Fantasy Game: Infinite City

"Hey!"

Jerome was struggling to pull a wooden box out from under his bed, but because the things inside were stuck on the bed board, Jerome was unable to pull it out with all his strength. The things that stuck on the bed board stood up and held up the wooden box, so there was no way to push the box back. Little Jerome used all his strength, but was unable to move the wooden box. As a result, Jerome, with a red face, lost his grip and fell to the ground, falling on his butt.

“Ouch…”

Little Jerome was rubbing his butt, worrying about what to do, when Han Zu, who was sitting on the ground, stood up, walked to little Jerome, grabbed his collar, gently lifted him up from the ground, put him on the chair next to him, then lifted Jerome's bed with one hand, took out the things that were stuck underneath and the wooden box, and then put Jerome's bed back in place.

"Wow!"

Jerome looked at Han Zu who had just lifted the bed into the air with one hand, and stars appeared in his eyes. Two days ago, when the housekeeper brought people to clean up the manor, little Jerome saw that it took several people to lift a bed the same as his own, but the man in front of him did it with only one hand, and those people made a lot of noise when they put down the bed, but just now Jerome heard some slight friction sounds, and there was basically no sound.

"Thank you... Um... I don't know your name, my name is..."

Before little Jerome could say anything, Han Zu used his sharp nails to carve Jerome's name on his featureless face. Although no blood flowed, the scene was still very strange and a little scary.

"...You should use this... I'm a little scared..."

Jerome slid down from the chair, ran to the table nearby, stood on tiptoe to take down a sketchbook with a pencil on it, and handed them to Han Zu. Then he went back to the wooden box that he had just taken out from under the bed and began to search.

"rustle.."

When Jeremy was rummaging through the wooden box, he heard the sound of a pencil and a sketchbook rubbing against each other. It should be the man without facial features, whose name he didn't know yet, who was writing something in the sketchbook.

"It should be this, then what is missing..."

Little Jerome took some things out of the wooden box and placed them on the ground, but something seemed to be missing, so Little Jerome took out a piece of paper from his pocket, the same paper he had used to make the summoning ritual, turned it over, and began to read the contents on it.

"Tuk-tuk."

The sound of knocking on the floor nearby attracted little Jerome's attention. He turned around and looked in the direction of the sound. He found that the man in a black robe and without facial features was holding a sketchbook in front of his face. There was a "γ" drawn on the page of the sketchbook. The man tapped the sketchbook twice with his fingers and then pointed at his face.

"Your name is γ?"

The man nodded.

"You can't talk, can you?"

Jerome got the same response.

"rustle.."

γ picked up the pencil again and started writing in the sketchbook. Although Jeremy was much more sensible than other children of the same age, he was still a child after all. He was quickly attracted and stopped what he was doing and walked to γ's side.

After finishing writing, γ handed the sketchbook to Jerome again, and it read "Why did you use the ritual to summon me to this place?"

"Because I needed someone who could protect me, I stole this from my uncle's room."

Jerome handed the paper to γ, who took it and looked at it. It should be a page from an ancient book, torn from it, with a pattern of a ritual array drawn on it. The blank space below and on the side of the pattern wrote the materials needed to complete the ritual and the steps of how to perform the ritual. From the style of the ritual, it can be seen that this is a dangerous black magic, most likely a forbidden technique. From the name of the ritual written in rare words, it can be seen that although it is a dangerous magic ritual, it summons a guardian-like existence.

Han Zu was certain that the thing that this thing could summon was definitely not him, but by some strange coincidence, he was able to get himself out of that empty space. For him and little Jerome, it was a blessing in disguise. It seemed that little Jerome had not thought about the consequences of rashly using dangerous rituals.

"rustle.."

Han Zu wrote in his sketchbook and asked Jerome why he needed a guardian. Jerome explained the situation to Han Zu, which was the same story Magnus told the other five players before, but Jerome had some new information.

"After mom woke up and learned about my sister, she was very sad and cried until her eyes were swollen. So grandpa sent her out of the manor and took her to other relatives, hoping to make her feel better. I stayed behind. Although I told mom that I wanted to accompany grandpa, I actually lied. I wanted to find a way to save my sister."

According to Jerome, after staying in the manor, Jerome began to frequently go in and out of Magnus' study and Ha Jin's residence. However, other people in the manor thought that Jerome was just a lively and active child, so they did not restrict his freedom. But what they didn't know was that before Jerome's sister disappeared, she told him what she was going to do. And from the conversation between his sister and Ha Jin, Jerome learned that his sister's disappearance and his mother's previous coma were related to the boxes of ancient books and scrolls found by his grandfather Magnus, and these things are now kept in Ha Jin's residence.

"So I went to Uncle Ha Jin's room every day to search secretly, hoping to find a ritual that could save my sister from those ancient books and scrolls. But at the same time, I couldn't let my uncle and grandfather know what I was doing, because if I did, they wouldn't let me leave my room, so I could only act secretly. I was lucky. The day before yesterday, I found two things in one of the ancient books. One was a ritual to summon you, and the other was a spell that could track anyone."

At this point, Jerome also remembered what he was about to do before. He reached out his hand, turned over the page of the ancient book in Han Zu's hand, and pointed to the spell on it, as well as the materials needed to cast the spell.

"I have prepared the other things, but it says that I need the hearts of several specific monsters. When Uncle Ha Jin's friends came to visit him at home, I heard them talking about several monsters in the wilderness nearby. But I am too weak, so I need a powerful guardian to help me defeat those monsters, so that I can use magic to find my sister's location..."

