My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 72
by Little PandaThe Octopus Corpse
An esper’s physical constitution was inherently stronger than that of an ordinary person, and their recovery ability was naturally even better—not to mention that Mu Ning was now a 6th-order esper! Furthermore, although Mu Ning had taken a direct hit from the octopus monster’s tentacle, the root cause of her lying paralyzed on the sand for so long was excessive esper ability consumption and sheer exhaustion. After resting for so long, Mu Ning felt her physical condition had significantly improved. Just moments ago, it had been a struggle to even move a finger; now, she was able to prop herself up and sit on the sand, watching Ren Chenxi run all over the beach shoveling up seafood again.
Moreover—and Mu Ning did not know if this was just an illusion—she felt that her body’s recovery today seemed much faster than ever before. Could it be because she had advanced a tier again?
Sitting and resting for a good while longer, Mu Ning watched Ren Chenxi run back and forth across the beach. Not only had Ren Chenxi found her two black plastic bags, but she had also recovered both iron buckets. Furthermore, Ren Chenxi had already filled these bags and buckets to the brim once more.
Carrying the two bags and two buckets, Ren Chenxi walked over to Mu Ning with some difficulty. She set them down beside her and instructed in a low voice, “A lot of seafood has crawled back out now. I’m going to catch a bit more. Help me keep an eye on these.”
Mu Ning looked at the buckets, then at Ren Chenxi, and asked somewhat strangely, “Aren’t you going to put them in your inventory? What if they get knocked over by other, larger mutated seafood later?”
She would love to put these bags and buckets in her inventory! Ren Chenxi let out a long sigh, her voice filled with regret. “The inventory can’t store living things. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked you to help me watch the buckets and bags. Don’t let them get ruined by the other big seafood!”
“Perhaps…” Mu Ning looked at the large crabs in the bucket, now missing their claws and pincers, and very kindly suggested, “You could put some seawater in these buckets and bags, and then I can freeze them all? Then you’d be able to store them in your inventory.”
Right! How had she forgotten again! The current 6th-order Mu Ning had mutated an ice-system esper ability! If Mu Ning helped freeze all this seafood, they wouldn’t have to worry about how to pack so much of it into the car to take back to the base later. Although some bivalves wouldn’t be able to spit out their sand after being frozen, it didn’t matter. They were so huge that she could just cut them open, chop them up, and wash them clean directly. That would be much faster than waiting for them to spit sand anyway.
It was just… “Since you mutated into an ice-system esper, is your water-system esper ability gone?” Ren Chenxi looked at Mu Ning with some pity. If that were the case, wouldn’t they have to go back to strictly rationing their water usage?
Regarding Ren Chenxi’s baffling conclusion, Mu Ning felt a bit confused. “Why would my water-system esper ability be gone?”
“Otherwise, why would you tell me to pack some seawater? If your water-system esper ability is still there, couldn’t you just inject water straight into the buckets yourself?”
“…I just felt that for seafood, it’s better to pack them with seawater before freezing them. But if you want me to use my water-system esper ability, of course, that’s no problem either.”
Hearing Mu Ning say this, Ren Chenxi inexplicably agreed that seafood was better off frozen in actual seawater. Thus, she took out another bucket and went to collect some.
After helping Ren Chenxi freeze all the gathered seafood, Mu Ning stretched her limbs and joined Ren Chenxi in the seafood-shoveling operation. With Mu Ning’s participation, Ren Chenxi was able to toss even more seafood into her inventory. They didn’t even need the buckets anymore. She would shovel up a razor clam, and Mu Ning would freeze it into a solid block of ice; a crab would scuttle over, and Mu Ning would freeze it into another block. Ren Chenxi seized the opportunity to sweep all these frozen catches into her space. What made it even more convenient was that the system still allowed identical types of seafood to stack. As long as the seafood entered Ren Chenxi’s inventory, regardless of whatever detailed scientific classifications they once had, they were simply reduced to ‘mutated clams,’ ‘mutated abalones,’ ‘mutated scallops,’ ‘mutated crabs,’ and so on.
