Life Game In Other World
Chapter 351: Craft Store (Please Subscribe, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 351: Chapter 351: Craft Store (Please Subscribe, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

The blood-red sky enveloped everything, and the incessant whispering echoed in He Ao’s ears.

The mountains and dense forests that had once been present had disappeared naturally, leaving only the endless blood-red of the entire world.

The grating and deranged mutterings continued to echo; they were like mad insects, hovering around He Ao’s ears, trying to burrow into them, into his brain.

He Ao felt as though his body had fallen into an endless abyss, with the whispers tugging at him, trying to pull him into eternal madness.

And in that haziness, he vaguely sensed the presence of other people in this blood-red world.

His rate of descent grew faster and faster.

Until the moment he was about to reach the deepest part of the abyss, he suddenly opened his eyes.

Bright sunlight shone on He Ao’s cheeks.

This was a room in a chain express hotel in the North District.

Most hotels in the Federation would ask for a passport number or a social security card number for identity verification upon check-in.

And where there are those that require identity information, naturally, there are also those that do not.

Some chain hotels allow guests to check in without registering their identity, but they require a higher deposit.

The hotel where He Ao was staying was one such hotel.

He rolled over to sit up from the bed, walked towards the bathroom, turned on the cold tap, scooped up a handful of water, and splashed his face.

Cold water could no longer cause a chill to He Ao’s body, but psychologically, splashing water on his cheeks still gave him a momentary clarity.

After entering the wilderness, he had hardly closed his eyes to rest, either bustling for promotion and Secret Medicine or on the hunt for exotic beasts.

Now, the issue with the Secret Medicine was temporarily resolved, and he had checked into a hotel last night for a night’s rest.

Transcendents themselves do not need sleep for their physical conditions, but sleep can help soothe the weariness of the soul, and,

make one feel more human.

That insane whispering was still there when He Ao opened his eyes, just much softer.

And every time He Ao closed his eyes, the whispering immediately grew loud again.

If this was anyone else, they might have already been driven mad by the whispers.

As He Ao’s rank increased, his connection with this blood-colored world grew stronger, and the whispers in his ears grew louder, clinging to him like a bone-deep disease.

He Ao dried off his cheeks with a towel, changed his clothes, donned his dual swords and the Mithril Test Tube, moved the wardrobe blocking the door, and pulled open the room’s door.

——

The old streets were bustling with traffic, their passing glimmers reflecting one by one on the shop’s worn mirrors, blurring the line between reality and illusion.

A young man wearing a mask and clad in a snow-white windbreaker looked up.

Above him, a gigantic sign flickered with a faint glow.

[Sincerity Crafts Store]

This was the craft shop that had sold the Ancient Sword to Nell at an extremely low price.

During Nell’s last visit, though the shop was doing poorly, there were still customers browsing, and it was operating normally.

In just a few days, a large lock now secured the door tightly, and there wasn’t a soul inside the craft store.

However, the shop’s internal display hadn’t much changed; the crafts, the exhibits were still in their original places.

This shop had simply closed temporarily.

He Ao walked up, tapped lightly on the shop door, and called out a few times, but there was no response from inside.

It seemed there really was no one there.

For some reason, He Ao always felt there was something odd about this craft store.

So before everything started, he specifically came back to investigate.

The process by which Nell obtained the Ancient Sword was exceptionally smooth, as if someone deliberately wanted to give him the sword.

Considering it from another angle, Nell’s inspiration was high enough that he might have been able to trigger the ’Divine Inspiration’ hidden within the Ancient Sword.

But some things have different effects on different people.

For He Ao, the whisperings he heard in that mysterious realm were nothing more than a tickling irritation, which he could easily resist and even leave freely.

For the former Nell, however, such ’tickling’ could have easily driven him into madness. Even if he survived these whisperings, facing the dead Divine Being at the deepest part of that realm would have instantly driven him insane.

If not for He Ao’s arrival, it was highly likely that Nell, wielding that Ancient Sword, would eventually descend into madness, becoming nourishment for that deceased Divine Being.

From this perspective, the Ancient Sword was not a ’Blessing,’ but a ’Curse.’

It was just that He Ao had slightly better resistance and managed to find the ’Blessing’ within the Curse.

That’s why He Ao thought of coming back to this craft store.

He wanted to know if the crafts store owner had sold the Ancient Sword to Nell out of ignorance and kindness, or if there was another motive.

The crafts store owner was not there; He Ao searched but couldn’t contact the person—the owner seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.

After pondering for a moment, He Ao went to another place associated with the Ancient Sword.

······

Church Middle School

Even in a completely dark life, there are occasional flashes of light.

At Church Middle School, Nell had the happiest three years of his life.

Under the protection of his older brothers and sisters, he was carefree and only needed to focus on studying.

He did well academically, was liked by teachers and classmates alike, and even had high hopes placed upon him by the priest.

Deep down, Nell really did not want to doubt the priest, who held an important place in his few happy memories.

It was precisely because of the priest’s favor and love that he was able to avoid being bullied at the church school.

However, it was this priest who had gifted Nell the cross, and it was upon seeing that cross that the crafts store owner decided to sell an item related to the deceased Divine Being to Nell.

He Ao infiltrated the Church Middle School and expertly found his way to the priest’s office, the one in charge of the school.

However, the person sitting in the office now was no longer the familiar face Nell knew but a chubby, kind-looking priest.

After asking around in the school, He Ao learned that the priest had been transferred shortly after Nell graduated.

No one knew where he went, and over the years, the Church Middle School saw several different priests, with the current chubby one being the third.

The man was gone, leaving no trace.

The previous kind and elderly priest seemed to have left nothing behind and apparently hadn’t gifted any other children with a black cross.

He Ao pulled out the dark cross from his chest.

Could it really be that he was overly suspicious?

The receiving of the cross and the purchase of the Ancient Sword happened four years apart; it could arguably be explained as a coincidence.

But all of this was too coincidental.

Yet the situation hadn’t exceeded He Ao’s expectations. He hadn’t intended to find any critical information in these two places to begin with, and now the oddity of the crafts store instead somewhat confirmed his hypothesis.

After leaving the Church Middle School, he found a few members of the Ice Wolf Gang and through some ’warm and amicable’ conversation, he obtained the address of the ’Eisen’ family who had allegedly captured the big brother and second sister.

The entangled webs of power in Rock City formed a dense network; pulling one thread often revealed scenery at the other end.

He Ao had a premonition that all these ’clues’ were actually interconnected.