Chapter 73.1 - Protagonist: Are you comforting me?

Chapter 73.1 – Protagonist: Are you comforting me?

After they said farewell to Antonio, Du Ze, Xiu, and the others walked on. The next questions were more and more difficult such as: the name of third Emperor of the Moonlight Empire, the number of people who died in the Battle of the Light Empire, and so on. Rachel and Old John have no knowledge of the human race’s history. Fortunately, Xiu was able to answer those questions.

Du Ze remembered that the author had written that when Xiu was in the Magic School, his performance was outstanding. Whether it was magic or theoretical knowledge, the Moe Lord was always in first place which made Princess Kelly envious.

Du Ze glanced at the witch’s handsome but extremely gloomy face – being too outstanding is not always a good thing.

Regarding this simulation, Du Ze thought it would be easy as long as they were able to answer the questions but he was too naive. In this library, what they need to guard against is not the simulation’s challenges but the other tower climbers.

Whenever a tower climber is not able to answer a question, in addition to researching among the various books, there is another option: stealing other people’s checkpoint. If a tower climber cannot answer a question, they can enter the checkpoint before the others do or they can simply kill the others, then they will not be stuck.

That method is more efficient than trying to find answers in the ever-growing sea of bookshelves. As they made progress in the simulation, they met many tower climbers who tried to get close to them. Xiu ruthlessly killed those who tried to steal their checkpoints. Du Ze stared at the disappearing corpses and felt as though the tower was mocking them: in this simulation, there are no monsters that threaten the tower climbers, but the tower climbers chose to kill each other.

They entered the portal and passed a long line of bookshelves. Then they heard a noise in front of the statue.

“Enoch!”

“Hey … Don’t worry, the thief won’t … die so easily! Cough.”

“Miss, get out of there! It’s dangerous!”

Why …?

Du Ze took two quick steps and saw the gold mercenary team around a bend of the bookshelves. Enoch, Honey, and Bart were being attacked by the sphinx statue. When the statue is given the wrong answers, the only thing the tower climbers can do is to destroy it and wait for another statue to respawn.

The three people were in grave danger; Honey was even caught by the sphinx. Du Ze involuntarily looked at Xiu. The mercenary team’s relationship with Xiu can be said to be bad. Du Ze was not sure if he would save them.

As Du Ze watched, Xiu silently raise his death scythe and a black crescent-shaped blade flew towards the mercenary team, cutting off the front paws of the statue that was about to crush Honey. Seeing that Xiu has attacked, Old John and the others quickly joined the battle and swiftly disposed of the sphinx.

Honey was watching all of this in shock and when she realized that she and her team were not going to die, the little girl burst into tears: “Waaaaah… what a terrible thing! I want to leave the tower …”

Bart was helplessly trying to comfort Honey while the dejected Enoch approached Xiu, wanting to thank him.

“Dear brothers, thank you – ah!” Enoch pointed at Du Ze and shouted: “You’re here, too?!”

Before Du Ze could respond, Enoch saw the Phoenix on Du Ze’s shoulder and Old John next to him. The thief jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. “Is that terrible gnome around?”

Old John laughed and did not answer. Du Ze glanced at Xiu, it seems that the Moe Lord had given this idiot a serious psychological trauma.

Not seeing the gnome around, Enoch seemed relieved and continued to talk foolishly to Du Ze: “Hey! Where’s brother Xiu?”

The object of your fear and the object you want to find is right in front of your eyes, young man.

Xiu’s impassive, dark eyes looked at Enoch. The thief automatically fell into a guard position but he heard the Lich say: “I am here.”

Huh? Du Ze was surprised that Xiu actually responded to Enoch. Enoch looked at Xiu in shock. Seeing Du Ze nod to confirm what Xiu said, Enoch began to speak incoherently: “Xiu, Xiu, how did you become like this?”

Xiu said casually: “An accident.”

Bart came over with the weeping Honey and nodded to them. Enoch looked at Honey whose face still bore the trace of tears and appeared somewhat dispirited.

“… What’s wrong?”

“My teacher and Vieruodis don’t have much time left. I came here to see if there is any cure for their condition. Honey is here to help me. Enoch said sadly: “I didn’t think it would be so dangerous. There’s no way to quit now.”

Tower climbers can give up their ticket and leave the Tower of God but they can only do this in the hall. This is one of the reasons why the death rate is so high. Once you enter the door of light, there are only two possible outcomes: you can clear the trial or die.

Xiu silent for a while then said: “I’ll bring you along.”

Du Ze couldn’t help but look at the Xiu. The Lich didn’t tell Enoch that Antonio was looking for Honey.

Hearing Xiu’s words, Enoch’s eyes instantly lit up. The rash fellow happily gave Xiu the black flame that was the gold mercenary team’s combined tickets.

“I will have to trouble you, brother.”

Du Ze was distracted and thought he saw the “professional teammate seller” title on top of Enoch’s head level up. As Enoch’s new teammate, some silly, cute person suddenly felt he was under great pressure. In this way, three people joined their team and Enoch finally became the Moe Lord’s little brother. The thief proved to be a valuable ally since he is unexpectedly familiar with a variety of historical knowledge.