Having said that, Jerome seemed to have made up his mind. He suddenly walked up to Han Zu and saluted him respectfully. Although Jerome's salute was not very standard, the fact that he could do this was enough to show that this child really needed Han Zu's help.

"So Mr. γ, can I ask you to help me? As long as you can help me find my sister, I will... I will abide by the agreement and complete your summoning ceremony!"

Han Zu lowered his head and looked again at the steps of the conversion ceremony depicted on the page. In the last step of completing the ceremony, which was to send the summoned "guardian" back, there was no need to activate the magic circle again, nor was anything else required. All that was needed was for the person initiating the ceremony to voluntarily give his life to the guardian.

Han Zu raised his head and looked at the little Jerome in front of him. His hands hung at his sides, and his two small hands were tightly clasping the corners of his clothes. His expression was very complicated, showing the innocence of a child, the fear of death, and the courage to continue even though he knew these possibilities.

Even though he knew the horror of death, he still had the courage to move forward. This courage beyond weakness aroused Han Zu's emotional resonance. He returned the page of paper to little Jerome and nodded solemnly.

"rustle.."

He wrote in his sketchbook, "You will get the help you ask for."

"Main Quest: Save Jerome"

"Secondary Mission: Rescue Ha Jin, Magnus, and everyone in the manor"

"Special Mission: Redeem Gloria"

"Time requirement: N/A"

Just when Han Zu chose to help Jerome, a mission suddenly popped up. However, this was very strange, because according to Jerome, the only person who needed to be rescued should be his sister. However, the mission said that so many people needed to be rescued. This made Han Zu feel something was wrong. Perhaps this matter was not as simple as he thought.

What's even more strange is that as a backer of Infinite Company, Han Zu's identity should be an NPC in the copy, not a player, and NPCs will not receive tasks from the system, but these tasks clearly appeared in Han Zu's system.

"rustle.."

Han Zu continued to write down the problem in the sketchbook, which was the only name he had not heard from Jerome, Gloria. Han Zu asked little Jerome if he knew who Gloria was. Han Zu thought that this should be the name of his sister or his mother, but the answer he got from Jerome made Han Zu fall into thought.

"Gloria? I haven't heard of it. I have no impression of this name. It's not my mother's name, nor is it my sister's."

Han Zu frowned slightly, feeling that things were becoming more and more confusing. Investigating Gloria's identity might be helpful in the future. Although it was very difficult for the employees of the Infinite Company outside to contact Han Zu due to the interference of their own energy, Han Zu could easily contact them, so Han Zu immediately used the Infinite City system to send a message to the employees outside, asking about Gloria's identity.

However, the message sent back was a completely irrelevant reply, which read "Received, continuing investigation."

This made Han Zu immediately realize that something was wrong, so he checked the conversation records with the employees outside the system, and found that the question he had just asked about Gloria's identity was not on it at all, but instead became "Everything is normal."

Han Zu sent a message again, asking about Gloria's identity. This time, Han Zu stared at the conversation record closely. As a result, at the moment the conversation was sent, Han Zu found that his conversation was suddenly changed to something else.

"The first floor of the manor is normal, no cheating data was found."

This kind of thing has never happened before.

According to Han Zu's previous experience, as long as he used the flame condensed from his power to burn his body, the system would fail. After a period of time, the system would be forced to restart. So Han Zu immediately left Jerome, took off his robe, and began to gather the power of fire in his body. In a flash, Han Zu's body rose to an unbearable high temperature. Even Jerome next to him had to hide under the table next to him. However, Jerome was not afraid, he was just very curious.

“Wow…”

As Han Zu's body temperature gradually rose, flames penetrated his flesh and burst out of his body. Then, the air generated by the energy impact was sucked back into his body through other gaps in his body. At this moment, Han Zu was surrounded by halos like Saturn, but these halos formed by flames only had two colors, one was the dark green color of evil energy, and the other was completely black.

A few minutes later, the rising flames gradually subsided. Han Zu checked and could no longer sense the existence of the system. The gaps on his body healed quickly in an instant and returned to their original appearance. However, there were still two differences on his body. One was his face, which still had no facial features, and the other was the fingertips of his ten fingers that had become sharp.

He wanted to bend down to pick up the black robe that he had just thrown on the ground and put it on again, but the robe was accidentally sucked into the flames by the airflow generated by the energy impact and was burned to ashes.

"Um... Mr. γ, let me find you some clothes. This isn't very polite... Oh, and don't let anyone else see you!"

After saying that, little Jerome was about to leave his room, but he suddenly remembered something, ran to Han Zu, and gently poked Han Zu's thigh twice with his fingers.

“It’s not hot at all!”

Han Zu shook his head, walked to the door, helped Jerome open the door, and then hid behind the door.

"I'll be right back, Mr. γ! Don't let anyone else find out!"

With that, Jerome left the room.

"Gloria is on the same floor of the main building."

A voice suddenly sounded in Han Zu's mind, which made Han Zu immediately alert. This was definitely not the system of the Infinite City. He could observe that the system of the Infinite City was still offline and it would take at least five minutes to return to normal.

Han Zu suddenly thought of something, and he continued to use the offline system panel to send messages to the employees outside.

"Who is Gloria?"

Sure enough, normally, it is impossible to send a message now, but this message was not only sent, but also changed its meaning before it was sent, becoming: "There seems to be a bug in the corner of the corridor on the first floor of the manor, with a small air wall."

This strange phenomenon made Han Zu confirm that in addition to the system of the Infinite City, there must be something else.