Chapter 73 - 000: A New Beginning, Emotion Tag

Chapter 73: Chapter 000: A New Beginning, Emotion Tag

Night.

The rain poured in torrents. Dark clouds weighed heavily upon the sky, and cold, relentless rain scoured the earth, creating the illusion of being submerged deep at the bottom of the sea.

West District.

A muffled thud came from outside the grocery store, followed immediately by the door being pushed open.

The shopkeeper was organizing items on the shelves. A gust of cold wind swept into the room, causing him to shiver involuntarily.

"We’re closed!" the shopkeeper scolded impatiently. "Look at the time! And we don’t take in homeless people here! If you can’t sleep in the park, go to the charity hall!"

The person at the door didn’t respond. Instead of leaving, they reached back to shut the door and slumped against a shelf.

Now the shopkeeper was truly furious. He grabbed a hammer and marched over, fully intending to give the intruder a good beating. However, as the figure came into view, he froze. "...Victor?"

The shopkeeper furrowed his brow. "How did you end up like this? Did those thugs give you trouble?"

Victor was in a terrible state. He leaned weakly against the shelf, his dark green uniform soaked with rain and almost completely covered in blood. He looked as if he had rolled through a pool of blood or had been slashed multiple times. He seemed like he could drop dead at any moment.

Cursing under his breath, the shopkeeper dug out a dust-covered medical kit from God-knows-where and tossed it in front of Victor. "Such bad luck! Don’t you dare die in my shop! It’ll ruin the property value around here! Plus, dealing with a corpse is a huge hassle. Do you want me to get dragged away by the security bureau?"

Victor finally mustered a bit of strength. He managed a weak smile. "I won’t die yet."

"You’ve lost so much blood and you say you won’t die? Who are you trying to fool?"

"Not much of it is mine."

Victor reached for the medical kit. The shopkeeper couldn’t be bothered to humor him. He turned his back and resumed his tasks. "I’ve always told you to mind your own business. Do you really think they wouldn’t know what you were up to just because you avoided a direct confrontation?

"In the eyes of those people, as long as you help the ones they bully, you’re going against them! If you don’t get beaten up, who will?"

"It’s not them." Victor took off his outer clothes and tore his shirt away from his wounds, looking as if he were peeling off a layer of his own flesh. A sharp, piercing pain surged through his mind, causing his vision to darken in waves. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and after a simple rinse with clean water, grabbed the rubbing alcohol and sprayed it on. To distract himself, he spoke with a trembling voice, "It wasn’t the thugs from the West District."

"Then who was it?" the shopkeeper asked casually.

"Nobles... the nobles from Lien Academy."

CLANG.

The hammer in the shopkeeper’s hand dropped to the floor. A moment later, his exasperated voice rang out. "Are you insane?! Those thugs were already hard enough to deal with, and now you’re telling me you provoked the nobles?!"

"Don’t worry... It won’t implicate you."

"That’s not what I’m worried about!" The shopkeeper immediately clammed up. Well... he was actually a little worried about that. He walked over to Victor. "Did you kill someone?"

"Yeah. The nobles’ subordinates."

"How many?"

"About four or five... I can’t really remember."

"I swear... if they want to bully someone, just let them. Isn’t that how it’s always been?" the shopkeeper urged earnestly. "Commoners aren’t even considered human in front of nobles. We’re just objects... If you don’t want to be an object, your only option is death.

"Now look at you. Killing them might have felt great in the moment, but what are you going to do now? Pay with your life?"

Victor wrapped the bandages around himself, layer by layer. "No," he said. "I’m planning to leave Lien."

"Leave Lien? To where?"

"Light." Victor clearly had this planned out. "By water. The ferry tickets are cheap, and I can work on the ship to save up for the travel expenses."

"...Are you serious?" the shopkeeper asked. "But you’d be leaving your home behind, leaving Lien for a completely unfamiliar place... You’re not just leaving Taronia, but Lien itself!"

"Yeah." Victor nodded. "Aside from you, I don’t know anyone else anyway. Everywhere is the same to me."

These words left the shopkeeper utterly speechless. He scratched the back of his head and sighed. "...Alright. If your mind is made up, I met a sailor at the bar a while back. He supposedly went to the Light Kingdom and stayed there for quite a long time. But you know how it is, you can’t trust most of the tall tales drunks spout. If even ten percent of it is true, he’d be considered an honest man. Still, him working on a ship should be true. If you need it, I still have his contact information."

Victor finished packing the medical kit and pushed it back to the shopkeeper. "Thank you, but I won’t trouble you."

The shopkeeper choked on his words. He knew exactly why Victor refused. It wasn’t out of a lack of trust; it was out of fear of dragging him into this mess.

Staring at the neatly packed medical kit, the shopkeeper suddenly felt a sour pang in his heart.

"Just go, then!" he said in irritation. "Leaving in such a hurry, you definitely won’t have time to pack. Once you’re gone, I’m going to empty out your house! I won’t leave a single thing behind!"

"Yeah. I meant to leave all that for you anyway."

"And your salary for this week! Since you’re leaving, I won’t have to pay you!"

"That’s fine. I’ve saved up a little money over the years, and like I said, I can work on the ship."

"...Do you have any regrets? Are you really never coming back?!"

Regrets... Victor fell silent.

Regrets... he did have some. But perhaps it was all just an illusion. He couldn’t shake the feeling... that he was supposed to have a friend at Lien Academy. That friend, who by all rights should be incredibly important to him... who exactly were they?

...

[Congratulations to the player for achieving the Bad Ending: Canary!]

[The "Tag" system has been unlocked.]

[Click here to view all currently activated tags.]

Lilia opened her eyes.

Before dropping her character into the world, all that existed before her eyes was a vast, white expanse of nothingness. During the previous playthrough, in the intervals between rerolling her starting conditions, she had attempted to explore this area. However, no matter which direction she went, it was always a blank void. Regardless of how long or how far she walked, she couldn’t see any colors other than pure white.

Lilia guessed that this must be the System Space. To her, however, it felt more like a prison for the soul. Even now, after her character’s death, she could still faintly feel the sensation of the blade slicing through her flesh.

Lilia touched her smooth neck and opened the newly appeared "Tag" interface. According to the system’s explanation, tags were impression entries that other characters had of her. Any character who had interacted with her would generate a tag.

Based on the depth of their impression of her, the tags were divided into three categories:

[Impression Tags], corresponding to passing NPCs she had only met a few times.

[Emotion Tags], corresponding to familiar NPCs who held feelings of goodwill or malice toward her.

Finally, there were [Permanent Labels]. Inside, there were only three entries. They corresponded to Lucian, Victor, and Caius.