As a player, can you be normal?

Chapter 731 The Late Night Tavern, the Place Where Fate Continues (Also known as: The Basel Big Three)

When Wink opened the tavern door and saw Lino and Soren standing outside, his first reaction was to close the door immediately.

"Wink! What are you doing!"

Li Nuo clung to the crack in the door.

Wenk yanked on the door and yelled, "You two showing up together is going to be a death sentence! Get away from me!"

Soren spoke softly at the doorway: "What if Nanami dies too?"

Wink paused, hesitated for a moment, then let the two of them in and hung up a "Closed" sign on the door.

There were no customers left in the tavern.

Tingge was cleaning up the cups behind the bar.

Wenk, annoyed, took out a cigarette and tossed it to Soren, then lit one for himself and took a deep drag.

"There are no outsiders here, so please speak quickly if you have something to say."

"Wait a minute," Ting interrupted, "I'm an outsider. You guys chat, I'll go first."

Even a fool like him knows that something big is about to happen when Lino and Sauron appear together, and he doesn't want to get involved in such a big event.

"Please use the skill [Silent Protection]," Soren said.

[Silent Protection], an auxiliary skill, allows the user to create a small barrier where the sounds of people talking or communicating within the barrier cannot be heard from the outside.

Ting had no choice but to do as she was told, using the skill and then staying in the tavern to prevent it from disappearing.

The Explorer's ability is like that of a voyeur, able to see everyone's skills at a glance. In a wish-fulfillment drama, this kind of guy would be the damn protagonist who arrives with a cheat code, requiring a large group of people to attack him to stop his peeping. But Soren, this Explorer, has a lot of good brothers protecting him, and his good brothers are unwilling to let him go...

Soren: "Li Nuo, are you fucking addicted to being a narrator?"

Li Nuo: "Sorry, it's an occupational hazard."

The two sat side by side in a row, with Wink sitting opposite them.

Ting-ge squinted, not daring to look at the three of them any longer.

Basel is a mixed bag, full of cunning individuals, many of whom have lived for hundreds of years and possess mental abilities far exceeding those of ordinary people.

But there are some people who harm others not for pure profit, but for pleasure. There are three such people in Basel, all sitting here.

Li Nuo has done too many good deeds. He threatens his staff whenever he has nothing to do, and the frequency is extremely high.

Sauron, who had even more free time, would flaunt his wealth in the Aboriginal residential area with a bunch of fake gold coins. The people he mainly bullied were the "Aboriginals," but he always felt that it was a way to encourage the poor.

Wink has deceived countless players because of his powerful background; even if someone is imprisoned, they are usually released within a few days.

Basel's three bastards!

Soren pointed at Ting and asked the two people next to him, "Is the corporate culture of your 'Fifth Detective Guild' such that everyone has to give narration?"

Wenk: "Can we get down to business now? Nanami's about to get off work."

“Then I’ll get to the point,” Li Nuo said. “You know about the black market business, Wenk. But do you know about the ‘Li Nuo’s Room’ incident?”

Wenke didn't know, so Li Nuo explained it to him.

“When did you start to suspect the black marketeers?” Wenk asked.

“It started when Cha Bai saw the World Tree using the ‘What If Telephone Booth Landline’,” Li Nuo replied.

……

……

Soren: "According to the system settings, black market merchants are 'walking dead' type of spiritual beings, without the ability to think independently."

Wenk: "So that guy has a problem, but how can you be sure that out of all these shady dealers, the first one you encountered was the most problematic?"

Li Nuo: "I met him on the train of 'World War'. Later, when I bought something from him, 'Li Nuo's Room' appeared. Then Cha Bai saw the same thing I saw in the World Tree area, and we were all pulled out of the World Tree illusion by the same voice. What a coincidence."

Soren: "When all the coincidences come together, the answer is either that your family's ancestral graves are emitting auspicious smoke and you've just had a lucky coincidence, or that there's a bigger secret behind it all. But you're missing a crucial piece of evidence. How can you prove that the black marketeer is the only strange anchor point?"

Li Nuo pursed his lips: "Soren, I'm sorry, Lillian captured me and took me into the World Tree back then..."

Wenk: "Oh my god~"

Soren: "Are you guys crazy? Keep talking."

