Chapter 120: Love Like a Home Invasion—No, Wait, Recruitment

For the actor known as Shalem—or rather, Chen Yuan, as he was still called back then—being picked up by the Crimson Troupe was both a twisted blessing and a deep misfortune.

He was mad enough to fit into the eerie, blood-soaked troupe without turning a blade on himself for a quick exit. Yet, he was not quite mad enough to completely discard his conscience. He could not join their macabre carnival without carrying a crushing burden, leaving him in a state of constant, suffocating agony.

Some things are only recognized as precious once they are irrevocably lost. Like his sense of self.

In the beginning, when he heard that the role he had drawn was labeled Gentle, he actually felt a flicker of relief. He considered himself lucky to have received a persona that best suited his original nature. That was, until one fateful day during a performance tour.

As usual, he had rescued an Infected child who had accidentally fallen off a steep cliff. Despite his careful, desperate care, the child succumbed to their injuries and died not long after.

But this time, a peer—an actor who had long since descended into total madness and usually disdained even speaking to him—actually approached him with a twisted grin.

“Chen Yuan, how did you come up with this brilliant style of performance?”

He could not believe his ears. “I… what was I performing?”

“Oh, you are joking! If it was not to act out your gentle persona, why would you deliberately bandage his wounds in such a fancy, flamboyant, and theatrical way? To show off your boundless gentleness, you let him struggle in agonizing pain for over ten days! Tsk, tsk… seeing that kid crawling toward you with a face full of sheer agony, you must have felt pretty damn good, right?”

Shalem stared in absolute disbelief. “No. No, how could you think that! I didn’t! I clearly didn’t!”

The peer merely sneered, eyes gleaming with malice. “Stop pretending. Are you really going to stand there and say it was not intentional? You were not such a pathetic do-gooder when you first joined the troupe. You have overacted, my friend!”

He instinctively opened his mouth, desperate to refute the venomous words. “No, I am not…”

Not what? If he were truly kind and upright, he would not have been able to turn a blind eye to the innocent people being assimilated and slaughtered by the troupe from the very beginning. His hands were already stained crimson. Was he still deluding himself that kindness was his true nature?

From that day onward, he began to question every single aspect of his existence.

He tried to change it all. But no matter how he racked his brains to resist his gentle persona, whenever he felt he could finally rewrite the script and exercise a shred of free will, everything would violently snap back to the starting point. It was always accompanied by that pervasive, maddening applause that seeped into every dark corner of his life.

The best way to kill a bird is to treat its desperate screams as singing, no matter how loudly it cries.

Driven to the absolute verge of collapse, he completely lost the ability to stand up and finish a performance. That was exactly why he had been unceremoniously thrown into this Deathmatch Arena. If an actor cannot provide emotional value, they can only provide labor value. It was a cold, calculating phrase the Troupe Leader had picked up from somewhere.

Finally, a pink-haired man, without so much as a passing glance at Shalem who lay paralyzed on the ground without the strength to move a muscle, cheerfully flicked his tail. “Well, it seems simple commands cannot replicate his miracle…”

“Oh, hold it in, Lucian. Thinking about the Doctor again? You leopard, your will is just too weak. I punish you to not think about him for the next three minutes!”

The real Lucian nearby, who was currently deep in thought pondering over murdering his colleagues to usurp power, suddenly got smacked hard on the back of the head by a leopard paw.

Lucian blinked. “?”

“Hitting me again? Has my grand plan for rebellion been exposed?”

But fate loves these absurd twists and turns. Just when Shalem thought he was going to bleed out and die in this miserable arena, people from outside the actual play finally made their grand entrance into the ancient castle.

Why was he so absolutely certain that this bizarre group came from outside the script?

Because…

“Ah! I am so sorry… Sir, your tail, your tail fell off!”

The little white feline, who had almost knocked him completely unconscious with a massive, floating tactical refrigerator just moments ago, nervously held up a silvery-white, wriggling mass.

