quicksilver blood

Chapter 14 23
Roland was careful not to make any excessive noise, and returned along the same path.

The distance will not be too far, because the vines do not extend more than sixty yards at most, and you can run back in less than a minute if you find the right direction.

It is impossible to immediately gain the favor of the Embers in the crowd, and the objective environment does not allow this.If you want to complete the first step of the job transfer task, the first thing to do is to isolate at least one Ember from the others and Macon and his party.

As for what to do, Roland already had some concerns in his mind.

The two winding techniques in his hands have not expired yet.If the timing is clever, you can find an Ember who is temporarily out of everyone's sight, then wrap a vine around his mouth and another one by his leg, just like Roland himself did before.

Once they can talk face to face, at least they won't be regarded as enemies based on Roland's understanding of the South Wind Ring.

The calculation in my heart is good, but the plan cannot keep up with the rapid changes.When Roland walked halfway, a man in a red robe jumped in the middle of the road.

A throwing ax was directly embedded in his back, and the muscles in his back were undoubtedly severed. If it was this deep, his spine would probably be severed as well.

Roland looked down at him quietly, and suddenly smiled silently.

With such a ready-made good thing in front of him, Roland would feel sorry for himself if he didn't use it.

After making up his mind, Roland said, "Are you...?"

The person lying on the ground trembled visibly.Probably excited, but now he can't lift his head up.

"My name is Pals, Pals White Oak, may the wind from the south greet you."

His voice was almost choked.

I'm probably thinking, "Ah, I'm finally saved," right now.Roland had a faint smile on his face, everything was under control.

If this is a relatively selfish person, then his next sentence will be something like "Take me back, I'm going to die".And if this person still has some minimum sense of honor as a cultist for his cause of destroying civilization and order, he is probably "leave me alone, go and save Lord Marco."

"Master Marco is in danger, leave me alone! I'm useless, but we can't lose a master... No! Don't go, you go to Lord Windtalker and bring more people! Hurry, hurry—"

Not bad.

Roland almost applauded him in his heart.

Being able to recognize that he is "worthless" means that he has a minimum of self-knowledge; being able to recognize the situation on the field instead of blindly asking Roland for help means that this guy's brain has not been roasted by soot, at least he has the last basic logic.

If he falls in a more enlightened place such as the Dawn Sect or the White Tower, he may still have the possibility of returning to normal society—by the way, when Roland said returning to normal society, he was referring to the After three months to half a year of brainwashing, he would devote himself to heavy physical labor that machines could not replace, or he would purify his soul in a fire with his former colleagues covered in dangerous items.

Is this cruel?Not cruel at all.

Compared with the fate of other cultists after being caught, being able to see the sun, eat some normal food until the end of life, or be able to bear the burden of a hero-I mean that it is really a kindness for the name of a martyr to be admired by future generations up.

Roland is more kind than those guys.He neither wants to use brainwashing methods to confuse his spirit and destroy his beliefs, nor is he prepared to extract his labor force or use it as some special and rare consumable.He was prepared to give him a warrior's death after simply asking a few questions, so that he could believe before his death that the truth he had believed for half his life was not a fallacy.

So Roland asked calmly, "Do you believe me?"

"...Of course I do."

The moment the druid named Pals said these words, a large piece of dark green data flashed in front of Roland's eyes:

[Inauguration task ([-]): Make any Ashes above Bronze Rank reach friendly towards you]

[You have gained the trust of Pals, and the inauguration task ([-]) has been completed]

[You have obtained new information about the inauguration mission——]

【"May the gods turn to ashes"】

[Mission prompt——]

[This may be a sentence, or it may be the motto of an organization.Anyway, you have to find it out.Intuition tells you that this is closely related to the power of the Embers]

【You got a new inauguration task】

[Inauguration task ([-]): Find out the keywords and obtain the complete broken news at the same time]

Expected.

Roland's mouth curved slightly.

He even knew the next step of the mission.At least before the Butterfly Effect happened, there was basically nothing important in this world that he didn't know.

"What do you want to say?"

The voice of the druid lying on the ground was trembling.

"I just want to confirm your identity."

Roland's tone was flat enough to freeze, but the speed of his speech remained unchanged, but it no longer contained any emotional color, as cold as an inorganic substance.

To use an inappropriate analogy - this is just a simple change in supply and demand.

Roland didn't need to force this person to believe his own words. Without any evidence to doubt his own identity, Pars could only choose to believe and accept Roland's words.

"How do you want to confirm?" Pars's voice trembled slightly.

"The Manifesto of the Embers. It's the one you say every day, gods turned to ashes or something—read it to me in its entirety."

Pars seemed relieved.

Indeed, this is not something that cannot be said.Even when recruiting new members, this is always the first thing to let others know. If you are just confirming your identity, you can indeed ask this question.

