Chapter 65: The Bard's Song

At times like this, perhaps only this kind of mocking, bare, sarcastic, and even somewhat sexually harassing response could make Futaba feel a bit better.

That girl did not need anyone's comfort or tolerance, and hypocritical concern was completely meaningless. Of course, even if it had meaning, Mor檀 would not have done that at this moment. He simply responded to this "opponent" with mockery and derision just as before, but this was actually enough...

The only thing Futaba needed right now was perhaps for someone to convey to her the message that "you are not the only one left in this world."

As for whether that person was a friend, a companion, or a archenemy, it did not really matter.

As long as there was someone like that around...

Even if he was just subjecting you to low-level sexual harassment, it didn't matter.

However, Futaba had already logged out of the game at this moment and was sleeping soundly in that small, exclusive space belonging only to her. Naturally, she had no way to reply to Mordan, though the latter was quite indifferent about it and even felt it saved him a lot of trouble.

"Better that she's not here~" Mordan let out a soft sigh. "After all, I have rather little patience for coaxing children. By the time she logs in again, she should have calmed down at least a little..."

Throwing the round-glasses-wearing, orange-haired girl out of his mind with a flying mare, his expression gradually turned serious.

If the dead could not be resurrected, then mourning and sorrow were meaningless...

If the ending could not be undone, then regret and worry were also without value...

Mordan did not want to be sentimental over things that had already happened. At this moment, what concerned him most were the present and future threats...

Anything uncontrollable, unknown, or unplanned was a threat!

And threats often affected enjoyment, which was something he could not tolerate. Although Mordan was even willing at this moment to use death to add a touch of excitement to those so-called plans and stages... he still disliked this feeling of being out of control.

Especially the feeling of being unable to control himself!

His clear memory was coming to an end: parting ways with Futaba, then Ned's corpse appearing before his eyes, and Banny chasing after him...

[Wait, something seems to have been left out.]

Mordan's footsteps paused slightly, and he suddenly recalled that before Banny gave chase, his mindset seemed to have undergone yet another change. That was why he ultimately did not continue along the predetermined direction, but instead turned back, intending to stall Banny, who would soon catch up, for Futaba's sake.

If he remembered correctly, his behavioral pattern at that time felt somewhat discordant with "Heifan," and instead felt more like...

"I see." A sharp glint flashed in Mordan's eyes as he muttered to himself, "In other words, it's not just the current 'me,' even that somewhat unsettling state is part of it?"

Although it was phrased as a question, there was not a trace of doubt in his tone.

[Then next is that assassin. After some low-tier provocation, he seemed to have said something...]

It was beginning to require some effort, much like an untrained person forcing their eyes open underwater. A drowsy sense of disgust suddenly washed over him, and despite being prepared, Mordan still felt a suffocating tightness in his chest.

The first thing to become clear was Ned, whose eyes had yet to close, and whose body was still bleeding...

Then came Banny's face, overflowing with malice and morbidity...

[This is not the main point!]

Standing quietly in place, Mordan slowly closed his eyes, putting all his effort into pushing aside that layer of fog.

...

After a long while, he shook his head with a bitter smile, and a rare sense of helplessness welled up in his heart.

"No matter what, I just can't remember." Mordan let out a down-tuned whistle, wiped away the cold sweat that had somehow seeped from his temples, and felt that he was somewhat useless.

[I must have done something. Although I can't remember, it's not the previous kind of memory blackout, but rather a rejection born from instinct. This is entirely explicable in psychology...]

He slightly quickened his pace, and his previously stagnant train of thought gradually became agile again.

[Combining the previous two situations, although I am quite reluctant to admit it, there is a very high probability that the 'me' who was 'Heifan' at that time ultimately approached infinitely close to 'that me.' Although this was not enough to constitute the condition for killing Banny, it was simply due to a relative lack of conditions and intelligence...]

A thin cloud blocked the crescent moon like a hook, and Mordan's figure flickered in the shadows, his eyes reflecting a cold, clear light...

At this moment, the game was truly fascinating. It could be basically concluded that during that recent period of memory blackout, there was definitely another "me" existing on this continent, although no reliable clues had been found so far.

He nimbly climbed up a small sapling, and after a few bounds, he bent down to gently sniff the shallow grass by the roadside...

