Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Yaya

"Woof?!" Mo Tan subconsciously repeated, then made a puzzled expression at the tiger-fanged dog-eared girl before him, spreading his hands: "Can I help you?"

The girl's beautiful eyes curved into crescent moons, and she nodded happily: "Woof!"

This girl can't be communicated with!!

Mo Tan certainly couldn't do what that young lady before him had done—making this girl go "Woof" this way and that to figure out what she wanted to say. Though he had to admit it would probably be pretty adorable...

"Is there something I can help you with?" Mo Tan gently removed her hand from his arm, then tentatively asked: "Try to express what you mean, and see if I can understand... It would be even better if you could say a little something I can comprehend."

This girl's nails are a bit sharp...

"Woof~" The little girl shook the pair of fluffy gray beast ears on her head, let out a happy bark, then extended her small hand toward Mo Tan, palm facing up and open: "Um~ Woof! Road... no woof... know."

Mo Tan looked down. On the girl's palm was a string of numbers: 17502. After a brief recollection, combined with those halting words, he had a rough idea.

E-Rank Quest number 17502. If he remembered correctly, the content should be helping a woman named Molly, who lived in the southern district of the market, clean her garden. Although he had only memorized the vast number of E-rank quests at the branch through Instant Memory, Mo Tan clearly wasn't like ordinary people who forgot things quickly...

After all, under normal circumstances, the duration of our conventional instant memory should be roughly equivalent to the length of a morning English dictation session.

"You don't know the way?" Mo Tan nodded at the little girl, signaling she could put her hand back, then smiled and asked: "Then how did you know I'd recognize it?"

The dog-eared girl tilted her head, stuck out her little tongue to lick the back of her hand, which was covered in a thin layer of bristly fur, and mumbled vaguely: "Woof map~ Look long time, you woof!"

If Mo Tan understood correctly, what she meant was: 'You looked at the map for a long time'...

Suddenly feeling very exhausted.

As far as Mo Tan knew, Common Language should now be widespread across the entire continent. Although each race had its own unique language, this 'Common Language' that had popped up who-knows-when had long since become the lingua franca of the entire Innocent Continent. Whether it was what he heard from Captain Ned when he was Hei Fan, or what Meg had told him during their casual chat.

But there are always exceptions...

The dog-eared girl before him actually looked quite impressive at first glance. Her beautiful features were slightly cool and elegant, her shoulder-length silver-gray hair was neat and refreshing, and she wore a set of brown soft leather armor. Below her short leather pants with armor plates on the sides were a pair of high hunting boots, perfectly fitting her long leg lines. Above the boot knees, a section of fair thigh was exposed. As long as she didn't open her mouth, she really did have a bit of an expert's bearing. No wonder Mo Tan had had that ridiculous misunderstanding earlier...

As soon as the girl opened her mouth, well—not only was her speech unclear, but even those few "woofs" carried a bit of a regional accent.

He pressed his forehead...

"So you want me to guide you?" Mo Tan said to her with a smile. "Just because I looked at a map for a bit?"

The dog-eared girl, whose language system seemed a bit impaired, flailed her hands and feet for a while before finally squeezing out: "Goo... goo... woof you~ good~ woof!"

"Alright, 'good' is better than 'good person' anyway." Mo Tan shrugged, turned around, and started leading the way. "Follow me. Just need me to take you to the quest area in the North District, right?"

The little girl hopped and skipped behind him, nodding vigorously: "Woof! Come back, can, sniff woof!"

Her ears had somehow flattened back, and her tail was wagging furiously~

Mo Tan silently pressed his forehead again, burying his head as he led the way...

Both the Adventurer Branch and Meg's journal contained maps of Anka Market, and just moments ago, Mo Tan had fully cross-referenced the details he'd memorized with the surrounding environment. Guiding someone around now was fairly easy.

Mo Tan had always been sensitive to maps—it had nothing to do with intelligence, but rather his terrible sense of direction... truly terrible...

No matter the time, place, or personality, Mo Tan was perpetually lost. Whether back in the orphanage, around his current home, or at the elementary school he'd attended, he was constantly, endlessly, and relentlessly getting lost.

