Chapter 79 Swan Castle (Second Update)
The vampire duke strictly followed Yu Naixin's orders, forcing the elf prince to a depth of more than ten meters in the sea of blood-red roses.
This distance was already the limit for these male guests.
Going any deeper could easily lead to your own downfall.
The Elf Prince lay in a sea of roses, countless crimson roses stretching out their vines and leaves, wrapping him tightly around himself, layer upon layer.
Sharp thorns pierced the elf prince's body, leaving one wound after another, while the serrated edges of the sharp, dark green leaves slashed fiercely across all of the elf prince's exposed skin.
The crimson flowers eagerly touched the elf prince from head to toe, like shy maidens tenderly entwining themselves, but in reality, they were gaping maws eager to drink the elf prince's blood and devour his marrow.
Unfortunately, the Elf Prince did not have the blood they craved.
Thick silt gushed from his countless wounds all over his body, overflowing and flowing onto a large patch of ground around him.
The grayish-black silt emitted a pungent, foul stench, and it seemed to possess a corrosive quality, even affecting the crimson roses entwined around the Elf Prince, forcing him to retreat slightly.
However, hatred ultimately triumphed over the instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm, and many more crimson roses were willing to risk being slowly corroded in order to cling tightly to the Elf Prince.
It's a fight to the death.
It took Yu Naixin a while to finally find the location of the Elf Prince by following the Vampire Duke's gaze.
The Elf Prince was so entangled in blood-red roses that he almost blended into the entire sea of roses. Yu Naixin couldn't even tell where his head and feet were; she could only roughly make out that he was lying on his side, curled up.
Many crimson roses pierced through the Elf Prince's body, and from within him bloomed delicate flowers.
Wow, here it is! One of the specialties of "Heartbeat 1000%"—this scene that is bloody, romantic, and eerie all at the same time!
[Did the fairy become nourishment for the roses she grew?]
The mud inside his body is so disgusting, it still makes me feel nauseous no matter how many times I watch it...
Some of the roses have withered from this mud. Oh, and I think I even see some burn marks. Was it done by a ghost?
[Some roses were also violently broken; it was clearly the work of a werewolf.]
Comparing the male guests' strength with the extent of the damage to the roses, it seems these roses are no pushovers. Even with the formidable male guests' efforts, they barely managed to harm them.
The vampire was clearly very experienced in this; he never even tried to harm the roses; his aim was always the elven prince.
[After all, these red roses are related to vampires, so why would he bother attacking his own people? He'd use his skills on his enemies!]
The four male guests all expended considerable energy, and even the Ghost Wizard, who had the least effort, failed to notice Yu Naixin's arrival immediately.
It wasn't until Yu Naixin stood at the castle entrance and observed the situation for a while that the ghost wizard seemed to sense something, turned his head to look, and upon discovering Yu Naixin's figure, his eyes lit up, and he quickly deactivated his invisibility.
He quickly ran to Yu Naixin's side, knelt down on one knee once again, and respectfully gave her a brief report on the current situation.
This time, the werewolf knight saw it all clearly from the sidelines: how the ghost wizard "copied" his knightly salute.
Even after fighting the Elf Prince and those crimson roses for quite some time, and being so tired that he barely wanted to move his fingers, the werewolf knight suddenly bristled: "A ghost?!"
He hasn't even treated Yu Naixin like this yet, so why should the ghost wizard do this?!
The werewolf knight lunged at the ghost wizard, baring his fangs and brandishing his claws, intending to beat the newly dressed, seemingly respectable ghost to a pulp, just as he always did.
However, Yu Naixin was still interested in the ghost wizard's report.
Yu Naixin merely gave the werewolf knight a look and raised her hand to signal him to move aside, abruptly interrupting the werewolf knight's furious, bloodshot-eyed state.
Then, the werewolf knight paused for a moment, understood Yu Naixin's meaning, and reluctantly but obediently did as she was told, silently retreating to the side.
The werewolf knight stood aside, looking at Yu Naixin with a mixture of confusion and grievance, but he didn't voice any objections. He simply waited quietly for Yu Naixin to finish her other tasks and notice him.
[Wow, every frame of this werewolf's facial expressions could be a meme! They're all incredibly expressive!]
[This is hilarious! The werewolf seamlessly switched between these two drastically different emotions with just a gentle wave of the female guest's hand~]
[Congratulations to the female guest on the show "Heartbeat 1000%"! You have received 6 Sweet Coins from a viewer with the ID "咻咻咻"!]