"A gaming company that doesn't look like it's trying to make money at all, AIs with extremely high intelligence and anthropomorphic degrees, this complete worldview tracing back to who knows how many years ago, a faction selection system capable of splitting even myself apart, Cordova's race that completely defies common sense, the Whisper Cult, the World Corruption Degree." A corner of his mouth curved into a fanatical arc, and Mordan laughed recklessly under the night sky: "And that 'Fourth Face' of mine that has almost been forgotten, the memory blackout, the bugs known to have appeared only on me, plus that elusive SUN..."

He tore off the "Mask of Many Faces" from his face, gazed up at the cloudless starry sky with his true visage, and spread his arms as if to embrace the entire night sky into his arms. Madness and unsuppressed excitement flickered in his eyes: "This is just so damn fun!"

The cloud drifted away...

Gazing into the distance at the faint, flickering lights, Mordan put the "Mask of Many Faces" back on, straightened his clothes, and restrained that frantic laughter.

Then, like a traveling noble poet, he walked with a leisurely pace and elegant deportment~

"Now even I am not worth trusting, haha..." He took out a crude wooden lyre from his bag and plucked it gently, immediately amusing himself with the abrupt and thoroughly unpleasing note.

...

Fifteen minutes later.

Misha Town, located just dozens of miles away from Karan City, [Drunken Bear] Tavern.

A mustachioed bard was speaking loudly at the top of his lungs, squatting on a low table closest to the bar. In front of him were a slightly aged, tattered top hat and half a bottle of house-brewed ale gifted by the owner out of friendship.

This could be considered an unwritten rule of sorts: if a reasonably eloquent bard was willing to tell a few stories in a tavern, as long as he could attract guests or listeners, no tavern owner would be stingy about serving him a throat-lubricating drink.

The slightly dim lighting, the sun that had long since rolled down the mountain, the tables that hadn't been properly wiped in years, the waitresses holding trays who occasionally let out shrieks from being pinched by wandering hands, the bearded boss behind the bar humming a tune while wiping glasses, the customers talking and laughing loudly, the high-pitched and inflammatory bard, and the audience gathered around for ages who stubbornly refused to throw any coins into the man's hat~

This kind of scene, which no longer existed in reality, was one of the most common sights on the Innocent Continent...

"The giant dragon soars across the firmament, its sharp fangs dripping with blood, its wings stirring up hurricanes, it roars as it tries to reclaim the lives of its kin~" The mustachioed man tilted his head back to gulp down some ale, his face flushed red as he shouted in a soaring tenor: "The ferocious beast runs rampant in the ruined city, its skin as hard as steel, its roar as shaking as thunder, yet it retreats step by step amid those resounding battle songs and war cries!"

A young man happened to push open the tavern door quietly at this moment, but aside from the boss—who was also pricking up his ears to listen to the story and merely lifted an eyelid—no one paid him any mind.

"Ancestor protect us! The wise elder looks up at the sky, his youth and physique taken away by the passing years, but power and glory reside permanently deep within his soul, and what surges within that totem pole is blood and thunder!" The bard slammed the small drum in his hand hard, shouting fluently in the Common tongue: "As his people fell into peril, he—made his move!"

An orc nearby clapped his hands with glowing eyes: "Good!!"

Meanwhile, Mordan, who had circled around to this side at some point, wore a trace of surprise on his face.

"Behold, the spirit of the earth and the power of the ancestors shine brilliantly upon each other, and the arrogant dragon above the ruined city crashes down under the elder's might!" The bard attempted a Thomas flare on the spot... failed to pull it off, and crashed heavily to the ground, yet still stubbornly raised his neck and yelled: "The hero has finally defeated the dragon! Glory belongs to... which tribe was it again? Uh, whatever, glory belongs to the Horde!!"

The surrounding audience burst into roars of laughter, and no one bothered to haggle over the tiny flaw made by the bard, who clearly hadn't drank lightly. A few copper coins finally found their way into that hat~

Only one person's expression was a bit off!

Ever since just now, Mordan had felt that the story told by this older brother was a bit familiar. After listening for just two sentences, his expression immediately turned bizarre...

"Hey, you!" The orc who had been applauding earlier shouted loudly at the mustachioed man: "That part you just told, can you explain it a bit more clearly? We didn't quite catch it!"

