Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Intricate and Confusing

[You have been forcibly disconnected. Please choose whether to reconnect.]

"Yes."

[Reconnecting...]

[Connection established. Loading character information.]

[Welcome back, Lawful Good Mo. About to load into Innocent Realm. Good night.]

When Mo Tan came to his senses, he found that he had not been respawned by the system in some random wilderness. Instead, he was lying on a clean, soft bed, with a faint fragrance lingering in the air around him.

Of course, this did not mean he had stumbled into the boudoir of some maiden waiting to be wed. Although such clichéd scenarios still frequently appear in novels, animations, and a large number of film and television works, stubbornly emitting a stench of intellectual degradation, at least in Innocent Realm and Fourfold Fracture (strikethrough), such things do not occur... please rest assured.

"It seems this isn't the battlefield from before," Mo Tan muttered, turning over to sit up and taking a brief look around the room. "It really does disconnect you just like that. Lucky no one noticed at the time, otherwise, who knows what the consequences would have been..."

Here's what happened: Not long ago, after Mo Tan and Futaba had reached a certain agreement in the Public Space, he logged off instantly before the other could react. Then, he expended great effort to forcibly switch his personality and logged into Hei Fan's character as quickly as possible.

After all, although he was ninety percent sure he wouldn't arouse Futaba's suspicion again, he was unwilling to take any additional risks. If Futaba still harbored doubts after their interaction and then logged into the game only to find Hei Fan absent, it might keep her on guard...

So Mo Tan planned to get online as soon as possible and return to the camp. If he received a message from Futaba, he would reply instantly, which should be enough to completely put her at ease.

In this game, players cannot see if their friends are online. To know if someone is playing, you either have to meet them in person or send a message to confirm.

But this time, Mo Tan was overthinking things. After receiving the friend request from the character 'Tan Mo,' Futaba had completely dismissed her earlier suspicions, chalking it up to overthinking. She had already shifted her attention to the 'Black' she had just met and hadn't logged back in since.

Mo Tan's explanation—that he had been distracted by a sudden flood of false information online and had done a bit of investigating—was logically flawless. It successfully convinced Futaba that the subsequent chain of events had nothing to do with the priest she knew in the game.

At least for the short term, the initiative was firmly in his hands.

Of course, what Futaba thought from then on didn't really matter...

Everyone knows the principle: one wrong move, and you lose the game.

Then, after returning to the military camp for a brief confirmation, Mo Tan sent another message to Futaba. The main content was mostly complaining about how boring it was to recharge the magic crystal lamp, along with some insights on mana and faith perception. After confirming that she really wasn't online, he greeted Ned and the others and left the camp, planning to head to the church to see what skills he could learn.

But on the way... his condition flared up.

So, he disconnected...

Re-logging into the game, Lawful Good Mo made a flashy entrance~

That was roughly the whole process earlier.

Of course, for Mo Tan (at this moment), this was a good thing, because he was very concerned about what had happened to the Forest Spirit merchant caravan and the Manticore Mercenary Company that served as its escort.

But the first half could be called nonsense, because no matter which personality Mo Tan logged into the game with, the character that matched his current disposition would undoubtedly be the one he most wanted to play.

So, as they say, the mentally ill have more fun~~

"Since I can appear here, that proves this must be 'reasonable,' at least for now, I don't need to worry about danger." Mo Tan didn't leave immediately but sat on the bed, chin in hand, thinking. After all, two days had passed. If those comrades he had fought alongside had met with misfortune, rushing a few minutes wouldn't help. If their situation was already safe, there was even less reason to hurry.

It was mentioned before that, despite being upright, kind, and highly responsible, Lawful Good Mo Tan was not the type to be straightforward and thoughtless. Personality doesn't affect intelligence, so he didn't act rashly. In fact, he was even thinking that maybe the answer would appear before him on its own before long...

Mo Tan was currently pondering another matter.

Something important from every angle.

He was too weak!

