"Why did it take you so long to open the door?"
Outside the rental apartment, blonde youth Dirk looked at Rick with some confusion. The latter's expression of wanting to eat someone made him step back.
"Nothing. I was just in the bathroom."
Rick said irritably.
"I see, sorry for the disturbance. But I have a task for you from above." Dirk lowered his voice. "Lord Adler wants you to go to 228 Blackding Street tomorrow night at 9:14 to pick something up."
"What thing?"
"You'll know when you get there. Someone will be there to meet you."
After Dirk finished speaking, he pressed down the brim of his hat.
"I have to go. Everything for Grand Duchess Maganna... good luck."
He came quickly and left even faster.
Watching Dirk disappear at the end of the corridor, Rick frowned. The name Blackding Street felt very familiar. After thinking for a while, he finally remembered.
It was mentioned in the game's opening background information. A fire had occurred at 228 Blackding Street, causing over fifty deaths.
However, that wasn't a direct game prompt but news he'd seen in a newspaper.
Later, some players specifically investigated and discovered it was a cult ritual. If you investigated deeply, it would open up a profession quest line—Soul Devourer.
This profession wasn't hidden, but its abilities were pretty decent.
"They want me to go to that kind of place to get something?"
Rick felt something was very, very wrong.
The game only provided background, but when Casradi arrived in Berman City, the fire had already happened, so it would most likely be tomorrow night.
Cult ritual, big fire—him, a small officer from the Police Department going there. No matter how you thought about it, there'd be no good ending.
Rick closed the door.
After a while, he went to the window, pulled apart the curtains, and looked down, discovering that Dirk hadn't gone far but had stopped in an alley across from his residential building.
Is he monitoring me?
Is that really necessary?
In that instant, Rick felt like he and the other party weren't actually allies.
"Well, might as well... play the game first."
This definitely had problems, but right now he didn't want to go but couldn't escape either. He could only see what the game could help with first.
On the virtual interface, the female character 'Kaze' stood gracefully.
Seeing this character art, Rick felt somewhat helpless. He'd tried to delete the character earlier, but the game prompted that it couldn't be deleted. Once a character was generated, unless they 'died,' they would always exist.
And after death, recreating required waiting twenty-four hours.
Creating other new characters wasn't possible either, because so far Rick could only create one character.
Opening new characters probably had some prerequisite conditions.
And waiting another day just for the character's appearance definitely wasn't worth it.
"Whatever, the attributes are good anyway, and the name fits too."
If this really was a cheat ability, then stats were definitely more important.
[Please select your birth location.]
'Augustus' 'Wildeya' 'Arcadia' 'Holy Court'...
The later options were all grayed out. Only the Augustus Empire could be selected.
[Birth location confirmed as 'Augustus.']
The game interface switched. Augustus Empire—Berman City. This was the game's standard opening. No matter how you sculpted or what profession you randomly got, as long as you chose the Augustus Empire, the opening was always in Berman City.
The screen changed.
A strange room appeared in Rick's field of vision.
A bed was placed in the upper left corner of the room, with a brown small nightstand beside it. Further over was a desk placed by the window, and the wall space between the desk and window had a row of books standing vertically.
A very simple and modest room.
['Kaze' is a nun at Janus Church. She was born with talents far beyond ordinary people and can perceive a world that normal people cannot detect.]
"She's actually a nun profession, so that means strong magic talent?"
"How do I control this?"
Just as he was thinking, a virtual controller appeared in the upper right corner of his vision.
He tried grabbing it and actually managed to pick it up.
Through the controller, the game's 'Kaze' began moving according to his thoughts.
I see.
After figuring out the control method, Rick looked at the upper left corner of the interface and tapped it, opening 'Kaze's' personal attributes.
First appeared a character art image wearing nun's clothing.
Black and white nun's habit with arced lace trim on the chest, frilled sleeves, a skirt with two layers of different lengths, and below that, a pair of long, white-stockinged beautiful legs.
Silver hair, eyes bright and clean like rubies; under a delicate nose, cherry-red lips were crystal clear.
