Chapter 238: Game Pool

When he opened his eyes again, Armand was back in time, as if before the accident.

Or rather, it is not accurate to define Armand's current world in terms of what has happened to him. It is as if he has travelled to another parallel time, where everything seems to be the same as it was before he was born, and yet each place is different, but not by much.

There is still the Bureau of Heresy, there is the game, and there is his most important brother Georgia.

Armand was glad to be here - because here his brother was still alive and well, and had not been captured and tortured into madness by Mu Sicheng.

Because there was no such thing as a monkey thief running a huge heretical smuggling line that made the three districts miserable, something Armand had confirmed over and over again in the month since he woke up, but each confirmation made him even more excited.

At this thought, Armand exhaled a long, relieved breath, but it was as if he was running away from something, a strange, lingering feeling of emptiness inside him.

There was peace again within his enclosure, and this time no one came to disturb his peace.

Why did Armand Buming White appear in this world after his death, and is it a real world, or is it a perfect illusion in hell after death to compel the undead to stop by?

Armand touched his throat, which Mu Sicheng had gutted, and felt as if he had been favoured by a non-existent god, allowing him to rewind the game of life and play a more perfect [future line].

But is this [future], which he does not know whether it is real or not, really a future for him?

What is the point of his existence if even death has lost its value and everything can be [read in the archives] started over, his mistakes and sins washed away?

Armand didn't know the answer either, he was too young.

Young people are not good at thinking about life, especially young people like Armand who has spent most of his short twenty years of life working against a thief.

But in a time and place where "thieves" do not exist, it all seems so absurd.

Armand suddenly felt that the world was like that bad guy had disparagingly commented - [It's just a game, what's the big deal].

Armand could never understand why Mu Sicheng always stripped himself of the real world like that, looking at everyone from above and treating everything like a toy.

After the wanton play, it was clear that it was the fellow himself who had done the evil, but then he was lying quite alone on the moor looking at the sky and saying to him, saying Armand, that the game was no fun at all without friends.

I don't want to go on, says Mu Sicheng very softly, with his elbows over his eyes, and for a moment Armand feels as if he is about to burst into tears.

He is the one who chooses to play, he is the one who refuses to stop playing, and in the end, he seems to be the one who is most upset.

Armand took a deep breath and drew back his thoughts, no matter what kind of world or game this was, he knew that the only thing he could do now was to protect Georgia.

He must not let Georgia go through those terrible things again.

Armand brushed his half-length hair off his shoulders and pinned the little winged emblem of the Golden Dawn guild behind one ear - or Georgia would see him and say he was rambunctious.

Armand doesn't like his hair tied up like his brother, he finds it too tight, he prefers to wear it loose, so Georgia makes sure he keeps it well groomed.

He's off to train in the play pool - it's the only thing he can do at the moment.

Georgia has forbidden him to play in the small TV area, saying that it is not safe to play there as he cannot exit at any time, so Armand has not been to the small TV area since he woke up and does not know what is going on there.

Armand's knowledge of the game was very limited and he spent most of his time after waking up playing the pool with others.

If he hadn't secretly signed up for the Golden Dawn guild behind Georgia's back some time ago, Georgia would have been prepared to let him live out his life like this - Georgia always did, putting him in the safest place possible.

But Armand has signed up and is a pretty good player for Golden Dawn, after all, he was the vice-captain in the first place.

Georgia had to put him on the official team even though he was angry - even if Armand was his brother, he couldn't go against the guild's rules and kick out a player who had already signed up.

However, although Georgia has done so, it is clear that she is not ready to reconcile with Armand and the two are still in a cold war.

So when Armand walked out of the dormitory and saw Georgia standing in front of his door, he was visibly stunned.

" Armand, I dreamt about you." Georgia seemed to be recalling the dream that had left him less than happy, "I don't remember exactly, I dreamed that you died with a man to protect me."

Armand's hands clenched furiously and he lowered his head, pursing his lips without saying a word.

Seeing him like this, Georgia reached up and patted Armand's head along his long hair, stroking the side of Armand's eye with her thumb, "-sometimes I wish you'd never grow up."

"But you have certainly grown." Georgia's gaze fell on Armand's shoulder where a butterfly rested with gently flapping wings, "Your skills have changed from a bow and arrow like mine to a butterfly, which means your core of desire has shifted, but every time I ask you, you never tell me why."

