Chapter Summaries

Chris, a man from the twenty-first century living in another world, was interrupted by two men who identified him as Prince Chris Lin and urged him to restore the fallen kingdom. He rejected their appeal and sent them away, while the royal steward warned that he could not escape his royal responsibility.

• Chris drank coffee by the fireplace and considered summoning players to earn money in his new world.
• Two men knocked on Chris’s door and told him that revolutionaries had overthrown the royal family and wanted him to restore the kingdom.
• Chris tried to shut the door, but the thin man blocked it and the fat man forced his way inside.
• The fat man introduced himself as Pietro, the royal steward, and urged Prince Chris Lin to return and lead the restoration.
• Chris denied responsibility, pointed out that his older brother was already raising an army, and ordered Pietro and his companion to leave.
• Pietro left in frustration, warning Chris that royal blood bound him to his country.

Chris reviewed his difficult past and refused to join the Bagnian Restoration Army, then prepared to summon players from the twenty-fifth century through his game, The Sims: Industrial Age. He left the chapter ready to begin the summoning after buying clothes and frozen meat for the closed beta.

• Chris recalled how his neglectful family had sent him to Bohemia as a hostage, where he struggled through school before the Revolutionary Party overthrew Bagnia and he died of cold and hunger.
• Chris rejected the royal steward's demand that he join the battlefield, preferring the comfortable life he had built in Inyama.
• Chris checked his game's closed-beta registrations and found about a hundred applicants from the twenty-fifth century.
• Chris selected ten players and bought clothing for them through his shopping platform, spending five hundred yuan.
• Chris bought one thousand kilograms of frozen meat and explained that the system used matter to synthesize player bodies.
• Chris prepared to summon the ten players with the clothes and frozen meat ready.

Lin Ruoyu and nine other players awoke in a cold room, where Chris Lin fed and clothed them before explaining the rules of their new world and game. Chris began outlining resurrection, safety, and payment rules as the players prepared to explore.

• Lin Ruoyu woke naked in a cold room, dressed from a box, and accepted porridge from Chris.
• Lin Ruoyu learned the porridge was made with expired rice, but drank it and helped the other nine players get dressed and fed.
• Chris introduced himself as the players' summoner, resurrection specialist, and beginner's guide for Hundred House Game Studio.
• Chris warned the players to hide their resurrection ability, protect him, and avoid dying because resurrection could reset their connections and wealth.
• Chris explained that the first three resurrections were free, later ones cost a thousand yuan, and a thousand yuan could be exchanged for a hundred silver coins.

Lin Ruoyu observed the snowy working-class neighborhood while the players explored the city, then returned to the apartment planning to earn money. The other players had scattered, and Chris stayed inside to rest.

• Chris warned the ten players to explore in groups, use translation, and eventually find jobs and homes before he went back to nap.
• Chris reflected on limiting the beta players’ sexual functions to avoid censorship and enjoyed relaxing with his phone.
• The players scattered to explore, while Lin Ruoyu sat on a street bench and observed the carts, residents, and neighborhood.
• Two police officers threatened Lin Ruoyu for watching them, so he looked away and waited until they had passed.
• Lin Ruoyu returned to the apartment, deciding he could rely on the players’ minimaps and needed to earn money soon.

Chris prepared a communal dinner while Lin Ruoyu and the players learned that two players had been killed by robbers outside Inyama. Lin Ruoyu gathered a small group to retrieve the bodies, while other players refused to help.

• Chris noticed that only six of the ten players were in the living room and told them to look for the missing four as he started dinner.
• Home Alone logged out to check the forum, then reported that two players had been stabbed to death during a robbery and could not currently respawn.
• Lin Ruoyu told Chris about the deaths, and Chris asked whether the players could bring back the bodies to avoid using revivals.
• Lin Ruoyu told the players to take defensive equipment from the room by the door before going to retrieve the bodies.
• Two players refused to go out, while Lin Ruoyu, Home Alone, Little Ghost, and another willing player set off to get the equipment and head outside.

