Chapter 6: When Arthur left, his silhouette was a little desolate.

After that great shock, he clearly had no desire whatsoever to remain in this eerie, terrifying Secluded Forest, and planned to pay out of his own pocket to leave via the teleportation array he had built himself.

As he trudged off hugging three healing scrolls, Wusu stood quietly beside the teleportation array.

Arthur hesitated, and hesitated again, but in the end he still spoke to Wusu. “This is not a good place. If you can leave…” His hazy eyes abruptly sharpened as he glanced at the players standing a short distance away. “…take your people and get out of here.”

Black hair, blue eyes; when the mage Arthur turned serious, a trace of coldness came over him.

In the spatial mage’s eyes, Wusu was like a hatchling that had only just cracked through its shell.

Innocent, and utterly clean.

And those “people” of different races looked less like companions and more like knights guarding him.

Just look at the look in their eyes, as if they feared he might spirit the boy away.

Pah!

Arthur: Even for free, I wouldn’t take him, okay?!

Little did he know that the players were simply terrified he’d run off with their precious quest NPC!

Wusu tilted his head.

This place isn’t good?

But Wusu didn’t dislike it.

Like a squirrel hoarding food for winter, he was slowly, slowly drawing in knowledge from the outside world, filling a mind that had once been entirely blank.

“They’re not,” Wusu said in a very small voice.

They weren’t his people.

Then Wusu’s brows arched sweetly. “But they’re good people.”

Arthur’s gaze on Wusu turned labored.

Arthur never dared stare at Wusu for too long; that soul-seizing beauty wasn’t only in his face, it seeped out of Wusu’s every gesture. “You…”

His throat clicked twice, as though words might yet come out, but in the end he swallowed them. “On account of these healing scrolls, I won’t tell anyone.”

Arthur turned aside, fished out a crystal coin, and ground his teeth. “Once we’re out of here, none of us knows any of the others!”

Having dropped his harsh words, he straightened his back, walked up to the teleportation array, and with a face both solemn and pained tossed the crystal coin into its center, activating it.

Every use of the teleportation array cost one crystal coin.

Crystal coins were one of the game’s circulating currencies; a single coin could fund a whole year of living in an ordinary village or town.

One could well imagine how much a family’s fortune it took to maintain a teleportation array.

If Arthur hadn’t been scared half to death by the Godforsaken Land, he would never have been willing to pay this out of his own pocket.

The moment the NPC left, the players crowded around Wusu. Puffing out her chest, Mina grinned at the white-robed youth. “Little brother Wusu, is there anything you’d like to make, or anything you need our help with?”

Watching the dwarven bombshell carry on like that, I Don’t Eat Eggplant couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

She looked exactly like one of those big frauds who lure away little children.

They had all just finished eavesdropping on the conversation between the two NPCs, and Mina had been so moved she’d buried her face in Alyosha’s back and squirmed. If the human warlock hadn’t been holding her back, the great silly thing would have charged straight over and hugged Wusu to pieces.

“Wusu is just too cute, boo-hoo, how can he be so sweet? Mommy loves him so much, sob sob…”

Mina whimpered.

Even the gentle, steady Hugo couldn’t help a shudder.

[Wusu thinks hard. Wusu keeps thinking. Wusu decides to hand them the task of developing the Adventurers’ Guild.]

Wusu’s mouth turned down.

Wusu had done no such thing.

Mean. Mean.

Naive as Wusu was, after being fooled a few times, he had learned to tell.

This system voice that took such delight in teasing him could be heard by Wusu alone.

Meanwhile, system chimes rang in the players’ ears as well.

[Legendary Quest: Prelude to the Temple’s Revival. Restoring the Divine Temple requires manpower. Please begin with the simplest tasks.]

[Recruitment Quest: Within two days, help Wusu recruit a receptionist for the Adventurers’ Guild!]

[Reward: Team Buff: Flame of Abhorrence. Attack damage of team members within one hundred yards increased by 30%.]

[Construction Quest: Gather wood 0/100, stone blocks 0/100, adamantite ore 0/100…]

[Reward: Ten crystal coins.]

Both quests were team quests, but when the players saw the second one, they were not as pleased as one might expect.

“It’s actually a construction quest,” Alesu grumbled, “and…”

As he spoke he dragged the quest list down a few times; the items requiring collection stretched on past the edge of the screen.

Hugo skimmed his own quest log. “It’s a team quest, but the second one has to be completed individually.”

In other words, the quest could only be submitted after all five of them finished gathering the materials.

“Just from listening you can tell this legendary quest is about construction,” I Don’t Eat Eggplant said flatly, arms crossed. “Haven’t you mentally prepared yourselves yet?”

《Continent of Divine Silence》 had few quests, but with realism like this and processes this lifelike, the elf had known from the moment he noticed these ruins in the Secluded Forest that they’d have to take this quest; there was no escaping the construction work.

Mina, for her part, said nothing. A dwarf’s talent points went into smelting and forging, and she had long since grown used to gathering materials like this.

Even if the current haul was a bit bulkier.

The players began dividing up the tasks, and in their chatter they inevitably overlooked Wusu.

No matter how handsome Wusu was, how exquisite, how impossible to look away from, the moment they remembered he was a game NPC, they could calmly accept it.

If they could build a game this real, like a second world, how hard could it be to model a few people so good-looking you couldn’t tear your eyes away?

Only Mina, hopeless sucker for a pretty face that she was, kept turning her head back, just to steal one more glance at Wusu.

One look and her thoughts start to drift, Mina thought. So, so pretty.

The players’ quests appeared before Wusu’s eyes as well.

Though they weren’t his to do, Wusu slowly opened the “Wusu’s Checklist” in his heart and added the two quests to it.

Sigh.

Wusu had also picked up Arthur’s habit of long, heaving sighs.

With his little brows furrowed, his bare feet stepped over newly sprouted shoots.

The flattened green leaves perked up again with vigor, and along the path the little one walked, fresh green took root, lending this barren land a touch of warmth.

Travelers, good.

They had things to do; Wusu didn’t know what he should do.

Wusu was silly.

Wusu knitted his delicate brows.

What did “silly” mean, anyway?

Bit by bit it piled up, like the tender grass and flowers beneath Wusu’s feet; the things he knew grew more and more.

Slowly, Wusu walked back to the front of the Divine Temple.

He tipped his little head back to look at the broken temple. However much splendor and grandeur this place had once known, it had all dissolved into the long river of time.

[Wusu wants to help. Oh my, this truly is a wonderful thing!]

The next moment, a floating window appeared before Wusu.

[The broken Divine Temple must be restored to its former glory. Current Awakening Progress: 1]

In the upper-left corner of that line of text, 500 points were displayed.

The line rolled slowly from left to right; once it had devoured itself, new writing appeared.

[The Divine Temple’s exterior does not befit Its long history. Hurry up and clean it!]

[Daily Quest: Random Room]

[Please clean the Library!]

[Library Cleaning Progress: 0/10]