This 'himself' didn't just refer to the current Lawful Good Mo, but the real Mo Tan himself, regardless of which character...

Not to mention comparing with NPCs, even among players, Mo Tan was relatively unimpressive. It wasn't that he played poorly or lacked talent—quite the opposite; each character represented by his personalities had great potential. But...

He had too little time!

Others played one character from 7 PM to 7 AM, totaling 24 hours of game time (correct, the real-to-game time ratio is 1:2), while Mo Tan averaged less than a third of that. This severely impacted both his questing and leveling, and it didn't even need examples to illustrate.

Lawful Good Mo's character had even been absent for over a dozen chapters... ahem, hadn't logged in all day yesterday. And this was just the beginning. As players' total game time increased, this disadvantage would grow geometrically, eventually falling into a vicious cycle.

Well, even though Innocent Realm differs from other games in nature, and extreme uncertainty might lessen the severity of the consequences, it would still have a significant negative impact on Mo Tan.

However, Mo Tan's split personality was not an active skill but a passive effect, which meant...

"No solution." Mo Tan sighed, shook his head, and murmured, "At least for now, there's no solution."

At this moment, he wasn't lamenting this unfair treatment; he simply wished he had the power to help others. Just like in the same skirmish, the difference between a common cannon fodder and a max-level Hero Unit was like heaven and earth.

Whether it was a Death Knight who believed in the power of resurrection to bring both allies and enemies back to full buffs on the spot, or a white-bearded old man who could teleport his companions away when outmatched, they were all far more reliable than an SCV that could only weld.

No matter the worldview, tasks as technically demanding as harming or saving required solid strength as a foundation.

And Mo Tan's current strength probably wasn't even as good as an SCV's—at least that thing had a welder!

But despite the significant drawbacks of having multiple characters as a bug combined with Mo Tan's condition, it wasn't entirely without benefits. For example...

Bang!!

The door, suddenly pushed open with force, interrupted his thoughts. A red-faced dwarf burst in and, without a word, gave Mo Tan a bear hug.

"Ugh! Meg... Meg!!" Mo Tan felt the air in his chest squeezed out instantly, struggling with a red face and thick neck: "Easy! I'm... dying!"

The grinning, bearded dwarf warrior before him was none other than Meg Rollsteel, the Squad Leader of the Manticore Mercenary Company.

"Haha~" Realizing he might have been a bit too excited, Meg quickly let go and laughed: "When those green-skinned little guys said you were awake, I didn't believe it. But it turns out it's true!"

Mo Tan was a bit confused and asked: "Awake? So I've been... unconscious all this time?"

"Yeah, unconscious for almost two days." Meg nodded, plopped down on the edge of Mo Tan's bed, and spread his hands: "We were all worried about you. Someone from our mercenary company has been guarding outside your room this whole time. But just now, those Forest Spirits told everyone you were awake. Tsk, I bet they've set up some spying magic array in the room. I'll have to ask later—I've been dying to see that Hammer Girl take a bath!"

Well, judging by the name, it was clearly a dwarf woman with considerable combat prowess. For the sake of his own mental health, Mo Tan decided not to dwell on Meg's earlier words to preserve his worldview.

"You're overthinking it, Beard."

A sharp voice came from nearby. Mo Tan and Meg turned around woodenly to find that the potted plant by the bedside had moved. The nameless plant had pulled out limb-like appendages from the soil, propped itself on the edge of the pot, and struggled to extract itself. After a while, it finally freed the part below its "waist" from the dirt.

Mo Tan figured this little guy must be a Forest Spirit, but its appearance was nothing like the "green-skinned little guys" Meg had mentioned. At best, it looked like a walking leek.

"Please keep your admiration to yourself—I already have a boyfriend." The leek... Forest Spirit shook its leaves at the slightly stunned Mo Tan, then transformed in a blur of green light into a miniature female figure with the appearance of a headmistress (what kind of look was that, anyway?), sneering at Meg: "The only reason I knew he woke up the moment he did was because I've been watching here the whole time. Alright, mission accomplished. You two chat."

