HSB Chapter 15.1

Bambi didn’t question why a gun suddenly dropped in front of her. She tossed it in the same category as the apple, since they were all things that appeared out of nowhere.

She’d seen her grandpa use a gun before. She had also seen others use guns. She felt she should pick it up and scare away the monster. However, even using both of her hands, Bambi was still not able to pick up the strangely shaped silver gun, only nudging it a sliver.

For five-year-old Bambi, the gun weighed more than what she was able to lift.

It was too heavy.

Bambi frowned in distress.

Presumably, the comical antics of the monster’s inability to get inside dampened her fear, Bambi miraculously didn’t feel particularly scared in the face of this hideous and ugly ant undead beast.

“I can’t lift it,” the little girl mumbled in distress to the gun.

……

“Lord Jellal, this should only be a simple realistic game. The realistic characters and scenes make it easier for players to be immersed in their roles.” Inside a palace that was almost entirely made of precious stones, a young dragon with two dragon horns protruding from his head respectfully explained to the handsome man standing in front of him.

He was dressed in the simplest casual attire, appearing quite ordinary, but if you looked closely, you could see that the embossed patterns on the fabric were drawn from gemstones.

A pair of black-framed glasses hitched on the tall bridge of his nose. His eyelashes were thick and slender, and the outer corner of his eyes were curbed upward, displaying a bit of absent-minded disdain.

Handsome, powerful, and proud—this was the only nine-clawed azure dragon in the Dragon Clan, the oldest and most powerful dragon species, ranking second only to the Dragon King of the Dragon Clan.

In front of them was the projected scene of Bambi’s encounter in the living room.

Not long ago, Jellal was visiting some other planets for inspection, or to be more accurate, play. In the process, he obtained an NR virtual reality projector. Coincidentally he encountered Ethan, so he asked Ethan to hold the equipment for him so that he wouldn’t end up throwing it away after finding it troublesome while he was out playing.

Now that Jellal’s touring around was over and Ethan returned the equipment to its rightful owner, Jellal finally recalled that he still had this thing in his possession. He turned it on, planning to try out what was so extraordinary about this equipment.

To his surprise, as soon as he turned it on, a projection screen automatically popped up.

It was then followed by an introduction from the system. Jellal had to read the whole thing before he understood what was going on.

There was already a game previously downloaded onto the device, in which there was a little girl named Bambi, whose grandfather was infected and turned into a zombie, so Bambi ended up living alone. He, as the player, was automatically bound to Bambi with a father-daughter relationship.

In other words, if he wanted to play this game, he must help his daughter Bambi survive and raise her to adulthood.

Jellal︰”……”

Although he was bored every day, he was not bored enough to play a mentally retarded cub-raising game.

After casually inspecting it, Jellal was ready to quit this boring game when suddenly an undead beast burst in through the window, all the while unnoticed by the little girl sitting in the chair.

Because of the projection, Jellal stood right next to Bambi. He stared down at this little one for a second, and almost subconsciously walked over and raised his hand to hold the head of the undead beast that came in.

Then, this undead beast was successfully pinned down by him and it couldn’t get in any further.

Jellal raised his eyebrows, finding this a fascinating discovery. A game was projected and he was able to be inside the game, unable to really feel the touch of those things, but he could touch them.

Taking this undead beast for example, he didn’t do much but press down on its head. The latter seemed to be strangled by an invisible force, and it was unable to get inside.

All of this seemed all too real. It didn’t feel like a game. The characters in it were realistic like characters in a movie. It was like he fell into the movie itself.

Jellal began to suspect that this was a real world,  only displayed through the lenses of a game.

While he was doing all this, his subordinate and assistant Tobias watched the whole thing play out. After Tobias inspected it, he confirmed that it was only a game.

Tobias was tech-savvy, so Jellal nodded. Based on his personality, Jellal should have quit the game and not bother with it anymore.

But looking at how the little one clung to her teddy bear, appearing as if there was really a little girl facing a monster attack and once he withdrew his hand, maybe she would be swallowed by the monster.

The little one was weaponless and powerless. Jellal hesitated and clicked on the store in the upper right corner.

Everyone knew how to spend money in-game. He would buy a weapon for the little one to defend herself, at the very least, since it was fate that he opened this game.

To Jellal’s surprise, the options in the store were all gray and couldn’t be purchased.

“Is it reasonable for a game to be set up like this?”

The two horns on Tobias’s head moved, and he shook his head. “Not very reasonable.”

As everyone all knew game developers launched games for players with the sole purpose of making players spend money to top up. It was the same for all kinds of games. This was how the developers made money.