Lin Ruoyu and the other players armed themselves, found two dead players, and went to rescue two more who had been kidnapped in a tavern. Lin Ruoyu killed the tavern owner as the group launched an attack, leaving the fight underway.

• Lin Ruoyu found Chris’s concealed weapon storeroom and took a dagger before the four players searched for the missing players.
• The group discovered two players’ bodies in an alley, while Little Ghost learned that two others were held in a nearby tavern’s wine cellar.
• Lin Ruoyu decided to rescue the captives first and led the players to the tavern.
• Hubbard revealed that he had kidnapped the two outsiders for ransom and recognized the newcomers as their companions.
• Lin Ruoyu slashed Hubbard’s throat, and the players attacked the tavern thugs as he ordered them to block the door.

Lin Ruoyu led three players into a gang hideout tavern and launched a surprise attack, urging them to kill without hesitation. As the players overwhelmed the thugs, one tried to flee, and Lin Ruoyu ordered the door blocked.

• Lin Ruoyu explained to Little Ghost and the other players why they had to strike first and kill the tavern’s gang members without holding back.
• Lin Ruoyu entered the tavern, saw the thugs quietly blocking their retreat, and slit the owner’s throat with his dagger.
• The three players drew their weapons and attacked as Lin Ruoyu killed a thug who challenged them.
• Little Ghost ignored a knife embedded in his shoulder and hacked down a thug while another fled in terror.
• Lin Ruoyu killed his third victim and shouted to a player near the entrance to block the door.

Lin Ruoyu and the other players cleared out Hubbard’s tavern, then learned from Connie that three kidnapped women were upstairs and that Chris Lin was known in Inyama as the Prince of Bagnia and a miracle doctor. Lin Ruoyu ordered the survivors questioned and planned to return home with Little Ghost, whose wound Chris could treat.

• Lin Ruoyu ordered the players to finish off the fallen thugs and clear the tavern while Connie fetched hot water.
• Little Ghost reported that two drunk men and three women were upstairs, and Connie said Hubbard had kidnapped the women and forced them into prostitution.
• Connie identified herself as the daughter of Isaac, the chivalrous thief of Inyama’s District 21, and Lin Ruoyu ordered a player to question the women separately.
• Little Ghost found the entrance to the basement wine cellar, and Lin Ruoyu told him to cover his facial wound until Chris could treat it.
• Connie explained that Chris Lin was the Prince of Bagnia and a respected doctor who had saved many poor people in Inyama.

Lin Ruoyu learned about Chris from Connie, freed two captured players, and offered Connie money to help the women at her tavern. Connie proposed working with him and secretly sent men to follow the players; back at Chris’s apartment, Lin Ruoyu asked Chris for a private, serious conversation.

• Lin Ruoyu told Connie that he and his companions were Chris’s temporary subordinates and asked her about Chris.
• After a player confirmed their information, Lin Ruoyu asked Connie to help the women upstairs and offered her a hundred silver coins.
• Connie proposed working with Lin Ruoyu, and he agreed to discuss it that night; after he left, she ordered two young men to follow the players.
• Little Ghost and two trapped players were freed, and the players returned to Chris’s apartment injured and covered in blood.
• Chris sent the injured players to the Medical Room and told the others to eat; Lin Ruoyu then asked Chris to speak privately about something serious.

Chris explained that Connie was likely sincere if she truly was Isaac’s daughter, then left to work at his unlicensed night clinic. The players followed him and discovered him treating a poor laborer for a high fever, and Chris sent them away so he could continue working.

• Lin Ruoyu asked Chris about Connie, and Chris said he knew her father, Isaac, but refused to explain more about him.
• Chris told Lin Ruoyu he could work with Connie however he liked, then left his apartment carrying a wooden case.
• Lin Ruoyu and five other players secretly followed Chris to a small wooden house and watched him treat a feverish man at his night clinic.
• Chris gave the patient crushed medicine and herbal packets for five copper coins, then invited the players inside after spotting them outside.
• Little Ghost asked why Chris treated patients at night, and Chris explained that the police would arrest him for running an unlicensed clinic during the day before ordering the players to leave.

