Ark Chess Player

"Is Rada a... good child?"

"Of course, people who think Rada is a good kid can type their comments in the comments section."

Lin Lu smiled and reached out to stroke the girl's soft, short golden hair. His spiritual domain expanded, extracting the seeds of evil that remained on the girl.

After the initial extraction of Originium Arts from Sonia, Lin Lu's adaptability has been updated, and extracting the same type of spell again will not cause him the unbearable pain he experienced the first time.

Under Anna's watchful gaze, another black, twisted object was pulled out by the Doctor and crushed into dust.

She vaguely understood something, and while clutching the red-covered book tightly, she roughly realized that she also had the same substance in her body.

Lin Lu made a special trip to retrieve Rada's frying pan and the small vault door from the ruins of the food processing plant. Marked by the anemones, he easily found the items. When he pulled the half-bent frying pan off the monster's head, he nearly fell on his backside. He couldn't help but admire Rada's ruthlessness and skill!

Lada's current strength wasn't enough to hold such a heavy vault door, so Lin Lu thought for a moment and had Lada lie on the door before decompressing the Fulton recovery device. It had its own recovery pod; it was quite well-designed.

After confirming several times that the suspension device would not malfunction due to the added weight, Lin Lu took a step back and prepared to snap his fingers, but then heard Rada call out to him.

"PhD……"

"what happened?"

"Please come closer."

The girl spoke softly, her voice weak, her gradually fading consciousness struggling against the pain, but she insisted on not letting herself fall asleep.

Lin Lu leaned closer and looked at Lada floating in mid-air.

"Doctor, this is for you."

The girl felt around in her pocket and finally managed to pull out a small package of sugar substitute from her empty pocket. The wrapper of the sugar substitute was stained red.

This inexpensive, mechanized sugar substitute is often used as a raw material in the manufacture of synthetic compounds. It has a slightly sweet taste, and its solution is also commonly used in chemical applications.

This is the most precious resource of the Rada. Their food used to consist of sugar substitutes dissolved in water, with each person drinking a cup to supplement a small amount of calories.

"Rada heard the doctor's stomach rumbling. When you're hungry, you must eat well."

The smile of the seemingly youngest child seemed to ignite the sun above the ground, so dazzling that Lin Lu couldn't help but shift his gaze.

"I will cherish it."

Lin Lu carefully accepted the girl's gift, clutching the blood-stained sugar substitute tightly in his hand.

He knew that the sugar granules inside had been dissolved by the girl's blood, but he didn't want to make the girl sad.

As Fulton retrieved the balloon and it rose, Lin Lu looked in the direction the girl had risen, stood still, and took a deep breath to calm his emotions.

"You're not a good boy, so is Mephisto a good boy?"

Lin Lu said calmly, "I can imagine that if Mephisto appeared in front of him, he would bend his legs into a bow."

The evacuation went smoothly. Rosalyn remained obediently bound by Lin Lu, and Lin Lu's extraction of Mephisto's magic from her was also very successful. In fact, it went too smoothly; the seeds of evil within Rosalyn seemed never to have been nurtured with malice, never even having a chance to sprout.

This kid is either extremely honest or extremely brainless.

As for Natalia… Lin Lu nearly failed when extracting the seeds of evil from her body. It was as if his feet had lost all feeling of the ground; the girl's despair almost dragged him into the abyss. Fortunately, Anemone and Anna pulled him back to his senses in time.

Lin Lu had to lean against the Noah motorcycle to catch his breath. He almost lost his confidence and was killed. He silently looked up at Natalia's proud body, which was highlighted by the retractable rope, as it rose straight up.

Lin was panting heavily; he had certainly learned something new.

He'd seen plenty of legal lolis, but this was the first time he'd ever seen an illegal mature woman.

"PhD……"

Anna spoke up.

Of the Ursus bears, she was the only one left who hadn't evacuated. This wasn't just because of the wounded, but also because she wanted to ask Lin Lu some questions privately.

"Doctor, please answer me, what exactly are those things you pulled out of us?"

"It's Persona."

"???"

Chapter 121 Back-to-Back Embrace

Group 4 ⑧8 7④97⑨9

Anna asked curiously, "Doctor, what is Persona?"

Do you really want to know?

Lin Lu stared directly at the girl, his expression unusually serious.

"...I want to know."

"Then come over here."

Lin Lu patted the seat of the Noah motorcycle, gesturing for the girl to come closer.

Anna hesitated for a moment, but the red-covered book in her hand gave her boundless courage, allowing her to walk over and lean against Noah's motorcycle.

The two sat back to back, one looking up at the night sky, the other looking down at a book.

Rather than an ambiguous atmosphere between men and women, it was more like a teacher and a student with a good relationship standing side by side in the library, separated by a bookshelf.

Lin Lu closed his eyes and recovered his depleted mental energy. He originally thought that Sonia was in the worst condition among the bear cubs, but he didn't expect that the unconscious Natalia was the worst.

