Miss Player, please don't cast spells on me.

Kiyono Hai, on the other hand, showed a completely indifferent attitude, and just slacked off the whole time without any intention of acting out any personal storylines or side plots.

In other words, when Ms. Yukishima strikes up a conversation with him, Kiyono Gray will also perform a heartwarming scene or two for this female player.

It wasn't until the adventure team entered the second level of the labyrinth that Kiyono Gray could clearly sense that Ms. Yukishima's attitude towards the monsters in the labyrinth had become much more indifferent.

At first, on Snow Island, she would try her best to make her sister go easy on the monsters in the maze, but from the second floor onwards, she played it more like she was collecting monsters from an encyclopedia.

When you first encounter a new type of dungeon monster, go up and talk to it to see if you can get any new side quests or items.

For monsters you've already encountered that don't offer any new side quests or items, have your sister kill them directly.

And so, the adventure team found a new campsite on the second level of the maze and began making 'maze food'.

The "Dungeon Meal" concept is somewhat similar to the Palico Meals in Monster Hunter, both of which can provide players with a large stat boost in a short period of time.

Another difference is that in Maze Sacred 2, players have hunger and thirst levels. Once a player runs out of supplies, they can either use a return scroll to return to the main city to buy new supplies.

Alternatively, they could simply find food nearby and eat the flesh of monsters in the maze to fill their stomachs.

The Snow Island adventure team decided, of course, to slaughter the monsters in the labyrinth and eat their flesh to fill their stomachs.

Even though the monsters in these mazes can talk, and many of them have become good friends with the game characters on Snow Island along the way.

However, when their kin are actually killed, made into food, and thrown into the game's inventory, they become completely unrecognizable. Therefore, players feel even less guilty about eating them all.

The chef who makes the Labyrinth Meal is, of course, Chiyo, a white-haired fairy, who is doing her best to play the role of a perfect and gentle heroine.

When she delivered the maze meal she had prepared to the character of Snow Island, the way she glanced at Shanor again was as if she were looking at a defeated dog who had been reduced to a nobody.

Kiyono Gray remained completely indifferent, silently watching as Ms. Yukishima accepted the sumptuous meal offered by the white-haired elf.

"Thanks, Chiyo."

Snow Island controlled her character and began to feast on the sumptuous meal, eating the last piece of meat with great gusto.

Suddenly, a "-1 damage" message appeared above her head, along with the game notification below.

'Your character ate something hard and chipped their tooth.'

Huh? You can even crack your teeth like that? Without Snow Island's control, her game character spat out what she had eaten.

After she spat it out and wiped it clean, she realized... what had hit her teeth was actually a...

ring?!

Why did she find a ring in her food? Was it inside that piece of meat?

Wait… Snow Island froze the moment she saw the ring.

Has it finally arrived? At this moment, Kiyono Gray finally couldn't help but grin, revealing the smile he had been suppressing for almost half a day!

Come on! Come on! The grand opening ceremony is full of madness! Now we can finally begin... the curtain rises.

Chapter 39 The Player is on the verge of a breakdown

(Please read on!!)

Xuedao examined the ring in her hand closely but couldn't figure it out.

This ring is not a relic from the maze, it doesn't provide any attribute bonuses, and its name is simply 'Ruby Ring'.

As someone who meticulously researches the plot, Xuedao certainly didn't believe that the ring was a reward dropped by the 'Delicious in the Labyrinth' system, or simply an item dropped after the piece of meat was 'killed' by her teeth.

There must be some special meaning behind this ring.

"Xianor, are you very interested in this ring?"

Snow Island observed that Shanor kept staring at the ring.

"This ring always gives me a sense of nostalgia, but I can't quite remember why."

Shanor took the 'ruby ring' from Xuedao's hand, held it in his hand, and gently examined it.

"Nostalgia? I don't recall giving you a ring like this as a gift before."

Snow Island wasn't such a superficial player; the gifts she usually gave to Shanor were books, paintings she had drawn in the game, and handmade clothes.

"So I can't figure out why either," Shanor said, sounding somewhat disappointed.

At that moment, the white-haired fairy, Chiyo, suddenly interrupted.

"Hero, if you are curious about the origin of this ring, you can go to the fourth floor to find a magical artifact called the World Searcher. It is said that it can search for the origin of everything in this world."

Chiyo was subtly suggesting to the player, Ms. Yukishima, that they should continue exploring deeper into the dungeon.

"Really? Then let's set our sights on the world searcher on the fourth level!"

Snow Island hadn't forgotten that her primary goal in exploring the labyrinth was to help Shanor regain his memories.

During the subsequent exploration of the maze, Ms. Snow Island and her sister Owlface demonstrated exceptional patience.

The two sisters fought relentlessly in the maze for a full fifteen hours—fifteen hours in the real world!

In other words, during those fifteen hours, they ate and drank, and except for going to the toilet, they stayed in front of the computer the whole time, playing the game at full speed.

