met free Chapter 48 Hakimi's Big Dog Chew
Chapter 48 Hakimi's Big Dog Chew
As dusk deepened, Luo Lan slowly walked to the counter of a small, shabby inn at the end of the street in Fallen Leaf Town.
He counted out 40 copper coins and pushed them to the innkeeper, then asked for a single room that was supposedly reasonably soundproof.
Pushing open the wooden door, the dimly lit stone brick house was filled with a damp, musty smell, as if no guests had stayed there for years.
The old wooden window let in a draft, and the afterglow of the sunlight streaming in from outside had a faint purple glow, influenced by the tide of demonic energy from the Rift Ruins.
A narrow wooden bed creaked against the corner of the wall.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Luo Lan focused her gaze on herself. After a moment of concentration, a semi-transparent data panel slowly reappeared on her retina.
The data panel's style resembles the character panel in a single-player game on Earth. It's a usage of [True Sight lv.1] that Luo Lan developed in the ten days or so after leaving the underground palace.
【True Sight Lv.1】The information that can be seen is extremely detailed. When its effect is fully activated, Luo Lan's current soul level is completely unable to withstand it.
So Luo Lan used [True Sight lv.1] to select and display only information related to extraordinary abilities, creating an effect similar to a "panel".
This way, we can obtain crucial combat information without being overwhelmed by a deluge of information.
It can even complement [Condensation], allowing one to know in advance what abilities an object will gain after being [Condensed].
This saves on the cost of trial and error, avoiding embarrassing situations like being subjected to "Burning Gaze lv.0.1". It also allows you to specifically "forge" the abilities you need.
After mastering the "panel," Luo Lan also realized that the seemingly straightforward unknown entity residing in his left hand might be far more complex than it appeared.
Slowly removing the left gauntlet, he extended his right hand and placed it on the bluish-blue knuckles of his left hand's bone claw, gently stroking them a few times. At the same time, he softly called out in his mind:
"Ah Gou..."
Less than half a minute later, a very regular rubbing sound came from outside the dilapidated wooden window.
A fluffy white dog peeked out from under the windowsill.
Luo Lan waved to the window. The large white dog, comparable in size to a Samoyed, pushed off with its hind legs and nimbly and quietly darted into the house, landing steadily on the wooden floor.
The dog opened its mouth towards Luo Lan and barked a few times, but to Luo Lan, it had a different meaning:
"Observation: No traces of pursuit have been found along the roads leading to the town or at the entrance to the Ruins. Based on the analysis of data collected over 13 consecutive planetary rotation cycles, the Holy Kingdom's pursuit of you is far less intense than expected."
The cold, neutral, inorganic synthetic sound echoed in Luo Lan's mind.
"Inference: There is a 78.4% probability that the Holy Kingdom's high command was distracted by other more important matters, or that an unknown third party helped cover up their whereabouts."
Luo Lan nodded; Gouzi's analysis was exactly what he had guessed.
Although the [Mark of Sin - Remnant] has lost its ability to locate, and during this period of travel, Luo Lan has tried his best to avoid all routes where he might encounter members of the Holy Church.
The Holy Kingdom's reaction to the resurrection and defection of a "former hero" and "genius paladin" who could be considered a national strategic talent is too calm; there must be something fishy going on.
Regardless of the hidden reasons, Luo Lan is happy with the current situation.
He gestured to the dog again:
"Hmm... let's switch back to energy-saving mode then. We don't have enough Holy Light to use freely right now."
The large white dog barked again in response.
The next second, a faint blue light suddenly appeared in its dark, bean-shaped dog eyes.
Immediately afterwards, the thick white fur covering its body twisted and disappeared instantly, like a projection of a power outage, revealing a metallic biological skeleton underneath, emitting eerie blue flames.
With a series of crisp "click-clack" sounds, the metal skeleton, originally the size of a medium to large dog, began to shrink and rearrange violently, quickly reassembling into the skeletal structure of a small feline.
The excess skeletal components detached automatically, tracing arcs through the air as they flew towards Luo Lan. Luo Lan skillfully caught them and stuffed them into the storage space built into the cross pendant on her chest.
The cat skeleton, also emitting blue flames, was transformed by another burst of light and shadow, and soft fur with gradient colors appeared out of thin air, perfectly covering the surface of the skeleton.
In the blink of an eye, the big white dog had transformed into an elegant and adorable little Ragdoll cat.
It leaped lightly and landed directly on Luo Lan's lap. It meowed once.
"Affirmative: Your proposal to disguise yourself as a pet, using the carbon-based organism's habitat as cover, is reasonable and efficient."
