Chapter 3
Eivass Moriarty
Now, the Shadow Demon summoned from the ritual resided in the shadow beneath Eivass’s feet.
He sat in a wheelchair, not due to immobility caused by the sacrifice of his legs. Instead, stepping on his own shadow would immediately awaken the Shadow Demon and cause it to materialize.
This wheelchair was what Eivass had asked the old butler for after he woke up.
This was because his [Shadow Affinity] was currently too low.
Shadow Demons were Upper Demons. Shadow Affinity needed to be at least level three to control a Shadow Demon, and level five to merge with one. Before that, he could only draw a portion of the Shadow Demon’s power to use “Exotic Abilities.” Although the Shadow Demon would not harm him and would even protect Eivass based on their contract, he was completely unable to restrain its actions.
From this perspective, Demon Scholars who contracted with low-level demons were like dog walkers, while Eivass’s situation was more akin to the dog walking the person.
How to seal the Shadow Demon was not something “Eivass” was supposed to know. It was knowledge from memories of another world.
Eivass Moriarty, his Path, Demon Scholar, the Avalon Kingdom… this was the world of an MMORPG called “Ouroboros Ring.”
This game was published and operated by their company, “Nameless God Studio.”
When he said “their company,” it was actually because the game’s development had nothing to do with Eivass, as he was not part of the research and development staff. He was the recently hired Human Resources Manager, or HR for short.
Three years ago, Eivass had resigned and become unemployed. Because of a non-compete agreement, he couldn’t find work in a similar industry, so his best friend roped him into this venture.
That friend was the game’s writer for this company, constantly pestering Eivass about all the easter eggs he had designed.
Eventually, unable to bear the annoyance and coincidentally being between jobs, Eivass started playing the game and found it to be quite good. The only downside was that it was incredibly grindy, but it was a good way to pass the time while unemployed.
Later, he heard that “Nameless God Studio” was hiring HR. Since Eivass’s restriction period had expired, he submitted his resume and went for an interview.
As he was still in the process of handing over his responsibilities, he was crossing the street on his way to work to reply to a message and was hit by a cement truck, transporting him to this world.
…If he had known he would transmigrate to this world, he would have asked for more internal company data or spent more time reading plot discussions on the forums!
This was his biggest miscalculation.
This was because Eivass, in essence, was a hardcore gamer who didn’t pay much attention to the plot or characters.
Although he knew a lot of hidden settings, character backgrounds, and future main story events that ordinary players didn’t know from chatting with friends, and he had also absorbed some early plot points from the group chat, he was never concerned with the main storyline. Instead, he found the side stories of various characters to be much more interesting.
Eivass had started playing the game from its 0.0 version. After clearing the first raid BOSS, he used a main plot skip item to complete all quests up to the 0.0 version. Not only that, but he skipped all the story cutscenes he could during his leveling and at the start of dungeons. For those he couldn’t skip, he fast-forwarded through them with rapid left-clicks.
As a result, Eivass could barely remember what the early main story was about. He had a more profound impression of the later plot, as the story cinematics for the main raid dungeons were quite impressive. Even without paying close attention to the preceding plot, he could piece together a general understanding through the unavoidable raid dungeon cinematics.
At the very beginning of the main story, “Eivass” made his appearance.
In the winter of the year 1898 on the Celestial Calendar, he was kidnapped and taken to an altar for a ritual. A passing “player” inadvertently broke the barrier that was supposed to ward off onlookers and witnessed the brutal sacrifice. In a moment of urgency, the player pretended to have already reported the incident to the Inspection Bureau and was guiding the Gryphon Knights from the bureau, thus scaring away the two individuals involved.
Eivass was rescued from the ritual altar by the “player” and subsequently invited the homeless player, whose wallet and identification had been stolen, to his home for food and rest.
Afterward, Eivass would enroll in the academy with the player, grow alongside them, and continue to investigate the case together. It turned out that the case grew larger and larger, even implicating high levels of the kingdom…
And because Eivass fell into mortal danger, his sister, Yulia, suddenly lost control. Catalyzed by the Blood Crystal, she transformed into the “Phantom Demon of the Butterfly,” the first eight-player dungeon BOSS.
That was also the first Phantom Demon players encountered in the game.
Her true form was curled up in a ball, encased within the amber-like transparent abdomen of a butterfly, protected by butterfly wings made of Flame Essence. Due to the low level of the dungeon, this eight-player dungeon was the easiest to get into during the daily random dungeons, requiring players to fight Yulia about three to four times a week.
