The young man opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Reason told him he should turn around and run immediately, right this instant—but his little head and his big head were locked in a fierce battle for control of his body.
Was this really a succubus?
He had been tortured eight times by demonized pigmen in the starting village, beaten up three times by slimes, and ambushed twice by goblins.
A grand total of thirteen death loops.
He had always believed that the Creator must have balanced this world's difficulty level with their feet.
Even though any random mob outside the starting village could grind him into the dirt, he had still risked his life to run out of there.
Because he wanted to see what a succubus actually looked like.
Yes, that kind of succubus—the kind with a long tail, small wings, skimpy clothes, and who would call you “Master.”
Now, he had finally seen a live one.
And yet, right now, he would rather go back and face off against those demonized pigmen.
【Warning! Succubus Lumu has noticed your presence】
【Charm Resistance Check in progress... Check failed】
【Your willpower has decreased by 87%】
【Your sanity has entered the danger zone】
【Suggestion: Close your eyes】
【Suggestion: Do not breathe】
【Suggestion: Think of Old Jack at the village entrance...】
The system notifications abruptly cut off.
Because Lumu smiled at him.
With just that one smile, the young man felt all the blood in his body rush from the soles of his feet straight to his skull, and then plunge all the way down from his forehead to a place it definitely shouldn't go.
“Oh my, what a cute child.”
Lumu licked her lips, her voice sounding like it was coated in three layers of honey and then dipped in poison. “My Lord, this little fellow looks much more interesting than the other adventurers. Why don't we...”
“Lumu.”
Chen Jiu spoke indifferently. His voice wasn't loud, but it caused the succubus's smile to freeze for half a second.
“Yes...”
Lumu immediately put away her expression of wanting to devour him alive. She obediently took half a step back, her tail drooping down submissively.
In the young man's eyes, this scene was even more shocking than the critical hit he had just taken from the succubus's bedroom eyes.
【System Notification: Abnormal data detected】
【Target: ???】
【Race: ???】
【Level: ???】
【Danger Assessment: ■■■■■■■■■■ (Data overflow)】
【Suggestion: Say no more, just run】
Run?
He wanted to run too.
But his body refused to obey his commands.
Chen Jiu looked at the young man at the door, who was shaking like a leaf. The vigilance in his heart hadn't decreased in the slightest, but his curiosity had grown a bit.
“System?”
He had clearly heard those words slip from the other's mouth just now.
It had been one thousand three hundred and eighty years.
The last time he had heard the word “system” was in his previous life, when he was huddled in his rented apartment, staying up all night grinding mobile games on his phone.
Back then, he hadn't been crushed by life yet, hadn't had a close encounter with a Dayun truck, hadn't been chased and slashed by people in the cultivation world, and hadn't crashed headfirst into a spatial rift to end up in this godforsaken place crawling with monsters.
Back then, he was just an ordinary corporate slave whose biggest daily worries were his boss demanding overtime and his food delivery being late.
Then he had died and come back to life, only to almost die again.
But the young man in front of him looked even more miserable than he had back then.
If this really was a transmigrator...
Chen Jiu narrowed his eyes, his fingers silently forming a hand seal beneath the bar counter.
An imperceptible flash of spiritual light shot from his fingertip, quietly slipping into the young man's forehead.
It was a simplified version of the Soul Search Technique.
It didn't harm the person or their soul; it merely checked if there was any spiritual energy or other messy power systems within their body.
As the spiritual light entered the body, the feedback made Chen Jiu raise an eyebrow slightly.
There was no spiritual energy, no mana, no divine brand, no elemental affinity, and certainly no blessings from evil gods. He didn't even possess the trace amounts of magicules that a three-year-old child in this world would have.
This body was as clean as a blank sheet of paper fresh from the factory—
And yet, something was operating inside him.
Invisible and intangible, yet omnipresent, it was like a dense web woven inside his body, with every thread connecting to an existence that Chen Jiu could not perceive.
Chen Jiu withdrew the spiritual light. His face remained unchanged, but a tempest of shock raged in his heart.
“Where... did you come from?”
The young man finally broke free from the lingering effects of Lumu's charm. He gasped heavily, the broken arrow in his back trembling with each breath.
He looked up at the black-haired, black-eyed face behind the counter, clad in a short black-and-white robe. The chaotic system notifications in his head finally quieted down a bit.
【System Notification: Friendly unit detected】
【Target: Tavern Owner, Chen Jiu (?)】
【Level: ???】
【Remarks: Incomplete identity information. Further investigation is recommended.】
A friendly unit?
He had just seen this owner talking and laughing with an Overlord-tier succubus without batting an eye, shutting down her terrifying aura with a single sentence.
You're telling me this guy is a friendly unit? No matter how you look at it, they're in cahoots!
System, did your brain get caught in a door?
Then again, this trash system had never been reliable since he transmigrated.
Where was his starter pack? Where was his stat-allocation panel? Where was his quest guidance?
There was absolutely nothing except a scan function and a bunch of hindsight warnings. He couldn't even scrape together a decent set of starter gear.
