That means Silver Wolf won

Silver Wolf leaned against the tree trunk.

Her hands were still hidden in her pockets.

The needle-like pain from when she had forcefully dragged the Spider Mother's position just now crept up from her fingertips deep into her arm. Suffice it to say that her expression showed no change; she merely slowed the speed at which she chewed her bubble gum.

Right now, no one had the time to look at her.

Vernacular Poet knelt on one knee beside Windchaser, healing light falling layer after layer. Elena's pale-moon magic pressed against the edge of the wound, barely holding down the spread rate of the lightning poison. Sunken Crow stood to the side, his short blade not yet put away, his gaze continuously sweeping the surroundings to confirm whether the Spider Mother's death had drawn other monsters.

Windchaser's complexion was pale, and the piercing wound on her left lower abdomen was still oozing blood.

Blue-purple toxic veins crawled outward from the edge of the wound.

Vernacular Poet gritted his teeth, his voice pressed very low.

"Don't move around, I'll see if I can heal it."

Windchaser didn't talk back this time.

She sat leaning against the tree roots, her breathing somewhat disordered.

"I won't move."

"You'd better really not move."

Vernacular Poet sprinkled medicinal powder onto the wound.

Elena's expression was even uglier. "The poison can't be suppressed."

Vernacular Poet stared at Windchaser's status, his fingers hardly stopping. "I know."

Silver Wolf watched them, the data layers before her eyes constantly flickering.

Windchaser had a string of abnormal statuses hanging on her.

[Piercing Wound]

[Lightning Poison Erosion]

[Continuous Blood Loss]

[Action Impaired]

[Paralysis Residue]

These things were different from ordinary wounds.

They clung to Windchaser like a string of tags constantly refreshing numerical values.

Silver Wolf narrowed her eyes slightly.

Players...

Her gaze fell once more onto Vernacular Poet.

Vernacular Poet's terminal was still glowing.

Those words from the battle just now lined up in her mind once more.

Silver Wolf chuckled softly. Then this world...

She paused for half a second.

Doesn't matter.

It was originally just a game of life.

Silver Wolf raised her hand, her fingertips gently flicking the data layer visible only to herself in front of her.

This time, she didn't directly drill into the depths as before.

She only slid along the outer light patterns of Vernacular Poet's terminal, skimming the shallowest layer. The light-green light film trembled slightly, and the unknown self-test response in the distance also flared brightly for an instant.

Silver Wolf stopped, waiting for it to dim.

Then she changed to a narrower entrance.

Just a little peek~

Soon, a new region surfaced.

[Game Forum]

Silver Wolf's movements paused.

The next second, the corners of her mouth curved slightly upward.

Confirmed.

No wonder they were so surprised when they looked at me.

She lowered her head to look at the jacket, gloves, pixel-style decorations on her body, and the attire that completely failed to match this rainforest, leather armor, longbow, and staff.

"Tsk."

This set of clothes in another world was indeed quite difficult to explain.

She casually opened her own panel.

Silver Wolf

Cartridge Level 50 → Level 55 (Roleplay Level Up)

Hidden: Unknown Save Cartridge Level 999

Load: Slightly High

Status: Rest Recommended

May you forever remain weak

Silver Wolf looked at the second line.

It actually went up?

It was unexpected yet made complete sense.

It seems that tsundere traits are truly an essential part of Silver Wolf that one simply must savor.

Silver Wolf put the status panel away. "Then I have to play seriously too."

Vernacular Poet was still trying to raise Chasing Wind's health.

Sweat already beaded his temples.

Silver Wolf watched for a few seconds and spoke. "Poet."

Vernacular Poet didn't react for a moment. "What?"

"Step aside."

Vernacular Poet turned back to look at her. "You have a way?"

Silver Wolf didn't answer.

She walked up to Windchaser and raised her hand.

Windchaser looked up at her, her gaze a bit faint, but still managed a smile. "Wolf Venerable, you surely can't heal people, right?"

"I can't."

Silver-blue pixel blocks lit up on Silver Wolf's fingertips.

"But it's a piece of cake."

Vernacular Poet's expression changed.

"Wait—"

Silver Wolf had already made her move.

