If you wanted a say, you had to be able to fight. How had he forgotten something so simple and obvious?
Sure enough, it was because the impressions from his past life had been too profound, too dazzling.
As Bai Ye reflected on himself, he gripped the Sword Sheath of his longsword and stood beside Skadi.
This was still the most reliable thing.jpg
Just then, an urgent shout suddenly came from outside the camp. "Wait!"
Talulah
Talulah rushed into the camp. She ignored the Infected warriors confronting Bai Ye and instead ran straight to Alina, who was lying on a stretcher.
Little Deer was currently being carried toward the small clinic by two Infected responsible for logistics. Seeing Talulah's anxious expression, she could not help but smile.
Talulah relaxed slightly. For now, it seemed her friend was all right.
Tear stains still marked the girl's face. Looking at Alina, tears began streaming down again. "You're still smiling? You should have listened to me before... You're not allowed to go out alone again."
"All right, all right, it was my fault." Alina's voice was gentle. "Don't worry about me first. I'm fine. The two who brought me back are good people—friends. Don't start a conflict."
"I understand." Talulah nodded. "Focus on recovering. Get some proper rest."
"Go on. Don't stay here too long. You're the leader; you can't neglect your duties like this..." Alina seemed ready to lecture her as usual.
But this time, Talulah was not having it. She gently covered Little Deer's mouth. "Even like this, Teacher Alina still wants to lecture me. Stop talking."
After asking the doctor to treat her friend properly, Talulah returned to the warriors.
Only then did she notice the enormous pit in the ground, as well as the man and woman standing in its center.
"Talulah!"
With Talulah's arrival, the tense Infected warriors finally found someone to rely on.
Talulah examined the two people who had saved Alina. From appearances alone, they were worlds apart from the Infected nearby.
Their clothes were neat, their appearances immaculate, even their fingernails spotless. Their skin was fair; they did not look like people struggling to survive on the snowy plains at all. They seemed more like nobles from a city.
Yet the deep crater on the ground and the girl carrying a massive sword both displayed the power they possessed.
They were quite contradictory individuals.
With one glance, Talulah could tell that the handsome man was the one calling the shots between the two.
"You're Talulah?"
Bai Ye looked curiously at the girl in an Ursus noble military uniform. Perhaps because of her Originium Arts, her long, straight legs were exposed to the air, unaffected by the freezing weather.
Come to think of it, upon seeing Talulah, Bai Ye's lips twitched almost imperceptibly as painful memories flooded his mind.
Even after successfully clearing the standard memory dungeon, the Wandering Tea Party had still been wiped out more than a dozen times while facing the final boss of the highest difficulty Desperate Operation dungeon, "Talulah in Her Heart."
Though she was a humanoid boss, the pressure she gave Players was no less than that of a colossal giant boss.
Her Originium Arts seemed capable of setting the sky ablaze. The rapidly depleted oxygen and fireballs capable of melting the arena floor were every healer's nightmare.
To figure out the third-phase boss's attack pattern, Bai Ye had personally charged in and gotten a giant fireball straight to the face...
Well, it was all tears.
In short, Bai Ye's feelings toward the girl before him were complicated.
But he soon noticed the differences between the Talulah before him and the one he had seen in his past life.
First was, naturally, her clothing. The Talulah Players had encountered in his past life always wore dresses, like a noble young lady stepping out of a banquet. The current Talulah, however, wore a military uniform and looked imposing.
Then there was the difference in temperament. The Talulah before him was younger, with clear eyes. She was rather similar to the Talulah who later became a green-name NPC again.
"She's very hot." Skadi suddenly spoke from beside him.
"I know." Bai Ye had personally experienced the temperature of this woman in her prime.
"But she should be manageable..." Skadi gauged the distance between herself and Talulah. A single charge would be enough. Even on land, an Abyssal Hunter's speed was astonishing.
Their bodies had undergone complex biological modifications to withstand the high pressure and resistance of the deep sea. They were the most precise combat weapons.
Bai Ye was not surprised that Skadi could defeat the Talulah before them. After all, she was still immature, far weaker than the one from his past life.
"They're friends. Lower your weapons first," Talulah said to the Reunion warriors.
"But... they aren't Infected, and they're highly suspicious..."
"The captain isn't here. We need to be careful."
Both the Infected and the Shield Guards watched Bai Ye and Skadi warily, especially Skadi with her giant sword. The girl had left an extremely deep impression on them.
"Must our friends only be Infected? They helped us, yet we raised our weapons against guests who came with goodwill? That is not right." Talulah shook her head. "Now, lower your weapons."
"Yes."
"Disperse, warriors. The Infected still need your help, the camp needs guarding, and the brothers who fought earlier need rest as well."
Talulah arranged for her subordinates to leave, and the tense atmosphere immediately vanished.
"My apologies. On the tundra, we have to be more cautious."
Talulah then walked over to Bai Ye and Skadi.
She was courteous and clearly well educated, with a gentle smile on her face. Yet her gaze was powerful, displaying the girl's steadfast fighting spirit.
"It's fine. They were actually already quite good. They didn't try to seize our vehicle."
Bai Ye pointed to his car. He had deliberately opened the trunk earlier, revealing the food inside.
Though their eyes had obviously been full of longing, Reunion's discipline was fairly good. No one had made a move.
"If we started plundering too, what would make us different from the enemy?" Talulah shook her head, though her expression darkened.
As she spoke, she remembered her badly injured friend and the culprit dragged away by the patrolmen.
