Chapter 392: A Cold World and Cold-Blooded People
“I… I’m fine…” Qiu Ruxin instinctively spoke to me, her tone suggesting that she didn’t want to trouble me.
“Really?”
Looking at her current state, it certainly did not look fine. When I came out earlier, she seemed to have faced some thugs, indicating that something must have happened just now.
Moreover, as she spoke, I discovered another issue: I still could not understand what she was saying, but the meaning she wanted to express was conveyed through that consciousness-communicating spell.
So, Qiu Ruxin could actually communicate with me without speaking.
However, I wasn’t in a hurry to mention this.
“Um, we need to… get away from here quickly…” Qiu Ruxin struggled to get up, after all, she hadn’t forgotten her predicament. Even though the thugs had been scared off, what if we encountered others?
Or what if the thugs who ran away brought back more people to check?
So, it was not a good place to linger.
“You look pretty injured.”
I helped her get up, but her clothes were quite tattered, and there was a lot of dust on them. It was probably due to the earlier fight.
However, since she could stand up, her injuries shouldn’t be severe enough to be crippling.
Still, I used the Flesh Healing spell on her. Although this spell is suitable for wounds, it is also effective for muscle damage, bruises, etc., and has a good pain-relief effect. As for consuming a hundred magic points… I am not lacking in magic right now; with my Self-Generated Magic, I no longer need to rely solely on the slow recovery from the Magic Source.
Moreover, just when I used the Illumination spell, I realized that this world is indeed not the Main World, since there was no great weakening spell covering it. Even my Illumination spell almost turned into a flashbang just now.
As for the misfortune curse I faced when I came to this other world… it has already been blocked by the collar.
“Hey! What… what is this?” Qiu Ruxin, seeing me unceremoniously using my magic on her, was taken aback as if a power had flowed into her body, alleviating her pain from the blows she took earlier.
“Magic… magic!”
Seeing such a method, Qiu Ruxin nearly exclaimed in surprise!
Of course, the concept of magic didn’t come from this world having magicians but rather from a desire for magic that has compiled a collection of fantasy stories.
But she never expected that she would witness it with her own eyes! Although she thought the way I appeared was also within the realm of magic.
“Magic? You can interpret it that way,” I replied with a smile, trying to keep my tone gentle to avoid scaring the young girl.
“Are you… an Explorer?” After feeling that her body was mostly unhurt, Qiu Ruxin cautiously asked.
“Explorer? What is an Explorer?” I curiously examined the girl, “I just arrived and don’t understand much; could you explain it to me a bit?”
“Don’t you know?” Upon hearing my words and seeing my sincere expression, Qiu Ruxin subconsciously relaxed, “Consider it… an invader from our world… I didn’t expect you to not know this. May I ask who you are? Are you also an invader?”
“Um, I really don’t know about Explorers. As for why you’re curious about who I am, how should I put it? I guess I came here to respond to your wish,” I explained, as the concept of fortune is not easy to explain. It would be better to put it this way since being guided by fortune also seems to represent her wish.
“Responding to my wish?! Really?” Qiu Ruxin excitedly exclaimed. Though she didn’t believe in the idea of free handouts from the heavens, it didn’t stop her from fantasizing at the moment.
However, she didn’t forget everything in her excitement. After looking around for any signs of trouble, she prepared to leave with me.
“Maybe? But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. My arrival was an accident, and helping you was just a moment of kindness. However… fundamentally, my arrival is indeed related to you, so I will do my best to help you until I understand everything,” I followed her away from that trouble spot, conversing telepathically as we walked.
“I see… anyway, thanks. If it weren’t for you, I would have been…” She wasn’t dejected; after all, she never had high hopes. Just being able to survive this difficulty made her happy.
“It’s fine, what’s done is done. There’s no need to dwell on sad memories and increase internal strife. By the way, I don’t know your name yet; I’m Yang Yuelan,” I comforted her.
I asked for her name because I wanted to understand her better. Since I just arrived, I needed a friendly or neutral character to gather information about this world, and this young girl was the best choice.
“Yang Yuelan? My name is Qiu Ruxin.”
“Qiu Ruxin? Nice name,” I casually remarked, while also mentally noting how she pronounced my name earlier.
After all, I could only communicate with Qiu Ruxin through consciousness for now. If I wanted to live more conveniently in this world, I might need to learn its language.
However, I had a psychological shadow regarding learning languages, as I had poorly learned foreign languages in my past life.
But now my learning ability had improved, and with the Memory Shelf spellbook, I felt somewhat confident that I could learn their language in the short term. Still, I needed someone to teach me and help me get started; self-learning would definitely be hard.
