Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Game

WTF??

These three letters and two punctuation marks were conveyed by the Orc brother in front of Mo Tan through his rich facial expressions. If it weren't for the fact that only people with mental issues would play games under such conditions, this guy was probably already wondering which hospital this kid had escaped from.

The face blurred with a mosaic, the furtive expression, and the tone like an Underground Party rendezvous—none of it looked like the behavior of a mentally sound person.

Besides, he didn't even know this guy, right?!

Unfortunately, the guy in front of him was indeed a fish that slipped through the net, both from the hospital's and the police's perspective...

"Come on, stop pretending~" Mo Tan said with a sly grin, elbowing the Orc player in the arm and lowering his voice, "I figured it out long ago. You're pretty close to the image I had in mind. Speaking of that thing about mixing erguotou into plain water..."

The handsome Orc with fiery red hair (no mistake) didn't even let him finish. Without a word, he turned and walked away, muttering something under his breath that seemed to contain some discriminatory remarks about certain lifestyles.

"Uh, not him?" Mo Tan scratched his head, then glanced around and suddenly burst out laughing, "Ha! So it's you!? I knew that guy's vibe was way off compared to what I expected. I really picked the wrong person!!"

He chattered excitedly as he charged toward a nearby Ogre player. That guy was built like an iron tower, and for some reason, he had customized his face to look particularly grotesque—like a stitched monster that had just poked a hornet's nest, the kind that would scare even his own kind into a stumble.

Meanwhile, Futaba, who had been squinting and silently glaring at Mo Tan from a distance, finally couldn't take it anymore. She dashed over, grabbed him by the collar, yanked him back, and rolled her eyes with a cold snort, "It's me!"

"What's you?" Mo Tan shot her a particularly disdainful look, waving his hand impatiently, "I'm meeting a buddy here. Can't you see he's waiting for me to say hi?"

He gestured with his chin toward the stitched... uh, Ogre, waving and shouting, "Hey! I'm over here! Speaking of that thing about mixing erguotou into plain water..."

"It's me! Me! Me!" Futaba grabbed Mo Tan by the collar and pulled him in front of her, her eyes practically blazing with fury. She stomped her foot and hissed, "I was the one who found that fake liquor company! It's called Imperial Jade Liquid Co., Ltd. Those geniuses sold water mixed with erguotou—costing less than one yuan fifty per bottle—for one thousand eight hundred eighty-eight yuan a cup. I planted the crash program! You stole the internal data! We released the info together! And you even blew up that skinny CEO's monitor! So, got it?!"

This girl was almost on the verge of breaking down just now. Standing not far away, Futaba had overheard nearly the entire process of Mo Tan mistaking some orc for someone he knew. Already furious because he had imagined her as that kind of existence, Mo Tan then, upon realizing he had the wrong person, immediately set his sights on someone even uglier!

Who could put up with that?!

If it weren't for the fact that violence was impossible in the Public Space, she would have already hurled a massive fireball right into his face!

"Ah..." Mo Tan sighed helplessly upon hearing this, glanced at Futaba, then cast a look at the ogre brother who was only wearing a pair of shorts, and curled his lip: "So that's how it is. Tch, what a disappointment..."

Futaba gritted her teeth and glared at him: "What kind of rude expectation did you have of me before this?!"

"At least~" Mo Tan suddenly shifted from his earlier somewhat neurotic demeanor, chuckling lightly, "You'd be calmer than this childlike little girl in front of me, wouldn't you?"

"Who are you calling..." Futaba almost instinctively retorted, but then froze as she caught the mocking glint in his eyes.

Although Mo Tan's face was heavily distorted in others' eyes due to the blurring effect, Futaba could still sense his slightly sarcastic smile and the deeper meaning behind his words.

Not calm enough...

She wasn't calm enough...

Where exactly was she not calm enough...

Wait!

Futaba looked up in shock at this person who had cooperated with her for years but whom she had never met face-to-face, and her expression suddenly darkened: "You knew it was me all along?!"

"What makes you say that?" Mo Tan didn't answer the girl's question but instead countered.

"I've been observing the people in this area," Futaba said, quickly regaining her composure. She curled her index finger and gently pushed up her glasses, speaking in a low voice: "At least within two minutes, you weren't among the group near me. And when I noticed you, you were already standing in a position where, even if you lowered your voice, I could still hear you striking up a conversation with that orc brute."

Mo Tan let out a dry laugh: "Could you please not use such an ambiguous word like 'striking up a conversation'..."

"Whether it's the timing of your appearance or the distance between us, it's all too perfect," Futaba ignored him and continued on her own. "Even if both points could be explained by coincidence, your slightly exaggerated actions were too targeted."

"Alright, I'll give you some credit for now." Mo Tan clapped his hands: "Though this kind of belated sharpness is hardly praiseworthy, as a gentleman, one should still be a bit lenient toward a beautiful girl, shouldn't one?"

Futaba pursed her lips and was silent for a long while before looking up at his blurry face and asking, "How did you know?"

"Do you find it incredible?" Mo Tan's gaze at that moment was as if he were looking at an idiot.

Futaba was once again flustered, but this time she quickly regained her composure and said calmly, "I do have a theory, but I need to hear your answer before I can make a judgment."

Mo Tan looked at her with an increasingly strange expression, suspicion creeping into his voice. "Are you really Sun?"

Futaba chuckled lightly. "Don't believe me? That's fine. How about you casually reveal some information and give me a chance to prove myself?"

"Forget it." Mo Tan spread his hands. "I just noticed a sudden surge of fake data online with very similar conditions, so I did a little digging. When I found it was all meaningless, I dropped it. But then..."

He snapped his fingers, and half the universe's life instantly vanished... Sorry, wrong channel...

