Chapter 242 - 241: What Other Tricks Can You Pull?

Chapter 242: Chapter 241: What Other Tricks Can You Pull?

Lloyd continued to exploit the NPCs’ inhuman weaknesses, thoroughly enjoying himself.

What’s that? A strange book appeared in your basement, and now you can’t sleep at night, making the house unlivable?

That’s a simple problem.

Lloyd took the neighbor back to his house, dug a hole in his backyard, and buried the neighbor in it.

Now the house is livable again, isn’t it?

What’s that? Your wife was bewitched by a group of hidden cultists in town and won’t come home anymore?

That’s easy enough to solve...

Lloyd took that neighbor to the town mayor, first filed for a divorce, then spent a little money to find a prostitute at the tavern and helped the two of them get married.

See? Now his wife is home, isn’t she?

What? Your husband went to mine outside of town and never came back, and you want me to go rescue him?

’You need me for something this simple?’

So Lloyd went and bought a pile of explosives, took the wife to the mine entrance, and with a BOOM, he blew up the entrance, conveniently trapping the wife inside as well.

This way, she doesn’t have to wait for her husband to come home, right?

After Lloyd resolved two more neighbor requests with similar tactics, the rest of them seemed to learn to back off when things got tough and stopped coming to him.

Of course, this was mainly because the power of the ’plot’ had been weakened multiple times in a row and was temporarily unable to form an effective backlash.

It had no choice but to concentrate its power and push Lloyd toward the ’main quest’.

Thus, following a bit of narration, Lloyd felt time fly by. A year quickly passed in the town of Arkham.

Then, on the first day of the second year, ’Weiya’, who had become his ’girlfriend’, disappeared. The last time anyone saw her, she was leading a small squad of Crusaders out on patrol.

In any case, the point was to force Lloyd to leave the town, giving that mysterious entity he had provoked earlier an opportunity to strike.

Would Lloyd really let it have its way?

Not only did he not go looking for ’Weiya’, he instead ran home and swept his ’sister’ up in his arms.

"Sister, my girlfriend’s gone missing. Why don’t you be my girlfriend?"

"Eh?"

’Evelor’ froze, falling into the same dazed, wooden state as the other NPCs.

It seemed that while the Butler had worked hard on the Reduction of this ’Evelor’, he had never expected Lloyd to be so bold...

And after freezing for a long while, this ’Evelor’ seemed to reboot, speaking nonsensically:

"Yi, Miss Desda invited us to her home today. You should bring Miss Weiya along, too."

Lloyd hurried to ’Weiya’s’ residence in town, only to find his ’girlfriend’ perfectly fine at home, not missing at all.

The moment she saw him, she greeted him enthusiastically, cooing:

"Ah, my love, ever since you rescued me from the clutches of that demon, I’ve been..."

’Er... Looks like I glitched out and skipped a whole segment of the plot. Not bad.’

Looking at ’Weiya’s’ cringeworthy confession, Lloyd immediately declared:

"Alright Weiya, stop talking. Let’s break up. I don’t need such a weak girlfriend. You can’t even deal with a single mysterious entity? If you’re trash, then train more! Stop thinking about romance all the time!"

This move directly caused ’Weiya’ to bug out as well. She swayed back and forth on the spot for a moment, then disappeared.

’Maybe she went off to prove herself to that mysterious entity?’

’Haha, it seems this [Story] is like a bank card PIN. The more you crack it, the fewer digits are left, and the easier it gets.’

’So as long as I stick to this line of thinking, refuse to leave this town no matter what, and avoid provoking that mysterious entity, the ’main quest’ can’t advance, and the power of the ’plot’ will just get weaker and weaker.’

’And based on how the plot is progressing, the final boss I have to face in this ’plot’ is probably that mysterious entity, right?’

’In that case, I might as well...’

As Lloyd’s thoughts raced, he suddenly came up with a slightly different plan and began to put it into action.

............

"This... My little darling Lloyd’s ideas are truly one-of-a-kind. It’s both a shock and a pleasant surprise. I wonder if he has the same level of creativity when it comes to *that* sort of thing? Could he bring me a whole new experience?"

Lady Inesha said, her face showing undisguised avarice, as if she wanted to eat Lloyd up completely.

The Butler quickly warned:

"That’s enough, Inesha. If you don’t put away those disgusting thoughts, I’m going to change my previous decision."

"Hmph. What a boring man. You can’t even take a little joke. I can’t imagine how bored Lloyd must be with you. He probably can’t even find a girlfriend."

At this moment, on the third floor of the inn, the three great figures were observing the performance of the three ’readers’ through a channel opened by the Butler.