“Really? Thanks for the compliment…” Qiu Ruxin also heard someone praising the beauty of her name for the first time.
“You’re welcome. But right now… it’s night, isn’t it?” I instinctively glanced at the sky. Although I wasn’t sure if time here was the same as the Main World, or if there was any time difference, it didn’t stop me from knowing that it was evening, “Why were you outside? Isn’t it better to sleep at home?”
“My home… doesn’t exist anymore,” she said, her mood dropping instantly.
“Would you mind telling me more? We can’t just keep wandering outside, right? There seem to be quite a few thugs out here like earlier.”
“My home… was destroyed by those guys calling themselves Explorers… not just my house, but that whole street…” As Qiu Ruxin spoke, she suddenly remembered her sorrow, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Alright, if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t force you. You don’t have a place to stay now, do you?” I quickly interrupted.
“Um…”
“So, what did you plan to do originally?”
“I thought… I would find a random place to stay for a while, but then I ran into those guys… Ah!” She was speaking pitifully, but before she could finish, she stumbled and fell to the ground.
“Huh? You fell down well,” I instinctively looked at the ground she had just tripped on, where there was a slight elevation due to a crack, indicating that the roads here had been in disrepair for years.
Although I said that, I still helped her up, and then used a Cleaning Spell to get the dirt off her.
“Th… thank you…”
“It’s fine, just be careful when walking at night,” I reminded her.
“I’m fine. I’m used to it.”
“Used to it?” I keenly noticed the key phrase. Could she be a clumsy fool? Getting used to falling on flat ground?
“I’m sorry, I meant to say this little injury is nothing,” Qiu Ruxin realized her wording was a bit off and quickly corrected herself.
“Oh, okay then. By the way, do you know of any places nearby where we can spend the night?” I assessed her situation, fearing she was going to try to make do in some unfinished building.
Though I didn’t mind, if given a choice, why not opt for something better?
“There should be hotels or inns nearby, but… I have no money…”
“No money…” Such a realistic reason, “Do you know any quick ways to make money?”
I now needed to settle down, understand this world through Qiu Ruxin, and find a way back. I wondered what the Academy Head thought about this matter. Surely, she wouldn’t just give up on me, right?
“A quick way to make money… maybe robbing,” Qiu Ruxin sighed.
“You’re a genius!” Upon hearing her dejected sigh, I couldn’t help but marvel. She wasn’t wrong; robbing indeed brings quick cash.
“Wait! I was just saying that casually. You can’t actually go robbery… it will… it will attract trouble from the investigators!” Qiu Ruxin quickly grabbed my sleeve and advised.
“Just trouble?”
“This…”
“Those thugs were very audacious just now. Why don’t the investigators catch them?” I asked curiously, after all, whether this society’s environment was chaotic or not depended on whether these bottom-tier thugs were rampant, “And we can rob their money.”
“But… can we really rob them? Can we win against them?” Qiu Ruxin asked with concern.
“Of course we can win against them.” Since Qiu Ruxin subconsciously asked whether we could rob them rather than advising me against it again, I felt this plan was feasible.
After all… this wasn’t the world I belonged to. I also had means like disguise and strong abilities; who would dare to obstruct me?
Of course, before that, I was determined to deal with those thugs, solve the accommodation issue for the night, and understand this world better. First, I needed to see if there were any powerful figures or weapons I couldn’t provoke, like nuclear weapons, firearms, etc.
It wasn’t that these weapons could k*ll me, but they could threaten me. I had many spells and means to deal with these weapons, but I couldn’t be on guard all day.
At this moment, to reassure her, I manifested a Fireball Spell in my hand.
“This! Is this the Fireball spell?” Seeing this scene, she instinctively widened her eyes.
“Pretty much. This is just my standard means, so I’m quite strong; you don’t need to worry. You just need to explain the general situation of your world to me as we walk. How does that sound?”
“Um… okay,” Qiu Ruxin ultimately nodded in agreement.
Along the way, Qiu Ruxin roughly explained a lot to me, and it wasn’t random; it consisted of some very important common knowledge.
For instance, the development history of this world; however, I wasn’t very interested, just listening a little. Then she talked about the division of countries in this world. The country we are currently in seems to be called Lanas Island, which belongs to a peninsula country and is not very large. As for the total number of countries in this world, there are probably hundreds, but Qiu Ruxin didn’t know the specific number, just estimating based on her knowledge. Moreover, so many countries have never unified, and many still have their own languages. However, there is a mainstream language throughout the world, and what Qiu Ruxin used is one of those mainstream languages—the common global language.
Hearing that there are so many countries and languages in this world gave me a headache. My plan to learn a language was almost scrapped.