He snapped his fingers again and raised an eyebrow at Futaba. "But then, someone actually followed the traces I left behind, and their tracking methods and habits were very similar to someone I know. That undoubtedly proves those fake data had something to do with you..."

"I get it." Futaba cut him off, drooping her head helplessly. "So you noticed I was the only one in this area matching the description of all that fake data, came over with the mindset of a blind cat catching a dead mouse to test me, and then..."

"And you jumped out on your own." Mo Tan grinned. "Like a pure-hearted little girl wrongly accused of puppy love, all flustered and angry."

Futaba rolled her eyes. "I never realized you had such a nasty personality, Black."

"That's because we tend to unconsciously romanticize formidable rivals we've never met." Mo Tan extended his right hand to Futaba. "But when distance disappears, so does the idealized image that never existed in the first place. So, nice to meet you~ Sun~"

Futaba casually slapped his hand and snorted. "From what you just said, it seems I'm quite different from the Sun in your memory."

"Don't burst my bubble~" Mo Tan shrugged. "I have no intention of crushing your self-esteem any further, buddy... or should I call you 'ma'am' now? Or something else?"

Futaba pouted. "Call me whatever you want. Now, next topic. Have you tried hacking into Innocent Company's system too?"

"Sure, little pudding."

"What did you say?!" Futaba's already cloudy expression darkened further.

Mo Tan looked at her innocently. "Didn't you say I could call you whatever I want?"

"Just stick with 'buddy'." Futaba said coldly. "So you've also taken a hit from Innocent Company, just like me?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Mo Tan's tone suddenly turned grim, his voice laced with barely contained anger and frenzy, mixed with an indescribable complexity that made Futaba shiver.

In the girl's eyes, the answer was already clear...

He must have hit a wall just like me, probably taking quite a blow, and maybe because of that unreasonable 'male pride,' this guy's sense of frustration seems much heavier than mine...

【Heh, serves you right! Who told you to mess with me earlier? I wonder if the arrogant Mr. Black will feel even more upset when he finds out that SUN, who has always been his rival, is actually a girl like me~】

Futaba thought maliciously.

But in truth, as she grew more convinced that this chaotic mess of a person was not the same as that clever priest named Hei Fan, Futaba was drifting further from the truth under Mo Tan's misdirection...

At this point, the rhythm had shifted.

Mo Tan, of course, wasn't as angry as he appeared. His slightly agitated demeanor was more to mask his urge to burst out laughing. Every emotion and expression shown to Futaba was a disguise, an act.

His performance had begun since that message he left for Sun earlier that day.

Including the interaction he had with her while in his [True Neutral] persona, the constant provocation just now, and even the current anger of a proud genius struck down in his own domain—all of it was fake.

All of this was to clear Futaba's suspicions about the existence of 'Hei Fan' and 'Mo Tan,' leading her further down the wrong path...

Now, only the final step remained.

"By the way," Mo Tan awkwardly changed the subject, "I really didn't expect you to be playing this game. I guess my earlier assumptions about the Game Pod issue were a bit too presumptuous."

Futaba didn't want to provoke him too much, not because of the 'soft-heartedness' common to most girls, but because she didn't want to waste precious probing time on meaningless mutual mockery. After all, who knew when this unpredictable guy might suddenly log off and disappear? So she went along with his lead: "Same here~ I didn't think you'd have time to play games, instead of being like the usual types who spend all day with tissues and restricted video content."

Oops! It seemed she had accidentally let out a jab again!!!

But this time, Mo Tan didn't seem to mind much. He just smiled bitterly and said, "I think you must have some very biased misconceptions about male hackers..."

"No, I just thought you were a shut-in," Futaba laughed.

The atmosphere suddenly became much more relaxed~~

"Haha, I occasionally go out to feed stray cats or do some charity work~"

"That's nice~ I've heard that guys who like taking care of animals give off a sense of security~"

Of course, this was just surface-level. After all, neither of them was an easy mark. Despite appearing to get along, they were the type who would, at the slightest opportunity, throw a rock to knock the other into a well and then trigger a few landslides for good measure...

But Futaba was consistently determined to give Mo Tan a good hard screw-over.

The latter only harbors such thoughts when in the state of his [Chaotic Neutral] personality, so it's inevitable that he would suffer losses; his earlier exposure of a flaw was a cautionary example.

If not for the system bug caused by his split personality, Mo Tan, who had unknowingly revealed his hand at some point, might have been the first to lose this game.

When his personality was in [True Neutral], Mo Tan would always feel a bit of lingering fear whenever he thought about it...

But now he...

Only feels pure pleasure and excitement~

As long as he can get a thrill, he doesn't care whether he's shoveling dirt by a grave or dancing on the edge of a blade...

As long as it's fun!

With a pop-up window appearing before Futaba, the last shred of doubt in her heart was completely dispelled.

[Player Tan Mo (Chaotic Neutral) requests to add you as a friend]

"I feel like an idiot," Futaba muttered softly, then readily accepted Mo Tan's friend request. Afterward, she glanced at another name in her friend list.

Friend: Hei Fan (True Neutral)

Even if this guy might have some issues, or might even be a skilled hacker, it no longer mattered...

Futaba looked up at the person before her, a hint of a smile appearing on her cute doll-like face.

[Because the biggest, most troublesome, and hardest-to-handle prey has already appeared~]

She suddenly felt a surge of motivation!

"Even if you're flattered that I took the initiative to add you as a friend, don't just stand there daydreaming," Mo Tan's somewhat annoying voice snapped Futaba back to reality.

Leaning down toward the somewhat petite orange-haired mage, he whispered in her ear...

"I want to play a game with you."

Chapter Sixteen: The End