It wasn't until middle school that Mo Tan finally couldn't take it anymore and began deliberately training his ability to memorize maps. After achieving some results, he started constructing overhead views in his mind and attempting to locate himself within them. By now, despite still having zero sense of direction, Mo Tan had successfully memorized the entire world map (how insane was that?) and basically never got lost anymore.

For someone like Mo Tan, who constantly maintained an overhead view of his surroundings in his mind, knowing only up, down, left, and right was enough. Who cared if he couldn't find north?

Using the map from Meg's journal, he'd found the Adventurer Branch, and with the latest map updates from the branch, he'd refreshed the details of recent years. By now, he could say he knew the area like the back of his hand.

Guiding a lost dog... I mean, dog-eared girl, was a piece of cake~

"What's your name?" Mo Tan asked casually, glancing at the bustling shops and stalls lining the main road with interest, then turning to the dog-eared girl behind him. "Or how should I address you?"

The girl had been happily wagging her tail the whole way. At his question, she thought for a moment, then—rarely not blurting out a "woof"—she said softly: "Ya... ya..."

"Ya?" Mo Tan confirmed. "That's it?"

The girl shook her head vigorously, flattening her ears back: "Ya~ ya~"

Mo Tan scratched his hair: "Yaya?"

"Woof!" The dog-eared girl named Yaya nodded happily.

Mo Tan: "..."

So exhausting...

If viewed from high above, Anka Market looks like a large diamond formed by four rhombuses laid horizontally, situated in the lower part of the Northwest Continent.

Due to local characteristics, its four districts—east, south, west, and north—each have a considerable number of shops and stalls run by all kinds of people, offering a dazzling variety of goods. From Goblin rocket belts to giant dragon fake jewelry used to pacify children, from portable elemental pile drivers used by Orc shamans for planting totems to mint leaf snacks favored by feline Half-Orcs—everything is available~

However, the largest commercial districts are still the West and East Districts. The former is the Grand Market, where it's said that if you're wealthy enough, you can find anything you desire. The latter is home to Anka Market's most iconic building—the Golden Sour Plum Auction House—which also serves as the administrative district.

The North District, where Mo Tan had been earlier, is a comprehensive area dominated by the Adventurer's Guild, Mercenary Association, Magic Guild, Thieves' Guild, and others, along with numerous inns and service industries like restaurants.

The smallest district, the South District, is a residential area where many locals of Anka Market, as well as reclusive, wealthy researchers, scholars, or permanent merchants who dislike going out, live.

Mo Tan himself also had a task in the South District, said to be weeding for a couple named Guro, located not far from where Yaya needed to go.

"Hey..." Mo Tan looked helplessly at Yaya, who had been standing in front of a shop window for two minutes, and patted her shoulder. "Aren't you in a hurry? How about we finish the main business first and come back for the chew toy later, okay?"

The dog-girl instinctively turned her face and bared her teeth at him, then blushed, lowered her head, and nodded. She shyly rubbed her little face against the back of Mo Tan's hand and let out a flattering 'Woof.'

...

Fifteen minutes later

Mo Tan stopped in front of a seemingly crooked wooden house, turned back to nod at Yaya, and pointed ahead. "This is Ms. Molly's house. Your task should be to help clean her garden, right? We've arrived."

"Woof! Tha~nk you woof!" Yaya clapped her hands happily, her tail wagging so fast it was almost a blur. She joyfully ran two circles around Mo Tan, then leaned in to rub against his cheek before dashing off to knock on the front door.

Mo Tan was a bit stunned for a moment, then smiled and shook his head, heading toward another street not far behind. The Guro couple he was to help weed for lived nearby, less than two hundred meters from his current location.

...

"Hmm... No. 11 Aroma Avenue, this should be the place." Mo Tan looked at the enormous yard before him, which covered at least a third of an acre, and couldn't help but roll his eyes. Harboring a grudge against the wealthy, he pushed open the low garden gate and stepped inside, muttering, "I wonder how many weeds are in there. It might be more than I imagined..."

He didn't finish his sentence. Instead, driven by an instinct akin to a sixth sense, he looked up, and then...

"Holy shit!!!!!"

Five seconds later.