Next was to understand the development of this world, which seemed to lean towards science and technology.
The strongest means here didn’t seem to include the missiles and nuclear bombs I understood; in fact, they didn’t even have those concepts yet.
But I refused to believe this, so I asked her about their energy sources to see if it was something like boiling water.
However, what I found out shocked me even more: it wasn’t about burning coal, nor was it nuclear plants, and not even electricity, but rather… a kind of power that originated from underground. From her description, it sounded somewhat like Earth Vein Energy, but something felt off. This energy could be conducted through plants, so… the technology developed in this world is essentially a branch of bio-technology—Plant Technology…
You can imagine the cultivated plant roots spreading all over the world, but these roots serve merely as conduits like electric wires?
Their function is to transmit the supply of “Earth Energy” to every household, but I still couldn’t be sure if this so-called “Earth Energy” was indeed the Earth Vein Energy.
As for weapons, although this world didn’t have firearms powered by gunpowder as I recognized, there was still a concept of guns, just activated in a different way; however, the principle was unclear to her.
After all, concepts are concepts, and language has countless ways to describe and express them. Consciousness communication is more efficient in transmitting information; after all, the information carried by language and text is indeed minimal, serving most for general communication or knowledge recording but reaching a limit for higher-level concepts where it becomes “inexpressible.”
At this moment, I had temporarily gathered this information, as discussing such common knowledge took a lot of time. The main point was… we had arrived at the “den” of those thugs.
As we approached, I also learned about why she was surrounded by the thugs, but the answer was somewhat beyond my expectations; this also made me realize the chaos in this world.
But this was temporarily unrelated to us, since our foremost task was to make money; otherwise, we wouldn’t even be able to afford lodging.
Qiu Ruxin brought me to an abandoned factory. According to her, those thugs often loiter around here, which genuinely surprised me; after all… how could I expect them to be wealthy if they didn’t even have a decent house to live in?
But I was here now; even if they were very poor, they would not be poorer than me with not a single coin to my name, right?
After disguising, I walked straight in, and it was indeed the thugs I had scared away earlier. They had returned in fear, and when I entered, I found them still telling their companions about what had just happened, looking panicked.
Unfortunately, the very person they were discussing had now arrived.
I didn’t engage in unnecessary conversation with them; these guys were no good. Even though I had only heard one-sided accounts from Qiu Ruxin on the way, who could claim innocence in this world?
With simple binding spells and silence spells, I quickly captured them all.
After a quick search, I found little money. When I previously discussed with Qiu Ruxin, I learned that this world did not have electronic payments, so the cash I found might be their entire fortune.
At that moment, Qiu Ruxin walked in.
“Huh? Didn’t I tell you to wait outside?” I spoke up.
“Sorry… I was a little worried… um, is this resolved now?” Qiu Ruxin peeked in, looking a bit guilty since I had told her to wait outside and not show her face, as she did not have any disguise and could easily be recognized.
“It’s resolved. Since we are here, let’s move on,” I waved her over.
Upon getting my response, Qiu Ruxin cautiously approached.
Looking at the struggling thugs on the ground, she noticed a few “familiar faces” and a cold glint appeared in her eyes.
But she also had to marvel at the terrifying methods of the girl named Yang Yuelan in front of her. Is this what magic is like?
Thinking of this, she instinctively swallowed; it was a thirst for power.
“These guys really don’t have as much money as I thought. There are banknotes and… what’s this?” I picked up a piece of something that felt somewhat like wood and asked.
“This is a Hard Wood Coin,” Qiu Ruxin explained in time.
“Hard Wood Coin? What an amazing thing.” I toyed with the Hard Wood Coin; its texture was quite nice, different from regular metal coins. It felt quite comfortable in hand, almost resembling a collectible. It was obvious it had been in circulation for a long time and even had a bit of wear on it.
“By the way, if a few thugs were gone, would the so-called investigators care?” I asked curiously.
“They wouldn’t care,” Qiu Ruxin paused for a moment before instinctively glancing elsewhere and speaking softly.
“Then if it were you, how would you deal with these guys?” I looked at Qiu Ruxin with a smile while playing with the Hard Wood Coin, mainly to see what choice she would make. This would influence whether I needed to restrain myself in this world.
As the saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do; in different worlds and occasions, I also need different attitudes, just like how I approach the Witch Academy, the Dream Arena, and Ninglan New City in the Main World with different mindsets.
“…” Suddenly, Qiu Ruxin fell silent. She surveyed these guys, ignoring their fearful and pleading expressions and the grotesque scenes before her, before finally acting as if she had made a firm decision and spoke.
“k*ll them…”
