Chapter 387

Third, the King of the Night is indeed watching every player, or rather, every person who has been dragged into the night. The intensity of this attention is directly proportional to the number of times one enters the night. Yuki has entered the night twice, and it's estimated that after two more times, the King of the Night will appear.

Fourth, as daylight arrives, night naturally dissolves.

In conclusion, venturing into the night is not entirely forbidden, but it's best to avoid it as much as possible. The mere gain of a single enhancement point doesn't justify the energy expenditure. So, how can one minimize venturing into the night?

They either fight each other and plunder, or they go and pick up powerful Soul Lamp. Oh, isn't that like an airdrop in PUBG? What does that mean? I don't need to say more.

"Alright, we should head to Rosen City now. Why are you still in bed when the sun's shining so brightly?"

Yuki turned her head and saw a pupa lying on the bed, its two slender white silk legs peeking out from under its black skirt, swinging up and down.

"First, there's no sun in this godforsaken place. Second, I didn't sleep at all last night!"

Mona jumped up in a flash, her eyebrows raised and her flat chest heaving.

A monster-level player could go a month without sleep without a problem, but the key issue is that she's exhausted. After battling the darkness all night, she's now so relaxed that she doesn't even want to move a finger.

And this bastard looks respectable, but he has absolutely no gentlemanly manners; he just keeps messing with me.

"Stop complaining. You've learned quite a few of my secrets this time. The most efficient way to understand each other is to fight side by side." Yuki snorted, already knowing what Mena Ryougi Mana was up to.

As part of the experiment, he dragged Mona into the Night Furnace, where the powerful and bizarre domain astonished the girl.

Yeah, you're right, I'm getting to know him better and better.

Mona tilted her head suspiciously and tentatively asked, "How many people know your secret?"

You little rascal, trying to play mind games with me? You can't tell anyone anyway.

Yuki sneered inwardly. After spending so much time together, he realized that the most prominent label on Mona was 'curiosity,' just like yesterday when she annoyed all the stall owners with her questions while shopping at the market.

It was meaningless, but it satisfied her curiosity.

No more than five.

"Real?"

Why would I lie to you?

Call out--

Mona darted directly in front of Yuki, grabbed his hand, her azure eyes seemed to sparkle, and her attitude changed faster than turning the pages of a book.

"Brother, please wait a moment. I will set off immediately after a quick wash."

She darted into the bathroom in an instant, then poked her head out from behind the door.

"And no peeking!"

"Get out, you have five minutes."

Yuki cursed back, then chuckled at the little girl, closed the door, and was greeted by the sound of running water. It was as if one could see a petite, sweet-looking girl standing under the showerhead, glistening water droplets flowing over her fair skin.

What the hell am I dreaming of? Do I really become a gentleman?

Yuki shook his head, continued looking out the window, listening to the sound of flowing water, and suddenly raised his head.

A black dot streaked across the sky, and an invisible spiritual force swept over the town. As if touched, it suddenly converged in this direction.

Are players really this brazen?

Yuki withdrew his gaze and continued to admire the scenery.

From this distance, it's not apparent what the problem is. This player is searching for humans without Soul Lamp, because ordinary people cannot survive the night without Soul Lamp, so the only survivors are their own kind.

Being too high-profile will get you dealt with sooner or later.

Yuki scoffed. He was a cunning old fox, unlike the Battle Maniac who would send out declarations of war everywhere. Instead, he took a different approach.

Infiltrate the instance, hide yourself like an ordinary person, and tear off the disguise at the crucial moment; the winner takes all.

"Brother, I'm ready."

The bathroom door was pushed open, and Mona had changed into another black and white Lolita dress, stood in the doorway. Her hair was still wet, and she looked as innocent and pure as Phoebe. Her slender and fair legs and her innocent face were surprisingly attractive.

Coincidentally, I have a player who is the least like a player in the world, whose roots are fixed and transcend all acting skills.

"Okay, let's go." Yuki put on his suit, straightened his shirt tie, and hung the exquisite Soul Lamp on his chest. He had just raised his hand when he was immediately embraced.

An invisible spiritual force was monitoring everything in the town. It had no specific target, but rather took in hundreds of people and analyzed every move, like a mechanical surveillance camera.

He saw a lively girl carrying a handsome young man down the stairs. They were carrying a large suitcase filled with all sorts of clothes, just like travelers who had been wandering around.

He overheard the two checking out, and the landlady asked, "Why do you look so tired, little sister?" The girl replied, "Last night, it was so intense with you, brother." Then there was an awkward silence, and the landlady gave him a look as if he were a prostitute.

There were no players in Oak Town; it had only been one night, so it was impossible for two players from the same team to meet up.

Retracting the foreword, not being like a player is a terrible thing.