And among them, Lloyd’s actions were naturally the main focus of everyone’s attention.

As for the other two ’readers’, they had yet to regain their self-Cognition. One was acting as a happy-go-lucky investigator in town, having just rescued a beautiful and passionate young woman from an anomalous event. The two were currently in the throes of a passionate romance.

The other was a scholar in town, extremely short on cash, but was fortunate enough to receive funding from a wealthy older woman. Knowing he could never repay her, he could only go and play ’steel-wool-ball fun time’ with the rich lady. And he even seemed to be enjoying it?

By this point, two hours had passed in the outside world. But because the other two hadn’t regained their self-Cognition, the ’plot’ was advancing very slowly, and things like the mysterious entity had yet to even appear.

Lloyd, on the other hand, was already pulling all sorts of wild stunts.

He was continuously dodging the ’main quest’ while simultaneously strengthening the security and defenses of Arkham.

First, he dealt with the mayor by exploiting a bug, getting him to order mass production in the town. All sorts of swords, armor, and even guns and cannons began to be produced in a steady stream and were then distributed to every household.

This was, in fact, another exploitation of an oversight in the [Story]. The Butler hadn’t clearly defined the town’s resources and production capacity, giving Lloyd an opportunity for his antics.

Then, he turned the tables, using the various commissions and requests from the residents to madly grind reputation and prestige in the town, and his authority soon surpassed the mayor’s.

Originally, these commissions and requests were all designed to force him out of the town and into the ’main quest’. But not only did Lloyd easily bypass them, he even used them to become the town’s de facto leader.

Then, he used his reputation and prestige to find the various hidden talents and powerful individuals in the town, having them begin to teach the townspeople various forms of Extraordinary Power.

As a result, the entire town soon achieved universal [Enlightenment]. Regardless of age or gender, everyone became an Extraordinary Being.

This was also an oversight in the Butler’s settings, but he never thought Lloyd would exploit it in such a way.

This left the Butler not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He commented:

"I also didn’t expect him to pull off a stunt like this. I never taught him he could crack a [Story] this way. Of course, this is my own fault. I really didn’t think anyone could ’exploit loopholes’ like him."

Lady Olga, who was at the side, added:

"But the problem is, even if you realize your [Story] has such a loophole, it’s impossible to fix such an insignificant detail, right? With our current power, we can’t possibly attend to that level of detail."

The Butler nodded, admitting:

"Yes. To make the ’plot’ itself realistic and powerful, while also paying attention to the scenes and visuals, and also considering all the various characters... Our power is truly stretched thin. Perhaps only after achieving [Transcendence] will we have the spare capacity to patch these loopholes."

Lady Inesha just laughed disdainfully and retorted:

"Give me a break. After you advance to the Eighth Tier, are you really going to waste precious ’page space’ on something like this? Do you think you’re writing some pulp novel?"

"Indeed... Even at the Eighth Tier, it would be impossible to fix such an unimportant loophole..."

The Butler nodded.

This could be considered another weakness of the power of a [Story]. Its ’page space’ isn’t infinite. No matter how skilled the ’author’ is at weaving a tale, the content it can bear is ultimately limited.

Therefore, loopholes and bugs like loose foundational settings and inhuman character logic are unavoidable and are bound to exist.

But fortunately, not everyone can play as flamboyantly as Lloyd.

"Of course, this is also because Lloyd hasn’t been affected by the ’narration’ at all from the very beginning. He’s remained clear-headed the whole time, which is why he has the presence of mind and spare energy to play his game. For an ordinary person, just resisting the ’narration’ would be difficult enough."

"Yeah, look at the guy I brought. He’s from the [Wisdom] system, and yet two hours have passed and he still hasn’t found himself?"

"Forget the [Wisdom] system, my nephew is from the [Law] system, and isn’t he the same? He’s actually thinking of eloping with that virtual village girl. I swear..."

Clearly, resisting the ’narration’ written by a Tier Seven powerhouse was by no means an easy task.

"But speaking of which, why is my little darling Lloyd, a mere Tier Two, able to so easily resist your narration?"

Lady Inesha changed the subject and asked.

"That... To be honest, I’m not entirely sure myself. I just once heard Master Alfred’s evaluation of him. The Master believes his resistance to Spiritual Contamination is far beyond that of an ordinary person and that he has the potential to become a Saint. That’s why he’s so optimistic about him," the Butler explained.

"Is that so? Then it’s not surprising he can resist our ’narration’. If only he were my nephew... Ah, never mind. Let’s see what other tricks this kid has pulled now."

"Uh... what’s with this giant Iron Man?"