The moment Lin Lu's spiritual power merged with Natalia's, he was sucked into the girl's embrace and couldn't extricate himself. Even now, bloody and dark images keep appearing before Lin Lu's eyes.

Lin Lu's guess was slightly off, but his reasoning was generally correct...

All of Natalia's former companions, without exception, were corrupted into monsters by Mephisto's magic.

Some of the monsters who still retained their humanity tried to protect Natalia, but many more, unable to resist their craving for flesh, attacked the girl. Monsters fought each other, all for the same person, for two completely different ideas.

Natalia saw everything from beginning to end, but she couldn't do anything about it; there was nothing she could do.

What destroyed the girl was her despairing sense of powerlessness and self-blame.

This is why Sonia found Natalia in the pile of monster corpses.

"Persona... is just a pseudonym, a disguise, an illusion, a mask."

Lin Lu said softly that when he pronounced Persona, he vaguely felt something about to break free from his body, but it was locked up by dark chains.

“Everyone has two sides, good and evil. Someone has planted the seeds of evil in you, and when the scales of good and evil are completely tipped, you will become monsters.” Lin Lu said softly. Perhaps it was a bit too much to say such things to a girl, but Anna was clearly not the kind of flower that was sheltered in a greenhouse.

After all, the flowers in the greenhouse have turned into man-eating plants.

"...Do I also have this seed inside me?"

Anna asked calmly, without any emotional fluctuation.

Lin Lu admitted frankly, "Yes."

There's no need to hide it; a crude lie is just the most foolish deception for a girl.

Anna was much smarter and had a broader perspective than the other girls. She had also considered why the students had turned into monsters, but no matter how much she thought about it, it was useless. Just surviving required all she could do, not to mention…

"I should have been one of the monsters too."

Anna muttered to herself as she took a teddy bear from her bag. The teddy bear's name was Vika, and it was her good friend.

“I made an irreparable mistake. I did something wrong.” Anna’s voice became somber as she hugged her teddy bear tightly, as if trying to bury it inside her body. “How can I still live as a human being in this state?”

"..."

Lin Lu's answer was to press his back against the girl's back.

The abrupt action startled the girl, but she was quickly captivated by the warm heat on her back.

These past few days, every night as she fell asleep, she would snuggle together with Sonia and Rada, giving each other a sense of security.

“Compared to you, I’ve probably made more than one mistake.” Lin Lu slowly opened his eyes, secretly glanced at the Q-version anemone sitting on the hood of the car, and said softly, “As a senior who has made mistakes all the time in my life, I can give you some advice.”

Before Anna could even ask, Lin Lu said, "Don't force yourself to forget. The more you try to forget something, the clearer it becomes when you remember it."

“…But what if I still feel pain when I think about it?” Anna murmured, her voice so hoarse that she could barely hear herself.

"It's already a good thing that you can remember it."

"what?"

Anna didn't quite understand what Lin Lu was trying to say.

"Sometimes, what's more terrifying than memories is amnesia."

Lin Lu took the melted sugar substitute out of his pocket, dipped his index finger in it, and put it in his mouth.

A subtle blend of sweet and sour flavors and the taste of blood floods the nasal cavity, and the overworked brain craves a sugar boost, even the most bitter alternative to natural sugar.

"I've lost my memory. I don't know who I used to be, or what I did in the past. But I know that I must have done something wrong in the past," Lin Lu murmured to himself. He wouldn't tell anyone else, not even Amiya, Kal'tsit, or anyone on Rhodes Island.

He was afraid that his image in their eyes would decline, and he was afraid that one day Amiya would leave him disappointed.

Lin Lu also has a vulnerable side, but he hides it so well that everyone thinks he is omnipotent and that everything can be solved as long as he is around.

"If I was really that powerful before, why was I sealed in a stone coffin and awakened in a state of complete ignorance? I must have done a lot of wrong things, so many wrong things. That's why I felt so heartbroken and lost in front of Theresa's room, and I didn't even dare to go in and see any trace of her."

"I must have made some mistake in the past to be unable to see her now."

Lin Lu unconsciously pressed his back closer to the girl, so close that he could almost hear her heartbeat gradually quickening.

“Sometimes remembering things clearly isn’t a bad thing. At least when you face the same situation again in the future, you’ll still have the opportunity to make another choice.” Lin Lu put all the blood-melted sugar substitute into his mouth, the bitter sweetness sending a slight stinging sensation through his tongue. “I hope that next time, your decision won’t cause you pain.”

"……Um."

Anna listened intently, looking down at the teddy bear, her lake-blue eyes shimmering like water.

Vika, I have never forgotten anything about you.

Between Sonia and you, I chose Sonia and didn't reach out to you...

I watched you fall, fall.

If I forget about you, will you blame me? You will, won't you?

You say you won't? That sounds like something you would say... I know, I know you're lying to me, Vika, you can't possibly talk to me.

Can I be as strong as a PhD student in facing the mistakes I've made?

Vika, can I get your forgiveness?