Chapter 34: Bad Luck Buff

The little snail seemed to be tired of playing.
It curled up in Old Li’s arms and fell into a deep sleep.
The 123 team discussed for a while and decided to take it back to the house to look after.
There was only an hour left before the mission was due.
It was best to wait safely for Tom to come and pick up the child.

The players’ mission could be considered to have come to an end, but the snail Tom’s mission had just begun.

Ever since he handed his nephew over to the players to look after, he had gone straight out of the domain and rolled towards the deeper parts of the Sea of Death.

“I say, Sykes,” the snail took out his magic mirror from his shell.
“These domain citizens of yours are quite interesting. Do they have the ability to resurrect?”

The merman on the other side was busy with something and answered without lifting his head, “Something like that.”

“Tsk, it’s really rare to hear such a vague word from your mouth. It seems you haven’t figured them out yet, have you?” Tom pouted.
“I just entrusted my little nephew to a few little guys. I hope they don’t disappoint Mr. Tom.”

Sykes turned a page of the book in his hand before replying, “Are you sure they won’t take a bite out of it? These domain citizens can eat anything.”

But Tom was completely unconcerned.
“They have to be able to break its defense first. A group of level one little mages? Forget it.”

The snail shell seemed to have hit something.
Tom poked his head out and found that it had only knocked over a stone slab.
He retracted his head again and continued to chat idly with his old friend on one side.

“I say, how long has it been since you cleaned up the path to the abyss? This road is really hard to walk.”

“The abyss?”
Hearing this, Sykes’s pupils shrank.
He finally moved his gaze from the page of the book in his hand and looked at the grinning giant snail in the magic mirror.
“You went to the abyss? Why?”

“The last time I passed through the West Capital, I met a down-and-out runemaster. He had some impression of a pattern on the side of the abyss, but he needed a clearer pattern to try and interpret it.”

“The runes of the abyss altar? I said, you don’t need to inquire about this,” Sykes’s tone was chilling.

The merman’s cold face was indeed very scary.
His pair of gilded eyes seemed to be frozen.
When he looked at others like this, the person being watched would only shiver on the spot, as if they had become prey targeted by a large beast.

But Tom was completely immune to this.

“Even an outsider like me can feel that the aura leaking from the abyss has strengthened. Otherwise, how could the curse in the seawater be so much stronger?”
As he spoke, he spread another layer of magic power outside his shell.
“Although the seal is still there, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be corroded by the curse one day. It’s better to find a way to reinforce it again.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve checked that person out. There’s no problem. If your territory is still short of people, it’s a good choice to take him in. This is a runemaster!”

The more Tom spoke, the more he felt he was far-sighted, and he almost convinced himself.
“Your domain citizens don’t seem to know anything. Shouldn’t you get them a teacher?”

Sykes was silent for a while, then insisted, “But on the merfolk’s territory…”

“On the merfolk’s territory, there can only be merfolk? I knew you were going to say that again,” the snail rolled his giant white eyes.
“Leaving everything else aside, are those new domain citizens really merfolk?”

“Merfolk can use magic? Don’t joke around!”

“A collection of consciousnesses, so weak that they can’t even smash a stone. You call these things merfolk?”

“Tom,” Sykes’s voice became even colder.

“Alright, alright, I won’t say it. Since you care so much about those domain citizens, you might as well listen to my suggestion—after all, with only one fish in the entire territory who can do things, you must be too busy,” Tom raised his hands in surrender.

“I’ll consider it,” the merman shut off the magic mirror with a ‘smack’.

Tom was about to say something, but before the words could come out, he was faced with an ordinary mirror reflecting himself.

“Tch, this guy is still so willful,” he stretched and crawled out of his shell.

The abyss was located in the deepest part of the Sea of Death, in the direction farthest from that peaceful domain.
It was an existence that few in the sea clans knew about.

After all, the holy war of that year had been completely erased from history.
Except for a few old guys who still remembered, only the merfolk who guarded this domain knew.