Not only did the mutated seafood not require further sub-categorization, they didn’t even have the strict slot limitations of crystal cores, where a Level 1 crystal core and a Level 2 crystal core could not occupy the same slot. No matter what the seafood was, as long as it was the same type—whether it was a 1st-order crab or a 2nd-order crab—it could be stacked into the exact same inventory slot. It had been quite a while since the mutated octopus died, and now the entire beach was densely packed with returning sea creatures. Ren Chenxi deliberately designated an entire page of her inventory just for storing this seafood, ambitiously hoping to fill the entire page.
However, after an entire morning, even with Mu Ning’s help, Ren Chenxi still hadn’t managed to fill a 100-slot page. With a highly efficient human freezer like Mu Ning around, the two of them swept their section of the beach clean of all the red dots. Seeing that there were barely any red dots left on the mini-map, Ren Chenxi originally wanted to continue advancing along the coastline toward the other end, but Mu Ning stopped her just in time.
“It’s getting late. We’ve been out for almost four hours now. Zhang Tongqi and the others have probably already returned to the base to prepare lunch. If we don’t head back soon, everyone is likely to start worrying. Besides, after keeping busy all morning, isn’t your stomach hungry?”
Reminded by Mu Ning, Ren Chenxi’s highly excited brain finally began to cool down. Once she calmed down, she naturally noticed the sporadic protests coming from her stomach. How could she not be hungry? After shoveling seafood for so long and fighting the octopus prior to that, such massive physical exertion would make anyone starving! And this crazy woman Mu Ning had been locked in a fierce battle with the octopus monster for even longer, consuming even more energy. She was probably even hungrier than Ren Chenxi was, right?
Gurgle—
As if to confirm Ren Chenxi’s guess, Mu Ning’s stomach let out a soft rumble right on cue.
“…” Ren Chenxi suddenly felt a pang of guilt toward Mu Ning. Mu Ning had come to the seaside just for her, and she had even gotten injured trying to tangle with and kill the octopus monster. Yet, Ren Chenxi had completely ignored the fact that she was wounded, ruthlessly putting her to work as a human freezer for so long… That seemed a bit too much, didn’t it?
Gurgle—
Mu Ning’s stomach growled again. That soft sound made Ren Chenxi feel even guiltier. She pulled a soft, fluffy bread filled with red bean paste out of her inventory and handed it over, along with a thermos.
“H-here, take this bread to pad your stomach first. The water in the thermos is still warm, too. I filled it before coming out this morning.”
The moment Mu Ning saw the thermos Ren Chenxi handed over, the corners of her mouth curled up uncontrollably. When she heard Ren Chenxi mention that the warm water had been poured that morning, the joy on her face became utterly impossible to hide.
This thermos was the one Ren Chenxi used personally. That meant the rim of this cup…
Mu Ning peeked covertly at Ren Chenxi’s rosy lips. She swallowed hard, took the bread and the thermos, and asked softly, “A-aren’t you going to drink?”
“Huh? I have another thermos.” As Ren Chenxi spoke, she pulled out a second thermos, along with another piece of bread. She didn’t have many of these red bean buns left either—they were a stash she had saved for breakfasts during her past travels. Originally, she had been a bit reluctant to eat them, but now she simply took them all out to consume. “Hurry up and eat. Pad your stomach a bit and then we’ll head back.”
“…” Mu Ning breathed a sigh of regret, then expectantly unscrewed the lid of the thermos in her hand. Forget it. At least this thermos in my hand is one Ren Chenxi has used before~
The two finished their bread and water as quickly as possible. Just as Ren Chenxi was putting the two thermoses back into her inventory, she suddenly caught a glimpse of the mutated octopus’s corpse. Although it only occupied a single inventory slot, it was actually incomprehensibly massive.