With that, she twisted her water-snake-like barrel waist and left...

Graceful, yet grotesque.

"Don't doubt your own taste." Meg rolled her eyes and muttered to Mo Tan, "I swear, even among Forest Spirits, that one just now was hideous..."

The latter blinked, offering no opinion on the matter, and simply smiled: "At least everyone's fine. But honestly, I'm completely in the dark right now..."

That statement was spot-on. Setting everything else aside, just Meg's remark about him being 'unconscious for nearly two days' left Mo Tan utterly baffled. Because, logically speaking, whether a player logged in or out, it should manifest as a subtle flash of white light—poof—and they'd appear or disappear.

He'd never heard of a player's character body remaining in the game after logging off...

Although the officials had never detailed the specifics of player login and logout, merely glossing over it with a phrase like 'under relatively reasonable circumstances,' the idea of his character lying unconscious in the game for nearly two days after logging off was way too fantastical!

If he didn't get to the bottom of this, it would definitely make his skin crawl!

Think about it: the character in the game could be considered the player themselves, right? Another version of themselves, even. And then, after you log off, that other body stays behind in this world full of orcs, ogres, lizardmen, magic, alchemy—in short, a particularly fantastical and chaotic place.

Anyone would break out in a cold sweat!

"We owe it all to you~" Meg patted Mo on the shoulder. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it here safely with zero casualties. The Land Dragon owes you a favor~"

"Owe it to me?" Mo Tan scratched his hair, puzzled. "I just yelled for everyone to break through. Even if I hadn't said it, you professionals would have made the same call, right?"

He couldn't believe the mercenaries and Forest Spirits were all idiots who would ignore the fiery path at the time—it was their only way out.

At best, he'd just reacted a bit faster...

"You don't remember what happened after?" Meg stared at Mo Tan for a long moment, then muttered, "Could it be some kind of side effect? After all, no one really knows what you did back then..."

Mo Tan asked in surprise, "What did I do back then?"

Meg smiled at him, casually pulled a small wineskin from somewhere on his person, took a big swig, and smacked his lips as he recalled, "What did you do? Well, we had just barely managed to form up and were about to break through when you suddenly let out a loud roar. Then all those countless Sand Goblins and Mud Fishmen dropped to the ground on the spot... Some were spitting blood, some were gasping their last, and others were unconscious—none of them got back up. After a while, you collapsed too, so we brought you here."

Mo Tan spent about five seconds sorting through Meg's words in his mind, then spread his hands, indicating that the dwarf hadn't gotten to the point at all. "Could you be a bit more detailed?"

The somewhat simple-minded dwarf warrior gladly agreed and then, waving his arms and legs, chattered on for over half an hour...

In the end, Mo Tan summarized the content for himself as follows:

After he let out that shout, everyone started preparing to break through, but by then he had actually already disconnected.

However, his in-game character didn't vanish in a flash of white light. Instead, he suddenly stood frozen in place, unresponsive to anyone calling him. Meanwhile, the large group of ambushers began to regroup, seemingly ready to launch another fierce assault.

Just then, 'he' suddenly raised his head and let out a roar. One second later, the surrounding Sand Goblins and Mud Fishmen began to fall like wheat being scythed, row after row. The elusive archer didn't fire a single arrow after that, and the imminent crisis was bizarrely resolved...

Yet he, who was theoretically the instigator, also collapsed and fell into unconsciousness.

The mercenaries could hardly understand this phenomenon at all. In the end, an old Forest Spirit who had lived for who knows how many years squeezed over, stood there staring at Mo Tan for a long time, and came to a vague conclusion: that this kid must have activated some forbidden ability, paying a heavy price to instantly take out a large number of enemies.

Then, due to exhaustion, consumption, cost, backlash, or some other unknown reason, he passed out.

...

And that was it—Meg had somehow managed to drag this out for half an hour!

As for Mo Tan, who was already completely baffled, he only became more confused after listening...

Chapter 17: The End