The merfolk clan, as a long-lived species so powerful it was almost against the rules, was born with the mission of suppressing the abyss.
Now that Sykes’s clan members had all disappeared, only he could continue to bear this responsibility.

Given Tom’s age and clan, he shouldn’t have known about these things, but he couldn’t help that he had traveled to many places and was also a friend of the last merman.

“What’s so good about being a long-lived species? Although they’re all better fighters than me, it seems like they’re being desperately suppressed by something. I haven’t seen a single flourishing long-lived species.”

Tom muttered as he passed through the gloomy seaweed, bypassed the skeleton of some unknown creature, and finally… by the side of the platform.

Even if he was the only one here, he could still talk to himself with gusto.

“One is stronger than the other, but in some aspects, one is weaker than the other,” he sighed, thinking of his old friend.
“If only the long-lived species were willing to unite one day…”

Saying this, Tom couldn’t help but shudder at the scene of them living together in harmony, and he couldn’t help but shiver.
The antennae on his head trembled from the tip to the root.

“This is even more terrifying than the end of the world. I’d rather believe that one day the seawater will flood all the land, all of them!”

He took out a piece of paper, pressed it against the top of the small platform, then took out a miniature quill pen.
As soon as he let go, it flew onto the paper and automatically started to draw.

Speaking of which, no one would believe it.
The abyss, such a terrifying thing, was actually sealed by such a small, broken platform, and the surface of the platform was where the sacrifices were offered.

The top was a layer of rough stone, but if you looked closely, the fine colors faintly formed strange patterns, and occasionally, a stream of light would flash across it—this was the purpose of Tom’s trip.

That runemaster was a man of vision and ability, just that his luck wasn’t very good, and he had never been able to make a name for himself.
The moment that person saw the simple drawing he had made, it was as if he had seen a lover he hadn’t seen in years.
That gaze was so mushy and lingering it was to the extreme.
He proposed many things in exchange, just to be able to see the complete version of the pattern.

And besides the strange symbols like the one he had shown him, there were also twenty-six more on this unassuming little platform.

“Done,” Tom picked up the paper with the complete pattern drawn on it.
After just one look, he tore it in half from the middle.
“As long as Sykes nods, that runemaster can’t possibly disagree. This is such a good settlement, it should be a bit more lively.”

“Ah, what kind of person should I trick into coming back for my old buddy next? It’s really making a snail worry,” he sighed.

After achieving his purpose this time, Tom packed his things, drilled back into his shell, and turned his head to roll towards the domain.
As the snail shell rolled, it seemed as if some black mist had quietly wrapped around the edge of the outer shell.

Tom, however, was completely unaware and was still thinking about what to do next—it was about time to pick up the child.
I wonder how those interesting little guys… are doing now?

‘Anyway, the players can resurrect, so there shouldn’t be any big problems, right?’ he thought with some uncertainty.

Sorry to interrupt, there were problems, and they were a bit big.

The 123 team that Tom was thinking about had just gotten a moment of peace, but before they could finish breathing a sigh of relief, they were quickly plunged into new trouble.

Originally, they saw that the little snail was sleeping soundly, so they quietly placed it in the bedroom on the second floor of the house.

Ever since the 123 team was formed, Hua Yibing had almost never returned to his own house, always staying at Old Li’s place to log on and off, under the nice-sounding excuse of making it convenient to meet up directly, saving him the trouble of running around.

And Yan Shuangwen, while verbally expressing his disgust for Hua Yibing’s deathly mural and green roof, had actually silently changed his logout location to Old Li’s side.

Old Li, as the owner of the house, while finding it amusing, had silently cleaned up two rooms upstairs for his little partners to live in.

Now, the little snail was placed in Hua Yibing’s room, because at least he had made a bed out of grass leaves there, while Yan Shuangwen simply stood up and down when logging on and off, carrying out the principle of efficiency to the end.

Because they had to discuss the next battle plan, and fearing they would disturb it while also fearing it would run away again and cause trouble, they simply guarded the door and talked in low voices.