"This is me?"
Compared to the face he'd just sculpted, the current 'Kaze' character art was more vivid and realistic, so much so that Rick even had the feeling that 'playing a female character isn't bad.'
The attribute values were the same as before; level was lv1. In Empress Online, each time a character leveled up, attribute values would increase. How much they increased depended greatly on profession and talents.
For example, warrior professions tended to add Constitution; mage professions tended to add Magic.
"No quest prompts?"
Rick searched around, but besides the attribute panel and backpack, found no other useful information.
No quest prompts either.
"It's a bit different from the game."
[An ordinary oil lamp.]
[Tomorrow Morning Post]
[Janus Faith Theory]
[Date on the calendar: Sacred Calendar July 7th, 1886]
Rick controlled the character to walk around the room. When he saw the last information prompt, he couldn't help but be stunned.
"Same as real time?"
He looked outside the game window—it was also night. Time and location matched up. Rick suspected whether he and 'Kaze' were in the same space-time.
"It's also possible the game is generated based on the real environment. The webnovel gods don't lie."
Game characters could be recreated after death, but he couldn't. Obviously the game should just be a game.
"Hm?"
There was a small knife in the desk drawer.
[Dagger]
[Quality: Good]
[Description: An ambitious dagger that worked hard to add a bit of spirituality to itself.]
"Starting equipment?"
Rick tried putting the dagger into his backpack. It went smoothly. After equipping it, the character 'Kaze' had a dagger in her hand.
Cool moonlight shone into the room, and the dagger gleamed with traces of cold light. Night, nun, weapon... the feeling was coming.
The backpack space was 5x5, but character equipment didn't count, so space was limited but sufficient for now.
"Can I take out items from the game backpack?"
Rick had a sudden idea.
Then he tried unequipping 'Kaze's' dagger.
[Do you want to extract 'Dagger'?]
Besides the equipment prompt, there was also an extract option.
[Yes.]
The next second, the dagger from 'Kaze's' backpack appeared in his hand.
Rick was stunned.
"So I really do get equipment from playing games."
But a single dagger didn't seem very useful, and stat-wise he probably couldn't even compare to 'Kaze' right now.
Rick pressed the controller, re-equipped 'Kaze' with the dagger, then opened the door and walked out.
[The dormitory hallway at night, deserted, yet you faintly hear whispers.]
Janus, as the deity worshipped by religious believers on the Rhea Continent, was rumored to have created time and space, after which everything else came to be, so Janus held a very high position on the continent.
The religion that worshipped Janus was called 'Gates of Janus,' the largest religious force on the Rhea Continent.
The church in Berman City worshipped Janus. The church wasn't very large, consisting of two priests and ten nuns, plus various ordinary staff members.
The dormitory building was built behind the church. Because there was a cemetery next door, it often seemed gloomy and eerie.
At this hour, most others were asleep. 'Kaze' walked through the corridor, down the stairs, and to the front of the cemetery.
From the window earlier, Rick had seen some unidentified creatures floating here. In reality, he'd run as far as possible, but in a game, weren't ghosts just a bunch of experience points?
[Wandering Soul]
These pale blue small fire orbs basically all had these two words above them, plus uniform lv3.
Rick smiled.
"Of course it's a game. Where would you find this stuff in reality?"
It wasn't like he'd never been to the church. The cemetery was completely normal—if there were any demons or ghosts, word would have spread long ago.
'Kaze' said nothing, raised her dagger, and charged forward. With a swift motion, the dagger sliced through the wandering soul's body, and its health bar immediately dropped by about one-fifth.
"Not bad; defense isn't too high."
The wandering soul counterattacked. It had no hands or feet but shot small balls of flame to attack, but Rick controlled 'Kaze' to dodge them all.
Rolling, circling, crouched dashing—the movements felt like real-person experience, and Rick was amazed.
"Way better operability than games from my past life."
Soon, one wandering soul was killed by 'Kaze,' and the experience bar shot up by about a quarter.
"Keep going!"
Moonlit night, cemetery, nun and dagger—an elegant waltz.