Chris treated patients at his Black Clinic and met with Isaac, his smuggling partner who supplied cheap necessities to Inyama’s poor. Chris offered Isaac two gold bars from the proceeds, but Isaac refused them, believing Chris was already sacrificing money to help the poor.

• Chris treated the clinic’s winter patients for low fees before the clinic finally quieted down.
• Isaac arrived at Chris’s clinic and reported that two black-uniformed watchers had fallen asleep outside.
• Chris and Isaac discussed Isaac’s daughter investigating human traffickers at the tavern, then agreed to leave her and the outsiders alone.
• Chris told Isaac that a new shipment of everyday goods was waiting around the back, and Isaac handed him five small gold bars from their last sale.
• Chris reflected on how gangs and patrol officers hunted Isaac for selling goods cheaply to the poor, then offered him two gold bars.
• Isaac refused the extra gold because he believed Chris was already taking a loss to help the poor.

Lin Ruoyu returned with the other players to meet Connie and discuss working together. Connie revealed that she wanted to help Prince Chris become king and proposed assassinating his elder brother, Bagnia’s First Prince, who was in Inyama.

• Lin Ruoyu led the five other players back to the slums tavern to speak with Connie.
• Connie questioned whether Lin Ruoyu was Bagnian, and he explained that he and the others were outlanders serving Chris.
• Connie abandoned her original plan to build a powerful gang and said she wanted to become a noble by helping Chris take the throne.
• Connie revealed that Isaac had been supporting Bagnians in Inyama and believed his work was connected to Chris’s claim to the kingdom.
• Connie proposed assassinating Chris’s elder brother, Bagnia’s First Prince, who had the Bosnian Empire’s support and was in Inyama.

Lin Ruoyu agreed to help Connie assassinate the First Prince and recruited the other players to capture the human-trafficking gang. When the gang’s boss appeared at the tavern, they captured him and his two companions, leaving them able to question him about the underground passage.

• Lin Ruoyu endorsed Connie’s plan to find the traffickers and use their underground passage to reach the First Prince in Nobles’ City.
• Connie and Lin Ruoyu agreed to split Hubbard’s money, with Connie keeping the tavern’s liquor to sell.
• Lin Ruoyu told the five other players about the plan, and they unanimously agreed to help.
• Three traffickers arrived at the tavern, and Connie’s people began fighting them.
• Lin Ruoyu stopped himself from killing the gang’s boss and subdued him, while the other players captured the remaining two men.

At a palace ball welcoming Bagnia’s Crown Prince, Meredith learned that Chris Lin had refused to return to Bagnia with Bohemian support. The chapter explained why control of Bagnia mattered to the Bohemian Empire, leaving its strategic ambitions dependent on the kingdom’s political future.

• A nervous aide told Meredith that Chris Lin had refused his offer to raise an army and return to Bagnia.
• Meredith decided Chris remained useful as a bargaining chip and ordered the aide to watch the First Prince and report any attempt to move or kill Chris.
• Meredith watched the First Prince at the ball and considered how the Bohemian Empire could use Bagnia to pressure Minicia or open another front against Retalia.
• The chapter described Bagnia’s position between Bohemia, Retalia, and Minicia, and how Minicia supported the kingdom to prevent Bohemian troops from crossing its territory.

Chris approved two players’ refunds, arranged automatic revivals for future deaths, and went about his quiet day until Isaac arrived badly wounded. Isaac said the Bohemian Empire’s Peace Doves had attacked him and were trying to extract information about Chris.

• Chris approved two players’ refund requests, deleted their accounts, and released their slots to new players.
• Chris ordered frozen meat and clothes for the basement so players could revive there without needing him each time.
• Chris heard someone pounding on the apartment door and prepared a dagger before discovering the intruder was Isaac.
• Chris treated Isaac’s deep chest wound in the Medical Room.
• Isaac told Chris that three men had attacked him at his hideout and tried to capture him.
• Isaac recognized the attackers as Peace Doves and warned that the emperor’s agents were seeking information about Chris.