“I just wanted to pretend to be a European Emperor for a while longer!! Wasn’t there a time before when this skill was needed!”

Of course, Hua Yibing probably would never know what a low voice was =.=

Yan Shuangwen gave him a cold look, and Huahua’s voice went from loud to soft, gradually disappearing.
He guiltily touched his nose.

“What about the octopus before? Why didn’t you use it on Old Li?” Yan Shuangwen pressed.

Old Li, on the other hand, was laughing and trying to smooth things over.
“It’s okay. I was pulled in by that octopus all at once. Huahua couldn’t see me, and I wasn’t within the casting range, so of course he couldn’t use it.”
“But you, I saw that when you were almost sneak-attacked by the spiritual tentacle, Huahua seemed to want to use a skill.”

Hearing this, Yan Shuangwen raised an eyebrow in surprise and looked over at Hua Yibing, only to see the other unnaturally averting his gaze.
Based on his familiarity with Hua Yibing, he naturally confirmed that what Old Li said was true.
This unreliable roommate really wanted to use that skill to save him.

“Thanks,” Yan Shuangwen was silent for a few seconds, then thanked him solemnly.

“Yi??” Hua Yibing was completely unaccustomed to his roommate’s friendly state.
He widened his eyes, as if seeing some novel scene.
Then with a ‘thump’, he jumped up and hit his head on the ceiling with a dull ‘thud’, which sounded very painful.

Of course, there was no pain in the game, but this didn’t stop him from getting a two-minute [Dizzy and Seeing Stars] debuff.

“How could I be so unlucky to hit my head QAQ”
Huahua spun around with dizzy eyes, spun a couple of circles on the spot, and then his tail was caught by a piece of floorboard that was sticking up, and he fell to the ground with a ‘smack’.

Yan Shuangwen silently looked at the pink-haired fish lying face down on the ground.
“…”

Old Li was also startled and hurriedly pulled him up.
“What’s wrong with you?”

Hua Yibing hugged Old Li’s arm and wailed, “How can I be so unlucky all of a sudden, it’s as if I’ve been hit by some bad luck debuff!”
While crying, he pulled open his own status bar, but suddenly froze, his wails getting smaller and smaller.

“Am I some kind of jinx? Why do I really have this debuff!” he looked at the panel in shock, then shared his status bar in the team channel.

[Player: Hua Nord]

[Current Status: Bad Luck, Dizzy and Seeing Stars, Magic Power Leak]

[Bad Luck: For some reason, bad luck has latched onto you. A player in this state has their luck reduced by 80% and is prone to various events where things don’t go as planned. Remaining time: 2h 30min]

[Dizzy and Seeing Stars: A violent impact has caused severe trauma to your head. You feel that you can’t see clearly, and your mind is also a bit fuzzy. Remaining time: 1min]

[Magic Power Leak: A player in this state will lose one point of magic power per minute. But don’t worry, this is just an occasional magic power rampage in a cub and is not a big deal. Duration: until magic power is depleted.]

“Bad luck?” Old Li touched his chin, feeling like he had heard a similar word somewhere.

Yan Shuangwen, on the other hand, realized something.
He had Hua Yibing send his initial skill to the team channel, and sure enough, at the very end of the skill, he found a line of small words—

[Side Effect: A transaction requires giving and taking, and luck is the same. After using the skill, the caster will enter a 3h [Bad Luck] state. Please use with caution.]

After seeing that line of words, Hua Yibing cried even louder.

Old Li stared at the words “things don’t go as planned” in the bad luck buff for a while, then suddenly reacted to something and pushed open the door behind him—

Hua Yibing’s leaf bed was empty.
The little snail that had been sleeping on it was gone.
And the way it had left was also very obvious—the originally locked window in the room was now wide open, completely enough for ten snails to escape at the same time.

Old Li quickly stepped forward to check, and when he came back, he was already holding a broken window latch.

“This thing came loose by accident, giving the little snail a chance to escape and play,” he emphasized the word “accident.”