“Say… about that mutated octopus corpse. If we take it back to process, the moment I let the octopus out, our villa is going to collapse, isn’t it?”
Since there was no one else on the entire beach, Ren Chenxi instinctively sought out Mu Ning to discuss how to handle the monster’s remains.
“Not only will our villa collapse, but several of the nearby houses will probably collapse with it!” Mu Ning, who had just been secretly rejoicing over having traced her lips along the entire rim of the thermos while drinking, immediately turned serious at the mention of bringing the mutated octopus back to the base. She warned Ren Chenxi earnestly, “The houses collapsing is just a minor issue. The Level 8 crystal core on you will become a sweet pastry1 for the entire base! Even Qi Sheng—if he can’t buy your Level 8 crystal core openly, he’ll definitely resort to underhanded methods in private! And if Qi Sheng would act like that, let alone the Fan family!”
As long as someone was an esper, no one could resist the powerful temptation of a Level 8 crystal core! Let alone others, when Ren Chenxi herself had first heard there was a 7th-order mutated octopus in the South Sea—just a 7th-order one—hadn’t her own heart raced with absolute madness back then?
Ren Chenxi was well aware that if the people at the base found out the mutated octopus in the South Sea had been taken care of by her and Mu Ning, the two of them could absolutely forget about ever having a peaceful day again!
Half the credit for the Level 8 crystal core belonged to Mu Ning. Ren Chenxi couldn’t just selfishly convert the Level 8 crystal core directly into crystal stones for the system. She actually hoped Mu Ning could absorb all the energy within the Level 8 crystal core, advance another tier, and gain even greater strength in the future to slowly pay off her debt of 5 million crystal stones. Unfortunately, a mere 6th-order Mu Ning had no way to directly absorb the energy of a Level 8 crystal core!
Normal espers could at most absorb crystal cores of the same level to improve their esper abilities, while a small fraction of powerful espers could leapfrog tiers to absorb crystal cores—just like Mu Ning. Ren Chenxi had heard Chen Gu mention before that when the base encountered a zombie tide back in the day, Mu Ning had recklessly absorbed a Level 5 crystal core despite only being 4th-order herself, just to replenish her severely depleted esper ability.
But even someone as powerful as Mu Ning could only leapfrog one tier to absorb a crystal core. According to Mu Ning herself, absorbing a core one tier higher already brought immense resistance; attempting to absorb one two tiers higher would only magnify that resistance and make it far harder to absorb. And… if it went wrong, there was the very real consequence of one’s body exploding and dying.
That wasn’t just hearsay; it was a real case that had occurred at the base. Apparently, some young master from the Fan family’s side, who only possessed a 1st-order esper ability, had gotten greedy and wanted to level up quickly. He got his hands on a Level 3 crystal core and spent an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly strenuous full day finally finishing the absorption. Then, the man simply exploded just like that.
Exploded in the literal sense. It was said that the few lackeys who had been guarding that young master still suffered from mental abnormalities to this day, having been frightened out of their wits by his sudden detonation.
With that young master serving as a precedent, barely any death-seeking espers in the base dared to leapfrog two tiers to absorb a crystal core anymore. Furthermore, if the people at the base knew Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning had joined forces to kill the mutated octopus, everyone would naturally conclude that the beast’s crystal core must be on one of them. After all, in everyone’s eyes, a 5th-order Ren Chenxi and a 6th-order Mu Ning couldn’t possibly absorb a Level 8 crystal core directly!
Of course, the premise for all this was that someone at the base had to know the originally 7th-order mutated octopus had advanced again. However, regardless of whether anyone knew or not, Ren Chenxi had no intention of exposing the Level 8 crystal core sitting in her inventory.
The author has something to say:
Mutou: muamuamuamuamua… Okay, returning the cup to you~~~
Xixi (disgusted): Forget it, let’s give this cup to Tantan in the future!
Tantan: Meow meow meow meow????
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