“Because if you don’t know the historical background of a treasure, you can’t tell what it’s worth.” Enoch grumbled: “That old ****ard gave me a pile of history books as high as a mountain and would not give me food to eat unless I finished them!”

The thief’s “worth” clearly means the worth of stolen merchandise. Xiu glanced at Enoch: “You have a good eye.”

—— Stole his most important treasure twice.

Enoch felt a chill and ran to Bart’s side, instinctively keeping his distance from Xiu.

Honey recovered after a few rounds of questions. She was delighted to meet Xiu and the little girl who had been taught by the first Mage God knew a lot about different magical systems. After a few more questions, they once again had a problem.

“In the famous Bloody July Incident, why did Edward kill his kin with his own hands?” asked the statue of the sphinx.

“How is this famous? I never heard of it at all.” Violet complained: “Why don’t they ask some questions about demon history? Alice has read a lot of books and she knows a lot about it.”

Alice smiled shyly. Enoch frowned then said, somewhat uncertain: “This is a part of Star Empire’s history. My teacher mentioned this incident but didn’t go into details.”

“Stupid Enoch.” Honey snorted: “We can’t count on you!”

This is the second time they couldn’t answer a question. This time they don’t have Antonio’s kind help so they can only search for answers in the sea of books, as Antonio suggested. Du Ze looked around. Now there are so many shelves that they no longer curve around like a paperclip. Instead, they form a huge labyrinth around the statue. This type of place is great for sneak attacks. The Tower of God, either intentionally or unintentionally, is helping the tower climbers use violent methods.

With Enoch’s information they won’t have to look everywhere but there are so many shelves and books that the search is extremely troublesome. Du Ze felt that they badly needed a search engine and admitted to himself that it was actually a good idea to let other tower climbers answer the question then steal their chance to pass the checkpoint.

The group discussed it and, because they do not know when the next batch of tower climbers will appear, they decided to split into two groups. A group will be left behind at the statue while the other group will try to search for the answer among the books. Although the hope of finding the information is slim, it’s better than doing nothing.

Du Ze chose to join the search team. In addition to looking up the answer to the question, he also wanted to find out if there is information about the God of Creation. So Du Ze and Xiu partnered up with the others to search through the books for information. Each team received a magic communication sphere then picked an area of the library to explore.

Although it was a maze, each entrance goes to the statue so they would not get lost. Du Ze quickly searched the bookshelves. They are arranged according to a certain order so as to facilitate a search.

“The Battle of the Millennium,” “The Dark Conspiracy,” “The Age of Isolation,” “A Brief History of the Star Empire” …

Du Ze stopped. He pulled out A “Brief History of the Star Empire,” opened it to the table of contents, and read it. This book roughly described the history of the Star Empire. The Bloody July Incident was mentioned. According to the book, Edward had to kill his tyrant father to restore peace and prosperity to the kingdom. Du Ze looked at the “A Brief History of the Star Empire” book in his hands and felt a little doubt because it was the official version of the event. Du Ze, who has received propaganda-type education since he was child, is very clear about this. It’s not that official versions are completely false but, because it is the official version, it will always hide the dark side of the story.

Du Ze realized that he was looking in the wrong place. Since Enoch said that it was a secret, it will certainly not be found among these history books. History is written by the victors so it is not always truthful. Du Ze looked through the bookshelves and finally found Edward’s autobiography.

After a cursory reading of the autobiography, Du Ze found that Edward’s situation was really messy. His father, Charles, also killed his father so he was particularly wary of his children, Charles suppressed the prince and even tried to use drugs to control his children. Edward was the best of the princes. He found a way to neutralize the drug control and led a rebellion in July. The rebellion was a success, Charles died, and Edward ascended the throne. But when Edward sat in the same position as Charles, he suddenly understood his father’s fears and, because of that, Edward killed all his brothers.

“In the famous Bloody July Incident, why did Edward kill his kin with his own hands?”

Because of selfishness. Like Charles, Edward killed those who threatened his rule.

Du Ze turned the book to the last page, which had Edward’s thoughts written on it.

[Lonely, solitary is the king. Unique among his people, the king must accept loneliness. He does not need anyone’s approval or understanding.]

Du Ze immediately thought of the protagonist of “Mixed Blood.” He turned his head but did not see Xiu.

Du Ze: ?

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Translator’s comments:

Wow, the gold team makes an appearance but without Eric. Enoch is clueless as usual, lol. When I was reading this, I thought the line “Stole his most important treasure twice” might be a prelude to murder but Xiu actually let them join him. I wish there was a black box or a Xiu POV chapter. I would love to know what he is thinking. Is it because the undead are more logical than the other races? Why do you think Xiu helped them and let them join him? The only thing I could think of was either:

1.) Antonio helped them out so Xiu wants to repay the favor

2.) More people helping makes Du Ze more safe.

Do you have any idea why Xiu did that?

~ About the next scene… Do you think Lich form Xiu will still have a gloomy look on his face? 😉

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