Arknights, but the Family Has Fallen Yet Again

The bandit grinned without bothering to hide his intentions. "Robbery! Food and money! Hand them all over!"

Skadi asked, "Before we cross blades, would you mind telling us..."

However, before they could continue the conversation, Specter attacked first, guided by her increasingly lucid intuition and Oute's earlier "oracle"!

"All of you! Be separated!"

The circular saw howled as it carried its mistress toward the bandit.

"Specter!"

Skadi cried out, but she could not stop the bandit from instantly becoming a bloody mess.

The bounty hunter adjusted her pointed tricorn hat and said helplessly, "...We could've learned more about this place."

"Useless! Lost puppets! Frenzied empty shells!" Specter said, her face splattered crimson.

"Specter's intuition seems exceptionally sharp right now..." Oute wiped the blood from Specter's face with his sleeve and concluded, "It seems she judged that this... lot, this lot of bandits had no value for conversation, so she attacked."

Unable to bear the gruesome sight, Alina hid behind Oute.

Like a small beast guarding its food, the nun wrapped herself around his left arm, deliberately or otherwise squeezing Alina aside.

"Hehe... my Lord..." she murmured a scripture no one could make out.

"Specter..." Skadi shook her head, unable to conceal the pity in her gaze as she looked at Specter.

The bounty hunter showed no sign of sighing. She sheathed her greatsword across her back and pointed ahead. "Though we didn't get a chance to question him, there seems to be a tent up ahead."

"We should be able to get some information from there."

But Alina hesitantly pointed to a shallow mound by the roadside.

It rested against the roots of a dead tree, with an iron shovel lying beside it.

"What's that?"

Something you absolutely shouldn't casually touch on Blood Moon difficulty... and also the direct cause of my heart failure.

In Oute's vision, he clearly saw a translucent spirit slowly emerge from behind the dead tree's roots. It was entirely concealed beneath a dark-blue hooded robe. A cold wind whistled into the four people's collars, yet the spirit's robe did not move in the slightest.

Alina shivered, though she did not know why.

Oute, meanwhile, looked at the ghost only he could see and pulled Alina back.

He put it simply. "That's a grave. Better not disturb it carelessly."

The deer girl nodded and obediently stepped aside.

But Skadi said, "...I don't sense anyone else nearby. Let's check together and see if there are any clues in the tent."

She seemed a little distracted.

Oute looked at the campfire near the tent. "This looks like a base, or perhaps an outpost."

"Then maybe we can find a map of the area!" Alina seemed to have thought of something.

Probably because of her experiences with the Reunion Movement on the tundra?

Oute glanced at her. "That's possible."

Though finding a map here would be pointless... Once we fought another "boss battle" ahead, the road back to Hamlet Town would be completely clear...

And with the faint awareness of being the dream's master, Oute dimly sensed that as long as he returned to Hamlet Town, he would be able to escape this active dream, which offered no real rest at all.

With that in mind, Oute and Alina joined the investigation of the tent.

"This is...?" The antlered girl looked helplessly at the strange sculpture she had just found.

The sculpture looked somewhat like tree roots, yet also like a cluster of twisted tentacles.

Oute raised an eyelid. Well, damn. So you're an Antiquarian!

The dream once again gave him a vague confirmation.

Antiquarian, short for antiquarian merchant. In the game, this was a hero who sacrificed nearly all offensive capability in exchange for economic prowess.

An antiquarian merchant could find more valuable items when acquiring loot. In gameplay terms, she could somehow pull out a pile of expensive antiques from the same interactive object...

In that case...

Oute thought of the bandit from earlier.

We didn't loot his corpse!

"It looks pretty old. It should fetch some money if we take it out," Oute said, returning the sculpture to Alina.

"I see..."

Alina's expression darkened.

Unlike Oute and the Abyssal Hunters, Alina, as one of the dead, was unlikely to be able to "leave."

