It was two o'clock in the morning in the real world.
“You have been disconnected. Please choose whether or not to…”
“Wake me up immediately!”
“Received. It is now 2:10 AM on January 9, 2049. You will wake up in one minute.”
When Mo Tan opened his eyes in the game pod, his clothes were soaked with cold sweat. The short minute from the moment the system notification sounded until now felt incredibly long.
Pushing open the pod cover with one hand, Mo Tan immediately stood up and went to wash his face. Too much had happened today, and at this moment, he urgently needed to calm himself down quickly.
The tap water in winter was always exceptionally cold, but the stinging chill on his skin made him feel much more relaxed. After simply wiping his face, Mo Tan immediately returned to the game pod in the living room, then lay down without hesitation and started the equipment.
…
“Your mental connection has been detected. Personal information is being synchronized…”
“Connection complete. Character information is being read.”
“Welcome back, chaotic neutral Tan Mo. Innocent World will now load. Have a good night.”
One minute later.
Innocent World.
By this time, three hours had passed since Fenrir Squad was wiped out in the game world, and fifty minutes had passed since Sin Duke entered the imperial capital of Shavin Empire.
…
Mo Tan, in the form of Tan Mo, appeared on a small path in the eastern part of Innocent Continent. The half elf’s slender figure was cast long by the moonlight.
“Speaking of which, both times I’ve logged on, it seems to have been at night~” He chuckled softly to his shadow, then rubbed his temple while taking steps, continuing forward along the path beneath his feet.
He appeared relaxed and at ease…
But the truth was not so. Not standing still in deep thought was simply because Mo Tan wanted to make reasonable use of his time, and he was confident he wouldn't stumble while walking and thinking. But this didn't mean he was particularly leisurely.
“It’s fortunate that humans didn’t integrate their eyes, brain, and limbs into one organ during evolution.” Mo Tan sighed as he stepped over a branch that had been blown from who knew where, then suddenly burst out laughing: “Haha~ Otherwise, wouldn’t it just be a ball, with a big eyeball embedded in it?”
It was quiet all around, and no one responded to his rather dry humor, but Mo Tan didn't mind. After all, at this moment he only wanted to please himself, not others. If he found it amusing, he was even willing to tell a joke or two to the air.
A stage doesn’t necessarily need an audience, unless the audience is also part of the stage~
He clearly didn't want anyone to disturb him right now…
“Another memory blank, but the previous problems were more than that.” Mo Tan’s smile faded as he murmured, “Something incredible seems to have happened to me then…”
He began to carefully recall his experiences from not long ago when he was ‘Black Vatican’. For us normal people, deep thinking while traveling is undoubtedly quite dangerous. After all, while being distracted might lead to bumping into a girl coincidentally rushing to school with bread in her mouth, and there’s a small chance of seeing the color of her panties under her mini-skirt, those are rare exceptions. In most cases with similar preconditions, it’s more likely to encounter the ground, utility poles, or burly men.
But Mo Tan didn’t need to worry about this. If one had to explain the reason, it could only be said that he was already accustomed to multitasking. Although he hadn’t yet challenged the dream skill of ‘eating while using the restroom,’ which requires extremely strong psychological fortitude, low-level operations like reading, watching movies, playing games, and making phone calls simultaneously were completely unproblematic.
The reason he immediately exited the game the first time he experienced a memory blank was because he wasn't sure how much he had been affected, especially mentally. Although Mo Tan only vaguely remembered what happened before he ‘blanked out,’ he was still very worried if it would affect his physical and mental state in reality. Fortunately, everything was normal except for startling him into a cold sweat.
And after confirming he was fine, returning to the game immediately was naturally because he wanted more time to think, and he could also make some progress on the road.
While seemingly strolling aimlessly, Mo Tan began to fall into recollection.
The result was not smooth…
Although he could confirm that he was still himself before he officially disconnected and ‘blanked out,’ his memory after Bannai threw Ned’s corpse over was still very blurry. It was like the phenomenon of forgetting how to write a character that often happens to ordinary people; he knew he remembered, but those fragments felt difficult to touch, as if separated by a film of water.