"Ever since I was a child I could guess what you were thinking, even dreams we dreamed the same, and you were always proud of the telepathic connection between us."

"But now, even if I seem to see your dreams, I'm not sure what you're thinking, you've got secrets, Armand."

Armand opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't.

Georgia looked at the docile, beautiful butterfly and lowered her eyes, "I may not be able to keep you trapped in a safe place any longer."

"There is no way for a butterfly to survive in a place that is too narrow."

Armand looked up in dismay.

Georgia looked at him levelly, "The team is going to patrol the small TV area today to show off this year's team to the players who support us, so if you're sure you want to play in the league, take it seriously and pack yourself up and come over."

With that, Georgia turned and walked away, leaving a dumbfounded Armand to stroke his hair, which had been ruffled by Georgia, and to smile with slightly red eyes.

"Yes Captain!" Armand replied loudly.

The butterfly on his shoulder flapped gently.

Small TV area.

Bai Liu's group rested against the side of the central hall mid-training. No one dared to come up and disturb them because of Tang Erda, and everyone looked in awe at these five madmen who had swiped thirteen games in two days.

Bai Liu squints and pulls his sweaty hair back with his fingers as Mu Sicheng sits next to him, his head bowed and panting.

Tang Erda reprimanded the two with a hug on her chest, "Three games and you can't hold out, didn't you hold out for ten games in a row yesterday?"

"It's because I lasted ten games in a row yesterday that my body started to ache today." Bai Liu argues squarely. Bai Liu argues in all seriousness, "It's too intense, Captain Tang, and I can't hold it up in an office like this."

Mu Sicheng exhaled a hot breath, "I can keep going, but the other two who didn't call out can't hold on."

Tang Erda was stunned and turned his head to Liu Jiayi and Muke, who were pale and out of breath - he had subconsciously held the group to the standards of the future and had not expected that Muke and Liu Jiayi, the two slightly weaker ones, would not be able to cope with the intensity of the training.

But both of them are strong personalities and never shouted to stop, gritting their teeth and holding on.

Mu Sicheng says: "The games you picked are all quick-fire monster-fighting games that don't even require decryption, and some of them you've cleared, so of course you're playing fast, but we're struggling to keep up."

"Take it easy on yourself, Captain Tang." Bai Liu said with a smile.

Tang Erda paused for a moment and let go, "Rest for half a dimensional hour."

Bai Liu said and turned to Liu Jiayi: "Are you getting to the league entry line for the number of games you've played?"

Liu Jiayi tapped on the system panel to confirm and replied to Bai Liu: "Yes, two more to go."

"If you sign up for the league in our guild's name, you're officially quitting the King's Guild, right?" Bai Liu asked.

Liu Jiayi was quiet for a moment: "Yes."

Bai Liu looks at her: "No regrets?"

Liu Jiayi couldn't help but roll her eyes, "Did you give me a chance to regret? This is the time to ask, horseshit."

"That's not true." Bai Liu admitted shamelessly and he asked with a smile, "And have you ever regretted it?"

"Yes." Liu Jiayi admitted without hesitation, but she paused for a moment, pinched her fingertips down, and said in a small whisper, "...... but well, you said outside the Heretics Authority that you wouldn't use Hearts' method, and that time, it made me slightly less regretful ......"

Before she could say anything, there was a clamour from the front and the crowd suddenly gathered in one direction.

Bai Liu's group stood up and stepped back, Tang Erda, the tallest and with his eyesight above the crowd, looked away and frowned, "There's a guild war party out on patrol."

"What guild is this big?" Mu Sicheng asked with a raised eyebrow, "The top three, right?"

Tang Erda turned her head to Bai Liu and said in a deep voice, " Golden Dawn."

Bai Liu also raised the end of his eyebrow as he glanced sideways at the Golden Dawn team that was approaching the centre hall.

Golden Dawn came out on their rounds with a number of members who separated the spectators who had come to watch in an orderly manner, isolating them for a distance so that the players could walk in the middle of the line and be clearly seen by all.

The crowd that came to watch included a number of Golden Dawn fans, or players who wanted to place a bet on Golden Dawn, who looked greedily and carefully at this year's team and couldn't help but erupt in a higher cheer when they saw two almost identical faces walking backwards and forwards at the forefront of the team with their faces blazing.