[The werewolf is so obedient after being trained! The female guest is so good at training them, they're a perfect match!]
[Congratulations to the female guest on the show "Heartbeat 1000%"! You have received 3 Sweet Coins from a viewer with the ID "Shake Shake"!]
[Why is everyone talking about the werewolf? Has no one noticed how proactive and considerate the ghost is? He knows exactly what information the little witch wants and delivers it to her in the most efficient way possible!]
[Congratulations to the female guest on the show "Heartbeat 1000%"! You have received 10 Sweet Coins from a viewer with the ID "Waiting for the Little Witch"!]
While the four male guests were fighting fiercely, Yu Naixin was on the fourth floor of the central tower of Swan Castle and didn't have time to pay attention to what was happening here.
The Ghost Wizard's report filled in this gap, letting Yu Naixin know that whether it was the Vampire Duke who launched the attack on the Elf Prince at the beginning, the Werewolf Knight who followed closely behind, or the Ghost Wizard who joined last, they all adopted the same tactic.
Instead of spending too much effort directly injuring the Elf Prince, they drove him step by step into the sea of roses, letting these blood-red roses deal with him.
Clearly, the male guests all knew this was a way to achieve twice the result with half the effort.
The ghost wizard also told Yu Naixin that while the Elf Prince was still conscious, the vampire duke launched a barrage of verbal attacks on him, clearly recounting the Elf Prince's unsavory past to the other two male guests.
After all, back in the banquet hall on the first floor, Yu Naixin only briefly mentioned the "father-son" relationship between the vampire duke and the elf prince.
The viewers in the live stream knew more about the Elf Prince's past, but the two male guests on "Moonlight Town" did not.
It can be said that they not only killed him, but also destroyed his spirit.
Oh wow.
Yu Naixin's eyes revealed a look of great interest.
In other words, these three male guests not only launched physical and magical attacks on the Elf Prince, but also launched mental attacks on him, right?
Yu Naixin nodded, casting an approving glance at the vampire duke who was still hovering in the air.
Well done.
That suited her perfectly.
[Help! I'm dying of laughter! The vampire maintained his floating posture and aloof expression the whole time, just waiting for that compliment from the female guest, right?! When he received it, he could barely contain his grin!]
[Hahaha, this vampire is so pretentious! I need to greet the little witch with the coolest and most stylish look!]
Honestly, staying on these roses must be incredibly uncomfortable for him. They contain the intense resentment of countless female guests he hunted before their deaths! Even if he's related to these roses by blood, he can only lessen the corrosive effect of that resentment; he can't avoid it!
[Those are probably all trivial matters to vampires; saving face is everything, hahaha!]
Yu Naixin also knew that the Vampire Duke was just putting on a brave face.
Even if the moonlight wasn't directed at him, the Vampire Duke wouldn't be unaffected after basking in it for so long.
Yu Naixin never hesitates to reward male guests who perform well. She immediately took the initiative to say, "Come back, I'll handle the rest."
This also signaled to the ghost wizard that he could get up.
The moment the vampire duke heard Yu Naixin's words, he was so unaccustomed to being in a motionless position for so long that he almost lost his balance and swayed.
Fortunately, he still had the trick of transforming his body into a swarm of bats, which prevented an accident in time and allowed him to return smoothly to Yu Naixin's side. He even had the leisure to dust off non-existent dust from the hem of his clothes.
[Hahahaha, so this is what vampires are like! He looks like a peacock desperately trying to show off to the female guest!]
[This is textbook-perfect tsundere behavior! His mouth is practically sewn shut, he doesn't say a word, but his little actions keep coming one after another!]
[However, the female guest didn't seem to care about his commotion at all, hahaha, which makes it even funnier!]
Yu Naixin is currently focused on Elf Prince.
She walked into the sea of blood-red roses, which were half her height, passing through one bright red and alluring flower after another, stepping over one thorny vine after another, and crossing one dark green and sharp leaf after another, until she reached the elf prince's side.
At such close range, Yu Naixin was finally able to see which side the Elf Prince's head was on.
She crouched down, extended her right index finger, and used it to pry open a few rose petals that were covering the elf prince's nose, checking to see if he was still breathing.
The guest contestants in "Heartbeat 1000%" may not be able to maintain the same physiological habits as humans, a point that Priest Folding Fan explained to Yu Naixin.
However, the priestess also told Yu Naixin that there were also many guest characters with similar human habits, as well as guest characters who longed for humans and deliberately made themselves similar to humans.