“In short, the conclusion should be that I… killed Bannai, that tasteless assassin, and it seems I also got rid of that orc intelligence officer, or rather, spy, who exposed Ned.” Mo Tan frowned slightly: “Let me try to recall it from the beginning again…”
Everyone fled together to protect Ned, and at the same time, Bannai, who finally unleashed his true strength, caught up. Then, Krab was the first to be killed…
“That guy was like a fool, but I have to admit, he was a fool I wanted to applaud.”
The escape continued. Krab’s delay didn’t last long. Bannai, who quickly caught up, like a cat playing with a mouse, kept adding wounds to everyone. Then, Salazar voluntarily stayed behind to cover their retreat.
“There was no hope of survival. If that brooding fellow wanted to escape by himself, it wouldn’t have been impossible, but he didn’t choose that. Since that’s the case, even if he died, he shouldn’t have any regrets.”
The time Salazar bought should not have been short, but Ned also planned to stay and buy time. He revealed the locations of many dark secrets in Marshall Territory. Yinna was willing to stay with the former, but Shuang Ye made the most irrational decision.
“The clues obtained in Patto City before were indeed correct. A large number of ritual sacrifices in the Whisper Sect were obtained from the Violet Empire, but I didn’t expect it to really be Marshall Territory. Hehe~ It’s quite a coincidence that a one-ninth probability was directly hit. I originally wanted that girl who’s online all the time to look for it, but it ended up being directly pinpointed.”
Mo Tan recalled some of the information he had found in the Whisper Sect stronghold earlier. That intelligence had already been burned when he left, and the more valuable content had been memorized. He was very interested in this sect, whether it was its scale, which seemed to far exceed that of conventional cults, or the ‘evil god’ they worshipped, both intrigued him greatly.
This was also the main work he planned for Cole and Little Ai, and also the reason he had asked Shuang Ye to pay attention to ‘slave trafficking’ earlier… He didn't expect to catch the Marshall Family so quickly, and what surprised Mo Tan even more was that a certain girl’s inner strength was far less resilient than he had imagined before…
“Wait!” Mo Tan’s steps suddenly paused, and he narrowed his eyes slightly: “I remember then…”
The memory at that time was very clear, but the content, now that he thought about it, was very, very strange!
Shuang Ye insisted on staying, which was essentially going to her death, and Mo Tan, who remained rational, wanted to persuade her to leave, but it had little effect, and then…
“I was still ‘Black Vatican’ at the time, and I knew very well that I couldn’t deal with that girl quickly, so I…”
Mo Tan suddenly grinned and whispered, “I wanted to simulate the ‘me’ of now, but also maintain my state at that time to ensure I wouldn’t go offline, and it turned out that crazy idea actually worked!”
He remembered very clearly that at that time, as ‘Black Vatican,’ he had, out of helplessness, tried to simulate this current thought pattern to persuade Shuang Ye. After all, whether it was ‘Tan Mo,’ ‘Mo,’ or ‘Black Vatican,’ they were all ultimately Mo Tan himself. Although the differences were unnaturally beyond the normal scope, if he put his mind to it, self-imitation was not impossible, at least it was easier than imagining himself as someone else.
For example, when we pretend to be our parents, bosses, relatives, or colleagues, we might not resemble them at all, but if the object of imitation becomes ourselves from a few years ago or ourselves at a certain point in time, we should all be able to do it.
Although our current thoughts and views may have already changed, that personally experienced period of time truly existed. What happened then, how we thought, and how we viewed the surrounding things, we all know.
“Is that why I succeeded so easily?” Mo Tan shook his head: “It shouldn’t be. If it were really that simple, then why would I bother training myself to gain a few minutes of buffer time for each personality shift…”
I must try it out!
