Chapter 121: I Really Want to be a Feline

“Shalem, clear out that drone. Steward can’t reach that angle.”

“Shalem, block the Sarkaz Charger. Yato’s skill is still on cooldown.”

“Shalem, retreat! The damage gauge is about to burst!”

Shalem, Shalem, Shalem…

Habit truly was a terrifying thing. Back in the Crimson Troupe, Shalem—who used to take several minutes to snap out of his trance when called by his old moniker, ‘Chen Yuan’—now whipped his head around the millisecond he heard the first syllable of his new name.

“Doctor, where else do you require my support?” Shalem asked, his tone perfectly measured.

“Uh…” The Doctor paused, looking down at his hands. “I accidentally tied your snake into a knot, and now I can’t untie it. What should I do?”

Shalem: “…”

Was he really going to overthrow the Troupe Master with a squad like this?

Maintaining absolute composure was the fundamental self-cultivation of any actor, but right now, Shalem felt his theatrical mask cracking. He looked down. He locked eyes with his pet snake, which was currently staring into the void, its tongue flicking in a daze from its tangled predicament.

“Doctor, that is an excellent question…” Shalem and the knotted white snake turned their heads in perfect, eerie synchronization, looking at the Doctor with utter helplessness. “We have never encountered this problem before.”

The Doctor stared back. “…”

“I’d never seen a snake this long before,” the Doctor offered weakly. “I couldn’t resist.”

The identical, dead-inside expressions shared by Shalem and his reptile made the Doctor feel a twinge of genuine guilt.

“Ahem… Here, take it back for now.” The Doctor shoved the hopelessly tangled snake back into Shalem’s arms, desperately trying to ignore his own intrusive gamer hands as he forcibly dragged the conversation back to business. “The format of this Integrated Strategies run seems a lot more flexible than I imagined. I’m curious—if we hoard enough collectibles, can we trigger the second and fourth endings back-to-back?”

Meanwhile, in the depths of the castle.

A man with long, wavy pink hair patted the shoulder of a severe-looking Feline wearing black-rimmed glasses. His tone dripped with earnest, theatrical concern.

“You have always been the child I favored most in the Troupe, haven’t you?”

The Feline’s grip tightened around a blue Broken Quill. “Of course. Your teachings are forever engraved upon my heart…”

“I have mastered the art of orchestrating exquisite deaths, all to compose the most poignant tragedies for you…”

Bacchus, the Troupe Master, waved a hand dismissively. “Your scripts are always like that; they no longer surprise me. I am speaking of something grander, more precise, more magnificent—true art!”

The Playwright’s pen paused over his parchment. He replied in a calm, measured tone. “The rock girl band anthem, ‘I Really Want to be a Feline,’ which I originally wrote and arranged, is already in rehearsal. My bass guitar is en route, but our castle’s spatial geometry is somewhat vast, and the courier appears to have fallen into a parallel dimension. I am currently attempting to locate him.”

“, I have fully mastered the combat tactics of the Abyssal Hunters, and my swimming proficiency has already shattered the biological limits of a Feline.”

“The Sankta who stumbled into the castle last time has already been thoroughly mind-controlled by me. The PRTS mainframe should have already scrambled its judgment regarding my race.”

“The thesis, ‘On the Strong Claim of the Reunion Movement’s Talulah over the Sovereignty of Yan, Victoria, and Ursus,’ is nearing completion… though I confess, I do not comprehend what any of this has to do with art.”

Bacchus nodded, a smile of deep satisfaction gracing his lips. “We are still missing citizenship documentation from Siracusa and Kjerag… but no matter, there is no rush. We can forge those in due time. I have laid down so many preparations; as long as one or two bear fruit, this endeavor will not have been a waste of time.”

The Playwright truly couldn’t fathom the connection between these absurd preparations and ‘true art,’ but the Crimson Troupe permitted no voice other than Bacchus’s. He simply bowed his head in submissive reverence.

“As you wish.”

Bacchus released the Feline’s shoulder, his footsteps light and rhythmic as he walked away. “Very well. I shall leave you to your study in the depths of the castle. Exercise your influence over fate to the absolute fullest. This time, you may act without restraint.”

The Playwright respectfully watched his master depart. Once the doors clicked shut, he sat up straight, chewing on the end of his quill.

‘He wants me to act without restraint… what does that imply? Does the intruder this time know him? Or do they possess some anomalous ability?’

If he went easy on the intruders and convinced the Troupe Master to let them go, would this be the key moment to subvert the Troupe’s endless cycle, or was this merely another sadistic test of his loyalty?

Hastily scratching down two or three lines of stage directions for the opening act, the Playwright steeled his resolve. He would pour his very soul into this script, no matter the cost.

The grand play was about to begin—

Smack!

A heavily cloaked figure slapped him heartily on the back and unceremoniously plopped down, occupying half of the Playwright’s chair.

“Whatcha writing, buddy? Let me see…”

The Playwright froze.