The Elf Prince clearly belongs to the latter category.
Besides his still faint breathing, Yu Naixin also detected his low body temperature.
The Elf Prince now appears as a humanoid life form on the verge of death.
[Oh dear, is the elf still alive? The dungeon guest shouldn't die that easily, right?]
[Oh my god, the female guest is quietly checking the breath of the elf amidst the sea of flowers. From this angle, the other male guests can't see her at all; it looks like it's just the two of them. This scene is so beautiful!]
[Congratulations to the female guest on the show "Heartbeat 1000%"! You have received 5 Sweet Coins from a viewer with the ID "Be Kind to My Eyes"!]
[It seems some of the elf's muddy blood has been absorbed by the roses? And then even more roses came, covering up the mud underneath; at first glance, it's barely visible.]
The setting of this episode is actually quite fairytale-like; it seems the female guest is preparing to awaken the princess who is cursed by the prince.
[Congratulations to the female guest on the show "Heartbeat 1000%"! You have received 9 Sweet Coins from a viewer with the ID "小k小k"!]
These crimson roses are indeed very vigorous in terms of vitality and regeneration.
After the roses, ravaged by the mud inside the Elf Prince's body and the werewolf knight and ghost wizard, withered, more roses grew and bloomed, covering up the original filth as if nothing had ever happened.
The leaves that Yu Naixin had parted retracted. They trembled, no longer content with merely blocking the elf prince's airway, but eager to explore deeper.
They wanted the Elf Prince dead, utterly and completely dead.
Yu Naixin called out "Priest's Folding Fan" in her mind.
These crimson roses posed no threat to the priestess's fan, but it still obeyed Yu Naixin's orders, staying in a secluded corner and shadow beside her, waiting for its master's summons.
Yu Naixin was also able to tell the priest's folding fan status.
Even the Vampire Duke, a guest of the dungeon with a spiritual power coefficient of 306 and various damage reduction buffs, struggled to cope with the sea of blood roses, while the Priestess Folding Fan was able to handle it with ease despite having no spiritual power.
The Domain Lord... is indeed not a concept like the other dungeon guests.
The priest's folding fan was very close to Yu Naixin at this moment, and they could communicate with each other using only their thoughts.
“If we just leave him like this,” Yu Naixin asked, “what will happen to him? I know he probably won’t really die.”
In the dating reality show "Heartbeat 1000%", the production team had to recruit many guests to work hard to win over the contestants, making the process quite complicated and troublesome.
Following this logic, it's definitely not that easy for the guest characters in the game to die.
During the simulation, Yu Naixin specifically had the two male guests, the Werewolf Knight and the Vampire Duke, devour their old rivals.
Given that the two sides are not significantly different in strength and one side has completely lost the ability to resist, the fact that the other side will be devoured and then die from the backlash proves that the death of the guest in the instance is not simple.
These crimson roses couldn't escape the Elf Prince's slaughter even in life, so how could they be so weakened after death, losing even their consciousness, and still be able to cause the Elf Prince much harm?
It's only theoretically possible to take the life of the Elf Prince.
Otherwise, all those female guests who participated in the "Rose Spire" episode would have already used this to their advantage and defeat the Elf Prince.
At most, it would just make the injuries look rather gruesome, and then apply a negative status effect to the Elf Prince, putting him at a clear disadvantage.
What truly dealt the Elf Prince the heaviest blow was the meaning behind these blood-red roses.
Purely psychological attack.
In the real-world instance, only three hours have passed since Yu Naixin entered, but the priestess has a vague feeling that she hasn't been summoned by Yu Naixin for a very long time.
This feeling of appearing and disappearing without a trace is not important. Priest Folding Fan immediately replied to Yu Naixin, "He will enter a state of 'feigned death'."
"This situation, which is theoretically logically possible to cause the death of the guest, but is actually impossible to achieve, will make the guest appear to die."
"Generally speaking, this situation occurs when the main guest and the supporting guest fight to the point of mutual destruction. The main guest can die in the supporting episode, but the supporting guest cannot."
"When this happens, the entire program will restart. The program guests may die or leave the program. The program guests will fall into a periodic sleep along with the entire program, waiting for the arrival of the next program guest to start a new round of the program."
Yu Naixin succinctly summarized: "So the only way for a guest in a dungeon to die is to have their affection level maxed out, right?"
The priest with the folding fan disagreed: "If the entire program's scenario is completely cleansed and perfected, then all the guests in that scenario will die, for example..."