Li Nuo said, "The environment of the World Tree is actually quite good, but the environment where the black marketeer is located is very bad. This contradictory scene indicates that the black marketeer has a problem. Maybe I'm being too nervous. Let's talk about 'Li Nuo's Room' first."

Wink: "I don't understand the mechanics of your players."

Soren pushed up his glasses: "Li Nuo's Room is completely opposite to Li Nuo's own work. I can define the meaning of this kind of thing directly: to take over the original worldview."

Li Nuo chimed in, "If you want to influence my past, you need to modify the save and load files. Where is the best place to do that?"

Wenk: "I understand. It's undoubtedly the staff area, just like when you were making comics in Basel. But there are five corridors, and the ultimate manager is the World Tree... The black marketeer is a World Tree staff member..."

Li Nuo: "Wenke, put what I said earlier together, coincidences upon coincidences, and that's the truth."

Wink nodded: "The black marketeer you met has his eye on some of your qualities and plans to alter your life at some point, so he's been doing something to the World Tree."

Sauron: "I'm curious why the World Tree doesn't care."

Li Nuo: "I can't figure it out either."

Wenk: "Because there's a problem with the algorithm mechanism."

The other two looked at him curiously.

Wenk stubbed out his cigarette: "The five corridors each have a different management system. It's such a hassle, don't you think?"

Soren kept pondering this sentence: "Indeed, even those idiots from Cairo understand that establishing a solid set of rules for lower levels to follow is an essential step in business development, but the different management methods between each corridor indicate that the World Tree's management model was initially just a... procedure."

Each corridor is managed differently, meaning that the World Tree is managed by the administrators, and the administrators themselves can do whatever they want as long as the results they present meet the operational needs of the World Tree.

Li Nuo: "If there are loopholes, it means there are empty rooms."

The "empty room" he pointed out was an "opportunity to exploit".

Sauron: "Then as long as we stay inside the World Tree long enough, we can find the location of the vulnerability."

Wenk: "The best spies are always the ones who are deepest down in the grassroots."

Li Nuo: "Staff member."

Soren: "Black merchant."

Wenk: "This tree should be burned."

Li Nuo: "A black businessman with his own will. His appearance coincides with the timeline of 'Li Nuo's Room.' He is a staff member of the World Tree. Although it cannot prove that everything is absolutely related to him, I must now treat the worst-case scenario of all the problems as the 'truth.' The conclusion is: a black businessman with independent thinking is using my life to do something within the World Tree."

Soren: "If this hypothesis is true, the consequences would be terrible."

Wenk: "Yes..."

At this moment, Ting Ge's heart was trembling. He thought that something big was going to happen when these people got together, but he didn't expect it to be this big.

Li Nuo: "If you two were given a hundred years to live inside the World Tree, what would you do?"

Sauron: "I will make the World Tree my asset."

Wenk: "Find a loophole to sell the trees."

Li Nuo: "All current hypotheses are based on the premise that the author of 'Li Nuo's Room' is that black businessman who is lurking in an area managed by managers. So how much does he actually control?"

Soren: "Not much, because being a black marketeer isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card; he needs to be careful."

Wenk: "But it's also a big deal, at least he can directly find the mechanism to get rid of the managers..."

Li Nuo: "Get rid of the managers."

The three of them fell silent.

Ting was terrified; the biggest mistake of his life was joining this damned fraudulent guild.

“Master Wang once told my fortune.” Li Nuo laughed as he mentioned the guy: “Wang Li is too cautious about the [Critical One], so that guy doesn’t like to tell fortunes, but his level is far above Kreud’s, so his ability to foresee the future won’t cause any major problems.”

He wrote down everything that Master Wang had calculated on the table.

Those guided by fate should firmly grasp their own destiny.

[Sky Arena, One of the Winners]

[The One Who Changed the "Endless" Fate Ring]

[The only one with low health in the current timeframe] After reading this, Sauron remained silent for a few seconds, then couldn't help but burst out laughing: "...Hahaha, hahahahahaha!"

Wenk: "Explain."

Li Nuo: "In the previous script, I used the prophecy of 'Sky Arena, one of the winners.' The key word is 'winner.' The reason why Cloyd lost was because he didn't understand the correct way to use 'Critical Target.' Facing the challenge head-on and directly utilizing the prophecy is the way to break it."