Wait, where did you come from?! Didn’t Bacchus just say to stay behind the scenes? How did you bypass the spatial distortion and teleport directly into my face?!

The dilemma was no longer whether he should go easy on the intruders; it was how a frail, sedentary writer like himself was supposed to survive a point-blank encounter!

The Playwright’s feline pupils trembled with absolute shock.

The Doctor calmly pointed a gloved finger toward the entrance. “You seem confused? I just walked straight through the front door. An Encounter node—pretty magical, right?”

“I—I set up dozens of lethal traps at that door!” The Playwright’s grip on reality was rapidly crumbling. “Even if this room was directly connected to your path, shouldn’t you have had to solve the spatial puzzles first?!”

The young man squeezing him off his own chair smiled, delivering the most arrogant words in the breeziest, most infuriatingly casual tone. “Ah? Those were traps? I was wondering why there was a gift-unwrapping segment. It felt quite ceremonial.”

“Pro tip: next time, don’t try to test the intelligence of the gamer opening the door. If you absolutely must, don’t use three overlapping metaphors from the exact same mythological origin. The combined difficulty of three nested lore layers isn’t even as hard as a middle school reading comprehension question about ‘the fish’s eyes shimmering with a strange light.'”

The Doctor leaned in closer, watching the Playwright’s pupils contract into terrified vertical slits. “So, what are you writing? Let me see…”

No. His plan, his script—if this man discovered it, he would be slaughtered on the spot! The Playwright lunged forward to shield his parchment, but a hand slammed into the back of his head, pinning him brutally to the mahogany desk.

It was Shalem. And he had come prepared.

Oh, it was worth dying for. Shalem had been waiting for this day of vengeance for a very, very long time!

The usually gentle, ‘Attacks-All-Troupe-Members-Indiscriminately’ Shalem maintained a polite smile on his face, but his eyes burned with barely suppressed excitement as he held the Playwright’s face flush against the wood. The Feline could only watch in utter despair as the Doctor casually flipped through his life’s work.

Suddenly, the Doctor’s expression darkened. “—What?”

The Playwright’s heart stopped. Which step of the master plan had been exposed?

The Doctor turned back, waving the parchment with a look of deep disappointment. “My deduction seems to have been flawed. He might just be an essayist. This is literally nothing but environmental descriptions.”

The Playwright: “…?”

The Playwright: “Oh.”

It clicked. That Perro-son-of-a-bitch Troupe Master had just told him to ‘act without restraint’ and then immediately teleported his study directly into the enemy’s path. The betrayal had happened so fast that he had only managed to finish writing the stage setting!

At this realization, any lingering loyalty evaporated. That bastard was trying to use him as a disposable meat shield to gauge the intruders’ strength! If he didn’t defect right this second, was he supposed to stay in this cursed castle until the New Year?!

“I surrender! I was forced to join this place! I’ll take you to find our leader!” The Playwright thrashed against Shalem’s grip, desperately trying to raise his hands above his head.

The man holding his manuscript, however, looked entirely unimpressed. “We can find him perfectly fine without you… I don’t really like prose.”

‘That’s because I’m not a prose writer at all… that was the opening act, I only wrote the beginning!’ The Playwright deeply, painfully realized just how fatal the writer’s habit of starting with a massive block of environmental exposition truly was.

Seeing Shalem practically vibrating with excitement as he prepared to snap his neck, the Playwright racked his brain. He needed a reason to live. He needed to prove his worth to this terrifying, black-clad mastermind.

Just as Yato stepped forward, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade to deliver a swift execution, the Playwright’s survival instincts hijacked his mouth. He blurted out the exact same nonsense he had been repeating to appease the Troupe Master:

“I, I—!”

“The rock girl band anthem, ‘I Really Want to be a Feline,’ which I originally wrote and arranged, is already in rehearsal! My bass guitar is en route, but our castle is a bit large, and the courier seems to have fallen into a parallel dimension; I’m currently looking for him!”

“I have fully mastered the combat tactics of the Abyssal Hunters, and my swimming proficiency has already shattered the biological limits of a Feline! The thesis, ‘On the Strong Claim of the Reunion Movement’s Talulah over the Sovereignty of Yan, Victoria, and Ursus,’ is nearing completion… I am highly useful!”

Shalem sneered, his grip tightening. “These illogical ramblings… you actually think you can use this garbage to escape death?”

The Doctor’s eyes widened. A spark of absolute brilliance lit up his face. He whipped his head around instantly.

“Yato, stop! Stand down!” The Doctor pointed at the trembling Feline. “This man is a genius! We can’t kill him. We absolutely cannot kill him!”

Shalem froze. Yato paused.

…So what kind of deranged obsession did Rhodes Island have with girl bands and political theses? Was this Doctor just as insane as the Troupe Master?!

The Playwright let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, entirely unsure if it was from surviving the execution or from sheer mental exhaustion.

He had survived for now. But looking up at the Doctor’s gleaming, manic eyes, it felt an awful lot like he had just jumped out of one wolf’s den and directly into another.

[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!]