Alina vaguely understood that herself.

After all, she still remembered the sensation of blood and vitality draining from her wound together—she remembered her own death.

Yet she had not told the other three about it.

It sounded far too suspicious!

The three of them had all arrived here about a week after she had.

They were connected to one another, while Alina had no connection to any of them!?

And at a time like this, she was supposed to say, "I'm actually dead"?

That would make her sound exactly like the culprit.

If she had not had no memory of this place at all, Alina herself would have suspected that she had become an evil spirit and was harming them here...

"These look like bread."

Skadi found a bag of black bread in a corner of the tent.

This was not the sort of "health food" modern people ate, which tasted awful but was otherwise harmless. This was genuine black bread mixed with sawdust, grit, and even pebbles.

But Alina was delighted. "That's great! In that case, we can keep exploring ahead!"

She was way too enthusiastic.

Oute glanced at her. If I didn't know I was the real mastermind, that reaction would make you look awfully suspicious.

Chapter 13: Remember, Actions Speak Louder Than Words. You Said So Yourself

Though she had little combat ability, Alina had already spent over a week alone in this bizarre place.

If she did not move, she would not feel hungry. But once she traveled a certain distance, hunger would strike without warning.

That was what she had figured out.

And she had already shared this knowledge with the other three.

Would they believe her?

As a person with common sense, Alina was actually rather uneasy.

But then again, none of these three seemed particularly normal...

"Understood." A nearly imperceptible trace of weariness and distaste flashed through Skadi's seemingly indifferent eyes.

She did not particularly care for this black bread, just as she did not particularly care for anything she had seen these past days...

In the end, she could only make peace with it—this was land, after all, where even a flush toilet was hard to find.

Sure enough, after they marched onward for a while, sudden hunger assailed all four of them. Oute and Skadi both wore extremely complicated expressions as they ate.

Oute swallowed a few mouthfuls with difficulty before forcing out, "Since we just passed an outpost, there must be a large number of enemies ahead."

Skadi and Alina both nodded.

Specter, however, stared at him dreamily. "I shall offer every soul lost upon this battlefield to you..."

Oute sighed. On his own turf, he had finally figured out what was wrong with Specter.

Because of Specter's mental sensitivity and her inability to care for herself physically, once she sensed the otherworldly power hidden within Oute, she effortlessly muddled together two completely unrelated things.

This withdrawn and crazed nun persona saw the otherworldly power in Oute as "divine power," while confusing one "god" with another... and began worshipping Oute as the "god" of the Church of the Deep.

That was what had happened to Specter.

But thinking about it carefully, it was not entirely wrong.

From a certain perspective, Oute was something like the "father" of those "gods" worshipped by the Church of the Deep...

The whole process was wrong, but the result was completely right.

"Be careful. Wait for me to deal with them before you come over." Skadi motioned for the other three to stop, then, as though recalling something, instructed Oute, "Though Specter's mind... condition isn't quite normal right now, you seem able to restrain her."

You meant her brain isn't normal, right? Honestly, mine's about the same. I'm brain-damaged in the literal sense.

Oute carefully studied the almost expressionless pretty face of the orca girl, trying to discern something.

"Don't let her join the battle. Keep her by your side."

Skadi's cold expression conveyed concern.

That surprised Alina somewhat.

Oute already knew that Skadi only looked aloof, while beneath that cold face she was actually rather simple-minded. But Alina knew nothing of that. Having seen Skadi and Specter clash blades the moment they met, it was naturally difficult for Alina to imagine that the orca girl's true nature was like that.

Thus, after sensing the concern in Skadi's words, her eyes widened with innocent surprise.

Specter had clearly understood Skadi's words, but she had no intention of speaking with her.

The nun merely stared at Oute with her alluring red eyes, gently clutching his collar as she said, "At your command..."

Oute asked quietly, "Do you want to go?"

Specter revealed an expectant expression and gave a slight nod.