Looking at the furry little thing on her leg, even though she knew it was all an illusion, Luo Lan couldn't help but reach out to pet it.
The touch was extremely unpleasant; his palm passed right through the projected hair and touched the rough, bony skeleton. A panel then appeared before Luo Lan's eyes:
Name: Victor Necronomicon
[Race: Star Undead]
[Class: Lich]
Rank: ?
Specialties: Data vision, precision operations, psionic communication, philosophical thinking, rationality...
[Skills: Undead Assembly lv.9, Soul Splitting Possession lv.5, Death Aura Conversion lv.3, Optical Camouflage lv.2...]
[Status: Optical Camouflage (camouflage in effect), Death Seal Protocol (Target: Roland)]
[Fate Skill:? 】
【law:?】
【field:?】
Although the Ragdoll cat in front of me looks like an adorable "pet".
But looking at the [? Rank] and [Lich] class on the panel, Luo Lan dared not be careless at all.
Luo Lan learned from the common sense of "eating books" that the common [liches] in this world are not much different from the stereotypical images in Blue Star literature: black magic, summoning skeletons, and keeping company with the dead...
However, Victor, whose race is the [Starbuckling Necromancer] [Lich], is clearly not an exception.
In Luo Lan's view, Victor's language habits and abilities made him seem more like a cybernetic life form than a magical creature.
Every time Luo Lan interacted with Victor, he was a little confused about whether the art style of this other world was fantasy or science fiction.
Not to mention the numerous pieces of information displayed on the "panel," which put Luo Lan on guard.
[True Sight lv.1] When viewing objects of a higher rank than yourself, the amount of information displayed will be reduced accordingly.
However, Victor's [? rank] only indicates that its true rank is far higher than Luo Lan's current [silver rank].
Not to mention [Life Skills], [Laws], or [Domains], Luo Lan had never seen them in anything other than Victor.
However, given the existence of the [Death Seal Agreement], Luo Lan doesn't mind "cooperating" with it for a while.
To facilitate his movements, Luo Lan asked Victor to put on a layer of [Optical Camouflage lv.2] for him.
This [Optical Camouflage] is the skill that created the illusory muddy ground sealed at the entrance of the water curtain that Luo Lan saw in the underground river of the underground palace.
Through the [Optical Camouflage] released by Victor, Roland made himself look more mature and also changed the appearance of his eye-catching full set of paladin heavy armor.
So along the way, the passersby who were pondering the wanted poster of Roland's youthful appearance only saw a middle-aged, down-on-his-luck man with a weathered face.
While passing through some wilderness areas, Luo Lan picked up a few pieces of slightly sturdier monster bones by the roadside.
Viktor used [Dead Remains Assembly lv.9] to piece together these broken pieces into a vessel that could barely hold a few strands of his consciousness.
After transferring part of his consciousness from the blue knuckle-shaped soul stone on Luo Lan's left hand through [Soul Splitting Possession Lv.5], Victor, disguised as a small animal, took on the tasks of scouting, providing early warning, and acting as a night sentinel.
Over time, Victor provided a considerable amount of assistance to Luo Lan during his escape.
So despite remaining somewhat wary, Luo Lan still stroked the Ragdoll cat on her lap again:
"Cat, come down..."
The Ragdoll cat's projected fluffy ears noticeably twitched backward, and it meowed in dissatisfaction.
"To reiterate: Please address me as Victor, not as any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Correction: Pronouns like 'Tom, Dick, or Harry' do not contain any substantial information and fail to reflect my function as a higher inorganic life form."
As the Ragdoll cat nimbly jumped to its ground, it angrily swung its tail hard at Luo Lan's wrist.
"In addition, I suggest you stop the interaction you just did that went through the holographic optical projection. What you were rubbing was my third joint of the scapula, which does not produce any pleasure."
Luo Lan answered very quickly:
"Okay, Ah Cat, no problem, Ah Cat."
It wasn't that Luo Lan was deliberately being mischievous or picking a fight; he just felt that calling such a soft and cute Ragdoll cat "Victor," a name that sounded cold and hard, was really too awkward. So he took it upon himself to give Victor's two everyday forms nicknames.
As someone who's terrible at coming up with names, Luo Lan initially wanted to call it "Hakimi" and "Big Dog Chew," but unfortunately, no one in the world could pick up on Luo Lan's self-amusing jokes, which is why it now has the nickname "Cat and Dog."
The Ragdoll cat's whiskers twitched twice, as if it were hissing or meowing:
"Warning: The energy dissipation index is rising in the rifts of the border mountains next to the town."