Four Split Personalities

After the call was hung up, he felt as if he had just been fished out of water.

"Oh my life!"

He staggered to the couch and threw himself onto it, crying out in utter despair, "What on Earth am I doing!"

Then he lay there, playing dead for two minutes. As for what he thought about in those 120 seconds, because the reasoning and logic were too chaotic, let’s not elaborate further here.

In short, when he finally remembered why he had made that call, he suddenly realized that the aunt’s words didn’t confirm whether Yu Chen was in or out. After all, ’inconvenient to pick up the call’ could mean a lot of things, whether she was inside a game pod or in the bathroom, both were plausible. If it was the former, then Yu Chen clearly hadn’t logged off; if it was the latter...

"Aaaah!!"

Having thought about it subconsciously, Motan rolled off the couch and started headbutting the ground: "What am I even thinking!!!"

In a sense, his harvest from logging off this time was virtually nil. He had failed to confirm anything he wanted to know, though he did have a few minutes of dreadful conversation with Yu Chen’s mother (if that could even be called a conversation).

A few minutes later, having calmed himself down a bit, he lay back down in the game pod, feeling even more anxious than before.

...

Game Time PM23:41

The sky, which had been dyed a fiery red up to two hours ago, was plunged back into darkness, and the Sandwa City, having burned for two hours, no longer had flames rising into the sky, replaced instead by billowing black smoke, so dense that it was visible from a hundred meters away even under a sky devoid of stars.

"It’s almost extinguished."

Cordova, who had met up with the main force an hour ago, came over to Motan and gently patted his shoulder, "When are we going in?"

Motan took a deep breath of the somewhat acrid air and replied softly, "Soon."

In a few minutes, the thick smoke and ashes in the city wouldn’t cause much harm to everyone anymore.

Then the coalition forces would reopen the city gates. Cordova, Guxiaole, Ger, Paula, along with two hundred and sixty daredevil players in the vanguard, Holy Knight Order on the flanks, and three combat sequences plus one reserve sequence in the middle, would face a fierce battle with the remaining mutants.

If nothing unexpected... or rather, no miracle happened, the contingent with Snow Mane and three other High Order Righteous Knights, as well as Tero’s royal guards, had been wiped out. Even if the roaring flames hadn’t burned them alive, even if the suffocating smoke hadn’t choked them to death, the mutants were enough to overrun them...

Including Motan, nobody saw a chance for their survival.

As for Yu Chen... if she followed the plan to log off and waited to log back on after the real-world midnight, she would naturally avoid the disaster. And Motan indeed hadn’t been able to contact her during this time because in the game ’The Realm of Innocence,’ there is no indication of being online or offline. So while it’s likely that Yu Chen had logged out...

She might’ve also chosen to ignore those messages.

Because a player’s ID and faction hardly change even if they rebuild their character, so Motan couldn’t rely on the top entry in his friends list labeled [Morning Forgotten Language/Absolute Neutrality].

[Indeed, I’m still really worried...]

Motan sighed. Facing the gazes of Cordova, Knights Ger and Feather Song, Paula, Guxiaole, Luna, and others, he slowly turned around and walked up to the rigidly formed square, nodded to the eager faces before him, and with a slightly flushed face, he began, "Um, I am Hei Fan."

The crowd watched him quietly and with confusion, barely hearing what he said...

Feather Song shook her head, walking up behind Motan and ripping open an Amplification Scroll.

To facilitate smooth command, the coalition forces had practically cleared out all Amplification Art scrolls from the magic guilds in Misha County in the last half month.

"Ah, sorry about that..."

Motan smiled apologetically, his somewhat awkward voice now amplified many times over by the Amplification Art, reaching everyone’s ears.

There was no grandeur, no unyielding resolve, no cold decisiveness. In both voice and demeanor, he seemed like just an ordinary guy-next-door.

He seemed like a friend who would skip class to hang out with you...

He seemed like a neighbor who would smile and greet you when you meet by chance...

He seemed like a traveler passing by you in a hurry...

He seemed like a jogger who would nod to you during a morning run...

In short, he did not seem like a commander who could lead such a rag-tag crowd through the calamity they faced.

Honestly, when Cordova had secretly messaged Motan suggesting he should say something, at first, Motan wanted to refuse. But after thinking it over, he felt he really should say something.

So there he was, standing up in the final few minutes before the battle, stepping in front of everyone.

"I am Hei Fan, your half-assed commander," he announced again, then looked into the steadfast and solemn eyes before him for over half a minute, suddenly scratching his head, "I suddenly don’t know what to say. Uh, everyone had their meals, right?"

"Pfft!"

Feather Song, standing behind him, burst out laughing then and there. Ger and the others also couldn’t help but grin, while the warriors, though they were not exactly imposing, they still beamed with mirth.