These two internet-addicted sisters really made Qingye Hui a little worried about their health.

During those fifteen hours, the labyrinth master guarding the third level certainly caused the two sisters no shortage of trouble.

In addition, as a VTuber, Yukishima might want to clear the next level of the Sanctuary Labyrinth as soon as possible and use this video recording as video material or game guides.

This made her very impatient during the second half of the snow island trip.

Most of the time, she had her older sister help her fight, essentially ordering her sister to ruthlessly kill the 'monsters' blocking her way in the maze.

Of course, during this exploration, the protagonist, the white-haired fairy Chiyo, also ate quite a bit of the labyrinthine meals made by the heroine.

Even if Snow Island doesn't eat her sister Owl Noodles, she'll definitely force her game character to eat them.

The attributes added by the Labyrinth Meal are just too good.

But the more Snow Island lets her game character eat these delicious Labyrinth Meals, the more strange ornaments and other handicrafts she will find.

A whole host of strange items, such as ruby ​​rings, rainbow glass beads, red tear hairpins, and crystal necklaces, were 'exploded' during her maze meal.

This made Yukishima suspect that... this huge pile of strange jewels might have been deliberately put into the food by Chiyo, the cook.

Later, when Chiyo asked the protagonist of "Sanctuary Labyrinth 2," who was in charge of dissecting the monster corpses, to dissect them in a slightly more detailed way...

To Xuedao's astonishment, he discovered that the rings, jewelry, glass beads, hairpins, and other ornaments that had nearly broken his teeth were all stuck in the flesh and blood of these maze monsters.

What's going on? Could it be that all those gold coins, jewels, and other treasures deep within the maze were formed from the flesh and blood of the monsters in the maze?

She was very curious! She wanted to know the truth!

This is also why she became more and more eager to explore Snow Island as the trip progressed.

As a meticulous researcher, exploring the many strange and unsolved mysteries in the game is a great pleasure for her!

Finally, as dawn broke in real time, Snow Island and her sister Owlface finally obtained the artifact called the 'World Searcher' after defeating the guardian of the fourth floor!

'You have unlocked the ability to explore the treasure distribution of the current maze level.'

You have unlocked the ability to view item details.

"Yay!" Snow Island looked at the two pop-up notifications. The former might be a feature that would make her older sister, a treasure hunter, ecstatic.

The latter, of course, is the function that delighted Xuedao, a scholar of historical research!

So even though she had been playing on Snow Island for seventeen hours straight and it was already past midnight, she still felt incredibly energetic.

"Let me see your true colors!"

Snow Island immediately placed the earliest 'ruby ring' she had ever obtained in front of the artifact world searcher she had just acquired and examined it carefully.

Item Name: Ruby Ring

Description: A ring from the distant kingdom of Vannott, the Rose Duchy.

Legend has it that rubies in Vannotte symbolize 'eternal beauty'.

This was a keepsake given by a young girl to a boy she was parting from, and later the boy, in his longing for her, gave it back to the girl as a memento of his half-body.

Ah... beautiful ruby, may you remain as beautiful as ever as the years go by.

Former owner: 1. Noto Hitomi

2. Shanor

3. Noto Himegami (half-body)

Among the former owners was Shanor, so this must really be Shanor's item?

But the name of the first owner, Noon Hitomiya, doesn't sound like the name of an NPC in a fantasy world. It sounds like the name of a Japanese girl!

Furthermore, Yukishima felt that the name Hitomiya Noon looked familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before.

With this question in mind, Xuedao continued to examine the other key items at hand.

Snow Island discovered that the names of the first owners of items such as the red tear hairpin and the crystal necklace looked very familiar.

The first owner of the Red Tear Hairpin was named 'Spring Night Thunder', while the first owner of the Crystal Necklace was 'Mana Mana'.

These two names are practically game IDs. If Snow Island still can't guess the origins of these owners, she'll be incredibly stupid!

She had seen all of these items' first owners in the "Where Did Shanor Go?" Shanor fan group!

In other words… all these gifts! They are graduation gifts for Xia Nuoer from players who deeply love her!

But how did the graduation gifts from other players end up in her hands? More precisely, how did they end up on the monsters in this maze?

Did Shanor scatter these precious graduation gifts on the ground during her journey to this maze, only to have them eaten by the monsters inside?

But soon... a terrifying thought suddenly took hold of Xuedao's mind.

Chanor said this at the end of the Rose Kingdom...

'Although your characters from previous playthroughs have become soulless puppets, I still love them deeply. After all, they are half of you, a part of you.'

'My reason for embarking on this journey is precisely to restore the consciousness and soul of the characters from the first, second, third, and even more playthroughs.'

So! Now... why is Shanor... coming to see her all alone?

He would protect them even at the cost of his life, and give them souls so they could come back to life... Where did the player characters from the first, second, and subsequent playthroughs go?

As this terrible question filled Xuedao's mind, Xiaomian pulled his sister Xuedao's computer chair back.