IBHJ Chapter 893

"So Mom actually wanted to make up with me for a long time," Mordred thought, "but she didn't know if I was still mad, cause she hurt me before in Camelot. This must be her way of saying sorry. She even made a paper for it! Silly Mommy."

Without hesitation, she signed her name and even added a little handprint.

"Here, Mom."

"What a good girl." He took the certificate, patted her head, and carefully tucked it into his pocket.

Watching him turn away, his shoulders shaking, she thought her mom must be overjoyed. Now that her feelings were confirmed, the icy barrier between them would surely melt.

But then...

Why was it so cold all of a sudden?

Was the window open?

Mordred shivered.

"Mom, I'm cold."

"Then let's sleep together, good girl."

"But I can't sleep. Tell me a story."

"Such a demanding child. Alright, I'll tell you an old and interesting story. It's about a temple on a mountain, with an old monk and a young monk. One day, the old monk said to the young monk..."

"What did he say, Mom?" she asked eagerly.

"The old monk said, a long, long time ago, there was a temple on a mountain, and in the temple lived an old monk and a young monk..."

Mordred: "..."

...

"Stay away from me! Aaaahhhh!"

A scream, followed by the sound of metal slicing through flesh, pierced the night.

Then, blood splattered.

A lifeless body crumpled to the ground.

"Boom!"

A thunderclap crossed the sky, briefly illuminating the darkness of the night.

Outside the inn, Altera stood expressionless over a pile of corpses, the Sword of Mars in her hand. She looked up at the blood moon.

After realizing these people meant Shirou harm, she had transformed into a predator, cutting them down in the darkness. Of course, it helped that they were low-level. And "cutting them down" wasn't entirely accurate. After she killed them, they quickly respawned nearby, took one look at her, and ran for their lives.

But from their brief conversations, she'd learned something important. It seemed Shirou was a target because of the unique item, God's Brain, he'd gotten for clearing the Hell-level newbie quest.

These were just low-level scouts. High-level players, even Level 9 experts from Sanctuary, were on their way.

Altera didn't know much about this game, but she'd studied Morrigan's guide beforehand, so she understood the basic structure. Sanctuary was a high-level zone where the strongest players roamed, and it was the main force opposing Emperor Frieza in the game's lore.

The low-level players were no problem for now, but if those Sanctuary experts showed up, Altera wouldn't be able to stop them from going after Shirou.

What should she do? The only option was to figure out why they were targeting him in the first place.

With that in mind, she went to the respawn point and grabbed the last player to revive.

"Miss, I'll give up Evil Flower to you. Please spare me, I don't have many respawns left." The player was terrified.

It wasn't death he feared, but the reverse growth penalty that came with it – in some ways, it was worse than death.

"How did you know Evil Flower was here?" she asked, her voice flat.

Her heart was kind, but her inability to express emotions made her seem terrifying, especially to this player.

"It, it was a system message... didn't you get it?"

"No."

"That, that's impossible... All players across the continent should have received the system message!"

The player showed Altera the message.

[System: Player Evil Flower has appeared in the Dark City of Zaun, at coordinates 7441.14 in an inn. Please go to intercept. Successfully killing player Evil Flower will have a high chance of dropping a server-unique item...]

Seeing this, she finally understood. The system had given away their location!

But why hadn't she, also a player, received this system message? Was she being excluded on purpose? Altera didn't know, but the gravity of the situation was clear.

"How many of you came?" she asked the player, her gaze intense.

"I don't have a guild or a team, I play solo. I'm not sure how many are in Zaun, but I heard Level 9 experts are here, planning to form a group to hunt Evil Flower. That's why we rushed over. Please, spare me!" The player pleaded desperately.

Altera hadn't expected high-level players to be in Zaun already, organizing to hunt them down.

Under normal circumstances, she could use her Noble Phantasm to fight back. But the rules of reality were warped in this South American connection point, limiting her power. She could only fight by the game's rules.

After a moment's thought, she said, "Take me to where they're meeting, and I'll let you go."

"Alright," the player quickly agreed, leading her towards the southern part of Zaun.

Thousands of people had gathered there – all players. Most were low-level, but a fair number of Level 9 players were mixed in. The highest level among them was a woman covered in gold jewelry, passionately giving a speech at the center of the crowd.

"Everyone! I am the one true king of this world. All treasures belong to me, and I won't tolerate those who try to take them without my permission..."

The woman was spouting nonsense, but the players listening to her were cheering her on. There was no mistaking it, though – this woman was a Level 9 player.

She was also the strongest opponent of Altera's friend, Artoria Pendragon, the one she was hunting.

—[The One King, Human, Lv9]!

How can I save Artoria from this Level 9 player? Altera wondered. But unbeknownst to her, while she was pondering how to stop the group, two high-level players had already infiltrated the inn.

"Gilgamesh is too much, spending real money on a teleportation talisman to get here from Sanctuary before us. He wants to grab Evil Flower first. Hmph, good thing I have one too, or he'd have beaten us to it!"

"Sis, shouldn't we look for Sh...Artoria and Altera first, instead of doing this? Besides, killing for treasure... this is wrong, I refuse to participate."

"Killing for treasure is the whole point of this game. Honestly, Shirou, when did you get as uptight as Artoria? Tell you what, you guard the door, and I'll do the hunting. But when the items drop, you have to give them to me, okay~?"

Late at night, Illya, dressed formally, entered Shirou's room with a troubled expression.

"What's wrong, Illya? You look worried," Shirou, lying in bed, glanced at her with a puzzled look.

Mordred also popped out from under the covers, her eyes wide with innocent confusion as she looked at her.

Illya hesitated for a moment before saying, "I have a bad feeling about this inn."

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Intuition is something that's hard to explain and often defies logic. After inheriting Artoria's intuition, he never doubted his "gut feelings," and he trusted Illya's intuition just as much. This was because Illya, as a "beast-person," possessed a Beast-kin skill called "Bestial Instinct."

Although the name might suggest the game developers' questionable taste towards the Beast-kin race, it couldn't diminish the incredible nature of this skill. On the journey from the newbie village to Zaun City, there were many high-level monster groups. It was thanks to Illya's "Bestial Instinct" that his group had arrived in Zaun safely.

Although Illya had been annoyed by the name of this skill for a long time, she seemed to understand that the adult world wasn't easy. She didn't complain much, only drawing many cursed circles on a piece of paper.

"Tell me more, Illya," he sat up and said seriously.

He had to take this seriously because in this world, death meant regressing in age. Mordred's intelligence had already dropped to that of a three-year-old, and if it went any lower, she'd only be able to babble.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. It's just a feeling... the other people in the inn seem really weird," Illya explained hesitantly.

Due to becoming a beast-person, her appetite had grown significantly, so she had left the room earlier to find food. As a result, she overheard other guests at the inn talking about "hunting". Moreover, Illya heard Shirou's ID mentioned in their conversation.

— Evil Flower.

Illya felt something was off. Having read countless captivity-themed works by her famous writer childhood friend, Miyu, her mind immediately conjured up various dark scenarios, so she came to find Shirou right away.