My name is Valentin, I am 23 years old this year, and it is my third year in the world of Terra.
A new face, a new identity, a new social network, and... the same ailments as in the previous life. Nights in Chernobog are not quiet, and even when sleeping in a suburban villa I still need to wear earplugs to sleep. For a neurasthenic person, even the sound of crickets chirping would make me toss and turn in bed, staring at the ceiling covered with a layer of dark blue paint with sore and tired eyes. Even when that girl who shone with the holy light jumped into my life later, her smile that could soothe the most chaotic soul could not let me sleep peacefully.
In the end, I could only lie in bed, let my mind wander, and let my illusive fantasies make me fall asleep. Among those unspeakable fantasies about Raphael and Xing Yihuang, what finally happened when I closed my eyes and left the world for a short time were things that I had suppressed in my heart for a long time. I didn’t dare to face them but now I want them inexplicably. A question that you know the answer to.
It was the night after the Battle of Buttermore that I took the initiative to dig this issue out of the mire in my heart for the first time, looked at it, and thought about myself.
How much have I grown?
Or, have I really taken a step forward?
23 years old, this is my biological age, whether in the past life or in this life, this is an indisputable fact. But only I know...
Maybe they also know how big the gap is between my mental age and my physical age.
Maybe I should change the previous 2 to 1?
As ridiculous as it sounds, I was a minor, psychologically a minor.
What happened in the past made me bury my head in the sand, become taciturn, and learn to use a mask to disguise myself. I said a lot during that time, but how much truth could there be in it? It's just to make myself look more like a normal person. During my three years of high school and my unfinished college studies, I had many friends and none at all.
Not daring to face reality brings not only social problems, but also more serious problems in one's own psychology and thoughts. They seemed to be buried in the sand by me. It was not until recently, when Chernobog was captured, that I realized how naive I was.
Only then did I realize that the sense of responsibility I shouldered was completely inappropriate for my age. I don't even know what these three words mean.
The past is past. If I am still immersed in it and unwilling to wake up, all that is waiting for me is death again and the unbearable regret before death.
As I said before, this world is forcing people to change, and those who don't change will die.
The high wall was opened again. I took those bricks and paved the way forward bit by bit. At first, I didn't feel anything was wrong, but later in my life in Longmen, I was surprised to find that the road I paved seemed to deviate from the normal route.
In other words, there is something a little abnormal about this path and the goal in my mind.
The bad things in the past did not turn me into a resentful person. They only made me a coward, but I desperately longed for a peaceful world without war and oppression. As a victim of violence, I understand the feeling of helplessness better than anyone, and I wish more than anyone that there would be no people like me in this world.
At a time when everyone's dreams are slowly extending towards money and happiness that are purely for the beauty of myself and my family, my dream is indeed very consistent with my mental age - I hope for world peace.
This is not a joke, it's not funny, it's true.
oh……
The description of this dream can be changed. "Peace" is just an adjective, and so is world peace. So what does the peaceful world in my imagination look like?
It is more difficult to achieve than the simple wish of "world peace".
Of course, there are ways to make it easier.
Their appearance filled the hole in my heart. Source Stone Skills and Jiao Zhengyu gave me hope of realizing my dreams in this world. The road I am paving now is involuntarily moving towards that deformed dream. Even though I understand how crazy that "peace" is, my hands are still pressing down the pavement bricks, but the speed is getting slower and slower. .
I have thought about whether to modify it, but now I still have a chance to correct it.
but……
When I saw all this, I felt that it was unnecessary.
I understand the pain of being bullied better than anyone else, and I long for a utopian society more than anyone else. A peaceful world where there is no war and everyone is polite and noble at heart is not a utopia. The reason why people are called people is because they have the richest emotions in the world, which are not only noble, but also dirty. Even if you stand under the brightest sunlight, there will always be shadows in this world. Even if the sun shines directly, it cannot illuminate the covered shadows.