The two-story house in the courtyard was suddenly pushed open from inside, and a thin, elderly man rushed out leaning on a cane, shouting as he walked, "Who's cursing at my doorstep! Let me see... Huh? No one?"

...

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

"Yeah, reconnect..."

[Reconnecting...]

[Connection complete. Loading character information...]

[Welcome to the Innocent Continent, Chaotic Neutral Tan Mo. Good night.]

...

"Haha, interesting~~" Mo Tan shook his head and chuckled lightly as soon as he appeared. "This is the first time I've seen a 'weed' that's sturdier than a person and has two rows of sharp teeth on it. Was that thing raised on some super fertilizer... But speaking of which..."

He glanced at the small mound of earth at his feet, the soil clearly freshly turned, and snorted lightly, "Soft-hearted... But since the system says the quest is complete, that means that little priest named Ai is safe now."

Indeed, the moment he logged in, he had already received the system notification:

[Side Quest 'Rescue the Warm Sun Squad' completed. Current Distributable Experience Points: 200.]

The dead don't need saving. That night, when he arrived here, the greatsword warrior Rada Dona of the Warm Sun Squad was already cold, and beside him, in a pool of blood, lay the apprentice priestess Ai Fanye with a large hole in her abdomen. As for the one Cole mentioned, the strongest member of the squad, Dave Sager, he was nowhere to be found.

Combined with the Unique Quest Mo Tan had received earlier—[Go to Pato City, destroy the 'Hero' Dave]—the situation was already clear.

Mo Tan used up the last three bottles of Basic Life Potion and a Divine Favor Scroll (both looted from Medi's house) to save the dying apprentice priestess.

After learning the situation, he quickly spun a series of lies for the girl who had just experienced betrayal and the death of a comrade, finally telling her to return to Pato City as soon as possible and hide herself. He then prepared to leave immediately to deal with the two Red Ridge Beasts.

But in the middle of all this, he inexplicably logged out of the game. Logically, he should have had plenty of time left, but when he left the game pod, he found it was already seven in the morning...

"Something's off." Mo Tan casually sat down beside the simple earthen mound burying the greatsword warrior Rada, leaning back against it without a care, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "This has happened twice since I started playing this game. Each time, I lost about two hours of real-world time. It's too far-fetched to say I accidentally fell asleep in the game pod, and I always hear the 'You have logged out' prompt when I wake up... Could it be a bug caused by having multiple characters simultaneously? But if so, what's the principle behind the bug... Hmm?"

He stopped his train of thought and noticed the message bar flickering in the corner of his vision.

"Heh~" Mo Tan smiled sinisterly. "Looks like you really miss me... Are you that eager to win this 'game'..."

His character had only one friend, so the source of any message outside the system was self-evident.

"You there? You there?"

"You there? You there?"

"You're not offline, are you?"

"Hey! Are you online but just ignoring me?!"

"There's nothing going on lately, what else could a shut-in like you be doing at night besides gaming? Why the hell?!"

"Say something!"

"I'm so bored~"

"What level are you now? I did a few quests today and I'm already level 5."

"Hey hey hey hey hey!!!!"

All of the above were historical messages sent by Futaba. Well, the last one had just arrived.

Mo Tan leaned against the grave mound and stretched, casually summing up Futaba's barrage of harassment with a single word: "Psycho."

Though, to be fair, he was probably the last person who had the right to call anyone else that.

"By the grave at dusk, I sigh and recline~" Leaning against the tomb with a smile, Mo Tan casually made up a couple of doggerel lines: "A nagging woman's echo fades like smoke."

"Don't bother with the mundane's comings and goings~" He then sent it to Futaba with a smug grin: "Just wonder if that girl's gone mad."

A few seconds later, he received Futaba's reply: "What does that mean?"

Mo Tan rolled his eyes and replied with great thoughtfulness: "I'm leaning against a fresh grave right now, brooding over troubles. I don't have time for you, and you can't control what I do at night. What I'm really curious about is just how crazy you're going right now..."

With that, he ignored the countless messages Futaba instantly exploded with, neither blocking nor replying. He just wobbled to his feet, turned around, and stomped the dirt on the small grave mound a bit firmer, then swiftly left the place, melting into the glow of the setting sun...

Chapter 21: The End