"...... Who's this new player? Georgia's brother?!"

"The twins! We're in for a treat in the pairs this year!"

" Golden Dawn are covering it up enough, they're just releasing it now, is it a killer or something, what's the skill?"

"Gee, that face, it's going to cause a frenzy on the field, it's not like Georgia got a free pass on her face again, is it?"

......

The players' discussion grew louder and louder, sucking away all the attention that had been focused on Bai Liu and the others.

The arrival of Golden Dawn was like a big backstop for them, and every now and then they would look at Bai Liu with contempt and grumble in a sinister way.

"That's the regular team, just some people ah ...... and the big guild's team still can't compare."

"Look at people's rookie players, tbh."

Of course, these players wouldn't dare to taunt Bai Liu directly because Tang Erda was standing right next to them and they were tired of offending this man.

Bai Liu was deaf to these comments, he had been mocked all the way through and didn't care much for them, but this exploded Mu Sicheng, who was already angry at being pressured by Tang Erda to criticise his training over the past few days, and now these people were jumping on his head.

Mu Sicheng rolls up his sleeves with a grim look, ready to catch these pushy players and beat them up across the room!

When these players saw Mu Sicheng approaching, they didn't think that such a player who was going to compete in the competition would be so mean as to bother with them, and after being caught by Mu Sicheng, they were so scared that they almost cried out, but only when Bai Liu intervened and Mu Sicheng relieved himself did he release the players who kept begging for mercy.

After the player ran away, Mu Sicheng was still not happy.

He and Bai Liu were now standing in the inner circle of players greeting the Golden Dawn team, and as soon as he turned around he could see the Golden Dawn team these players were using to pull the plug on him, Mu Sicheng looked over in defiance, ready to see who the newcomer was that these idiots were blowing up.

Bai Liu and Tang Erda are also on the inside.

At the head of the procession was a man with a waist-high brown ponytail, brown eyes and a striking look, with two shiny gold winged badges on either side of his ponytail, dressed in an extremely well-groomed silver and white ceremonial uniform and gold-stitched boots.

To Georgia's right and behind him is a player who looks almost ten percent like him.

He appears slightly shorter than the leader, Georgia, with darker brown eyes, shoulder-length hair pinned to the back of his head by a gold winged crest, revealing a softer profile, and a butterfly resting motionlessly on his right shoulder as if for decoration.

At this moment he was walking forward without a glance, without a trace of emotion on his face, obviously looking very young, but with the majesty of someone who had led the group for a long time.

It really does look like a big curmudgeon with a little curmudgeon.

Mu Sicheng looked at Armand, who was slowly approaching him, and narrowed his eyes impishly, resting them on the winged crest behind Armand's ear.

Mu Sicheng's right hand moves its fingers in an itchy manner and slowly changes form from a human hand to a monkey's paw -

--He hasn't stolen anything in a long time.

The butterfly on his right shoulder suddenly flaps its wings a few times as Armand brushes past him, and at that very moment, without hesitation, Mu Sicheng reaches out with his monkey paw and pokes Armand behind the ear.

Armand turned his head with great dexterity to avoid it, but the otherwise unsound badge was viciously picked off by the quick-witted Mu Sicheng with his nails.

With his long brown hair languishing, Armand turned his head in a way that half covered the lower half of his face, revealing only a pair of dazed dark brown eyes.

The glittering badge fell to the ground with a crisp 'ding'.

Mu Sicheng bent down and hooked Armand's badge with his monkey paw, twirling it twice absently on his nails and looking up at Armand with a nasty hooked smile, "Is that the alertness of Golden Dawn's ace recruit? See."

Armand's dark eyes reflected Mu Sicheng's provocative face clearly and his pupils crinkled involuntarily.

The butterfly on his shoulder began to flap its wings rapidly, and a gust of wind from nowhere swept between Mu Sicheng and Armand, blowing Mu Sicheng backwards, sending the onlookers on either side of him into a frightened flight, and messing up Armand's long, freshly groomed hair.

Standing calmly in the eye of the wind, Armand retrieved his badge from the blown to the ground Mu Sicheng, pinned it back on the back of his head and turned away without a backward glance against the wind-blown backdrop.

The hurricane is back.