What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C27.2

Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂

Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!

Chp27. part2

As expected, the “Peerless Beauty” approached with a cold expression. He sprang upward, snatching the wooden butt mid-air as it rebounded off the wall. Then, he slammed it against the steel shelving where the boxes were stacked, like smashing an egg.

The wooden butt instantly splintered into several pieces.

With the culprit identified, the Peerless Beauty grabbed the offending wooden leg, twisted it, and snapped it clean off at the joint, splitting it into two segments.

He tossed one segment to Social Bro and kept the other as a club, the lack of a joint rendering it rigid and unbendable.

A berserk Peerless Beauty was a terrifying force of destruction.

Only now did Owen realize how fortunate he’d been to have the wooden arm. He quickly backtracked, picking it up and reattaching it.

This time, he didn’t dare hold its hand. Instead, Owen gripped the arm at the shoulder.

The wooden arm behaved itself, allowing him to grip it without fuss. It stood ramrod straight, like a small stick, letting him swing it wildly in all directions.

Engineer Zheng pulled a box from the shelf beside him, opened it, and began rummaging for parts. “Otherwise, you guys handle the fighting, and the girls can search for the boxes.”

The cross-dressing guy hesitated. “What about me?”

Everyone stared blankly.

Social Bro, still wrestling with the wooden arm, chimed in, “Dude, you’re huge! Help us fight, won’t you?”

The cross-dressing guy replied earnestly, “But I’m not good at fighting. I’ve always avoided fights since I was a kid. But I’m really meticulous. In elementary school, our teacher made the boys mop the floor and the girls wipe the windows. But I hated mopping and loved wiping windows. I did such a good job, but she wouldn’t let me…”

He rambled on, his voice thick with resentment.

Engineer Zheng smiled helplessly. “Fine, then just do whatever you’re good at.”

“Great! Then I’ll fight,” Teacher Su said. “I was on the volleyball team in high school.”

She set aside the box she was inspecting and deftly swatted away a spinning wooden head that lunged at her.

Unlike Teacher Su, Ning Ge was only the target of the Wooden Puppet Guards’ attacks; she had no chance to strike back.

Ignoring the fight, she rummaged through the boxes on the shelves, prying open their clasps to examine the contents.

The parts inside the boxes were far more docile than those of the attacking guards outside; they posed no threat.

Ning Ge pulled out each piece one by one, but none bore the name “Little Husky.”

Behind her, the wind whistled as parts flew past, yet she didn’t turn around, her focus entirely on finding Little Husky.

Pei Han stood nearby, if she left the rest to him, he would surely handle everything.

The group advanced slowly, following their progress as they searched the boxes.

Dizzy from searching, Ning Ge paused to catch her breath. When she looked up, she suddenly spotted a small, black leather box on the topmost shelf of a distant shelf.

The crucial detail was the blue cornflower pattern adorning it.

Cornflower.

Besides irises and roses, it was the Viscountess’s third favorite flower.

Ning Ge pointed at the box, about to speak, when her vision abruptly went dark.

She froze, realizing the torch had gone out. Iris had miscalculated, the torch hadn’t lasted the full thirty minutes.

Without the torch, the basement plunged into complete darkness, with no natural light to penetrate the gloom.

“The torch is out,” Pei Han’s calm voice echoed in the darkness. “Everyone, gather around me. Stay close.”

The pitch-black warehouse was extremely dangerous, with nothing visible. Ning Ge heard a muffled grunt from the other side— Social Bro must have taken a hit.

“Protect your heads!” Social Bro shouted, his voice strained. It seemed he’d been struck on the head.

“Ning Ge?” Pei Han called softly.

Ning Ge was right beside him. “Hmm?” she replied.

A hand immediately reached out and gripped her hand. The warmth and familiarity were unmistakable; they’d held hands countless times recently.

The owner of the hand pulled her close and shielded her.

Pei Han’s voice came from above. “Be careful. We’ll retreat toward the door. Get outside first and find a light source before coming back.”

“Ning Ge?” Owen’s voice cut through the darkness.

Ning Ge, nestled in Pei Han’s arms, answered, “What is it?”

Owen, likely hearing their voices coming from the same location, chuckled. “I knew it. Never mind.”

Social Bro was also shouting, “Engineer Zheng! Where are you? Come here—I’ll cover you!”

Engineer Zheng was old and couldn’t withstand a single blow.

Engineer Zheng’s muffled voice came through, “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m holding an empty box over my head.”

The surroundings were pitch black, and Ning Ge and the others couldn’t see a thing. But the Wooden Puppet Guards were unaffected.