Since Yulia had no intention of harming Eivass, it was an introductory BOSS with no complicated mechanics, no desire to attack, and primarily involved reacting to and dodging attacks as they appeared. Even with a sufficiently high level, players could barely clear it by continuously attacking the core regardless of mechanics. If players consumed a main plot skip item after defeating Yulia, they would receive some cosmetic rewards.
Finally, she was defeated. After losing most of her spirit, she shrunk into a Flame Butterfly and was contracted by Eivass as his first Familiar. Eivass used this method to preserve her spirituality, hoping to find the legendary “Amber Master” who mastered resurrection techniques to revive her later.
It wasn’t until the main story of the 0.0 version that Eivass gained new abilities. Equipped with the power to seal theoretically unkillable Phantom Demons into cards, bolstering his familiars, Eivass finally received a significant and unique enhancement.
After that, he stopped accompanying players in dungeons and instead became a narrative device, a plot kill for Phantom Demon-type bosses in cinematics.
“…Brother?”
Just as Eivass was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a childish voice.
He was startled.
Haina, who had been excitedly discussing “Sherlock Holmes and Deduction” with Eivass, also heard the voice and instinctively turned her head.
A little girl stood silently at the doorway.
“When you woke up yesterday, I was asleep. When I woke up, you fell asleep again.”
She said, with a hint of grievance and bewilderment, having just woken up in the evening: “Brother, why… are you in a wheelchair?
“And who is she?”
She wore the same pure white plush pajamas as Eivass. Her silver-white hair reached her shoulders, and her deep crimson pupils were reminiscent of roses. Her features were delicate and beautiful, evoking images of a white cat or rabbit. She was entirely different from Eivass’s dazzling handsomeness. Her eyes, hair color, and eye color were all enough to prove they were not blood-related.
If there was any similarity between them, it was their shared delicate health.
She possessed a similar, yet more pronounced, delicate health as Eivass.
The girl’s skin was a somewhat unhealthy, almost transparent white. As she stood at the doorway, she instinctively leaned against the doorframe, her body tilting slightly to shift her center of gravity and reduce the pressure of standing straight.
“What a cute girl!”
Haina’s eyes lit up.
As if encountering a cute pet, she wanted to get closer but worried she might startle the girl.
“It’s alright, Yuli. It’s just temporary. This is Senior Haina; she’s here to ask about something.”
Eivass smiled, calling the girl by her nickname as he remembered. But for some reason, the address felt somewhat clunky and awkward.
It was like not calling friends by their nicknames for a long time and then suddenly calling them by their full names; it felt as if it wasn’t their name.
After a moment of trance, he opened his arms slightly towards Yulia: “Come here for a hug.”
“…Okay.”
Yulia obediently walked over shakily, like someone who had just woken up, with a sense of weakness that made one worry she might fall.
As he hugged the leaning Yulia, Eivass suddenly felt a moment of trance.
At this moment, he was hugging Yulia, but it felt as if it were another “Eivass.”
The memories of “Eivass” in this world, after receiving the prophecy of the future, suddenly felt a sense of dread.
Yulia would turn into a monster… and then, she would die.
At this moment, Eivass’s memories and reality overlapped. They fused completely, and the memories of his dual life became clear. It was like someone who was groggy from sleep suddenly waking from a nightmare, finally distinguishing whether they were dreaming or not.
Two full days after awakening his past life memories, he finally realized he wasn’t dreaming, but had truly transmigrated.
He had come to this world at a very young age and only recalled who he was the day before yesterday.
However, he also clearly realized another thing: the plot had already changed.
The Eivass in the game definitely did not contract with a Shadow Demon.
Because the ritual this time was interrupted by a player, it had not been successfully completed at all.
And this likely meant that there were no “player characters” in this world.
In an epic fantasy game, players usually played the role of a one-time savior. If the game was an online one, players were typically continuous, high-frequency, low-tolerance saviors.
They had to save the world once every major expansion.
…Then he was in trouble.
Because “players” were set to be descendants of the [Father Serpent], who once controlled the “Path of Transcendence” and was one of the Nine Pillar Gods. Because of this, players could possess “experience points” and “levels,” allowing them to grow stronger without barriers or regard for talent. In the game’s lore, players didn’t actually run dungeons or form parties but defeated all enemies as one person.
But Eivass, despite being an important character, could not defeat world-ending calamities like the “Fallen Heavenly Envoy,” “Calamity Demon Dragon,” or “Shadow of Avalon” solely through conventional means.
Eivass knew that the Avalon Kingdom would likely encounter trouble in about six months.