Acting on his thoughts, Mo Tan, whose interest in studying himself suddenly grew, immediately stopped walking. He stood still, trying hard to recall his thoughts and psychology when he was in his ‘Absolute Neutral’ personality, and attempting to incorporate them into his current self.
Two minutes later…
“Boring! Boring! Boring! Nonsense!” Mo Tan rolled his eyes frantically: “I can’t do it at all! Just thinking about me having that kind of lazy, go-with-the-flow attitude makes me angry. Am I going to live my life like a glass of plain water!?”
After a moment of silence, he hesitated and muttered to himself, “Or, should I try to simulate ‘that kind’?”
Ten seconds later…
“Ugh, no, I hate myself so much, I want to commit suicide!” Mo Tan suddenly knelt down exaggeratedly, gagging. After sticking out his tongue for a long time, he wobbled to his feet, his eyes vacant as if he had entered a sage mode: “I feel like my worldview is going to explode, although I don’t seem to have much of a worldview to begin with…”
Clearly, he couldn’t do it at all. No matter which of the other two personalities he imagined himself to be, he couldn’t hold it, and both attempts made Mo Tan extremely uncomfortable at the moment.
Perhaps it was due to inner resistance, or perhaps because he knew it was futile from past attempts at self-therapy, but in any case, Mo Tan did not continue to try.
“I’ll figure this out next time I log in as Black Vatican. Anyway, at the time, I successfully made that Ms. ‘SUN’ change her mind. Tsk tsk, what a waste of emotion. As the ancients said, sitting in front of a computer, we never know if the person on the other side of the screen is a human or a dog. And here I was, actually quite concerned about you~”
Mo Tan’s current slander was naturally his dissatisfaction with Shuang Ye. After all, he had somewhat found that ‘SUN’ lady, who could even give him a headache, quite interesting before, but he didn’t expect her inner self to be so fragile. This made him feel somewhat incomprehensible…
However, Mo Tan was being a bit presumptuous here. After all, no matter how intelligent or special Shuang Ye was, she was still just a girl under twenty, a bit introverted, and under one meter sixty tall. She wasn't a psychopath, after all. Not everyone, like a certain individual, started causing trouble from a young age, having done good things, bad things, exciting things, inexplicable things, terrifying things, illegal things… Her life experiences were unbelievably rich…
This comparison was simply too unfair.
However, Mo Tan was not uncaring about Shuang Ye’s situation, so when he recalled this part, he casually opened his friends list, which had notified him of new messages upon logging in…
Sure enough, there was a message from Shuang Ye.
Unlike the usual barrage of messages, this time the message she sent to ‘Tan Mo’ was only one.
‘I’m back… I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know what to say. I found myself much more fragile than I imagined. It’s very hard… If you’re here, it’s okay to mock me.’
It was just this one message, which left one inexplicably impressed.
If Mo Tan were only ‘Tan Mo,’ he probably would have started mocking this opponent who suddenly seemed a bit neurotic.
But he wasn't. He could probably guess what kind of mood Shuang Ye was in when she sent him this message.
She didn't log off immediately after the battle; instead, for some reason, she suddenly turned back. Then, she would certainly find Ned’s corpse and realize that ‘Black Vatican’ had gone offline. If she walked back further, she would also find Yinna, Salazar…
At least in his somewhat blurry memory, Mo Tan saw their corpses.
They were all dead. Besides the two players, none of the other four members of Fenrir Squad survived in the end…
Even though they were data, AI, NPCs…
Even though the current Mo Tan could completely understand and accept this outcome, and could even still walk under the night sky with a smile…
But that didn't mean he had forgotten the bits and pieces of ‘himself’ in Fenrir Squad.
Admittedly, unlike when he was Black Vatican, Tan Mo might be a madman or a lunatic.
But even a lunatic wouldn't disregard those people, those things…
His emotions might not be stirred, his heart might not be troubled…
But he still sighed faintly after a long silence in a smile.
And with that rare serious expression, he replied to Shuang Ye with a very unserious message.
“Are you on your period?”
Chapter Sixty-Four: End
