A Core Ship From The Start

Chapter 252: Chapter 202: Punishment Mechanism_1

Looking at the two fingers before his eyes, Duanmu Huai frowned.

He indeed perceived a familiar aura from these fingers — as simple as that, the aura was like the one usually felt from the Nine Sacred Statues in Sky Province. It was faintly divine. He could remember Mistelina had once said that a long time ago, the Deity communicated with the finger witches through these fingers. The witches would read and interpret the deity’s messages and further convey them to other people.

Of course, there were always doubters who believed that these were possibly not messages from any deity at all, and that the witches were just pretending to interpret them while possibly spouting nonsense or even intentionally misleading others.

As for why the Forest Princess would call it the Mother of Earth, Duanmu Huai could guess — most of the hand was buried in the soil, leaving only two fingers exposed. Hence, referring to it as Mother of the Earth didn’t seem strange.

However…

Duanmu Huai walked to the edge of the tower and looked down. The tower itself was dozens of meters high which when combined with the sticking out hand, made him feel sick. Imagining an arm of dozens of meters buried inside the tower with a hand protruding out didn’t really look like something from a deity.

Or was the whole body buried in it, with only the hand sticking out?

Duanmu Huai walked forward, laying his hand on one of the fingers. Regrettably, as Mistelina had said, the only remaining essence here was fragmentary. The residual aura was so faint that there’s virtually none left. This made it impossible to create a passage by twisting the divine statue as he had done before with the Demon God — because here, except for the fragments, there was nothing left.

But just at that moment, suddenly, something unexpected occurred.

When he was about to move his hand away, the entire tower began to tremble, and a voice echoed in his ear.

“You’re not worthy… You’re not worthy…”

The next moment, a flash of light swept across Duanmu Huai’s vision and when he came to his senses, he found himself back in front of the Stonewell Castle.

“What’s going on?”

Duanmu Huai looked around, surprised to find that nobody else was with him. Ogis, Bambi, Lorena, Audrey, even Mistelina and Melfy were nowhere to be seen!

With this in mind, Duanmu Huai immediately closed his eyes, sending out a mental message.

“Ogis, Bambi, Lorena, Audrey! Can you hear me?”

Soon, the voice of girls rang out from his mental induction.

“Yes, master.”

“What, what happened, Sir Knight?”

“Master, where are you? Bambi can’t see you…”

“Master, I’m fine, but what on earth happened…”

Amid the chatter of the girls, Duanmu Huai quickly grasped their situation. Clearly, they, like Duanmu Huai, had been teleported to different places.

Ogis indicated that she was transported to an underground, dim-lit city, which appeared to be deeper underground than Duanmu Huai and the rest were currently.

Bambi sobbed to Duanmu Huai that she was trapped in a temple, which had a large and terrifying monster and a large bird-headed guard standing at the entrance. She could only hide in the shadows, dare not move a muscle.

Lorena said that she seemed to be in the ruins of a white wasteland, where it was desolate all around and she couldn’t find any path that could lead her back.

Audrey fared better. She said that she had been transported to a castle near a volcano, has been attended by a lady, and was allowed to stay there temporarily…

This made him reckon that Mistelina and Melfy must have also been teleported somewhere.

“Master, what’s going on?”

“It’s probably some kind of punishment mechanism.”

“Punishment mechanism?”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s answer, the girls were all puzzled, and Duanmu Huai could only shrug his shoulders, unsure of how to explain it to them.

As mentioned before, every world fragment had different mechanisms and ‘clearance methods’. For example, the Puppet House and Ghost Mansion, and in the game, there were many world fragments with special conditions.

Such as worlds that do not allow males to enter.

Worlds that do not allow females to enter.

Worlds that do not allow genderless people to enter.

Worlds that do not allow gender dysphoric people to enter.

Worlds that do not allow people who view themselves as female but are actually male and do not admit to being male to enter.

Worlds that do not allow agender people to enter.

Worlds that do not allow persons originally male but who underwent a sex change to female whilst still considering themselves as male to enter.

Or you couldn’t play FPS in a puzzle game.

Or play real-time strategy in an RPG.

Although those were the game settings, to the players, those were just part of the tactics of the instance.