The priest's folding fan could not be "compared" to this.
Because it suddenly realized that its predecessor, the fox demon priest, was not won over by Yu Naixin and died only after being cleansed and perfected in "Cocoon Village".
Aside from the fox spirit priest, the other two male guests on "Cocoon Village" have already had their affections fully captured by Yu Naixin. Even in the "Swan Castle" mutated fusion dungeon, which is hellishly difficult for beginners, Yu Naixin has already won over the werewolf knight and the ghost wizard. It's estimated that at least one of the remaining two male guests will also have their affections fully captured.
In this situation, the Fox Spirit Priestess stands out as the only dungeon guest who failed to reach max affection with the player.
The priest couldn't possibly expose his master's shortcomings with a folding fan in front of Yu Naixin, could he?
While it's perfectly normal not to reach max out the favorability rating of a Domain Lord-level guest, most program guests have never even met a Domain Lord...
But the priest with the folding fan wisely kept quiet in time.
Yu Naixin's meaning can be understood implicitly, but it can never be explicitly stated!
Moreover, how easy is it to completely resolve the entire program's storyline? If you can resolve the entire program's storyline perfectly, how many of the program's guests would still be dissatisfied or dislike you?
Yu Naixin said that the only way for a guest to die in a game is to be completely won over, which isn't entirely wrong.
It's just that its situation is too special.
The priest's little secret about the folding fan naturally did not escape Yu Naixin's notice.
"Then what do you think would happen if I let him 'fake his death' in this side story of my show?" Yu Naixin chuckled, not calling him out on it.
Will I be forcibly removed from the show because the episode was forcibly reset?
The priest, folding fan in surprise, exclaimed, "You actually guessed that the production team would forcibly relocate the guests?!"
This is extremely rare, it's considered obscure knowledge. The priest doesn't remember ever introducing it to Yu Naixin.
Yu Naixin didn't mention it because she had personally experienced it; she waited for the priest to finish her surprise before answering her question.
“Yes, you will likely be forcibly moved to your private dressing room by the production team,” the priest said. “This is an extremely rare, even one-off, loophole, and the production team should give you special compensation.”
"The memories of the guests in the program's copy will also be erased, and then a new round of normal programming will begin."
To be honest, Yu Naixin was quite interested in the "special compensation" mentioned by the priest with the folding fan.
Unfortunately, she used up all three simulation opportunities for this instance program. More importantly, the simulator can only simulate the situation within the instance program. If she wants to get special compensation, she can only do so in the settlement process after leaving the instance. There is no way to experiment with it through simulation.
It's unlikely that this situation will occur again. Compared to this "special reward" which is full of uncertainties, Yu Naixin prefers the tangible rewards that come from having a guest with full or high favorability.
Shaking her head with a slight regret, Yu Naixin told the priest to keep the folding fan on standby, while she looked down at the elf prince who seemed to be able to stop breathing at any moment, and reached out her hands to push aside the layers of rose vines on his body.
[Was the female guest just lost in thought for a moment? It was very brief, but I'm sure I didn't see wrong. What was she doing?]
[Didn't some viewers already speculate that the female guest's "princess" status in this episode likely grants her some special privileges?]
[The deadline is in a few tens of minutes, and I still don't know what the female guest's special privileges are... Sigh, isn't there any experienced viewers who regularly watch the title section of the live stream who can explain this to us ordinary viewers?]
[Wake up! How could someone who regularly watches streams from the title section possibly watch a newbie's first three dungeon runs?!]
[Holy crap! Wait a minute! If you guys hadn't mentioned privileges, I wouldn't have realized it either. How is it that this female guest can completely ignore all these roses and be unaffected?! Is the "princess's" privilege really that powerful?!]
[Wow! Seriously! This stuff, which contains the resentment of previous guests, is indiscriminately attacking people. How did the little witch manage to walk through the sea of flowers without a single rose attacking her?!]
[It's not just that she doesn't attack her! Look at her hands! When she touches these roses directly, they even move away! My eyes almost popped out of my head. These roses are as docile as the two male guests who already have a good impression of each other in front of the female guest!]
For Yu Naixin, removing the blood-red rose from the Elf Prince was indeed not difficult at all.
Yu Naixin only needed to make a slight outward gesture to guide the roses, and they would obediently move away as she wished.
They even stopped obsessing over the Elf Prince.
Yu Naixin's wishes took precedence over their instincts of hatred and revenge.
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Author's Note: Two chapters combined into one today!
This dungeon is nearing completion!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