I hope there is no darkness in this world.
Not even a little bit.
——————Deformed wish————————
"The streets are so quiet today."
Valentin looked around, his brows slowly furrowed, and shallow ripples of uneasiness arose in his heart.
"There's no one on the street..."
Somewhere in the slums, Rhode Island's Long-10 team was on their way to perform a mission. They took Rhode Island's identification codes, put on smart clothes, and walked vigilantly on the roadside. But compared to other teams that were fighting the out-of-control herds, this team was a bit more laid-back. It looked more like a team of Rhode Island operators who evaded their mission and went to fish in an uninhabited land.
There is nothing we can do about it. The mission that Valentine and his team received was to deal with the lone or small integration movement teams in the slums. The integration movements that were fleeing towards the exit were scattered but as continuous as a river, and there were even some non-integration members mixed in. , Valentine and his team could not intervene at all and could only let them leave. After all, the other nine teams were outside the slums. Maybe some teams have reached the slums, but Valentine doesn't know where they are, and it's even less possible for them to work together to fight against these infected people who have no fighting spirit.
Therefore, everyone in the Long-10 team can only reluctantly enter the fishing stage, searching around the slums far away from the large troops, and maybe they can encounter a few fish that have slipped through the net.
But based on what Valentine observed now, maybe they couldn't even catch the fish that slipped through the net. This is an ordinary street in a slum. It is deserted because of the invasion of the integration movement. The shops on the roadside are also closed, the windows are boarded up, and some window glass has been broken all over the floor. They can You can clearly see the shelves inside that are as clean as Alipay accounts.
For Longmen who has entered a state of war, this is all normal. What made Valentine feel wrong was that this area was too quiet.
It was so quiet that he couldn't hear anything except the wind.
"Not only people, but even the sounds of living creatures cannot be heard."
Ansuo's long ears swayed, and her voice was lowered by her, as if she was affected by the quiet environment around her. As a Carters who was a thief, Ansuo's hearing was unusual for ordinary people. These big ears had helped her escape from the clutches of the Guards Bureau many times in the past. But today, for the first time, Miss Rabbit, who has excellent hearing, wondered if there was something wrong with her ears.
"It's really weird. This slum is like another world. The road we just walked on is the dividing line between the two worlds."
Valentine thought of the descriptions of the otherworld in the novels he had read. There are one or two strange nights every year when a small town living in another world wakes up. Only those who know a special method can enter the small town in this other world. Of course, our protagonist also entered this world because of his own bad luck, which he didn't know whether it was good or bad, and began a mysterious and surprising adventure story.
But as a person who has an artificial intelligence in his head and is a time traveler, Valentine thinks it is unlikely that he will start another mysterious journey in the world of Terra.
"Did you hear anything?"
Ansuo poked the black cat on his shoulder, but was lightly slapped by the other party's paw. After coming out of that small stronghold, Ye Yan turned into a cat shape and curled up into a fur ball, resting on An Suo's shoulder and entered a resting state, saying nothing the whole way. If she had fallen asleep, the secret lock would not disturb the lazy Miss Felin, but her long ears did not hear a single snore, which only meant that Ye Yan was still awake.
"As a rabbit, you can't hear anything, so what else can I hear?"
Ye Yan raised his little head and yawned, revealing his sharp teeth. She raised her paws to hold down the witch's hat that was about to fall off, and jumped from An Suo's shoulder to Xing Yihuang's head, her movements as brisk as a legendary elf.
Ansuo is still a little girl, her shoulders are too small to rest on, and she has two long ears on top of her head, not to mention Valentine. Those two horns are like forks, which is uncomfortable to look at. Among the three, only Xing Yihuang's head is suitable for cat-shaped Ye Yan to rest, and she can wrap her tail around the dragon's horns on the side of her head. Xing Yihuang, who is missing a dragon horn due to ore disease, seems even more unapproachable than Chen, but her friends all understand that this girl is just not good at expressing her emotions.
