CH 114

Chapter 114: The Dream of the Holy Nun (IV)

“So, you’re the one who took Rudd away from the pub just now? Do you know him?” Qi Leren asked.

“I do. He and Mr. Arnold were my mother’s friends, and I recently learned that Mr. Arnold has passed away,” Ning Zhou said. The knight Arnold was his first teacher, and most of his fighting skills were learned from him. When Arnold died a few months ago, he didn’t find out right away. Although he’d been to the Village of Dusk, he had been in too much of a hurry and didn’t visit Arnold, and he didn’t hear the news of his death until recently.

Because he didn’t know where he was buried, he had come to Arnold’s friend Rudd, who brought him here. Then he came to visit Maria, who was also buried nearby, and then he met Qi Leren.

Qi Leren thought deeply at that instant, and some of his thoughts made him afraid.

If he had chosen the left door instead of the right one in the abandoned church, would he have met Ning Zhou in the game?

Maybe, maybe not.

If he had met Ning Zhou at that time, would the plot of the Nightmare Game have changed dramatically?

The answer was yes.

If Maria was really the Holy Nun then, as her child, Ning zhou in the game will definitely make the same choice as him now. If he took Ning zhou to the Holy City…

Qi Leren gave a wry smile in his heart. So he had given his “first drop of blood” in the Holy City because he hadn’t brought the task’s key NPC?

He didn’t want to think like this because it made him think Ning Zhou was an NPC in the game, not a living human being.

Maybe there was such a possibility if he had seen Ning Zhou composed of a series of data through the computer screen. He wouldn’t have a problem regarding him as an ordinary NPC, and he wouldn’t explore his life, nor be moved by his emotions. Even if he saw him die, he could only sigh for him and forget in an instant.

This was too cruel, too cruel…

“Let’s go and find Rudd. He knows that Arnold has a key item in his hand. With it, we can cross the fog outside the Holy City and enter the ‘Holy City’,” Qi Leren said, clearing the mood.

The Holy City in the fog was also the Dream of the Holy Nun, or in a more colloquial way, a field created by Maria, a world shrouded by the illusion of peace and tranquility, where the human beings who had survived the demon invasion lived happily and were ignorant of the world, under the appearance of peace. However, after the death of the Holy Nun, the illusion of peace has become increasingly fragile, and would eventually reveal the ferocious and horrible contents.

The two men turned back to another path. Ning Zhou had just returned from Arnold’s grave and returned there now with Qi Leren. He found Rudd in the cemetery. Qi Leren remembered that Rudd had easily given him the task in the game and had told him that the keepsake was in Arnold’s former residence, hoping that he would take the keepsake to the Holy City as soon as possible and rescue the human beings trapped in the Holy City.

But this time, Qi Leren hadn’t chatted with Ruth in the pub. He was worried that Rudd would no longer tell him this key information since the son of his old friend was here. Would Rudd be more cooperative?

While he was weighing his words, Ning Zhou asked straight away: “Give me her field memento.”

Rudd, who was still drunk, suddenly sobered up and denied it: “I don’t have that kind of thing!”

Qi Leren was stunned at the plot’s sudden change. Rudd’s attitude was too strange. Why did he deny it? In the “Nightmare Game”, he couldn’t wait to tell him the clue of the memento… Was it because he’d missed the pub part of the plot?

No, it was because of Ning Zhou.

Qi Leren carefully observed Rudd’s eyes. When he looked at Ning Zhou, he obviously showed nervousness. He was trying to hide something…

Ning Zhou said that Rudd and Arnold were friends of his mother, so why didn’t he want Ning Zhou to go to the Holy City?

Why?

Although the “Dream of the Holy Nun” had started to have problems, wasn’t it better to crack the field early and let the human beings there leave? Why did he want to stop Ning Zhou?

Ning Zhou’s aura suddenly suppressed. He seemed to be trying to endure something and asked in a low voice: “Did she know that her domain memento had fallen into the hands of you and Arnold?”

Rudd’s lips moved and he swallowed what he said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ning Zhou took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His over-suppressed voice trembled slightly: “She was thinking about going back before she died…”

Rudd seemed to have been struck by lightning, and his pale face was stiff and sober.

“You knew she’d been thinking about going back. For more than a decade, she’d been worried and tormented, and she had woken up from nightmares over and over again… She thought that her domain memento had been lost in the Holy City, but she didn’t expect that you were hiding it.” Ning Zhou’s blue eyes brewed with deep anger and disappointment, “Why did you hide it from her? Why?!”

Rudd, who was left without face, trembled in a way that made him look a little vulnerable in front of Ning Zhou’s anger. He looked at Arnold’s grave and seemed to draw strength from his friend. He shouted, "If Maria knew that her field memento hadn’t been left in the Holy City, she would have definitely gone back, but her field is dead! The only way to solve the field is to destroy it completely. What’s the difference was there between that and killing her? How could we watch her die?!”

"A soldier should die on the battlefield. This is the supreme honor given by the Lord. Accept it, don’t run from it.” Ning Zhou took a step toward him and Ruth was intimidated by his imposing manner, retreating unconsciously towards Arnold’s tombstone.

“Let me finish what she failed to finish. Now, give me her field memento,” Ning Zhou said as he reached his hand to Rudd, staring into his eyes.

Rudd was silent, his clenched teeth revealing his fear as they rattled. He seemed to be a trapped beast pushed to its limit, struggling with his heart at a loss.

“I don’t know,” Rudd let this sentence drop and fled away from the cemetery.

In the sunset, only Qi Leren and Ning Zhou were left.

Seeing this, Qi Leren somewhat understood why Rudd would tell him the whereabouts of the field memento so easily in the Nightmare Game. Rudd was afraid. The pious Arnold would rather reveal his deception so that he could go to heaven after his death, but Rudd was not as persistent as he was. He wanted to relieve his guilt, so he chose to give the field memento to a stranger who was willing to go to the Holy City, and let him fulfill Maria’s last wish.

Qi Leren could understand Rudd’s feelings to some extent. Just like how when he was undercover with the Slaughter Secret Society, he would rather leave a letter about the  Nightmare Game’s main task and some scattered side tasks in his own room, expecting a stranger whom he had never met to take over the heavy responsibility rather than tell Dr. Lu about it.

The heart that wanted to protect relatives and friends was the same.

“I know where it is.” After consideration, Qi Leren said it: “It’s in Arnold’s home.”

Ning Zhou stood at Arnold’s grave. He had been his first teacher and his mother’s knight. He had vowed to be loyal to Maria, but he would rather break his oath and bring this secret to the grave, even if his soul would be condemned to fall into hell.

Ning Zhou closed his eyes, recalling how Arnold had patiently taught him many years ago, and helped him to correct one of the simplest knife-cutting movements carefully. After Maria died, he had followed Maria’s last wish and sent him to the Holy See, where the Pope personally served as his guardian.

But this was the man who had sent Maria to her grave believing a white lie.