But when applied to reality…

Combining it with the previous sentence Duanmu Huai heard, “You are not eligible, you are not eligible,” he guessed the meaning must be…

“Perhaps climbing that tower requires some special means, and our direct ascent violated the rules, thus we were separated as a punishment.”

Duanmu Huai voiced his speculation. Unfortunately, he could not make contact with Mistelina and Melfy. It couldn’t be helped, after all, this world didn’t belong to Duanmu Huai, so he couldn’t obtain the Soul Cards from this world. While Duanmu Huai had attempted to summon others back directly, unfortunately, all attempts failed.

Clearly, this must be some kind of prohibition in this world.

It seemed that he probably only had one path to follow.

Through Mental Induction, Duanmu Huai also issued orders to the girls, asking them not to run around, to clarify their present location, and he would come to them. As for Mistelina and Melfy, although Duanmu Huai was naturally concerned, as there was no way to communicate with them, he could only leave their fate to the heavens.

As for whether the girls would obey, Duanmu Huai wasn’t worried. Ogis and Lorena were battle-hardened and experienced, Audrey, although slightly worrisome, since she claimed she was being treated by a kind mistress, should be safe for the time being. On the other hand, Bambi’s situation was a bit more worrying. She was confused about her whereabouts, the only thing in the temple was an entity that looked like a beastly creature that she dared not approach, and outside was a gigantic bird-headed creature with wings… Anyway, she better hide first.

Well, it’s time for action.

Upon confirming the girls’ actions, Duanmu Huai collected his thoughts, glanced at the closed iron gate in front of him, and moved forward.

However, at that moment, he abruptly heard a voice.

“Hey, you over there, can you come over here?”

“Hm?”

Duanmu Huai turned his head and noticed a small door next to the city gate, where a dirty man with thinning hair and in shackles, was standing there, waving at him.

“Who are you?”

Duanmu Huai walked over, staring at the guy as he asked. The man, on the other hand, gave a sly smile and rubbed his hands together.@@novelbin@@

“I’m just a gatekeeper. You… you want to get inside the city, right? If you want to enter, I advise you not to go through the main gate. There’s a group of highly skilled soldiers blocking it. However, I can show you another path. You can go through that hole.”

As he spoke, the sleazy guy pointed at a hole in the wall next to him with a smirk. To be honest, this guy looked too sleazy.

Could his surname be Qin?

“The soldiers don’t know about that narrow path. It should provide a way to invade the city without them noticing.”

“……… Alright.”

Hearing that guy’s words, Duanmu Huai frowned slightly before nodding. He had no intention of following the guy’s suggestion. Although he did see a large number of soldiers guarding the city gate, their arrows and crossbow cannons couldn’t even scratch his skin, he could charge right in without any problems.

However, the previous incident had cast a shadow over Duanmu Huai’s spirits.

What if he’s hit with another “You’re not worthy, you’re not worthy….”?

Such a headache.

Thus, without saying much else, Duanmu Huai turned and crossed the hole in the wall, heading forwards.

This narrow path wasn’t any kind of “hidden secret path” or anything of the sort. Clearly, this city had undergone an attack in the past, resulting in damage to the city wall. It was due to this that a small path, that shouldn’t have existed, now did.

However,…

How should he proceed?

Looking at the staircase in front of him, Duanmu Huai gritted his teeth.

At first, it wasn’t so hard, but when Duanmu Huai trailed around to the back of the cliff, he encountered a problem – there was a staircase on the cliff-side that led all the way to the city tower’s gate.

The problem was that the staircase was wooden.

Was this really safe?

Although Duanmu Huai hesitated, he lifted his foot and placed it on the staircase.

Then………

“Crack!!”

Accompanied by a soft sound, the staircase suddenly cracked open, and Duanmu Huai hastily pulled back. As he returned to the ground, he saw the wooden staircase outside the city wall collapsing instantaneously, causing two soldiers on top to fall into the abyss.

“……………”

Duanmu Huai silently looked at the shattered staircase ruins in front of him, then turned and walked back into the previous guardhouse. Seeing Duanmu Huai return, the sleazy gatekeeper showed an uneasy expression. He watched as Duanmu Huai briskly walked over to him, then a flattering smile appeared on his face.

“Excuse me, is there anything else you need?”

“Open the gate for me.”

Then, he stared at the sleazy man and spoke.

Again, Duanmu Huai was certain that he was absolutely not cut out for stealth.