“The Doctor really likes your tail, can you please stuff it back into your butt!”

Shalem forced himself to maintain an actor’s perfectly crafted, polite smile. “Miss, this snake is actually my companion. My real tail is still safely inside my armor… Could you please stop prying at the armor on my backside to stuff it in?”

Exactly. If this were still part of the Troupe’s plot, it would be way too tacky. The Troupe Leader sought the high art of death, not bizarre interspecies slapstick.

“Huh?” Rosmontis froze in place.

The silvery-white tail finally turned its head, flicked its forked tongue, and hissed aggressively at the little elite operator.

Rosmontis’s ears instantly flattened against her head. Her real tail stood straight up like a bottle brush, and four massive, heavy sword-shields shot forward simultaneously, locking onto the live little snake.

Commonly known as bristling.

You hurried forward, immediately grabbing the two foremost refrigerators before they could flatten the poor reptile. “Xiangxiang, calm down! Xiangxiang, look at me! This is an Operator with their own premium skin, you absolutely cannot smash this one!”

Rosmontis was visibly spooked, but hearing your familiar voice, she forcefully restrained her feline instincts and slowly, reluctantly withdrew the towering sword-shields.

“Then, Doctor… I am a bit scared…”

You reached out and smoothly grabbed the dazed snake right behind its head. “Good, great job. Do not be nervous, I have caught it for you.”

‘Eat your heart out, other Doctors. Can your elite kitty be this brave and well-behaved for you?’

Even in his state of total psychological collapse, Shalem found it incredibly hard to pull himself together, even in a life-or-death moment. Dying at their hands right now… at least my death would be considered free.

But the crushing weight of the sword-shields never fell. Instead, a cold, gloved hand appeared in his line of sight.

“Hey, hey, hey? Can you hear me? If you cannot, I am just going to pick you up and take you away.”

Shalem stared blankly at the hand extended in front of him, completely failing to process what those words meant for a long moment.

They want to take me away? How is that even possible?

No one would ever want a miserable failure who cannot even find his own sense of self or act well in a simple play… Ugh!

Receiving no verbal answer, you simply grabbed the thick edge of his armor and hauled him up by sheer force. “No struggle means consent. Yato, help me support my new Operator, Shalem!”

Shalem was still desperately trying to persuade this reckless, delusional do-gooder to stay far away from him. “I am a failure of this eerie troupe. My name is Chen…”

“Okay, Shalem. No problem, Shalem.” Yato complied without a single question, faithfully and stoically carrying out your command.

“You will die if you take me. Everything about me is under their absolute control…”

“Quiet, Shalem. Without my explicit command, my Operators are not allowed to speak freely.”

“I am not your Operator…”

Rosmontis stood up on her tiptoes, peering at him curiously. “Mr. Shalem, are you a Defender?”

Shalem. “…”

He could accept dying, but he absolutely refused to be stifled to death by sheer absurdity!

“I am not the Shalem you speak of! I am a cursed murderer who grew up in this hellhole!”

Your eyes instantly lit up with the predatory gleam of a meta-slave. “So do you have a Faction Talent or a Special Module here?”

Shalem. “…”

What on Terra were these people talking about?

Steward walked by, casually inspecting the new recruit, and even gave his armored backside a cheeky slap.

“What? We all thought that snake was your tail, but how is your actual tail so thin? And it is black!”

Shalem. “…”

No, seriously, are they all completely insane?

“So let us go! Prospective Five-star Operator, Shalem!” You patted his sturdy shoulder with a deeply approving look. “Let me play with the snake for a bit, and you lead the way for us. Any problem?”

Shalem could not catch his breath and almost choked on his own words. He desperately wanted to hit someone, but his mental state was far too exhausted to even lift his hand. Finally, his shoulders slumped, and he could only let out a long, defeated sigh.

“Fine… then let me take off the heavy armor first. I really only need a shield anyway.”

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]