“I... I came from the starting village to the east.”
The young man swallowed hard, deciding to answer honestly first. “Tatar Village. It's about a day's journey from here.”
“I didn't ask which village you came from.”
Chen Jiu set down the glass he was wiping, propped his hands on the bar counter, and leaned forward slightly. “I asked, where did you come from.”
His voice was still very calm, even gentle, but the young man shivered inexplicably.
Something was wrong with this question—
It was as if the other party knew he wasn't from this world.
No way... I just escaped the starting village. Is my life in another world going to end so abruptly?
Could there actually be some kind of anti-transmigrator mechanism in this world?
The young man subconsciously took half a step back, his back hitting the doorframe. The impact pushed the broken arrow another half-inch into his flesh, making him grimace in pain.
“I... I don't quite understand what you mean...”
“You do.”
Chen Jiu stared into his eyes. There was no emotional ripple in his pitch-black pupils, yet the young man felt as if he were being scanned inside and out.
“The words you muttered at the door just now, for instance... ‘System’?”
The young man's face paled instantly.
“How... how do you know?!”
His voice cracked as he spoke. He had indeed been talking to himself outside, but at that volume, it should have been impossible to hear through the wooden door.
Even if he had been heard, how could a native of this world know what those words meant?
Unless...
“Are you—”
“I asked first,”
Chen Jiu interrupted him unhurriedly, his tone unchanged. “Answer me first. Where did you come from?”
The young man opened his mouth, his mind in complete disarray.
He had died thirteen times in this godforsaken world, resurrected thirteen times, and been chased and gnawed on by monsters thirteen times. He had never once expected someone to ask him this question.
After all, the villagers just thought of him as a rookie adventurer who wore weird gear and talked nonsense. When he occasionally blurted out words they didn't understand, they simply assumed he had been beaten silly by monsters.
The young man took a deep breath and made a bold decision.
He decided to take a gamble.
“I... I'm a transmigrator.”
The words sounded incredibly absurd the moment they left his mouth, but he forced himself to push on.
“From a place called Earth. I don't know exactly how I got here. Maybe I died, or maybe it was something else.
“Anyway, when I opened my eyes, I was lying outside the starting village with nothing but a set of ragged gear and a half-broken system.”
When he finished, he stared tensely at Chen Jiu's face, hoping to read something from that expressionless countenance, but he found nothing.
The corner of Chen Jiu's mouth twitched—just a tiny, fleeting movement that vanished in an instant.
Then, he picked up a glass on the counter, poured himself some transparent liquid, and downed it in one gulp.
“Fuck.”
The word was spoken in Chinese.
The young man's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Chen Jiu set down his glass and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. A hint of emotion finally rippled across his face.
It was a complex expression, as if he wanted to laugh but couldn't, and wanted to curse but felt it would be useless:
“Odd changes, even stays the same... how does the rest of it go? It's been too long, I've forgotten a bit.”
“Signs depend on the quadrant... That's the saying from my hometown...”
“You...”
Chen Jiu poured another glass, this time pushing it toward the young man.
“That's right. This is my second transmigration... What about you? What's your story?”
The young man's hand was still shaking as he took the glass, spilling some of the liquid onto the floor.
He didn't even bother to drink. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and he began to babble frantically:
“I don't know what happened either... I was out with my classmates until two in the morning. I'd promised my mom I'd be back before three...
“On my way home, I was riding a shared bicycle when a large truck—no, maybe it wasn't a truck, but some vehicle with its high beams on—anyway, I just went flying.
“While I was in the air, I was still thinking about how I had early self-study the next morning and wondered if I'd get disciplined. Then my vision went black, and when I opened my eyes again, I was outside the starting village. Suddenly, I had this trash system in my head telling me to go defeat the Demon King...”
“Wait.” Chen Jiu raised a hand to interrupt him. “You were hit by a vehicle too?”
It seemed road safety still had a long way to go...
Chen Jiu took a deep breath, raising his glass to clink against the young man's. “Come, take a sip. It's warm, it'll ease your fatigue.”
The young man instinctively picked up the glass and gulped it down.
His face flushed bright red in an instant.
“Water, water, water, water, water—is this alcohol?!”
“A dungeon specialty. Stinky wine.”
Chen Jiu pointed impassively at the pile of returned wine barrels under the bar counter. “Today's batch is a bit strong.”
Lumu giggled from the side, her tail swaying happily.
The young man had to chug three glasses of cold water before he finally recovered. He slumped in his chair, panting heavily, feeling as if he had just survived a sensory torture session.
But strangely, after that gulp of wine settled in his stomach, a warm current spread from his belly and quickly circulated throughout his body. A numbing sensation washed over the wound where the broken arrow was lodged in his back—
The wound was actually healing slowly. The newly growing flesh pushed the remaining half of the broken arrow directly out of his body.
“This wine...”
“It has a few extra ingredients.”
Chen Jiu toyed with the empty glass in his hand. “Now tell me, what's the deal with your system?”
The young man froze for a moment, and then, as if he had finally found his people, he blurted out everything he had experienced along the way.
Rate on N.U.
