Chapter 14: The Frog-Baby

Yin Luo stared at the severed finger for a long, silent moment, finally understanding why the quest’s wording was to “find all parts” of his corpse.

He lifted his head, looking at the countless dolls crammed into this room of over a hundred square meters, and fell utterly speechless.

Even as he held his own severed finger, even as he realized he had already spent a day with various pieces of his body, big and small, even though he still hadn’t figured out the situation of his identity—was he dead or alive?—Yin Luo didn’t feel the slightest fear. There was only a vast bewilderment at the sheer magnitude of the workload.

Given: Pearl’s bedroom contains thousands upon thousands of dolls, large and small, ranging in material from metal to wood, plastic, and cloth, and in size from a meter or two to a fingernail’s width.

Assuming it currently takes him an average of five minutes to dismantle one doll and retrieve the body part inside, the question is: how long will it take Pearl to find all of his corpse?

Oh, and that’s not even counting the time needed to assemble the body.

Yin Luo’s mind flashed to the second quest—revenge—and his inner fist was already clenched tight.

What’s worse, he couldn’t even be sure right now if every doll contained a body part, or if all the parts were hidden inside dolls in the first place.

What kind of broken quest was this?

The black-haired youth fumed quietly for a moment, then casually grabbed a nearby plastic cat toy. With a forceful yank, he separated its head from its body. Turning it upside down and giving it a shake, a small object fell out.

He picked it up and examined it. As expected, it was a sliced piece of flesh with skin attached. It was small, thin, and one could even say it was cut with masterful, precise knife work.

It still radiated that chill, bloodless, like a piece of dead meat frozen in an ice locker for years.

He had no idea which part of the body this slice of flesh came from. Staring at it for too long made Yin Luo feel both nauseated and dizzy. Since picking up the severed finger, his body had grown progressively colder, as if being assimilated by the corpse fragments’ frigid aura.

So, which utterly depraved fiend had brutally murdered a child of middle-school age and dismembered them into who knew how many pieces?

Yin Luo paused to steady himself, suppressing the surge of violent fury and murderous intent welling in his heart. He then glanced at the white rabbit plushie, which hadn’t moved an inch since Aunt Jing arrived. Grabbing it by the ears, he lifted it up. “Little Bear, can you find them?”

The white rabbit plushie’s ears were practically tying themselves into knots from sheer stress. It glanced around the room, which was filled with nearly as many dolls as there were hairs on its plushie body, cocked its head to the side, and continued playing dead.

Waaah, Little Bear can’t do it. Little Bear may just be a plushie, but Little Bear gets tired too.

“No playing dead,” the black-haired youth said, grabbing it and shaking it frantically. “Get moving, quickly.”

The little white rabbit slave, shaken to the point of dizziness, had no choice but to rally. It sniffled and went to sniff each doll, one by one.

It was no wonder the Yin energy in these dolls was so heavy and that some had birthed spirits in such a short time. They had been stuffed with things that didn’t belong to them.

Little Bear was a bit unhappy, and its movements sped up.

It was highly efficient. Soon, it dragged a wooden doll saturated with extremely heavy Yin energy from the pile.

Its soft paws seemed to pat down lightly, but with a muffled thud, the wooden doll instantly split into pieces, and a palm-sized fragment of bone fell out.

Going by its shape, it looked like a piece of cranial bone.

Progress was swift.

Yin Luo placed it together with the other parts and patted Little Bear’s head in praise.

Then, a layer of frost began to condense on the white rabbit plushie’s head.

Yin Luo: ?

Something was wrong.

He released Little Bear, who was desperately trying to scrape the frost from its head, and pressed his left hand onto the tabletop. Instantly, frost condensed outward from the point of contact with a faint crackling sound, spreading until it had enveloped the entire table.

The black-haired youth’s eyes widened in shock. He then touched a small glass figurine nearby.

A misty-white layer of ice rapidly encased the figurine, which was about the height of a forearm, from head to toe, radiating a chilling, eerie cold.

At Yin Luo’s mental command, the glass figurine suddenly shattered as the ice layer cracked apart.

Yin Luo rapped his knuckles against the ice and discovered it was different from normal ice. Though thin, it was unexpectedly sturdy, almost like tempered glass.

Its temperature was also lower. Despite being exposed to the air for this long, it showed no signs of melting. Looking closely, he could see wisps of gray mist within it, like crystal threads. Staring at them for more than a few moments made his head feel fuzzy and dazed.

Incredible!

The black-haired youth’s eyes lit up. It felt like he had acquired a magical spell, both flashy and novel.

He plopped Little Bear down in front of the doll pile. “I’ll leave it to you.”

Then, full of enthusiasm, he went off to test his new ability.

He touched the floor, a cup of water, various dolls… He touched almost everything he could get his hands on. If he hadn’t worried about the consequences, he was even slightly tempted to test it on himself to see what this frost would do to living flesh.

After much experimentation, Yin Luo managed to deduce a few rules. While this frost power was exceptionally unique, at his current strength and energy level, its area of effect was at most two to three meters, and the ice’s thickness could only reach two centimeters at maximum. It also required his physical touch, specifically his left hand.

Otherwise, the power would weaken significantly, and he’d feel mentally exhausted.

