MoP: Ch. 154

---Third POV---

Garble had been suspicious for a while.

This twisted system that clashed completely with the game's worldview... Why did it suddenly appear on him right after the violet-haired siren showed up?

And after seeing his strange behavior, she didn't even question it.

So it was her doing.

A player disguised as an NPC? Or an Easter egg from the game developers?

Question after question popped up in his mind.

He waited patiently.

With such a detailed strategy system, he actually knew her personality quite well.

Thanks to the favorability he had farmed over the past few days, he was confident he could pry some intel about the "strategy system" out of her.

Just as the siren's expression began to waver, the grass nearby rustled. A wavy orange-haired female siren emerged from the bushes.

She stared at Garble's hand around the violet-haired siren with hostility.

"What are you two doing?!"

At the same time, a cold system voice rang out:

[Target of strategy is very angry. Issuing Level 3 Warning: Right hand will lose sensation for ten minutes!]

What the hell!

So close!

Because his right hand went numb, the violet-haired siren broke free from his embrace.

She frowned slightly.

"You know Selina?"

[Target's mood is low. Level 1 Warning triggered.]

Garble's expression was as serene as death.

"Just met her today."

Oh right, he forgot to mention, he didn't have just one system.

Earlier, NeverShowOff had given him a location, saying Gaeman had detected siren activity there.

Today, he managed to sneak in and confirm it was a base belonging to the White Dove Ensemble's sirens.

Unfortunately, he ran into the orange-haired siren in the process.

Congratulations, he now had a second siren strategy system.

Same rewards, same punishments, but doubled in intensity and pain.

That's why he was in such a hurry to find a way to deal with the system.

Otherwise... He'd eventually get zapped into a masochist for two-timing in the strategy system.

Selina walked up to Garble, her eyes locked tightly onto the violet-haired siren, who stared right back without backing down.

Garble silently averted his gaze to the side, to a flower glowing blue at the roadside. Suddenly, the garden that Claude had boasted to be over a thousand square meters felt so cramped, so suffocating he could barely breathe...

The suffocating silence finally broke.

Selina narrowed her eyes. "Human, come here!"

Compared to the violet-haired siren, every move she made oozed indescribable allure and danger, like the most lethal poppy.

Even the system's prompts were blurred:

[Target is angry. Level 1 Warning!]

Garble shuddered from the electric jolt and cautiously chose not to move.

The next second, the violet-haired siren grabbed his left hand.

"You can't go!"

[Target probably realizes the connection between you and Selina. She's heartbroken. Level 1 Warning!]

A small current shot through Garble from head to toe. He jolted hard.

He couldn't help but say, "How about… we sit down and talk this through?"

Unfortunately, no one cared about anything he said that wasn't a choice.

Selina raised her chin.

"Hannah, are you trying to steal him from me?"

[Target is extremely irritable. Level 2 Warning!]

"Sss—" White smoke drifted off Garble's skin.

Hannah stepped in front of him.

"I found him first! And our relationship is very stable. You're the third wheel!"

Unlike the little crybaby she was inside, her outward aura was just as strong as her words.

[Target is slightly afraid. Selina is the leader of their siren squad. She needs you to make a firm choice. Choose now!]

[Host is passive and negligent. Level 1 Warning!]

The tension between the two sirens was getting worse and worse.

Selina crossed her arms.

"So what? You're just a fledgling siren. Once he sees your true self, he'll be disgusted by your weakness."

"No one would like a brute like you!" Hannah shot back instantly.

"Say that again?"

"I-I'll say it again! When we get back, I'll definitely report your behavior to—"

Smack!

Selina slapped her across the face, sending her flying.

CRACK.

A three-meter-tall purple woody flower was snapped clean in half from the force of the impact.

She erupted with terrifying momentum, her long hair billowing around her.

She looked down at Hannah lying on the ground.

"Say that again?"

Off to the side, Garble, his hair frizzed from electric shocks and now slightly charred, stood frozen.

What the hell?

They're fighting?!

Hannah stumbled back to her feet.

Though disheveled, she didn't even have a scratch, especially compared to the wrecked vegetation around her.

At the same time, her own aura began to surge.

"So that's all you've got! You might be twenty years older than me, but that doesn't mean your talent's better!"

Swish!