Gritting his teeth, Yuki walked out of the inn, still savoring the landlady's disdainful look. He reached out and kneaded Mona's face into a dough ball, then looked up and saw the lingering sonic boom ring in the air.

A player who can scan a small town in seconds is incredibly powerful in the mental element.

Smack

He lit a match, Yuki a drag of his cigarette, and watched the direction the other man had gone.

Go ahead and fight. I'll come out and collect your corpses when you're all exhausted.

Chapter Four: Pleasant Cooperation

The Pharo Kingdom, Rosen City.

As the most powerful nation on the western side of the Dark Night Continent, Rosen City is also a major western town of the kingdom. Compared to Oak Town in the Black Forest, it is a completely different world.

Towering chimneys belched white smoke into the sky, making the air pungent. The city was situated in a valley, and the Rosen River, which flowed through it, emitted a strong stench. Various kinds of excrement, garbage, and corpses floated down its course. The surrounding mountains had been completely cleared, leaving them barren.

The steam engines of the giant wagons chugged and puffed as they carried fine logs from the Black Forest into the city. The not-so-wide roads were jammed with all sorts of vehicles, horse-drawn carriages and trams crisscrossed the streets, and crowds of people lined both sides of the road.

Wearing coarse cloth shirts and with blank expressions, they are workers on their way to work; those in black suits and top hats are gentlemen of a higher class; children weave through the crowd, and the Roar of "Stop thief!" can be heard from time to time.

It has a bit of a steampunk vibe, just like the prosperity mentioned in the backstory.

Yuki took out a white handkerchief and held it to his nose. The air pollution here was too severe; the entire city seemed shrouded in a thin fog, which was harmful to the health of ordinary people.

The indigenous people 'Soul Lamp is linked to their physical strength; doing so is tantamount to slow suicide.

"This city is so dirty and smelly." Mona said with disgust. It took her a whole day and night to get here, and she was quite disappointed. "Their Soul Lamp dims when they're sick. Aren't they afraid of being swept away by the darkness?"

"They are afraid, but it's not just the night that brings death; starvation and freezing to death are the same. As for those who are truly afraid of the night, they won't care about this pollution." Yuki pointed to the distance, where the only verdant mountain peak stood, and with the player's eyesight, they could see rows of exquisite villas.

"Class system? I suddenly realize the advantages of the post-apocalyptic world. Let's go, let's go explore the city."

Yuki. Players were mobile calamities, not heroes who saved the world, and besides, he had no energy to interfere with evil.

There are 136 players remaining.

The numbers on the panel started changing rapidly yesterday. No players died on the first night because no player who reaches the monster level is stupid, and the weak would never conduct experiments.

But the numbers started to change during the day yesterday, with a total of six players being eliminated. They either died at the hands of their own kind or were killed by the 'Night Watchers' guns.

Then came last night, where 15 people were lost, and the fighting clearly intensified.

Like an outsider, Yuki rode in a carriage to Rosen City. If he gained any clues, it was a better understanding of this instance and Mena Ryougi.

Oak Town was known for its simple and honest people, but as they left the Black Forest, all sorts of troubles began to emerge.

This godforsaken place is teeming with thieves, and bandits roam everywhere at night. They take advantage of the darkness to specifically target travelers, and countless crimes are hidden by the night.

Mona doesn't seem like a player, but she is a player after all. These troublesome matters were left to her to handle without even the sword being drawn by the Yuki, and the innocent girl handled them very well.

She spared no one who deserved to die. When hundreds of bandits were shredded by her Laser Net, the girl standing in the pile of corpses tilted her head and smiled. Yuki even felt a strange sense of beauty.

"The Reincarnation Game always turns normal people into lunatics."

He covered his face, tossed out a few coins to buy a newspaper from a newsboy, and said that since they had slaughtered hundreds of people on the way, they were not short of money.

"Are you planning to look for clues in the newspapers?" Mona poked her head over. After a day and a night, their relationship had become much more natural.

"Yes, the technological level of this world is too low, at most it's telegraph, but don't underestimate these natives."

Yuki casually explained that some important things cannot be hidden, and the players are all people who do important things.

A massacre occurred in the Breta Kingdom, with tens of thousands slaughtered.

Earthquake strikes Viking Island, tens of thousands sink along with the island.

<Shocking! The Rick Duchy has been engulfed by an unknown virus, turning tens of thousands into terrifying Living Corpse>

Experts analyze that the reappearance of the Night's Minions generally possesses the following characteristics.

Under intense pressure from various countries, the Night Watchers began to assemble.