Soren added, "Fate pulls, endless changes occur. The only one with remaining health in that time, to put it another way, is... Li Nuo, the one with remaining health. Because of this characteristic, his fate changed the Endless Corridor."

*Crack!* Ting Ge nervously crushed the wine glass.

Wenk: "I understand..."

Li Nuo: "There's a guy lurking in the shadows trying to take down the upper management of the 'Endless Corridor,' and the method he's using is connected to me."

Wenk: "Why aren't you telling your managers yet!"

Soren: "It's useless. No matter who comes, it's useless. If this logic continues, as long as Li Nuo exists, the problem of the World Tree will never be solved. It's meaningless for the administrators to know. We have experienced a lot of scenarios and we know very well that the administrators' authority is only to manage the players. The World Tree is equivalent to the nutrients that extend their lifespan. They can't resist the World Tree. From the beginning, the other side has been acting from the perspective of not being afraid of being discovered."

Li Nuo: "On the contrary, not telling the managers might be more useful... Besides, the managers should have their own backup plans. These are two separate plans that should not be intertwined."

He skipped that sentence and continued, "The above are all inferences, and they are not certain to happen 100%. However, there are a few rules I must explain. The observation point of 'Linuo's Room' is only the 'real world', and it is in the timeline after the 'World War'. Basel is protected by the administrator, and that guy's eyes cannot see here. The 'Warrior of Light' that I wrote actually has no substantial effect, because I am not a creature with the attributes of a staff member."

Soren said, "Whether it's true or not, we'll see when you leave."

Wenk: "A closed loop in the story?"

They both nodded.

And so, the real story begins.

Li Nuo: "If I disappeared, it would affect your lives. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. If I had never appeared in the first place, who would live and who would die now?"

Soren: "Captain Ma, my teammates, Chen Shou, Xiao Wu, and many other players who have finally made it this far... including Nanami, they all have to die."

Wenk: "Don't you also know a Wells?"

“He’s my brother, I can’t let him get involved,” Li Nuo said. “Besides, I’m not sure if Wells’ abilities will be stable enough to keep him alive.”

"So after I did some calculations..." Li Nuo took out his thermos, sipped his tea, and said, "Wink, you're a native, you can live just fine without me. Soren, as a player, of all the people I can trust during this period, you're the only one who will survive 100%."

Wink: "Mr. Soren in the Kreud matter..."

Li Nuo: "Soren asked me for help because he wanted to protect his teammates from dying."

Soren: "It's just Kroeder... not enough to kill me."

Li Nuo: "Well, that's why I asked you two to discuss this. Oh, Ting-ge is a different story."

Wenk bit his finger: "So that means... if Li Nuo, you disappear, Nanami will also..."

Li Nuo: "That girl will probably be the first to die. She wasn't very good before, and she's mentally challenged."

Wink's silence lasted for almost a minute; they needed to give this old fox some time to mentally prepare himself.

Just then, the door opened, and Nanami walked in, wearing high heels. "I'm back! I'm exhausted... Oh? You're all here? Soren, you're here too. Are you having a farewell party for Li Nuo... Li Nuo, I ordered some farewell gifts for you at the company. Have Marger deliver them tomorrow..."

Li Nuo, Soren, and Wenk all shouted in unison, "Get out!"

Nanami bit her lip, slammed the door shut in frustration, and stormed out.

"You bastards!"

Although it was a swearing match, to Wink it sounded like a daughter's greeting, so he said, "I'll help her to the end."

Soren: "Let's get this straight, not too many people should know about this. We need to guard against the possibility of 'mind detection' in the 'real world'."

Ting pointed to herself: "Then me?"

Li Nuo: "It's okay, you're useless, nobody cares what you think."

Ting-ge breathed a sigh of relief, thankfully I'm useless.

Wenk: "Continue."

Li Nuo: "How many parallel lines are there in our lives?"

Soren: "If a line can be drawn by a difference in a certain action within a second, the number of parallel universes is actually impossible to calculate, nine digits, ten digits, there is no upper limit."

Li Nuo: "So what exactly is the anchor point of a parallel universe?"

Wenk: "At least not in terms of time."

He looked at the two men opposite him, knowing that they knew the answer.