Taking a deep breath and suppressing her stray thoughts, Talulah invited Bai Ye and Skadi. "Would you like to come in and rest? Our campfire is already lit, and it's fairly warm here."
"We do not have much, but I still wish to host you—you saved my most important friend."
Bai Ye smiled and nodded. "Of course. We were just worrying about where to set up camp tonight."
Skadi slung her greatsword back onto her back and followed behind Bai Ye.
She was actually in quite a good mood because she had caught a scent drifting through the air—the Infected had broken open the frozen lake nearby and caught some scale fish.
Grilled fish. Skadi liked it very much.
Bai Ye closed the car door. Only then did Talulah notice that, at some point, the longsword hanging behind him had disappeared.
Messenger Bai Ye
"That's right. This is my guard, Little Orca. I'm Bai Ye, a weak messenger and merchant. I don't possess strength as powerful as theirs."
Beside the campfire, Bai Ye introduced himself and Skadi to Talulah. At the same time, he did his best to show that he meant no harm.
"I see. I suppose no one would come to the tundra just to travel..." Talulah nodded, but Bai Ye's next words stunned her.
"Miss Talulah, we came from Lungmen."
"Saving your friend was actually an accident. We came here to find you."
Bai Ye did not conceal his purpose.
As he spoke, he took out the letter Chen had written and a photograph from his pocket.
He reached out and handed them both to the dumbfounded girl.
By now, he had confirmed that this Talulah was not the boss Talulah they had encountered in his past life.
Her temperament was still immature. This Reunion was not the violent organization from his past life either. Its warriors were disciplined and quite capable, rather than the disorganized thugs he had faced before.
Once an organization became nothing but a violent organization, it was not far from destruction. Perhaps the Reunion of his past life had indeed been large in scale, but that had merely been a wave stirred up by hatred and violence. It had no foundation and was destined to become a pawn used by others.
Bai Ye did not need a pawn destined to be discarded. What he wanted was an organization with which he could cooperate, one that had a future.
Naturally, Talulah had no idea what Bai Ye was thinking. Her expression was somewhat strange, as though she were suppressing some emotion about to burst forth from within.
The girl reached out and accepted the letter Bai Ye offered.
When she saw the name on the envelope, her hand visibly trembled.
"We'll head out first..." Bai Ye casually stood up. "Skadi, I want fish. What about you?"
"Me too."
Skadi followed Bai Ye out of Talulah's cabin.
Chen had written this letter before Bai Ye left Lungmen.
The photograph had also been copied at that time.
Chen had told Bai Ye that half the blood in her and Talulah's bodies was the same. They shared the same mother.
(Was your mother's name Martha too? How amusing.)
Though she had been investigating all along, Chen still could not uncover the truth of that year.
She was not even sure whether Bai Ye could truly find her older sister.
Perhaps even she knew this was merely an unrealistic fantasy... Unfortunately, Bai Ye had the advantage of his past life.
"Put it away. Even if I had an ulterior motive, this feeling was still rather nice, wasn't it?" Bai Ye gradually understood why so many Players in his past life had chosen to become messengers.
It was not merely for experience and rewards. Perhaps on this fragmented land, messenger Players could experience a certain emotion long lost in reality.
After all, Earth's real-time communication technology was far more advanced. Even instant video calls with the Mars colony could be made with low latency.
Perhaps because of Talulah's earlier words, when Bai Ye and Skadi appeared among the Infected once more, they were not met with hostility.
The Shield Guards watched Bai Ye cautiously, but did not stop them.
When Bai Ye proposed exchanging food for Originium ore, he immediately became the most popular person in camp.
Food was scarce, but some of the ore brought from the mines was temporarily useless. It could not be eaten, nor was there anywhere to sell it.
Once the hostility was gone, Bai Ye's affinity aura finally began to work.
Honestly, his high charisma was quite useful.
Charisma was not some kind of aphrodisiac. It was something that could reduce hostility and increase initial favorability.
In other words, it could make a stranger willing to speak to you properly.
Of course, due to their vigilance and hostility, Bai Ye's charisma had not produced such an obvious effect when he first entered the Reunion camp.
But it had not been completely useless either. At the very least, it had weakened their hostility considerably. Neither the warriors nor the Shield Guards had rushed forward to subdue him.
Well, Skadi's combat ability probably also helped everyone speak nicely. Bai Ye recalled a ruthless person whose charisma had been in the negatives. That person seemed to get along amicably with everyone using only the blade in his hand...
"Sorry. Before, we all thought you were a bad person... Only noble lords dress this well on the tundra."
An Infected took off the hat on his head.
He was an Ursus man with terrifying scars on his face.
Bai Ye waved his hand to show he did not mind, though he could not help admiring the Shield Guards' vigilance—even though they said that, he could still sense at least two Shield Guards following behind him, while others watched him from afar.
Skadi might have noticed, but since Bai Ye had said nothing, she did not bother with it. At the moment, she was dealing with the grilled fish in her hands.
This silly girl...
Bai Ye sighed.
"By the way, I heard there are two legends on the tundra—the Snow Crab Squad and the Shield of the Infected. Aren't they here?" Ignoring the happily munching Little Orca, Bai Ye turned to the Reunion Infected he had just met.
"The Snow Crab Squad went ahead to scout. The captain took Squad Five to clear some 'obstacles.' They'll be back soon." The Infected shook his head as he spoke. "They're much stronger and more useful than us."
"Though the leader accepted them, but... don't reveal our secrets." A Shield Guard walked over.
"Ah, don't be so serious... They're good people."
Before you continue