To put it simply, there is some facial paralysis.
Xing Yihuang had no reaction to Ye Yan's behavior. She already regarded this cat who liked fishing as a friend. When it comes to friends, Xing Yihuang always has much more patience than ordinary people, otherwise she would have fought with the angel who liked to eat his own tofu in Chernobog.
It's strange to say that as a woman, I live together with a man and a woman who have an innocent relationship. The man behaves like a little girl every day and hides in his room to entertain himself. But the woman does it from time to time. Come and tease yourself...
I really don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
"However, something is definitely wrong here."
Ye Yan lay on top of Xing Yihuang's head, wrapped his tail around her dragon horns, and stared in a certain direction of the slum with golden pupils. Under the sun, the cat's slender sword-like eyes did not hide in the darkness as usual, but stared at the buildings in the slum, without concealing the vigilance within them.
"There's something weird moving around in the slums."
Although she is a cat, Yeyan can still communicate with other people normally, which makes Valentine curious about her body structure. Therefore, before performing the mission, he kindly reminded Ye Yan not to do this at the Rhode Island base in the future, as he would be arrested for experimentation.
Just as he expected, the witch's expression did not change at all after hearing the warning. She just flicked her tail and said thank you before continuing to pack her things. She did not take Valentine's advice seriously at all.
He is now a little curious about what will happen if a bat meets a cat.
"weird stuff?"
Valentine searched for the knowledge in his mind, trying to find something that would be strange even to a witch, but he couldn't think of anything.
"You mean that?"
Xing Yihuang, who had been silent in the team, spoke, stopped at the same time, and raised his gaze. Valentin followed her line of sight and saw only a group of black shadows moving at high speed above the roof of the slum, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"what is that?"
He didn't remember that there would be such highly mobile black soldiers in the integration movement. It would make sense if the Regicide was dressed in black and operating in the slums, but...
Valentine counted the time.
It should be time for the Kingslayer and Kelsey to start a war. The fleeing troops of the Integration Movement have been harassed by Red. In order to maintain the order of the troops, the Kingslayer fought with Red, and was finally killed by Kelsey. The enemy became a stepping stone for Mon3tr.
Speaking of which, this Origin Stone Dragon is nine meters tall, as high as a three-story building. How is it hidden in the spine of an old lynx that is only 1.62 meters tall...
It can only be said that Kelsey is indeed Kelsey, and there are puzzles all over her body, except for a blue color that is known to most doctors.
For a moment, Valentin felt a chill running down his spine, and he was shocked and sweating, as if he was suddenly targeted by some extremely cruel large carnivore. But soon the feeling of panic disappeared, leaving only the sweat on his back.
"Not sure."
Xing Yihuang withdrew his gaze and his voice was as calm as water. But what was completely different from her voice was that this experienced hunter tensed up his nerves and clenched his fists at this moment.
The hard life in the snowfield gave her a strong body and an extremely precise sense of crisis. The danger that Valentin felt at that moment was not just for him. Everyone in the Long-10 team felt the danger that was like a ray of light on their backs, as if their lives had become a thin thread. The rope will break in the next second.
Although that kind of coercion lasted less than a second, it also allowed Valentine and others to raise their alert level to the maximum.
As the most powerful person among the four, Xing Yihuang understood what was staring at her better than the other three, and it was definitely related to the black shadow she had just seen. The black shadow moved so fast that she could not see clearly, and this sense of crisis made her return to the white snowfield again, and saw the wolf standing not far in front of her thin body. group.
That was the first time she faced death, and it was also the most profound time in her memory. And now, that feeling appears again.
Even if only for a moment.
"It's dangerous here. I don't know if those guys lurking in the dark will target us, but the sooner we leave, the better."
Xing Yihuang stopped and issued a warning. She was the captain of the Long-10 team, but Xing Yihuang had no experience in leading others, so she gave this position to Valentine. And she just said these words to remind the captain to leave quickly.
