Ark Simulator: Didn't I Have No Physical Form?

But when Ren Dong softly called Su Rui in her mind, she found that he did not respond.

Su Rui? Are you awake right now?

There was no response. Ren Dong glanced at the still foggy sky outside the window and wondered, Could it be that a system like Su Rui needed sleep too?

If so, he really felt like a navigator hiding in the rear and providing support to a pilot—except this navigator lived in her head.

Ren Dong got up and dressed, then groggily prepared breakfast. Her mind was still occupied with the question of Su Rui's race, afraid that she might accidentally forget about it.

Fortunately, Su Rui did not make her wait long. As Ren Dong sampled her simple breakfast, his voice rang out in her mind.

He yawned first, then greeted her. "Morning. Got any plans today?"

Someone will tell me what needs to be handled today.

"Come to think of it, don't you people get days off? Are you busy every day?"

Of course not. Most of the time, we only need to maintain the current order. There usually isn't much to deal with.

"So what you're saying is, most of the time you're all just sitting around doing nothing?"

I still need to train. An assassin's skills need to be maintained. If I go too long without moving, my body will rust.

Ren Dong answered casually when she heard a knock on the door. "Come in."

The fluffy ears atop her head perked up as Ren Dong looked toward the door. Then she realized she had locked it from the inside, so she got up to open it. Outside stood a Lupo woman holding several documents in her arms.

"Miss Ren Dong, these are the matters we need to handle today."

"Mm, come in first... No, let's go to my office in a moment. Have you eaten breakfast?"

"I have. Thank you for your concern."

The female assistant answered with a smile. Ren Dong did not keep her waiting long. She quickly finished breakfast, cleared away the dishes, then walked up to the assistant and nodded. "Let's go."

As Ren Dong and her assistant headed for the office, Su Rui asked in confusion:

"Aren't you an assassin? Why do you have an office?"

I'm no longer just an assassin. Or rather, every member of the family can be an assassin, or an administrator handling family affairs.

"That only applies to you or Little Venice, right? The others probably don't have the status for that."

You're right.

After arriving at the office, Ren Dong began reading through the documents laid out on her desk with her assistant's help.

Su Rui read them as well and offered quite a few suggestions.

"Is that Old Venice in charge of assigning tasks? If so, he really does seem to value you. A lot of these seem related to your family's business, don't they?"

I'd rather not have that.

Ren Dong shook her head. Under her assistant's puzzled gaze, she ignored her and continued lowering her head to process the documents while responding to Su Rui.

"Why? Isn't that a good thing? With the power of an entire family behind you, there are more things we can do. For example, we could make a huge number of explosives, then..."

And blow the whole city into the sky?

"How did you know? You understand me so well!"

Su Rui's delighted voice sounded in her mind. Ren Dong merely responded with helpless silence and continued reading the documents in her hands.

I have other plans. I don't intend to take over the family completely. Maybe after some time, I'll leave the family and seek the life I want.

The moment she thought of Su Rui's identity as one of the God's People of the Eastern Kingdom, Ren Dong knew there was absolutely no way she could remain in her position within the family while being with him. Although Syracuse families did not have particularly strict attitudes toward marriage alliances—

Someone like Ren Dong was practically half an outsider to begin with... Though Mr. Venice truly cared for her as if she were his daughter, taking control of the family would still require many sacrifices, such as marriage.

Having long made up her mind, Ren Dong did not try to correct Su Rui's personality again. How difficult was it to change a person? She just needed to adapt gradually.

However, she remembered something she had forgotten. As Ren Dong flipped through the documents in her hands, she asked in her mind:

By the way, Su Rui, do you remember what race you are? Or do you even have one?

"Of course I do. I'm human."

What a coincidence. So am I. I meant your specific race.

Ren Dong could not help smiling as she continued questioning him in her mind.

"No, you're not human."

Su Rui actually refuted her. "By my definition, you're a demi-human—or rather, a Vulpo. Only I am a true human."

...Then what exactly are you like?

Ren Dong was somewhat bothered by Su Rui's arrogant assessment, but having grown accustomed to his personality, she did not argue with him over it and simply continued asking.

"Let me think. Simply put, I'm an individual without a tail or ears, with physical abilities somewhat weaker than Terra people's. But our average capabilities in thinking and other areas are higher."

Can you show me? For example, what you looked like in your memories.

Ren Dong smiled, trying to coax Su Rui into revealing his appearance. That System Materialization Progress was probably how Su Rui would look after materializing. Though their racial features differed, his face and build should be the same.

In other words, she could bypass the Materialization System's progress and directly figure out what Su Rui looked like.

"Wait a sec, I'll try modeling it."

After that, Su Rui fell silent. He had clearly gone to prepare an image of himself. Ren Dong, who was about to get what she wanted, could not help feeling pleased. A smile curled her lips as she continued reading the documents in her hands.

Only the clueless assistant looked at Ren Dong in confusion as she nodded, shook her head, or smiled from time to time. Her new superior seemed a little strange.

Soon, Su Rui returned. "Done! Let me show you what I look like!"

Then, a 3D humanoid model appeared before Ren Dong. Yet it was almost identical to the blurry, unrecognizable model she could see in the System Materialization Progress due to its low percentage.

Just as Ren Dong felt puzzled, she saw a prompt from the Upper System:

[An attempt to violate the rules has been detected. Attempts to bypass the system process before the simulation system materializes are prohibited.]

Violence Is Bad

In the end, she could still only tell that Su Rui looked like a young man. Ren Dong could not help feeling disappointed, but Su Rui smugly asked in her mind:

"Well? Were you stunned by my handsomeness?"