Selina flipped through the air, and three crescent-shaped holes suddenly appeared in the nearby wooden plank.

The next second...

"Hum..."

A hauntingly chant flowed from Hannah's mouth.

Green sap oozed from the crushed plants and condensed mid-air into sharp icicles, launching like arrows.

Selina leapt aside, her skirt's striped ribbon slashed clean off.

She paused, then her aura flared even more intensely, and she began chanting in response.

Plants within a three-meter radius shot up from the ground, stabbing toward Hannah.

"Ah!"

Hannah cried out, clutching her right arm tightly as blue blood seeped between her fingers.

Selina lifted her chin proudly. "That's your so-called talent?"

"It's not over yet!" Hannah growled, her eyes fierce, blood droplets floating in mid-air against gravity.

"Go!" she shouted.

The blood beads launched like cannonballs.

Even though Selina dodged in time, one bead still exploded on impact with the ground. The two flew into the sky, battling as they hurled insults at each other.

"I liked him ever since I saw his projection in the Opportunist Trial! Running into him at our base, that's fate from the Love Goddess!"

"If you hadn't appeared, we'd already be lovers by now!"

"Exactly! It just proves the Love Goddess favors me more!"

Their fierce attacks hit the ground with literal sparks.

Meanwhile, Garble, vomiting and nearly passing out from system punishments, had to dodge the chaos raining from above.

He fled below in a complete mess.

The surreal, melodic singing, the sirens' shouting match, the overturned soil, and flying roots...

The entire scene was ridiculous... and painful.

He had only one thought in his head, Can you two please stop fighting?!

Couldn't they just use some force and finish it in one blow?

Otherwise, the one who suffered the most would still be him, trapped between two sadistic systems!

He made a hopeless attempt to break them up.

"Hailey... eh, girl, let's all calm down a bit!"

Suddenly, the two figures froze mid-air.

Hannah stared at Garble, stunned, tears rapidly welling in her eyes.

"What did you call me? You still don't know my name?! Even now?!"

"…"

A puff of smoke ringed from his mouth, courtesy of a Level 2 punishment, his face ashen.

Oh no. He was doomed.

As everyone knows, the more anxious you are, the easier it is to make mistakes.

Two sirens, who could hurl a person several meters away using just physical strength, were now fighting.

The one suffering the most was the person being electrocuted and roasted, right hand just regaining feeling, while repeatedly receiving level 3 warning messages in corrupted code.

To quickly resolve the fragile emotional clash caused by the two sirens meeting...

And to stop them from continuing to destroy Claude's garden, jeopardizing his undercover mission... He had no choice but to step in and try to mediate.

But when he targeted the slightly weaker violet-haired siren, his usually meticulous mind slipped.

He accidentally blurted out what he personally called her in his head.

Hannah slowly landed, her fingers covering her face, tears streaming down like broken pearls.

"You don't know my name?"

Garble hurriedly waved his hands.

"No, you definitely misheard me!"

"Then tell me, what's my name?"

"..."

He paused. Should he just guess?

Regret swelled in his heart. He really had been on break too long, he would never have made such a rookie mistake before.

Selina curled her lips into a smile.

"Seems like the feelings between you two are even more fake than seafoam."

Tears splashed onto her clothes like little bursts of water. Hannah couldn't stop crying.

"So the hugs and kisses earlier… were fake too?"

"..."

Wasn't it possible that if he had refused earlier, he would've definitely received a level 2 or higher passive-resistance penalty?

But of course, he couldn't say that out loud, he had to swallow the bitterness.

"I can explain—"

"Then explain!" Hannah interrupted instantly.

Garble was caught off guard. "Uh…"

Shouldn't this kind of scene usually go, "I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it"?

Why wasn't it playing out like he imagined?

"Let me help explain it."

Selina landed in front of Garble.

"True love doesn't depend on who came first. Just like how, even though we only met yesterday, he was able to say my name correctly!"

She turned to look at Garble.

Their eyes met, seemingly filled with emotion.

At this point, sweating was the least of his concerns. He was starting to question his entire understanding of sirens.

It was one thing if the violet-haired siren was just a regular siren, but orange-haired siren sounded like she was at least 20 years older than her.

Why was her brain also full of romance?