Although he didn’t remember the main plot clearly, he at least remembered key turning points like version updates.
What he told Haina was not a lie. The Avalon Kingdom would indeed face an apocalyptic disaster in over half a year, and it was directly related to the current demonic ritual event that no important figures seemed to care about.
But now, Eivass had a chance to change all of this.
Change everything—
He subconsciously hugged Yulia tighter, and the girl keenly sensed something: “Brother?”
“…It’s nothing.”
Eivass smiled calmly: “I just had a very long dream yesterday… I dreamed Yulia left me.”
However, at this moment, he suddenly felt Yulia’s body in his arms tense distinctly.
…Hm?
Eivass’s heart stirred slightly.
Yulia, as if to cover up, suddenly asked: “Brother, how long will you have to use the wheelchair?”
“About… a year, I suppose?”
Eivass said, looking at the old butler beside him: “That’s what the doctor said, right?”
“Yes, Young Master Eivass,” the old butler replied without hesitation. “So, will you take a year off school? You’ve already been on leave for three months anyway.”
This was a lie. And both parts of it were lies.
There was no doctor who told Eivass to use a wheelchair; Eivass had requested it himself. Demon Scholars who contracted Shadow Demons used this method to seal them when they couldn’t control them yet.
In addition to using a wheelchair for daily movement, they had to avoid strenuous activities and slow down their movements to lower their heart rate—this was a standard method for suppressing demons.
Furthermore, they could take medication to lower their heart rate, keeping the sealed demon within their body dormant.
“No need,” Eivass said. “I’ll go back to school once this incident is resolved.”
“…This incident is resolved?”
Haina belatedly realized something.
She instinctively sensed that at that very moment, Eivass’s attitude seemed to have changed.
She was quite familiar with that feeling.
When she was a freshman and still naive, Haina thought she was still a genius from a remote town. However, during the final exams that year, she barely passed Astrology, narrowly escaping failure.
But it was precisely because of this that she became serious, realizing that she was far from as outstanding as she thought in the top-tier academy of the Red Queen District on Glass Island, the capital. At least… she wasn’t purely a genius, but a diligent one.
If she had continued with her previous casual attitude, she might have failed even without skipping classes. Now, to graduate with a seven-petal flower stamp representing a perfect score was all thanks to Professor Moriarty’s bold red “passing” three-petal flower stamp that had woken her up that year.
For ordinary students, it was a mark of completion, worthy of cheers and celebrations. But for the proud Haina, it felt like a slap in the face, burning hot and leaving her silent and her mind blank.
Eivass gave her that exact feeling at this moment.
It was like waking from a dream upon seeing her grades—
“Yes, I will participate in the investigation.”
Eivass suddenly became serious. “Since they kidnapped me once, they will do it a second time. I cannot leave home with peace of mind until that cult is purged; similarly, I cannot calmly await an investigation result I might not accept at home—so I will also participate in the investigation.”
Hearing this, Haina felt somewhat awkward. This was undoubtedly a veiled reference to the Inspection Bureau’s extremely slow investigation efficiency.
The “rule-oriented” Inspection Bureau had to report everything to their superiors and follow standard procedures for everything. These were regulations set by the knight lords in the Senate.
Because they could hardly find anything out, they even needed to request assistance from detectives. The “Sherlock” Haina mentioned earlier was a detective who had recently become quite famous in the newspapers.
Sherlock had graduated from the Royal Law University many years ago but had not chosen to join the Inspection Bureau, the Court of Justice, or the Arbitration Hall. As a result, he was now a special advisor to the Inspection Bureau, investigating without being bound by the various regulations of the Inspection Bureau. He had successfully solved several major cases, and his status was now considerably higher than that of his former classmates who had joined the Inspection Bureau after graduation.
“If Miss Haina cannot make the decision, you may report my words to your superior and ask for their opinion,” Eivass said calmly, clasping his hands. “After all, according to regulations, you have to submit all content of this conversation to your superior, don’t you?”
For some reason, Eivass at this moment reminded Haina of the interviewer at the Inspection Bureau.
Dearest readers, I miss you all so much! (In Feng Gong’s voice)
Today, I’m releasing ten thousand characters directly, and there will be another ten thousand characters tomorrow at noon!
Currently, the recommendation slots for commencement period are assigned by artificial intelligence and depend entirely on read-throughs, so read-through data is crucial for new books! Everyone remembers not to let the book gather dust; come and check it out every day! Don’t let the cat die (stern voice)!
The cat has returned!
