Chapter 36: The Lost

Chapter 36: Chapter 36: The Lost

"I just hope my guess isn’t right. Otherwise, the difficulty of clearing the King’s Game will be far beyond my imagination."

Chen Qi sighed and wiped the carvings off the wall.

Leiteri and his team walked in, fully armed. These secrets weren’t for them to know.

"Boss, you actually took care of this big black dog."

"This thing must weigh a ton, right?"

Taruno cautiously patted the dog’s head. ’What a strange day,’ he thought.

"Don’t worry, it’s paralyzed!"

"Get it back to the lab!"

As a wealthy man, it was perfectly reasonable for him to have his own lab.

As Chen Qi’s power grew, the lab would probably have to get bigger and bigger.

Fortunately, the money from the Chris Group was just about enough to cover it.

Hearing that the big black dog was out of commission, the fully-armed Leiteri and his men finally breathed a sigh of relief.

They weren’t as foolishly bold as Taruno.

Taruno’s response to this was, ’I just have faith in the boss. You’re all destined to be my subordinates.’

The cleanup went smoothly. By sunrise, Chen Qi and his team had returned to Talin City.

On the way back, Leiteri and his men expressed their desire to work for the Chris Group long-term.

Chen Qi was, of course, very welcoming of this and left Taruno to handle the specific details of their collaboration.

So far, Chen Qi was quite satisfied with Taruno’s performance as his intelligence chief.

...

After returning to Talin City, Chen Qi didn’t immediately hole up in his lab.

He did something unusual and contacted Plum Blossom 10. He started with a sincere greeting, then asked about the Prime Minister’s condition and when the meeting would be held.

"No rush. What’s your hurry?"

"We’re still hunting that Traitor!"

"The guy’s from the Demon Slaying Association. It’s a case of one small move affecting the whole situation—a real pain in the ass!"

Plum Blossom 10 was clearly annoyed, a hint of impatience in her voice.

Chen Qi’s call had clearly given her an outlet, and she began to complain nonstop.

"The veterans are completely useless. They all just go through the motions."

"Without them to take the lead, we rookies are completely hamstrung. We can’t do a thing against the enemy!"

"Our teamwork is a mess, too. After the Traitor fused Cards, he has more than one Superpower. Few of us can take him on one-on-one!"

"Being an Order Keeper is so hard."

Chen Qi was a perfect listener. He even analyzed Plum Blossom 10’s words over and over, trying to extract as much information as possible.

For example, from Plum Blossom 10, he was able to confirm the entries in Jomoya’s diary about "Card fusion."

’After fusing Cards, you can gain the other party’s Superpower.’

No wonder a Traitor had appeared. Who could resist such a temptation?

"The Prime Minister is almost fully recovered. He’ll make an appearance in a few days!"

"The Order Keeper faction isn’t as great as I thought, but it’s still better than being a Loose Man!"

"During this whole mess, the two major factions came out unscathed, but the Loose Men got caught in the crossfire. Several of them died."

Plum Blossom 10 had clearly been beaten down by reality. Usually, the veteran players were polite to the newcomers like her.

But now? They were being ordered around and treated like lackeys. The veterans clearly weren’t pretending anymore!

Chen Qi wasn’t surprised by Plum Blossom 10’s complaints. The Order Keepers were just dogs kept by King Gutaf.

Normally, they maintained the Kingdom’s stability for Gutaf and ensured the game ran smoothly.

But when it was time for a reshuffle, their priorities would shift. All they thought about was how to survive.

Under that kind of pressure, the slogans they usually spouted for show were naturally thrown out the window.

"Hmph! You should be thanking me for recommending you to the Order Keeper faction. Otherwise, you’d have been killed long ago!"

After saying that, Plum Blossom 10 hung up.

Chen Qi thought about it. ’She might have a point.’

’The reason I can stay out of this for now is probably because the two major factions don’t want to go to war just yet.’

’But I still don’t know why the Traitor would assassinate the Prime Minister. I have a feeling there’s a deeper secret here.’

Chen Qi had originally wanted to ask Plum Blossom 10 why the Red Heart 7 was the Card of Certain Death.

But now, it seemed unlikely she would know.

The veteran players who had been through a reshuffle were too far ahead of them.

There was no way they’d share such a huge secret with new players.

’Hah. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Chen Qi refocused on his goal. He had to hurry. He absolutely had to achieve Spirit Awakening before the great upheaval.

...

Days passed. Although Chen Qi worked hard, mastering the Rope Text and Doumu’s Spiral was a matter of talent.

His progress remained steady, but slow.

If Chen Qi hadn’t been forcing himself to hold back, he would have "rolled the dice" several times already.

But after learning more about the inner workings of the King’s Game, Chen Qi knew he would face even more desperate situations in the future.

’Never exhaust your hope. Never rely on luck.’ This was the rule Chen Qi had set for himself.

Ever since his first Wish, Chen Qi had been aware of how terrifying the Bronze Dice were.

The first thing they attacked was a person’s values. They allowed you to get something from nothing, without any cost, completely unleashing human desire.

If you couldn’t control yourself, after three wishes, the Bronze Dice would disappear, leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell of desire.

’After tasting such a free lunch, who would ever be willing to pay their own way in life again!’

In Chen Qi’s eyes, if life was a struggle to cross a bitter sea, then the Bronze Dice were a wind blowing from beyond the heavens.

This otherworldly wind might indeed carry you a thousand leagues in an instant, to a safe landing spot.

Or it might pull you from a Great Vortex, setting you back on your life’s proper course.

But ultimately, the most important things for crossing the sea were the ship itself and the helmsman at its wheel.

If, after the wind blew, your life lost its direction, the outcome was obvious.

Chen Qi was sure there were plenty of the Lost out there. The Bronze Dice clearly had a long history; who knew how many Wishers they had seen.

Chen Qi wasn’t foolish enough to think he was the only user. There were six different types of script branded onto the dice alone.

When Chen Qi had first experimented with his Wish, he had also tried to leave a message on the dice.

The result was: *Insufficient Points!*

Chen Qi felt he hadn’t even glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it came to the secrets of the Bronze Dice. At most, he had picked up a single grain of millet from a vast ocean.

Fortunately, while his academic progress remained slow, his experiments in developing his abilities were proving very fruitful.

In just one week, he had figured out the source of the two energies inside the large black dog and used their conflict to perform various cellular modification experiments.

But this wasn’t his biggest breakthrough. He had always felt there was something special about the big black dog’s horn, as if it were hiding something.

He never expected that this Spiral Horn would bring him such a huge surprise—or, more accurately, a shock.