If Valentine insists on going deeper, Xing Yihuang will not disobey the order.
"Return the same way?"
Valentine pointed to the road behind him. Just like before, he was just giving orders, and he still had to listen to the experts on what to do.
"turn left."
Xing Yihuang gave a direction. Valentine and Ansuo looked at each other and quickened their pace.
————————Three minutes later————————
"It...should be safe here, right?"
Valentine leaned against the wall and panted, his voice coming intermittently.
"I can even see the Integrated Movement stronghold in the distance."
At the end of this road, about three hundred meters away, the familiar small stronghold stood on the roadside. More than ten minutes ago, Valentin came out from there to avoid the large army of the integration movement and went to the depths of the slums to continue his mission. Now he has gone round and round and returned to the starting point.
"At least here we have a chance to fight back if someone tries to attack us."
Ye Yan glanced at the surrounding environment. This is a main road in the slums. Although it is not as spacious as the streets in the uptown area, it is still four motor vehicle lanes away, and the view is much better than the most common alleys in the slums. If someone wants to attack them here, even if the four Valentines can't defeat them, they can still see what the enemy's face looks like before they die.
"but……"
Valentine raised his head, sniffed, and frowned deeply.
"Why is it so smelly here? And it smells like blood..."
Valentine was sure there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell, and he was sure there was nothing wrong with his eyes. There is still the desolate scene here, the shops on the street are all closed, the windows are also nailed with wood, there is no one on the road, and it is equally quiet. It's just that compared to the place where they noticed the danger just now, the road here is a little too clean.
It was so clean that it looked like someone had cleaned it.
Soon, Valentine found the source of the stench. It was a roadside alley, and there was a pool of red liquid piled up at the entrance. Judging from the color, it didn't look like blood, but more like excessively diluted red paint. And the source of the stench that made him feel uncomfortable was deep in the alley.
Just when Valentine was about to go deep into the alley to find out what was going on, Xing Yihuang suddenly held his wrist.
"do not go."
Her voice had never sounded so decisive, as if there was some monster inside that would eat Valentine.
This was the first time Valentine heard Xing Yihuang talking to him in a commanding tone, which made his heart skip a beat. It's not because of Xing Yihuang's sudden change of attitude, but because of the things in this alley.
It was daytime now, and the surrounding buildings did not block Valentine's view. He could clearly see what was at the end of this alley, which was not deep. It was a sewer, and the manhole cover was still well covered. The surrounding area was as clean as the road just now, which was a bit too clean.
Originally, if Xing Yihuang warned him like this, Valentin would obediently listen to Sister Long and leave here, but the moment Xing Yihuang grabbed him, a voice suddenly appeared in Valentin's heart, asking him to Be sure to go there and check it out.
He felt that he should go there and take a look, as if he didn't take a look, he would lose something.
"It's fine."
Valentin smiled and forcefully opened Xing Yihuang's hand on his wrist. Xing Yihuang didn't stop him anymore, but just stood at the entrance of the alley, standing next to An Suo with a cute face, his eyes seemed to say goodbye.
He took one last look at Xing Yihuang, turned his head and walked towards the manhole cover.
Although the area around the manhole cover looked clean from a distance, clues were discovered as soon as he got closer to Valentine. There were some very shallow blood stains on and around the manhole cover, as well as some traces of water washing. It should be that the blood stains were handled in a hurry and were not cleaned up.
But why deal with the blood stains on the manhole cover? Just to cover up the traces of his body dumping? In this chaotic place where even murder cannot be investigated, why bother?
The stench in the air had reached an unimaginable level. Valentine frowned and reached out to lift the manhole cover on the ground, then went down the ladder to the depths of the sewer.
When his feet hit a pool of blood on the ground, Valentine released his grip on the ladder and turned his head.
He saw a sight that he would never forget for the rest of his life, one that was as deeply engraved in his heart as the double helix symbol lit by fire.