His left hand had been badly injured after stabbing it with a butter knife, but thanks to the jade-colored gem Lin Yujing had given him and his body’s Aberration, it had mostly recovered. And now it could even channel magical attacks.

Could it be that this power was growing stronger as he collected more of his corpse parts?

After all, this strange change had started right after Little Bear dug out the skull fragment.

Instantly, Yin Luo felt a surge of motivation for the main quest.

From the players’ reactions, tonight’s danger level would likely escalate yet again.

That black-clawed monster last night had been able to slip into his room undetected. Who knew what would happen tonight? He had to grow stronger, and fast, to be able to cope.

After unearthing another piece of bone, its origin on the body unknown, and a few more chunks of flesh, Yin Luo felt his control over the frost growing more and more instinctive.

Then, feeling the pace was still too slow, he spent some time tinkering. Finally, he managed to mix the cold aura with clear water, barely condensing it into an ice blade—ugly in shape, but sharp enough.

“Off with a head, one each. Off with a head, one each.” The black-haired youth chanted the command mentally as he ruthlessly slaughtered the dolls.

Some dolls, nurtured by Yin energy into a semblance of sentience, trembled in fear but couldn’t escape Little Bear’s claws and were dragged before Yin Luo.

In the end, the found body parts, stacked together, were the size of a soccer ball. But the black-haired youth stopped and stared at the pile of flesh, feeling troubled.

While it was definitely his own body, aside from parts like fingers, nose, and ears, whose placement he knew, how was he supposed to know where the rest—these chunks of meat and shattered bones—belonged? And he had no idea if there would be organs like internal viscera.

Even if it was his own flesh, he just didn’t know.

The quest [Find All Parts of Your Corpse] still showed no reaction. He didn’t know if he had to assemble it all into a “complete” whole for it to count.

“Croak.”

Yin Luo’s movements halted.

“Croak, croak.”

Yin Luo and Little Bear turned their heads simultaneously to find an unknown creature had appeared by the door at some unknown time.

It was, impossibly, a frog. A fist-sized, plump, golden, glowing frog.

Why would there be a frog here?

And did a golden, glowing species of frog even exist?

Yin Luo’s first instinct was to be on guard.

The gold frog croaked with every hop. Under the watchful eyes of one human and one doll, it circled the room, as if inspecting its territory.

It seemed somewhat satisfied, croaking incessantly, as if it were trying to say something.

Yin Luo couldn’t understand it. He looked at Little Bear.

Little Bear rubbed its ears with a paw. It could understand… but it couldn’t speak.

The gold frog looked at the two, a language barrier between them, and sighed in a very human-like way. Then, with a powerful kick of its hind legs, it actually jumped onto a decorative silver star hanging from the ceiling.

With a loud crunch, half of the fist-sized star vanished. Followed by another gulp, and the entire star was gone.

Frog was satisfied. Frog was about thirty percent full.

Next, the gold frog, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow, jumped onto a cabinet and took a great big bite out of a solid gold ornament.

It was a statuette of a prince cast in pure gold. In its massive maw, it was like ice cream. There was no sound of chewing—gulp, gulp, two bites, and the entire upper body of the solid gold prince was gone, revealing its hollow interior.

The perpetually stoic face of the black-haired youth was struck with a hint of bewilderment.

The white rabbit plushie blinked. It darted behind the frog and curiously touched it.

Frog was eating with utmost concentration. Or perhaps its temper was excellent when eating, because it didn’t get angry no matter how much Little Bear patted it.

Soon, the twenty-centimeter-tall solid gold figurine was entirely inside this gold frog’s belly. A hardened eyeball inside it dropped out with a plop.

Little Bear, quick as lightning, scooped up the icy eyeball and presented it to Yin Luo.

The frog probably knew whose stuff it was eating. It spared a glance but made no other reaction.

After devouring a pure gold decoration on a doll’s outfit, frog finally felt somewhat full. It burped. Then, without any warning, it jumped almost instantaneously onto Yin Luo’s hand.

Yin Luo felt no danger. After hesitating, he couldn’t resist poking it.

It lacked the slick, slimy texture of a normal frog. With its large eyes, it was even somewhat… cute, one might say.

Frog burped again from the poke. Then, with a ptoo, ptoo, it spat out a piece of black crystal, the size of a longan fruit. It was a clear, translucent black, of beautiful quality.

As if it had accomplished a great deed, the gold frog proudly pushed the black gemstone forward with its tiny claws, sending it over to Yin Luo. “Croak.”

Yin Luo: “…”

Right. He had a pretty good guess where this frog came from.

…

Lin Yujing opened his room’s window. Shifting his eyes left and right in a display of transparently furtive movement, he nimbly leaped out.

Inside the room, Wei Congxin was snoring away in deep slumber, completely oblivious.

Midnight hadn’t fully settled in yet, but an acrid smell of burning was already spreading from some unknown source.

Lin Yujing didn’t want to be out courting death at this time. But he had no choice.

He had initially thought that in an instance of this level, his strength would be suppressed to its utmost limit. Some abilities, he figured, wouldn’t just be difficult to use—they’d already been sealed by the game.

But he hadn’t expected that the instance’s suppression would actually weaken over time. It had even revived without him noticing.

The ash-haired man scratched his chin. This was somewhat troublesome.

The main problem was that his ability… was a bit special.

—It often ran off behind his back when he wasn’t paying attention.