He had never heard of a game with a shopping area, but there was no channel to shop. The “channel” was gray and could not be clicked.

It wasn’t until Jellal clicked on the weapons column that he saw the only icon that was lit up was a silver gun that required a hundred S-Dollars.

After a successful purchase, the gun dropped onto the ground with a bang.

Jellal was close so he clearly saw that the little one was startled and flinched at the sound.

“……”

If Tobias hadn’t confirmed that this was indeed a game, Jellal would have thought it was real.

Or perhaps…the reason why everything seemed so real was because of the NR virtual reality projector?

Seeing that the little one couldn’t lift the silver gun, Jellal grabbed the hard shell of the ant undead beast and shucked the undead beast out the window.

Then, suddenly, the projected images disappeared.

Meanwhile, Julius just logged into the game.

Jellal turned back to Tobias and asked, “What happened?”

Tobias considered it for a moment and said, “My lord, you were probably…disconnected.”

Tobias nailed it. Julius logged into the game and pushed Jellal offline, but neither party was aware of this.

Jellal pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose, picked up a cup of coffee, and took a sip, not bothered too much since it was just a game. “It’s too bitter. Make another one.”

He put the coffee down.

“Yes.” Tobias went away to carry out his orders.

As soon as Julius entered the game, he received a system prompt: [intimacy+20]

？？？

What happened? He hadn’t logged on for several hours yet the intimacy jumped with a +20 as soon as he came in. Although it was something to be happy about, it was quite strange no matter how you looked at it.

Does his baby girl know he’s her daddy?

When Bambi saw the monster stupidly throw itself outside, the last sliver of fear for the monster disappeared. She gave up picking up the silver gun, scrambled over to push the chair over to the window, and stepped on the chair to look down.

The undead beast was feeling dizzy from the fall as if vigorously shook its head as if to confirm that nothing was pressing against it.

Then, finally confirming that it was free to move, it looked up again, staring its scarlet eyes at Bambi, who poked her head out of the window.

It climbed up again, determined to eat the food it had its eyes on for some time.

Before Julius could break away from joy from the sudden increase in 20 intimacy points, he was stunned by the undead beast that was posing to attack Bambi. He quickly pressed down on the moving undead beast with his hand to stop it from climbing further.

His press only hindered the undead beast’s speed and was unable to keep it still.

Julius: “……”

“Bambi, get out of the way!” At this time, Ivan, who heard the sound, rushed back.

He had been carefully searching for traces of the undead beast nearby, not daring to go too far, until the undead beast fell from the building and he heard the sound, he was shocked and the realization dawned on him that the beast actually snuck in in secret.

Worried about Bambi, Ivan immediately returned and saw the hideous undead beast climbing to the third floor, and the little girl was still standing by the window looking down with a curious face. She didn’t look afraid at all.

Ivan’s heart almost burst out of his mouth, and with the help of his powers, he quickly approached the undead beast and threw several wind blades over at it.

The wind blade slashed through the undead beast’s carapace, making a crisp pealing sound, leaving no trace.

“……”

What a hard shell!

Getting closer, Ivan suddenly noticed that the undead beast was climbing up very strangely. Ants moved fast. Remembering the speed at which the undead beast was scared off by Hugh, it showed that the undead beast’s speed wasn’t hindered by its size.

However…

The speed of this undead beast climbing upwards was the complete opposite of the speed displayed when fleeing. It was like a snail, dragging a heavy shell and crawling slowly.

It’s Bambi!

She’s using her powers to suppress the undead beast.

Ivan’s eyes lit up and he immediately seized the opportunity to deliver a killing blow to the undead beast while he was slowed down.

However, his powers were unable to deal substantial damage to the undead beast, whose body had evolved a hard carapace.

Ivan’s gaze swept over the abandoned car off to the side, and a huge wind wrapped around the cart and slammed it toward the undead beast.

Bang!

The smoke dispersed, the car shattered into pieces, and the open flame caused by the violent impact ran out of fuel and gradually extinguished.  The undead beast’s upward climb finally stopped. It shook its head again, and then slowly turned around. Its scarlet gaze no longer fixated on Bambi upstairs but on Ivan who wasn’t far away from it.

The undead beast’s original target was Bambi. This kind of pure flesh and blood constantly tempted it, making its ravenous body crave flesh and blood even more.

Even knowing that there is an existence here that was a level higher than itself didn’t stop it.

But when it realized that that being couldn’t come out and become a threat to itself, it no longer held back.

However, for the sake of its safety, the undead beast did not intend to alarm the threatening presence, so this time it acted quietly, but what enraged the undead beast was that it thought that it could easily feed on the prey that it had its eyes on for several days, but ended up encountering a bizarre situation in the process.

