After confirming that Phantom wouldn't return, Nishi climbed out from the ground, patted the dust off her clothes, and returned to the castle while carefully avoiding the patrolling guards.
"Master, I'm back."
Nishi confirmed she hadn't been discovered and hid her cloak.
"Good work."
Cyan, who had been sitting quietly on the bed holding the demon blade, opened her eyes. She had been sensing Nishi and the black widow spider's condition through their contract the entire time, ready to rush over at the fastest speed if they encountered danger.
The black widow spider jumped down from her shoulder and scurried onto Cyan's body, looking up at her with wine-red eyes full of expectation.
"Reward!"
"Here."
Cyan placed a piece of cake on the table. The black widow spider's eyes sparkled as she jumped onto the table and began devouring the cake in big bites.
"Do you know who the traitor is?"
Cyan gently patted the black widow spider's small head with her finger while looking at Nishi.
"Mm. It's a soldier named Bani. The person he met is a swordsman called 'Phantom.' He has the ability to create clones. When he runs, afterimages appear behind him. It's not just speed creating afterimages — they seem to have a confusing effect on enemies. It might be some kind of special skill."
"Is it the same as when you use Extreme Speed?"
Based on Nishi's description, Cyan thought of the blue afterimages that appeared when Nishi activated Extreme Speed.
"No! His afterimages are more like ones created by extremely high speed… um…"
Nishi thought for a moment, then swung her arm to make her explanation clearer.
"Like this."
"Mm."
Cyan blinked and stared intently at Nishi's arm. In her eyes, Nishi's arm was moving in slow motion. She tilted her head, clearly not understanding what Nishi was trying to show.
I don't get it at all…
Seeing Cyan's confused expression, Nishi lowered her head. A second later, she looked up again, unwilling to give up, and began gesturing wildly with both hands to describe what Phantom's afterimages looked like when he ran.
"Tell me what they said."
"Oh…"
Nishi repeated the conversation she had overheard between Bani and Phantom.
Even without the survivors' involvement, Arthur and the others would still attack Arlon Castle and hold the Knight Festival.
On the day of the Knight Festival, the man called Phantom would still come to cause trouble. The only difference this time was the presence of the survivors.
Because Phantom learned about the survivors through the traitor, he would factor them into his strength assessment.
It seemed the enemies they would face this time were definitely not simple.
Perhaps the survival space had already calculated this and deliberately sent all of them to Lakota Village so they would cooperate to complete the survival quest?
Thinking this, Cyan felt a slight headache and frowned. Currently, the survivors could be divided into three groups.
One group was her team with Nishi and Asama Ai. Another was Asuka alone. The last was Orlov, and Orlov was very likely cooperating with the blue-clothed ninja who was disguised as a soldier or knight.
Otherwise, his sudden malice toward her wouldn't make sense.
Before telling Lancelot who the traitor was, they needed to make thorough preparations. The feeling of death was absolutely…
I absolutely don't want to experience that again!
Cyan tightly gripped the demon blade.
For the first time, the demon blade sensed such violent emotions from its master. It trembled and let out a ringing sound, as if responding to her. A hint of blood-red appeared in her silver-white eyes.
"Master, what's wrong?"
Nishi sensed the change in Cyan's mood and walked over to hug her arm.
The black widow spider lifted her head from the cake, her small face covered in cream. Her wine-red eyes looked at Cyan in fear as she curled up and hid behind the cake she had already taken a bite out of.
"Nishi, call Asama Ai over. We need to discuss what to do about the Knight Festival."
Cyan's violent mood came and went quickly. The trembling demon blade calmed down. What she needed now was a clear mind, not to be consumed by the desire to kill.
"Mm, I understand."
Seeing Cyan return to normal, Nishi quietly let out a sigh of relief and quickly walked out to go to Asama Ai's room.
"Wait. While you're at it, notify Langley as well."
"Mm."
Nishi was about to open the door when she heard Cyan's words. She paused for a moment, responded, then opened the door and left.
Cyan looked at the closed door and thought about how to deal with the enemies they would face during the Knight Festival. She had never sensed any malice from Asuka. Regardless of whether the other party wanted to cooperate or not, she should at least inform her about what would happen during the Knight Festival so she could prepare in advance.
The stronger their side was, the higher everyone's chances of surviving the Knight Festival.
As for Orlov and the blue-clothed ninja, Cyan wouldn't mind if they died during the Knight Festival. She wasn't kind enough to warn people who held malice toward her.
"Mas… Master… You're not planning to feed me until I'm full and then kill me, right?"
The black widow spider's legs trembled. With a terrified expression and teary eyes, she peeked out from behind the cake.