After all, even those new members have heard of it, if they say they don't know, it is undoubtedly a lie.

But Roland didn't want to confirm his identity.Just like before, he just had to say it.

There are gods in this world—not referring to the counterfeit ones in the sky who hold the authority of the saints and claim to be gods, but there are real gods.

After Aum created this sanctuary-like world, in order to ensure that there were no problems from within, a back door was set up above the authority of the saint.In the future, the three saints, including the Eternal Rest Teacher, will use this system to regain their authority.

This device, or god, is called Omurs the Observer, whose name means "what Om sees".

The meaning of his existence is to record everything that happened.Roland once posted a post on the forum, discussing the problems between Omers' behavior and meaning of existence, the division of character camps, and the system's task determination.

Let's not mention those things.In short, the system judges the success or failure of a task related to reversing the will of others without looking at the inner thoughts of others.Leaving aside the fact that the reactions are almost all set, how can the NPC have inner thoughts, and the player's mood changes cannot be accurately judged.

Therefore, what the system adopts is other people's "self-confession from the heart without being forced" or "absolute behavior judgment." As for what standard comes from the heart and where does the absoluteness come from, that is the observer's problem.

Although Pars' trust in Roland on the ground was partly forced by the situation, Roland himself did not force him.And he did have a good impression of Roland, who showed up at the most critical moment like a ray of time - at least temporarily.In this case, the observer judged that he "expressed trust in Roland" and Roland's first task could be completed.

In fact, if Roland asked him to say something like "I'm starting to like you a little bit" or "You are really beautiful, I want to have dinner with you tomorrow", it would be considered a success.While completing the first task by deception, Roland knew that his third task could not be completed by normal means.

So he listened intently to the feeble words of Pals: "We are the firebearers of the old order, we are the apostles of the new world, and from the fire we bring news of the new life - we shall reduce the gods to ashes, and the will of man rise from the ashes."

[You have obtained relevant information about the Embers, and the inaugural mission ([-]) is completed]

[You have obtained new information about the inauguration mission——]

[The profession of Ashes is undoubtedly a small circle, and its content includes dangerous types such as unbelievers, god-forsaken, heretics, or lunatics. It is difficult for them to simply accept a stranger.In short, you must let these people get to know you quickly, and even if you can't chat and laugh with them, at least you must leave a clear impression in their hearts—no matter the means. 】

【You got a new inauguration task】

[Inauguration task (0): Make more than 20 Ashes aware of your existence ([-]/[-])]

well.

"Ah, that's right. You're the real thing."

Roland said plainly, and manipulated the vines in his sleeves to protrude out like lightning, and tightly bound the neck of the ashen man named Pars.After Roland had been talking to him for so long, even if he was a bronze-level warrior, he would definitely be weak due to blood loss.

His experience cannot be wasted.Moreover, his clothes, body, and even the throwing ax inserted into his body at this moment have their own uses.

In short, he cannot be allowed to escape, cannot be allowed to die immediately, and cannot be allowed to be discovered by others.

In addition, he has another use -

Roland used his thoughts to control the vines to lift the young man up. Because the vines locked his throat and lifted him up forcefully, his face soon turned red with blood, and changed from red to purple at an extremely fast speed.

The moment the young man's eyes fell on Roland's face, Roland clearly felt the temperature of his upper body drop a lot due to the sudden fright through the vines on his neck, his pupils dilated, and he opened his mouth just as he was about to say something He rolled his eyes and lost consciousness.

Physiological escape response?

Roland raised his eyebrows.

His reaction gave Roland a lot of information.For example, these Ashes should know each other, or have some kind of ability to judge friends and foes through vision.

As if catering to Roland's thoughts, a dark green light curtain flashed in front of his eyes——

[Inauguration task (1): Make more than 20 Ashes aware of your existence ([-]/[-])]

After confirming that the system's count had increased by one, Roland used vines to remove the unconscious Pals's coat without hesitation, then took off his own black robe and put on Pals' red robe, and finally put the black one on. The robe was buried shallowly—just in case.

After thinking about it for the last time, Roland slowly pulled out the ax that was still stuck in Pars's back, and slashed lightly at the damage on his back with the ax mark.

Because it was useless, the ax just cut a piece of muscle and stopped, but it also removed a full three points of Roland's health.Roland broke out in a cold sweat in the sudden pain.

Now Roland only has six lives left. To be precise, if Roland does nothing, then he has twelve hours of life left.It is not surprising to say that it is still short of breath, even if the militiaman wields a wooden stick and hits with all his strength, it is possible to take Roland away directly.

But this time he didn't groan or cry out the pain, just cut a cross wound on Pals' abdomen trembling, and then put the ax back into Pals' wound, and he remained silent for a while. There was no movement.

In the horror between life and death, in addition to level and experience, Roland himself is also growing rapidly.

(End of this chapter)