They had no eyes to begin with, yet they could still sense Ning Ge and the others’ positions in the darkness and shoot upward with whizzing sounds.

Even Pei Han, who was usually adept at using the sound of the wind to pinpoint his location, couldn’t dodge every attack. With his attention focused on protecting Ning Ge in front of him, he soon felt several blows land on his back.

The group quickly retreated.

Before they had taken a few steps, a faint light suddenly tore through the thick, impenetrable darkness.

The light came from Owen’s hand.

He gripped the torch, and its head glowed with an eerie, ghost-like luminescence.

“It actually lit up?!” Owen exclaimed, his face filled with astonishment.

An arm lunged at him, but he punched it away. “I just concentrated really hard, trying to make it light up, and it actually worked! Is this the spiritual power in this dungeon?”

Even this small amount of light made fighting much easier.

Seeing that it worked, everyone immediately began both fighting the Wooden Puppet Guards and focusing their efforts on the torch together.

Ning Ge quietly removed her wristband.

Everyone said the women in this dungeon used spiritual power. Ning Ge suspected that removing her bracelet and transforming into an NPC might make it easier for her to do so than for a player.

As expected.

Ning Ge focused intently on the torch. Before a second had passed, the flame flickered.

The next moment, the torch flared brightly, far brighter than when Iris had lit it earlier.

The warehouse was once again bathed in light.

Pei Han was the first to figure it out. He leaned down and asked Ning Ge, “Can you use spiritual power now?”

Ning Ge wriggled out of his embrace, concealing the wrist without the bracelet with her hand. “I think I have a general sense of how it feels. I’ll try to control those limbs and things.”

Controlling the Wooden Puppet Guard parts proved far more difficult than lighting the torch. Despite her efforts, nothing happened.

“It’s okay, at least we can see now,” Pei Han said.

With the torch lit, Ning Ge immediately led the group back to the black chest with the Cornflowers they had spotted earlier. Climbing onto it, she unfastened the clasps on the spot.

She had barely lifted the lid when a wooden foot quickly squeezed through the gap.

Ning Ge slammed the lid shut.

The trapped toes: “……”

Ning Ge slightly opened the lid, let the foot retract, and secured the latch. She tossed the box to Pei Han. “Find a leg.”

The moment she opened the lid, Ning Ge had already noticed the tiny pencil writing on the ankle: “Little Husky.”

“Be careful when opening the boxes,” she warned. “They’ll try to escape.”

There was no need to worry about the wooden puppets being immobile anymore. These parts not only moved on their own, but they seemed to have a case of hyperactive disorder.

Knowing what the box containing Little Husky looked like made things much easier.

Soon, Engineer Zheng and the cross-dressing master also found several small black boxes with cornflower drawings. Each contained a leg, an arm, and a wooden torso. Ning Ge found another upper body.

Now they only needed a head and the arm Teacher Owen Su was responsible for.

However, the warehouse had been thoroughly searched.

“I found it!” the cross-dressing guy suddenly cheered, rushing to the row of empty boxes where the guard parts were stored.

He was indeed meticulous and sharp-eyed. Behind several empty boxes, he discovered hidden small black boxes with blue cornflower drawings.

The cross-dressing guy pulled out a small box. The problem was, the lid was wide open, and the inside was empty.

Where was the thing?

The others were still locked in a chaotic battle with the relentless Wooden Puppet Servants, who kept charging upward.

Ning Ge turned to look at them and saw Owen swinging a wooden arm with wild abandon. After each strike, the arm would extend its fingers in a triumphant “V” sign, looking utterly thrilled.

It had the mischievous air of someone who loved stirring up trouble.

Those boxes clearly had clasps, Ning Ge thought, so it was probably the arm that pried them open.

Engineer Zheng patted Ning Ge on the shoulder. “Still looking?”

“Yes,” Ning Ge replied. “Owen, come here.”

Owen dodged a flying torso and approached. “What is it?”

Ning Ge grabbed the wrist of the arm Owen was holding.

The arm, sensing danger, became completely unruly, thrashing wildly in her grip—nothing like its docile behavior in Owen’s hands.

As she struggled, Ning Ge spotted it: clear, messy pencil writing on the inner side of the forearm — Little Husky.

Clutching the writhing arm, Ning Ge dragged over the black leather box the cross-dressing master had found. With practiced efficiency, she shoved the arm inside, snapped the lid closed, and secured the clasp in one fluid motion.

Owen grinned. “So I didn’t have to find it—it came to me on its own.”

Another piece was found.

With all other parts now accounted for, only the head—which Ning Ge and Pei Han were responsible for—remained.