"I won't kill you."
Cyan looked at the black widow spider. She didn't know what she had done to scare her like this.
"Am I that scary?"
Cyan stared at the black widow spider.
"N-No… not scary…"
The black widow spider's mouth trembled. Tears began to flow, washing away some of the cream on her face.
"I didn't mean to scare you."
Cyan hadn't expected the black widow spider to cry because of her. She pointed at the cake and said, "The cake will taste bad if you leave it too long."
After a pause, she added,
"There's a contract between us. I won't hurt you, and I won't let anyone else hurt you either."
"Really?"
The black widow spider looked at Cyan suspiciously.
"Really."
Cyan looked at the black widow spider seriously and gently patted her head with her finger.
Soon after, Nishi returned with Asuka and Asama Ai.
"You wanted to see me?"
Asuka stood with her arms crossed. Her face, full of dissatisfaction, also showed a hint of drowsiness.
"Nishi."
Cyan looked at Nishi.
Nishi understood and repeated the conversation between Bani and Phantom to the two of them.
"So you called me here because you want to cooperate and deal with what's going to happen during the Knight Festival?"
Asuka immediately lost all sleepiness after hearing Nishi's words. She quickly understood Cyan's intention.
"Whether we cooperate or not, if you prepare in advance, everyone's chances of surviving will increase." Cyan stated her thoughts honestly.
"Then why didn't you call Orlov over?"
Asuka looked around. She had assumed Orlov would be here too, since their relationship seemed decent.
"He holds malice toward me."
"Huh? Malice? Didn't you use that weird skill to cut recovery items for him before? He has malice toward you, yet you still helped him increase his recovery items. Are you an idiot?"
Asuka looked at Cyan in disbelief. Knowing the other party held malice toward her but still helping them stock up on recovery items — what kind of idiotic behavior was that?!
No one without ten years of brain thrombosis would do something this ridiculous!
"The failure rate of Segmentation is very high. I thought I would fail consecutively." Cyan showed Asuka the attributes of the Segmentation skill with a depressed expression.
"So that's how it is."
Asuka smiled awkwardly, feeling embarrassed for having thought Cyan was an idiot.
"According to Phantom's plan, Bani will meet him again before the Knight Festival starts to learn the location of the ambush for the next step. Before that, I don't plan to tell the story characters about this." Cyan looked at Asuka, Nishi, and Asama Ai and asked, "What do you all think about this?"
"We can use their plan against them and strike back hard!"
Asuka had an even bolder plan, but it required convincing Arthur, Lancelot, and Percival to agree to it.
"What plan?"
Nishi and Asama Ai looked at Asuka with interest.
"You want to convince the story characters to use Phantom's plan against him?"
Cyan guessed what Asuka's plan was from her words.
"That's right! This is the safest plan! Don't you think so?"
Asuka showed a confident smile. As long as Arthur and the others agreed to this plan, the enemies would have no way to return.
"We're outsiders. The story characters' trust in us is limited."
Asuka's plan wasn't unfeasible, but the story characters' trust in this group of outsiders was limited.
"How will we know they won't agree if we don't try?"
Asuka leaned forward, glaring at Cyan. She was dissatisfied that her perfect counter-plan had been rejected so easily with just a few words.
"They care more about knightly honor than their own lives."
From her previous conversation with Lancelot, Cyan understood very well how much these knights valued knightly honor. That was exactly why Phantom's plan revolved around the Knight Festival.
"Knightly honor…"
Asuka finally realized what kind of stubborn blockheads she would have to convince. These were the future King Arthur's knights, who valued knightly honor more than their lives.
Thinking this, Asuka deflated. She crossed her arms and fell into thought, trying to come up with a plan to counter the enemy.
"We can't do much on our own either."
Asuka thought for a while but couldn't come up with any plan that could be carried out without Arthur and the others knowing.
"Ah! That's right!"
Asuka took out a large net bag filled with round, pitch-black bombs. Each bomb was about the size of a soccer ball.
"How about planting the bombs at the enemy's ambush location?"
"Where did you get so many bombs?"
Asama Ai looked at the bombs in shock and quickly covered her mouth to stifle the instinctive cry that had almost escaped.
"In the previous survival game, I went to the Dynasty Warriors 7 world. Dong Zhuo used these bombs there. I got them from him."
Asuka explained where the bombs came from. There was no need to hide their origin.
[Dong Zhuo's Special Bombs]
[Type: Consumable Item]
[Function: Deals 60~80 physical and energy mixed damage to enemies. 30% chance to inflict Cripple, 10% chance to inflict Stun for 2 seconds.]
[Remark: My grand ambitions! My wine pools and meat forests!]