Silver-blue data lines landed on Windchaser, like countless tiny light needles piercing into those blue-purple status abnormalities.

[Lightning Venom Erosion]

Silver Wolf swiped her fingertip, and that line began to distort.

[Continuous Blood Loss]

She forcibly ripped it out from Windchaser's body.

[Paralysis Residue]

Deleted.

[Piercing Wound]

This one was the hardest.

Silver Wolf's fingers stiffened slightly.

The pain deep within her arm instantly surged up, and the data layer before her eyes flickered.

She bit through her bubblegum.

Pop.

"Alright, good enough."

The next second, the silver-blue pixel blocks abruptly pressed down.

The wound on Windchaser's abdomen was held as if by some invisible hand, the bleeding stopped, and the torn flesh closed back together. The blue-purple venom patterns retreated inch by inch toward the center of the wound, finally shattering into tiny spots of light that vanished into the air.

Windchaser opened her eyes wide. "That's it?"

She looked down at her own abdomen, then instinctively opened her status interface.

"It really is better!"

Vernacular Poet stood frozen in place.

Elena was also stunned.

Sunken Crow's fingers pressed against the side of his short blade, constantly remaining vigilant against monsters that might appear in the surroundings.

Silver Wolf pulled back her hand and let out a long breath.

Her complexion was a bit paler than before, but she quickly suppressed it.

"Watch out next time," she looked at Windchaser, "I don't have many big tricks."

Windchaser opened her mouth.

Vernacular Poet finally reacted, "Wolf Venerable--"

"Stop," Silver Wolf raised a hand to interrupt. "Save the words of thanks."

She chewed on her bubble gum, "Dropping a level and re-grinding is a pain too, isn't it."

The air went silent in an instant.

The joy froze on Windchaser's face.

Vernacular Poet's smile also faded away bit by bit.

Sunken Crow raised his eyes to look at Silver Wolf.

Elena frowned, "Dropping a level?"

Silver Wolf looked at her.

Elena was not like them; she lacked that excessively neat interface trace and lacked any connection to a terminal either.

When observing her before, she could only see her link to this forest, which proved that she was a person of this forest.

Silver Wolf spread her hands, "Looks like you don't know."

Vernacular Poet was silent for a moment, "We'll talk later." His tone was unusually solemn, "Handle the Spider Mother's materials first, get the Moonshade Vine Heart, and then go back to report."

Silver Wolf glanced at him, "Fine."

Windchaser looked like she finally couldn't hold it in anymore.

"Wait, wait, wait, Wolf Venerable, what did you just say about dropping a level--"

Vernacular Poet immediately looked at her, softly reminding, "Windchaser."

Windchaser shut her mouth for a second, then softly completed her thought, "You know about it?"

Silver Wolf looked at her, "I know a little."

"How do you know?"

Windchaser widened her eyes, hearing an unexpected answer.

"Because I enabled it."

Windchaser: "..."

Vernacular Poet: "..."

Sunken Crow: "..."

Elena looked at them, "What does 'enabled' mean as a secret code this time?"

This time no one answered immediately.

The wind blew past the top of the spider nest, causing the tattered spider silk to tremble gently.

Silver Wolf looked at the expressions of the few of them, suddenly feeling it was a bit amusing.

No wonder they froze when they saw this outfit of hers.

No wonder they showed those kinds of expressions when she spoke of taking photos and photographs.

No wonder Windchaser treated many things as "hidden prerequisites."

She was treated by them as something inside a game.

An Easter egg NPC or perhaps a hidden character.

Silver Wolf chuckled softly, "Talk about foreshadowing."

Vernacular Poet pressed his glabella, "Wolf Venerable, we can talk about this matter later."

"Sure." Silver Wolf looked at the Spider Mother's corpse, "Harvest the materials first."

There was no problem with this term.

Windchaser breathed a sigh of relief and immediately stood up from the ground, "Right, right, right, loot first."

Elena immediately looked at her, "What?"

Windchaser's body stiffened.

Vernacular Poet sighed, "She means processing the materials."

Elena said coldly, "The way you travelers talk gets weirder and weirder."

Windchaser whispered, "Yes, yes, yes."