Li Nuo and Soren said in unison: "Life."

Soren: "I've encountered time travel issues in some of my scenarios, all of which use fate as the save point."

Li Nuo: "Then let me give you something specific, that script... Mu Lan..."

When the name Mulan came to mind, Li Nuo was momentarily lost in thought.

……

……

"Life is an archive of time."

Li Nuo said, "With this premise, I can proceed with the following hypothesis... The black marketeer wants to alter the fact that I existed, or completely change my life, to create chaos in the 'Endless Corridor' world line in order to achieve his goal of eliminating the administrators. This is what we mentioned above. So, assuming this is true, and knowing that save files are anchored to lives, then our player save files..."

Sauron: "No need to go into so much detail. Becoming a player is the first save file, and dying completely or leaving the player is the final save file, unless the first save file is ruined."

Wink: "So you want to change the truth about your death... But if that's the case, why not change it from the beginning? It seems like you could be sent to the timeline where you died at any time to bring you back to life..."

Sauron: "Like I said, there are two save files, a start and an end. There's no end, so how do you change the start?"

Wink: "It may not be related to the player's individual timeline, but didn't the [Critical One] prophecy make it very clear that [Those with Remaining Blood] have special characteristics?"

Li Nuo frowned almost imperceptibly: "So when I ended my player career, 'Li Nuo's Room' also came to an end. The special nature of 'The Bloodthirsty' meant that this was a rare, out-of-print book with only one copy printed. At this point, simply dragging the contents of this book into my entire save file was tantamount to altering my life, or disrupting certain mechanics of the Corridor..."

Soren said, "Actually, the players' parallel paths are separate. It can only be said that the disappearance of the [low-health] will cause some negative consequences that we are unaware of."

He took the pen from Li Nuo and drew a straight line on the table.

"This linear save file is unique to each player. No matter how chaotic and intertwined each player's 'parallel universe' is, when the 'script ends' and we board the 'train' to return, this line will converge into 'script completion' or 'script failure'. So, until a player dies, there is only one line. But we players have many timelines that we did not become players in."

Then he drew countless messy lines next to it.

"These random lines are parallel universes that did not become players. They are irrelevant to us, but they are relevant to the [Low-Health Player], because the [Low-Health Player] does not have these random lines."

After figuring this out, they shifted their focus to "the end of the gamer's career".

Li Nuo: "The moment I stop being a player, I erase the beginning of my being a player."

Sauron: "Can we go back to the moment you died and stay here?"

Wenk: "Do you think the other side wouldn't have thought of this?"

Sauron: "Of course the other side could think of that. If he couldn't, there are so many ways to remedy this. He must have thought of it. So, he has many ways to change these things while he's in the World Tree."

Li Nuo: "When the fruit forms... that should be the first element he can control, but we are not in the World Tree, so we can't make a judgment on that."

It's not that when Li Nuo isn't a player, that's necessarily when the fruit is formed. Time is chaotic; the only constant is people.

Wink came up with a theory: "The World Tree... every time a scenario ends, the player's timeline converges, so the World Tree must manage things like 'worldline convergence.' The fact that Li Nuo has become a player is bound to happen, and the World Tree will interfere based on this. The black marketeer will make secondary modifications in a better area, so modifying the past is actually useless."

Soren said, "Time jump."

Wink: "You mean... jumping from the future back to the past, or jumping from one timeline to another? No way..."

Li Nuo: "Okay."

He drew a circle on the table: "This is the fruit of the World Tree. It's a round thing, a circle of fate."

He placed black dots at two points on the circle: "This is the beginning, and this is the end."

Soren pushed up his glasses; he knew what proposal Li Nuo was going to come up with.

Li Nuo raised his head and said, "If I jump from the end to the beginning, and then draw a big circle from the beginning, it means... this line of fate has not ended yet."

Wenk: "I see..."

Li Nuo smiled and nodded: "Yes, let the black marketeer's plan succeed, let me disappear completely, let me die, let everything disappear, and then pull out another timeline at the beginning of my save file. That is, from the end to the beginning is actually a link in the story, and from the beginning to another beginning is the continuation of the story, or in other words, a version update."

Sauron: "Heh, then you who didn't die will have to die in a new way."

(End of this chapter)