<A dark tide appeared in the Kingdom of Tiris, and tens of thousands disappeared overnight.>

<A dark tide has appeared in the eastern border of the Kingdom of Britta, and nearly half of several towns have disappeared.>

Every item was headline news, and while ordinary people might be skeptical, Yuki could extract the information from them at a glance.

"This is a lot of information. It hasn't been that long, and the players are already influencing the world."

"You said we're a moving natural disaster, don't rush to look, at least find a coffee shop." Mona snatched the newspaper and jumped forward in a few steps.

Yuki shook his head helplessly. 'Curiosity' and 'love of comfort' were the characteristics of Mona. She had to try every local specialty she encountered along the way.

After dodging more than a dozen pickpockets and rejecting several obvious honey traps, the two found a decent coffee shop on Central Street. The soothing piano music drifted in, which improved Yuki's mood somewhat.

After taking a sip of coffee with a herbal aroma, Yuki, like one of those idle gentlemen, spread out his newspaper without needing to think much.

Tribal massacres and sinking islands are just the aftermath of player-versus-player battles. Yuki knows very well the destructive power of monster-level players. With the level of materials science in this world, it would only take Yuki the Rosen City, which has hundreds of thousands of people, to the ground.

"They seem to have gone a bit too far?" Mona happily ate her meat pie, looking no different from a noble lady.

"Every player has a different personality; some are low-key, some are violent, just like how people don't care if they hurt ants when they walk," Yuki said nonchalantly. The so-called law of goodness only applies to those of their own kind.

"Besides, they do this for a purpose. For example, the player who sank the island and set it ablaze with towering black flames looks like he's calling on his friends."

"Oh, to remind teammates with a signature power." Mona nodded, sticking out her tongue to lick the minced meat. "And this 'minion of the night' refers to us. That's right, in the natives' eyes, players aren't good people."

The key word "again" proves that players have been to this instance before, but of course, this isn't exactly news.

Yuki shrugged. "Previous players have entered 'Global Insect Calamity' and 'Wizard's Tower,' but the Dark Night Continent Taiyi. It's a killing field where players have no choice but to take sides."

"The Night Watchers are the resistance force within the instance; they are hostile to the King of the Night, but for the players, they are all pretty much the same."

"Hmm, her strength is alright, but her attack methods are too simple." Mona nodded again. During her journey, she killed an evil Night Watchers, proving that her identity had no sacredness whatsoever.

That was a level 7 Night Watchers, with roughly the strength of Transcendental Grade first-tier being. His attack method was still the Soul Hunting Gun. Yuki managed to extract quite a few secrets from him.

As a transnational organization, the Night Watchers has offices in every populated area, branches in every region, and a sub-branch in the kingdom's capital, which adds up to a considerable number.

But this was useless; Yuki estimated that a level 3 Night Watchers would possess monstrous strength, which would be enough to threaten the player.

"Is it possible to find a way to cooperate?"

"It's a bit difficult. The Night Watchers will find those who have broken free from the darkness and returned. They are very rare among the natives, and right now they are usually players."

This information also came from that level 7 Night Watchers; the guy saw me and ran away.

"Hmm, it seems that hostility is the only option left."

"Not necessarily, because the enemy of my enemy can be my friend, and we haven't killed any of their people." Yuki used this as a hidden thread, firmly believing that as long as the benefits were sufficient, even demons could cooperate, let alone players.

Furthermore, through this Night Watchers, Yuki personally experienced their power system.

The main attack method is using a simple, standard firearm, filling the chamber with soul energy and firing it. Other than that, it involves using soul energy to increase physical attributes and defense, so it can be considered a kind of battle mage.

Soul energy, standard firearms... wait, it looks a lot like my Hunter's Blunderbuss.

Yuki, intrigued, casually remarked, "The Night Watchers headquarters is in the capital of the Breta Kingdom; I'll visit it sometime."

"I have no objection to that. I've heard that the wine in the Breta Kingdom is quite delicious. I'll definitely drink my fill then." Mona swung her legs, her train of thought difficult to follow.

The Breta Kingdom is located east of the Pharo Kingdom, in the center of the Dark Night Continent, tens of thousands of kilometers away. It would take several months to travel there by carriage.

Yuki isn't in a hurry; he'll have to go there sooner or later. For example, this Rosen City is a minor landmark that will attract players to gather there.

The night is the dominant theme, and the key point in the newspapers lies in the Dark Night Tide.

Yuki turned the page; the entire page was filled with news about the 'Dark Night Tide,' and the words were brimming with fear.

As predicted, the Dark Night Tide are like a plague; once they appear, entire swathes of lights go out. Normally, the tides would recede, but this time the warning explicitly stated that they would not only not recede, but would continue to spread.

[Tip 3: Dark Night Tide will appear randomly, and once they appear, they will not disappear on their own; they will spread outwards on the second night.]