Abiding by the principle that the customer is God, the bard immediately cleared his throat, and then smiled at God: "It means there was a drake on the ground getting beaten up by a few orcs, but halfway through the fight, an even fiercer one showed up in the sky. The oldest among the orcs took one look and thought, 'This isn't right,' so he made his move in a totally badass way, and with a resounding 'Crack,' he brought that dragon crashing down!"

"Good!" The orc roared again: "As expected of our tribe's granddad!"

Mordan: "......"

He pretty much completely understood now. The story this bard was telling was indeed one he knew, and not only did he know it, but he had witnessed almost the entire process from the perspective of someone directly involved.

It was completely not how it happened!

If he remembered correctly, the fellow who had been fiercely chewing out the drake at that time was not singing a battle song, but rather the classic Chinese tune "Good Brothers"!

Nor was that dragon flying over to reinforce its companion; it simply had its tongue hanging out from exhaustion and wanted to find a nice place to take a proper rest!

That orc granddad had indeed knocked the beast down, but he was also the first one to yell "Misunderstanding" afterward.

All in all, the degree of truth in this story... was basically equivalent to sheer nonsense!

Even so, Mordan still very enthusiastically approached the bard who had just climbed back up from the ground, fished a gold coin out of his pocket, and shoved it into the other man's hand.

It should be explained here that the currency of the Innocent Continent basically followed the routine of gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins, with a ratio of 1:10:100. Although currencies varied slightly from place to place, their weight and purchasing power were roughly similar. The mustachioed man's earnings just now had been around twenty-odd copper coins, so...

So the look he gave Mordan changed instantly!

The light contained within that gaze felt as if...

He was looking at an absolute, prime-grade sucker! It looked precisely like the expression Mordan's neighbor-class delinquent classmates used to give him in the alleyways back when he was in that same personality state—

Enough to make one's skin crawl~

Of course, Mordan's skin did not crawl; he merely blinked at the other man: "Step aside for a word?"

"Sure!" The other man nodded with crisp promptness, though he didn't move a single step.

Then, to Mordan's near-spooky astonishment, the man pulled a small booklet out of nowhere, shoved it into Mordan's hand with a broad smile, and whispered with a chuckle: "Brother's a connoisseur, I like this volume too!"

!?

Mordan lowered his head to look...

[The Plum in the Golden Tree]

Quality: Trash

Usage: Unusable

[Remarks: This thing can't even be flipped open, do yourself a favor and accumulate some virtue! Where aren't there resource seed links? Can we not be so obsessed? Keep in mind we're an all-ages game; if this kind of stuff leaks into the hands of minors, it puts us in a really tough spot. Just look at the cover to get your fix, there's a good boy.]

Mordan looked at the thin little booklet in his hand, which featured an elfin maiden wearing practically no scraps of cloth, and she wasn't even bad-looking.

Casually storing it into his inventory, Mordan glanced at the mustachioed man who kept winking at him, and smiled faintly: "Got any more?"

"Uh..." The man was startled for a moment, then rubbed his hands together hesitantly and said: "This is the only presentable one on me right now. Of course, if you don't mind, I have a few other things here—how about a photo album of Ogre lolis and Goblin maiden bathing pictures?"

Ogre lolis and goblin maidens, huh...

Mordan thought for a moment, and actually nodded at the man: "Give 'em to me."

Instantly, the mustachioed man's gaze became even more spooked than Mordan's had been just moments ago. Then, he fished two booklets radiating a faint smell of barbecue from beneath his robes and handed them over.

The latter accepted these artistic works—which suspiciously seemed to have been used as placemats for ham and soy sauce meat—stowed them away, and smiled: "These three combined shouldn't even be worth a single gold coin, right?"

"Uh, well..." The mustachioed man immediately wore a bitter expression: "They're not, but I can't break a gold coin right now either. How about I recite a couple of segments for you?"

Mordan shook his head slightly: "That won't be necessary. Just accompany me outside for a chat; I'm still quite interested in that story you told earlier~"

"Heh! No problem at all!" Upon hearing that he didn't need to give change, the man grinned from ear to ear, his back teeth showing, and quickly stepped aside to yield the path to Mordan: "After you, sir~"

A moment later, the two of them arrived at the small square in the center of the town, both smiling wider than the other.

The bard was smiling because this young fellow with what was presumably questionable taste turned out to be an absolute sucker.

And Mordan... had discovered that he might have just found a pair of eyes...

A pair of eyes everywhere!

Chapter 65: End