Chris decided he could not safely settle anywhere in the Bohemian Empire and ordered Isaac to hide the goods and keep a low profile. Meanwhile, Lin Ruoyu’s group uncovered a secret passage into Noble City and prepared to use it for a nighttime operation targeting Bagnia’s eldest prince and a corrupt noble.

• Chris wondered why the Bohemian Empire’s Peace Dove was watching him, then told Isaac to hide the goods until his older brother left.
• Chris concluded that his identity as Bagnia’s prince made it impossible for him to live peacefully in the Bohemian Empire.
• Little Ghost reported that torture had forced the traffickers to reveal a secret passage into Noble City, and Connie offered to find a cleaner who could provide a rough map.
• Lin Ruoyu learned that the passage ended beneath a noble’s home and that the trafficking gang had seven members still operating in Inyama.
• Lin Ruoyu ordered his group to verify the tunnel and prepare for a raid that night, while he arranged to make black powder.

Lin Ruoyu and nine players raided a human trafficking gang’s hideout, expecting to find only one guard. When they discovered more enemies inside, the raid turned into a fight against skilled opponents, and Little Ghost was quickly taken out.

• Lin Ruoyu led nine players across the street to the gang’s hideout and climbed over its locked courtyard gate with Little Ghost’s help.
• Lin Ruoyu killed the sleeping guard dog, unlocked the gate, and let the others into the courtyard.
• A player shot a man who emerged from the house with a poisoned hand crossbow bolt, but more people inside shouted that they were under attack.
• Lin Ruoyu ordered the players to charge, then fought a large man whose arm blocked his dagger strike.
• Little Ghost fell after facing an enemy, and a player shouted for the others to shoot the skilled attackers.

Harold led two subordinates to a hideout to carry out a rushed assassination mission, but an unknown force ambushed them. Harold and his men were killed, and he died believing his superior had betrayed him.

• Harold’s superior assigned him to capture a smuggler alive, but the smuggler escaped after using a smoke device.
• The superior ordered Harold to kill two targets and bring one corpse through a secret passage into Noble City before midnight.
• Harold and his subordinates rested at a temporary hideout near the Black Clinic until an enemy attack began.
• Harold fought a skilled, silent attacker while crossbow bolts and fearless assailants overwhelmed his men.
• Hand crossbow bolts struck Harold, and the attacker slashed his neck as Harold fell, wondering why his superior had sold him out.

After losing half their team in a deadly ambush, Lin Ruoyu and the surviving players looted the house and found weapons and a map suggesting their enemies planned an assassination in the noble district. Lin Ruoyu split the survivors, sending two to carry the bodies back while he and two others followed the map to investigate.

• Lin Ruoyu ordered the surviving players to bandage the critically wounded man, loot the bodies, and search the house for a tunnel, but the wounded player soon died.
• The four other survivors divided up the work, collected weapons and supplies from the corpses, and searched the house.
• Lin Ruoyu identified the looted firearms as muzzle-loading flintlock rifled muskets and multibarreled flintlock pistols, and said the muskets could help with their assassination quest.
• A player found a hand-drawn map hidden on the dead expert, and Lin Ruoyu compared it with Connie's map of the noble district.
• Lin Ruoyu concluded that the map showed the enemies' assassination route and timetable, then sent two players back with the bodies while he and two others went to investigate.

Flower sought Bohemian support for Bagnia’s restoration while the Emperor offered little beyond infantry equipment. Lin Ruoyu and two players accidentally ambushed Flower’s carriage, then fled as the Noble District patrol responded, leaving one player caught by cavalry.

• Flower weighed whether to keep attending the emperor’s balls or seek help from Bohemia’s Noble Assembly as his restoration army ran short of funds.
• Lin Ruoyu and two players used disguises and a map taken from a dead assassin to reach the route where they expected to find their target.
• The players fired at Flower’s carriage, and one shot pierced its wall, sending the guards into confusion as Flower hid on the floor.
• Lin Ruoyu spotted the approaching Patrol Unit and fled, urging the other players to split up.
• One player escaped, while the other stayed with his musket, was spotted by guards, and failed to hit the cavalry before a saber knocked him down.