Chapter 53: Cooperation
Moira Lynch’s next few days were incredibly full: cooking, working out, sun-drying wood ear mushrooms, training her spiritual power, and meditating at night.
Moira Lynch could feel her combat skills improving bit by bit.
Inside her space, looking at the target a hundred meters away, Moira Lynch confidently drew her bow and fired. The arrow hit the bullseye.
’With skills like these, I’d have been considered a young martial arts prodigy before the extreme heat.’
Her marksmanship was also improving rapidly, but with her limited supply of bullets, she didn’t dare to practice freely.
On this day, after finishing her usual workout, Moira Lynch checked on the crops she had planted on the other side of her living room. They were growing well—lush, green, and full of life.
The bok choy, in particular, was already ready to eat.
The credit for this impressive achievement wasn’t Moira’s, of course. It was thanks to the Water Wood Stone she had placed nearby.
Moira Lynch had discovered that the harsher the environment, the more pronounced the Water Wood Stone’s effects seemed to be.
Looking at the fresh, tender bok choy, Moira Lynch decided to have stir-fried bok choy for lunch.
She opened her phone to check the day’s news.
Thanks to strict government control, no major incidents had occurred recently, but petty theft was a constant problem.
Every day, people complained online about their homes being broken into and their hoarded food supplies being stolen.
However, these incidents mostly occurred in older, run-down residential complexes on the city’s outskirts. Her own building was in the city center, so things like that didn’t happen there.
Moreover, her spiritual power’s detection range had expanded significantly, revealing that there were quite a few players in her residential complex.
Surprisingly, the few families who had recently moved in were all players.
Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be up to anything. From her observations, they were fairly law-abiding; aside from constantly stockpiling supplies, they hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.
On that note, Moira Lynch had to admire them. Food was being frantically snatched up everywhere, yet these people were still able to procure so much of it.
She also had a nagging feeling that her identity as a player had likely been exposed.
People who had awakened a talent emitted a unique kind of aura.
Ordinary people couldn’t sense this aura, but those who had also awakened talents could.
It was like how a martial artist could identify another practitioner simply by their gait, habits, or even the sound of their footsteps.
After realizing this, Moira Lynch spent one hundred Gold Coins in the game’s store on a disguise item, cloaking her identity in a protective shell.
The other players living here might not seem to have any ill intentions or domineering ambitions for now, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t in the future.
For now, the players living here maintained a tacit understanding: ’I won’t expose you if you don’t expose me.’ They would just nod at each other if they happened to meet.
Moira Lynch let out her two German Shepherds. The dogs, which she had named Blackie and Ebon, had grown quite a bit. She could also issue them simple commands using her spiritual power.
But the dogs were still too young to be much of a threat.
Suddenly, Moira Lynch remembered the bloody bundle that had fallen from the sky inside the game.
’I tossed it into my space and completely forgot about it. After all this time, surely it isn’t dead, is it?’
At that thought, Moira Lynch quickly began to search for it. Not only was it not dead, but its injuries had fully healed. It was currently lying under the plant she had brought back, its eyes closed, seemingly in a deep slumber.
Just then, a knock sounded at the door.
Moira Lynch froze for a second at the sound. The knocking continued, and she glanced at the time.
’Who could that be, knocking on someone’s door in the middle of the day?’
Moira Lynch got up and looked through the peephole. The visitor was one of her new neighbors.
"Can I help you?" Moira Lynch asked, still looking through the peephole.
The person outside chuckled and said in a gentle voice, "Young lady, I mean no harm. You must be a player, right? Can we talk? Why don’t you open the door first."
Moira Lynch was left speechless.
If she hadn’t sensed that he truly meant no harm, his words—which sounded exactly like something the big bad wolf would say—would have been enough to make her call the police.
In the end, Moira Lynch opened the door.
Her front door was custom-made with three layers. She unlocked the first two, leaving a grilled security door between them.
"What is it? Go ahead," Moira Lynch said, looking at the man through the security door.
He looked to be in his twenties, with a scholarly and gentle demeanor behind his glasses. The kind of person you’d instinctively lower your guard around and feel good about.
Kai York looked at her defensive posture and said with a sigh of resignation, "Young lady, you really don’t need to be so wary of me. If we wanted to cause trouble, we would have done it long before now."
’As if you could even succeed,’ Moira Lynch mentally rolled her eyes.
"If that’s the case, then why are you here to see me now?"
Kai York’s expression turned serious. "Believe it or not, we’re just like you—we just want to live in peace. But a group is coming in the next day or two to disrupt that peace. There are too few of us to stop them on our own, so we need to ask for everyone’s help."
Moira Lynch didn’t detect any emotional fluctuations that would indicate he was lying. Furthermore, her senses confirmed that a number of people were already gathered at his apartment, with more on the way.
When Moira Lynch finally opened the security door, Kai York couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He had thought it would take a lot more effort to earn the young woman’s trust.
When Moira Lynch followed Kai York to his apartment, dozens of people had already gathered inside.
The air in the room was quite cool, but the air conditioner wasn’t on. Moira Lynch immediately guessed it was a Water-cooling Stone.
As Moira Lynch entered, everyone smiled and nodded in greeting.
Scanning the room, Moira Lynch realized she was the youngest of all the players present.
Just then, a young man with a warm smile on his face came down from the second floor.
"Hello, neighbors. My name is Shane Rhodes. I apologize for disrupting your lives, but this matter concerns all of us. I had no choice but to bring everyone together."
Shane Rhodes would have preferred not to meddle, but the residents of their complex had all purchased large amounts of food, which meant the attackers were coming specifically for them.
"One of my companions has awakened the Divination Talent, but he can only use it once a day. He just performed a divination and saw that our complex will be attacked tonight."
"They have a lot of people, so I hope we can all work together."
Moira Lynch listened to Shane Rhodes. If what he said was true, then the players really would have to cooperate.
After all, they all lived in the same complex. They understood the principle that if one falls, the others are sure to follow.
However, she was the youngest one here. It wasn’t her place to speak up, and she had no desire to be the one to stick her neck out.