldn't help but reveal a bloodthirsty grin.

You, of all things, want to ride me!?

In an instant, the monster was reduced to two severed pieces of carrion, and the few Living Corpses that had rushed to the rooftop upon hearing the commotion didn't even see what happened before their heads were pierced by bullets, causing them to collapse in a neat row.