Once Ivan popped up, and after weighing the pros and cons, the undead Beast immediately turned its head, deciding to eat the larger prey first and leaving the small, more delicious, one to eat later.

Seeing the giant ant lunging towards him, its speed soaring, a complete 180 from the speed it climbed up the building, Ivan’s pupils dilated, confirming that Bambi’s powers couldn’t suppress the undead beast any longer.

He took advantage of the terrain to deftly avoid the bristles on the limb that the undead beast stabbed at him with.

With a pop, the thing easily pierced into the cement slab, and Ivan tumbled to dodge. During the brief engagement, he felt the terrifying pressure from the Level 3 undead beast.

The Level 3 undead beast, corresponding to a B-class power user, was a full level higher than him.

He and Miles teamed up and fought desperately to kill a Level 3 zombie whose combat strength was greatly reduced, but the Level 3 undead beast who was chasing him down was at the peak of its strength. He wasn’t a match for it and could only use the terrain to escape.

If only he could rise to the B-class—Ivan wiped the blood spilling from the wound on his forehead and gritted his teeth. Even if he lost his life here today, he would make sure this undead beast would have no return!

Seeing the undead beast chasing Ivan away from Bambi’s sight, Julius could no longer hold down the undead beast through the screen, so he had to give up. With a glance at his baby girl, he sighed in relief.

For a moment, he couldn’t figure out whether his baby girl was too bold or timid.

If she was bold, she was still scared and brought to tears by him in the beginning.

But if she was timid, when the undead beast attacked, she didn’t hide in her room but was still in the mood to bring out a small stool to watch the event unfold out of curiosity.

What was she thinking in her little head?

Thanks to him coming in time, otherwise with the furious speed in which the undead beast chased Ivan, it would have swallowed her in a blink of an eye!

It was too scary to think about!

He doesn’t want the baby girl who he has only been raising for a few days to be suddenly gone.

Bambi finally understood that the monster’s previous series of strange actions was not that it was stupid, but that someone was secretly helping her, like the gun that appeared out of thin air.

Thinking about it again, could it be the villain she thought who was going to fatten herself up and eat her?

He was not trying to eat her, but to help her.

So after she fell asleep, he sewed together Winnie’s arm, gave her apples, just gave her a gun, and even threw the monster out.

Now the monster was chasing Mr. Ivan, had that person already left?

“Are-are you still here? Are you here to help Bambi ?” Bambi clenched her small fists and glanced nervously around the empty living room.

Julius: “!”

What did this mean?

Was this what brought about the transformation with the +20 intimacy because his baby girl no longer treated him as a villain but accepted his existence?

“Are you a mister?” asked Bambi again. She concluded that the invisible person was a mister from Winnie’s sewn arm.

If it was a lady, a lady would not have sewed Winnie together so hideously. The one to sew it so ugly must have been a mister.

“I’m Daddy!”

The feeling of being recognized by his baby daughter made Julius float to cloud nine, even if his baby girl couldn’t hear him.

“The monster is so powerful. Mister Ivan can’t fight it alone. Mister, can you help Mr. Ivan fight the monster together?” Bambi twisted her little hand nervously. She quickly ran to the room and took out the box containing the crystals. “I have nothing else to give you, only these stones…”

Bambi looked expectantly around the living room, but after a while, there was nothing.

Julius was also helpless. He wanted to help Ivan, but his perspective followed Bambi. Bambi was now in the living room, so he could only move around the living room and couldn’t do anything else.

There was another bang outside. The undead beast had returned.

Bambi quickly ran over to the window. She didn’t see Ivan but saw the undead beast continue to climb upstairs.

“……”

Julius quickly pressed it down again with his hand.

Bambi’s eyes lit up. The invisible person was still there!

The undead beast crawled at tortoise speed again.

The undead beast: “……”

It was pissed!

Ivan’s face was filthy with grime when he came rushing back and saw the undead beast crawling like a snail again.

Were Bambi’s powers restored?

Bracing his knees, Ivan calmed his heartbeat.

The scene fell into some kind of eerie calm for a while.

The undead beast just chased Ivan and found the prey was too cunning. It chased for half a day, yet was unable to swallow its food. These buildings hindered it and its patience ran out and it gave up chasing Ivan, deciding to return to eat the most delicious prey.

But it never expected that it would fall into the same situation from before as if the building had become a huge swamp, as it tried desperately to climb up but it could only move slowly.

Tired and hungry, the undead beast was enraged, but it still persevered for the food.

Roar!

A roar that belonged to a zombie reverberated.