Who falls in love with someone they've seen only twice in a single day?!

What kind of hopeless romantic thinking was this?

Just like how he still had no idea how the two sirens even fell for him in the first place.

After a long silence, Selina's expression lost some of its confidence.

The smile at her lips faded, and she urgently whispered a reminder, "At White Dove's base, when we first met and locked eyes, someone called out my name. I had just returned from patrol in the north, and the first thing we said was—"

Garble's gaze remained calm.

No matter how many warning sounds blared from the various strategy systems in his ears, he refused to open his mouth.

Because honestly, if he could remember it, he would've said it already. Rather than crush both sirens' last hopes by blurting something out, he'd rather play dead and stall for time.

On the game panel and in his private chat with NeverShowOff, a new message stood out:

[Urgent! Return ASAP!!! The address you gave earlier, something's fishy about the northern building. Check it out if you can. I'm preparing for death now]

Not long after he sent that, both sirens' eyes dimmed at the same time, like stars being snuffed out.

The voices of two systems rang out simultaneously:

[Due to the target's... sigh, whatever, not worth saying, anyway, affection has decreased.]

[Issuing Level 4 Warning: Full-body sensory sensitivity increased by 50%! Duration: 30 minutes.]

Garble took a deep breath.

"You're all perverts!"

Couldn't they just use real punishments? Like blades, blood, and decisive death?

Now it was sensitivity again, how much lower could their standards go?!

---

"Okay, Order #231, finalized."

The expanded and renovated weapon factory was still cluttered with spare parts, looking particularly crowded.

Outside the door of a partitioned room, three or four players were lined up.

ProGamer_Daddy, shirtless and sweating, slicked back his messy damp hair.

He slapped the order on the table.

"The bike you wanted is done. You can check the results at the station on the left, but the forest terrain's a mess, don't expect it to last forever."

The player across from him accepted it joyfully.

"Finally! I've waited a whole week, my baby ride is ready!"

The next player stepped in and leaned on the workbench cluttered with all kinds of triangular rulers, questioning him:

"Daddy, the composite crossbow I ordered last week still isn't done. What gives?"

"Weapons take longer," ProGamer_Daddy waved dismissively. "And just because it's small doesn't mean it's easy to make."

"The parts for the ball-bearing mechanism only finished production yesterday. Come back tomorrow."

The player left reluctantly.

"You better have it ready tomorrow! I'm just waiting to change to the crossbow class!"

"Yeah yeah, got it!"

ProGamer_Daddy didn't even look up.

"Next!"

"That would be me," Viktor said, rolling in on a wheelchair.

"Huh? That voice sounds familiar..."

ProGamer_Daddy reluctantly looked up from the half-finished new blueprint, eyes lighting up with surprise.

"Viktor! You're alive!"

He immediately dropped his pen and jumped out from behind the workbench.

He scanned Viktor from top to bottom using the standard player gesture, confirming that there was no death countdown on Viktor's player ID.

Only then did he fully relax.

"Whew, the server's still got hope."

"...I appreciate your concern for your lord's safety, but I'm here for another reason."

Viktor didn't waste words. He raised a hand, signaling for Zycotl to toss the orc tied to the back of his wheelchair onto the ground.

"I want you to handle someone for me."

"Mmph! Mmph—!"

The feline beastman, who had been paraded around in public humiliation for half an hour, still let out two growls of warning from deep in his throat.

ProGamer_Daddy was surprised.

"Oh? Still growling at you? What is this, a cat or a tiger? Do we discriminate against beastfolk in our territory?"

Since sirens weren't considered beastfolk, this was likely his first time seeing a live beastfolk up close.

He was impressed.

In this game, no NPC who had met Viktor wasn't terrified of him.

Even now, many of the early residents of Nary Town still gave him a wide berth.

And this guy had the nerve to show hostility the first time meeting the faction's leader?

Wasn't he afraid of getting wiped and restarted?

Viktor's voice was calm.

"You'd have to ask him that. But he just tried, and failed, to assassinate me. Probably not in the mood to answer your questions."

"He tried to assassinate you?!"

ProGamer_Daddy's grin vanished instantly, replaced with shock.

"Why haven't you reset him yet?!"

"The first guy to try and kill you, if you don't take him out fast, the attacks will just keep coming!"