Next, the group began to cut up the Spider Mother's corpse.

Elena was responsible for confirming the usable parts.

Sunken Crow handled the joints and compound eyes.

Vernacular Poet sealed the thunder poison gland separately.

Windchaser originally wanted to help, but was glared back by a single look from Elena.

"You just recovered."

"I really am recovered."

"Shut up."

"Oh."

Silver Wolf stood to the side and didn't immediately move.

She watched Sunken Crow store a piece of Thunder Spider Shell into his inventory.

That carapace, larger than an arm, vanished the moment it touched the inventory opening.

Very cleanly.

No spatial ripples, no magic reaction from a storage pouch; it was simply taken away by the system.

Silver Wolf saw it even more clearly.

A game world.

Then, the other side must definitely still exist.

A place they truly came from.

The real world.

Aha threw her into this place, gave her the Silver Wolf Cartridge, and also let her acquire this ability to touch the outer layer of the system.

What is he trying to play at?

Making her help players run dungeons?

Making her expose the world?

The Fourth Wall? Silver Wolf lowered her eyes, and she hummed softly, Elation...

After processing the materials, the party began their return to the Elf Tribe.

Along the way, Windchaser's questions almost never stopped.

Silver Wolf languidly dealt with them with a couple of words, choosing to ignore them most of the time.

Vernacular Poet, on the other hand, was clearly deep in thought about something.

As for Elena, she had already decided to dump all these travelers' weird talk onto the elder to headache over.

After returning to the tribe's outskirts, Elena and Sunken Crow left ahead of the others.

One went to report the Spider Mother subjugation results to the Ranger Patrol.

And the other went to explain the abnormal circumstances that occurred during this operation.

Vernacular Poet and Windchaser stayed behind in place to wait.

As for Silver Wolf, she found a tree and sat down directly.

What she needed most right now was rest; the stinging pain deep in her arm had never vanished, and her overloaded state had not decreased either.

Windchaser leaned over, her eyes shining brightly, "Wolf Venerable, you're not a player, are you?"

Silver Wolf thought about the other party's definition of a player and answered earnestly, "No."

"Then are you a local?"

"Even less so."

"Then why do you know about the forums? Why do you know how to take photos? Why is your outfit so special? Why was that heal from earlier—no, that... anyway, it could directly clear my status? And do you even have a system? Can you resurrect?"

Questions came smashing over one after another.

Vernacular Poet and Silver Wolf frowned at the same time.

Silver Wolf raised a hand, "Stop."

Windchaser immediately shut her mouth.

Silver Wolf rubbed her temples, "Don't ask, it's all a story."

Vernacular Poet unusually did not pick up the conversation.

Windchaser blinked, "Then what are you following us for?"

Silver Wolf looked at her, "To play a game."

"Play a game?"

"Mhm."

Windchaser's eyes became even more dazed, revealing confusion.

Vernacular Poet, however, grew even more cautious; he knew what these words implied.

Silver Wolf was neither a player nor a local.

Yet she knew about the forums, knew about dropping levels, could touch their status, and could even directly remove fatal abnormalities.

This is already something that cannot be simply explained by a "special hidden NPC."

Silver Wolf watched their reactions, too lazy to keep explaining.

She raised a hand and yawned. "I need to rest."

This sentence made Vernacular Poet snap back to his senses immediately. "You're injured too?"

Silver Wolf glanced at him. "I'm tired~"

"Was it caused by saving me just now?"

"Don't ask."

"Oh."

Right at that moment.

A slight fluctuation suddenly came from the direction of the tribe in the distance.

It was as if some program had been officially activated.

Windchaser and Vernacular Poet paused almost at the same time, and the familiar sensation of a system prompt surfaced.

Silver Wolf also raised her head. She could feel that the source of that change came from inside the tribe.

To be precise—

It came from Sunken Crow, who had just gone inside to report the situation.

The next second.

The expressions of several people changed at the same time.

Something new had been triggered.

Silver Wolf narrowed her eyes, the corners of her mouth curving up slightly.

"Did a quest come?"

She did not continue to press.

She just leaned back against the tree trunk, quietly waiting for subsequent developments.

It seems.

The new storyline has begun.