Mm, indeed. It's a kind of handsomeness I've never seen before.

A strained smile tugged at Ren Dong's lips as she answered Su Rui, hoping he would not notice the flaw in her response.

It seemed Su Rui truly had modeled his appearance, but the Upper System had discovered Ren Dong's attempt to cheat and directly restricted her.

It'll be mine sooner or later anyway. What's wrong with letting me see it?

Ren Dong felt somewhat helpless, but she could only accept reality and continue reading the documents in her hands.

With Su Rui's help, the documents were handled very quickly. In less than half an hour, work that the assistant thought would take an entire day was finished.

"I didn't expect you to be so skilled at handling this kind of work."

The assistant could not help covering her mouth as she looked at Ren Dong, who was already tidying her appearance and preparing to leave. She was astonished by her efficiency.

"Mm, I just have a few unique little tricks."

Ren Dong nodded and looked at the final document in her hand. Though she could assign it to her subordinates, she decided to handle it with Su Rui.

Ren Dong wanted to verify something: whether the System Materialization Progress advanced according to Su Rui's opinion of her, or according to the quantity and quality of missions completed with Su Rui.

"The one in your hand is...?"

The assistant looked at the document labeled "commission" in Ren Dong's hand with some confusion. She had caught a glimpse of the commission Ren Dong had deliberately set aside earlier and thought Ren Dong intended to assign it to her subordinates later.

"Prepare a car. I'll personally handle this matter later."

Ren Dong glanced at the assistant, put away the document, then headed toward her room.

Su Rui's curious voice sounded as well. "Is it an assassination mission?"

Before Ren Dong could answer, Su Rui had already completed his scan and seen the mission. He pasted the prompt into Ren Dong's field of vision and curled his lip in annoyance.

"So this is just some trivial nonsense, isn't it? Are you really going to deal with this yourself?"

It was merely that the shop of a small merchant affiliated with the Venice Family had been vandalized. The man hoped someone would teach the little hooligans a lesson so they would not dare come cause trouble again.

There's something I want to confirm. This really isn't a major matter.

Ren Dong nodded, but Su Rui still found something that caught his attention.

"The shopkeeper wants those little hooligans to stop bothering him, right?"

There's no need to kill them. The Venice Family still needs to maintain its reputation.

"What about cutting off their limbs?"

That won't do either. Ren Dong's lips twitched. Su Rui felt even more cold-blooded than she was, an assassin.

"Or, I have another idea..."

No especially serious bodily harm. Those little hooligans are actually someone's children. They're just temporarily neglecting proper work, and their parents might also be affiliated with the Venice Family. Punishing them carelessly would affect the family's reputation.

"You're so worried about every little thing. Such a big family, yet you still have to care about these trivialities."

Su Rui snorted and said nothing more. Ren Dong felt a little helpless as well.

In Su Rui's eyes, there seemed to be only one way to solve problems. In reality, even when the mafia used violence, it generally tried to do so discreetly. After all, there were laws now.

From the very beginning, everyone knew the shopkeeper would seek help from the Venice Family. Therefore, if anything really happened to those little hooligans, the Venice Family naturally would not be able to wash its hands of it.

Maybe I should teach Su Rui more about this world. At the very least, that game-like attitude of his won't do.

As Ren Dong pondered, she heard Su Rui's voice again.

"Hey~ I've got another great idea!"

I'll listen, but you have to promise it won't be overly bloody or violent.

Though somewhat helpless, Ren Dong still decided to hear Su Rui's suggestion.

"Of course I know. Since we can't let them physically die, we can make them socially die."

What good idea do you have?

Although Su Rui kept using terms she had never heard before, Ren Dong could roughly understand their meaning.

The fluffy ears atop her head twitched. Ren Dong had a feeling that Su Rui's suggestion this time might actually be useful.

"I've already found the identities of those little hooligans who did bad things, including all sorts of bad things they've done."

As Su Rui spoke, he directly pasted the information into Ren Dong's field of vision. "You have something like a USB drive, right? I mean, a medium for transferring electronic information."

Would a phone work?

"That works too. Anyway, we can use some news they might be interested in to lure them over, then call their parents too and show them all the things they've done.

"Then tell both them and their parents that if they cause trouble again, we'll send every one of their misdeeds to the newspapers and publicize them one by one."

You want their parents to help discipline them? It really is a good idea, but these children's parents...

Ren Dong still had some concerns, but Su Rui had already displayed the information with conspicuous yellow highlights.

"I investigated them. Their parents are also within the Venice Family's sphere of influence. They're just usually too busy with work to take care of their children.

"Besides, those little hooligans probably care about their pride too. After being warned, they'll definitely rein themselves in—unless they want their neighbors looking at them with contempt."

Good idea. Where are we going now?

"First, get this stuff printed. Later, go to a print shop and pretend to transfer the information with your phone. I'll directly operate the printer and print it all out. Just make sure those people don't notice what I'm doing."

I understand. There's a print shop right next to that vandalized store.

Ren Dong nodded, then asked curiously, Since directly warning those little hooligans would be enough, why call their parents too?

"Because in cases like this, their parents will usually give them a vicious beating after they get home. That's what I want to see."

After laying out his plan, Su Rui immediately became wary. "You're not going to try to prevent even that, are you? No. If you don't agree, I won't help."

Don't worry. I agree to this plan.

A smile curled Ren Dong's lips. It was good for little hooligans to receive a harsh lesson. She simply hoped Su Rui would not be so violent.

Calling in the Parents

So, what should we use to lure those little hooligans over?