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

Crimson Lotus, a magic-based damage dealer in the Black Sword Knights, landed a blast of fire magic on Ash Kiyono.

Kiyono Gray instantly felt a burning pain in his abdomen, and almost vomited blood from the burst of flames.

"Idiot! This guy has less health, but he's not as stupid as the previous dungeon bosses!" Noon Himegami coldly reminded Guren, who had suddenly relaxed.

Unfortunately, her reminder came too late…

You're right... I'm definitely not as foolish as Miss Fox, who just charges around with brute force.

Kiyono Gray used the smoke from the explosion to instantly burst into the enemy ranks of the Black Sword Knights, and by the time Guren reacted, he had already flashed to his side.

"You took good care of me just now!"

Kiyono Gray's longsword pierced out like a spearhead in an instant, but just as the blade was about to pierce through Honglian's neck, Kiyono Gray's body froze on the spot, unable to move.

"If you just cut off our team's damage dealer like this, I, as the tank, will lose face!"

The speaker was one of the main tanks in the Black Sword Knights. In this game, the taunt skill doesn't apply aggro to monsters; rather, it's more like a control skill that restricts movement and forces the boss to attack only the player.

Kiyono Gray's body was instantly immobilized by the main tank's taunts.

She seized the opportunity and immediately drew her bow and shot an arrow. After her arrow was followed by more than ten magical arrows made of the power of the stars... After hitting the mysterious swordsman, more than ten damage numbers instantly appeared above the mysterious swordsman's head.

The moment the damage numbers appeared, before the other members of the Black Sword Knights could follow up with their attacks, the mysterious swordsman vanished from his spot.

"Illusion? When... what about the real body?"

Everyone immediately realized they had been tricked by the BOSS.

Meanwhile, in the team's status statistics, the two healers of the Black Sword Knights instantly lost all their health, providing an answer to where the mysterious swordsman's true form had gone.

Kiyono Gray pulled his blood-stained longsword from the Black Sword Knights' healer and swung it at the other members of the Black Sword Knights who were charging menacingly toward him.

"While I am indeed no match for you in terms of pure strength, I will not let you pass the level so easily!"

…………

The Black Sword Knights took about two hours to kill the mysterious swordsman.

Qingyehui couldn't even wipe them out once, because Qingyehui's damage was too low. He didn't have any AOE skills at all, and he couldn't even reduce their healing output by just hacking away at them.

"I already told you, you can borrow my power." The fox lady's voice rang in Kiyono Hai's mind. "Although Kiyono-kun's capacity is limited, I can raise your level by about eighty levels by borrowing my power."

"I'll use it in the second stage," Kiyono Gray said.

"You have a second stage?" Miss Fox was slightly startled when she heard this. She glanced at the mysterious swordsman's corpse from her omniscient perspective as the master of the labyrinth.

They discovered that beneath the armor of the mysterious swordsman defeated by the Black Sword Knights was an empty shell.

All the other single-player mysterious swordsmen are... those players who played the role in their first playthrough of "Rose Kingdom".

The Black Sword Knights were also puzzled as to why the mysterious swordsman was just an empty shell, but the passage to the next level of the labyrinth had already been opened, and they had no time to waste on studying this trivial matter.

"Where are you planning to open Phase Two? Shanor Village?" Miss Fox was more curious about where Qingye Hui intended to choose for his Phase Two location.

Kiyono Gray didn't respond to the fox lady at this moment, because at this time, the accountant lady of the Black Sword Knights, Ms. Brown Sugar Chestnut, suddenly started talking to Kiyono Gray.

The person Chestnut struck up a conversation with was, of course, the old mage Gavi, played by Kiyono Gray.

"Phew, we've finally made it to the last floor. I really have to thank Mr. Gavi for providing the map. Otherwise, if we were still lost in the maze, it would probably have taken us another ten days or so to get here. I don't know how many brain cells we would have lost by then."

It seems that as the logistics supervisor, this Miss Black Sugar Chestnut did not contribute much in terms of output during the more than ten days of maze strategy battles, but her contribution to logistics and supply can be said to be indispensable.

"Ms. Chestnut, you flatter me. I was merely following the guidance of the church and the gods to explore the truth of the labyrinth," said Kiyono Hai in a humble tone befitting his persona.

"Why are you so reserved, old man? To be honest, without you, we don't know how long we would have been lost in the maze. By the way, is there any reward you want? Providing us with maps the whole time but not asking for any reward is a bit suspicious."

The team's damage dealer, Honglian, asked the question that had been bothering him for a long time: the NPC played by Qingye Hui was being too kind, providing such important information as the map to the Black Sword Knights for free.

"As for the reward, I only hope that your group will give me some important labyrinth artifacts during the exploration of the labyrinth. Those artifacts are of little use to you, but they are lifesavers for this world."

Qingye Hui's key message was relayed to the Black Sword Knights' chat channel, and the Black Sword Knights responded with surprising generosity.

"Anyway, we didn't come here for the artifact, so let that NPC take whatever he wants," Commander Yuying ordered directly.

The equipment they brought from the Sacred Stars was far superior to what was produced in this labyrinth.

Amidst this noisy atmosphere, the members of the Black Sword Knights agreed to the exchange terms proposed by 'Gavi, the Church's Labyrinth Explorer'.

Behind the boss room of the mysterious swordsman lies the famous Shanor Village.

In the Black Sword Knights' worldline, the village of Shanor is completely empty except for a desolate area overgrown with moss and collapsed buildings that testify to the village's former prosperity.

The members of the Knights were not particularly interested in Shanor Village; to them, it was just a place they had to pass through on their way.

Just as the group was making its way to the fifth level of the maze entrance, Noon Hiyomi found a very special place deep inside the village of Shanor.

'The resting place of the Chanorians'.

Players who have read the story of Shanor Village will know what this place is. The Shanor people who once lived in Shanor Village did not actually die, but they were not far from death.

So their companions placed them in one artifact after another called 'Life Freeze Pods' to keep their fragile life force alive by putting them into an eternal sleep.

"Does Yotomiya-chan want to go in and take a look?" Vice-captain Hiyomiya Noon asked as she walked up to her.

'The Resting Place of the Shanor' is a map that requires teleportation and map loading to reach, indicating that it is not in the same plane as Shanor Village.

So when the teleportation prompt "Do you want to go to the resting place of the Shanor?" popped up, Noon Himegami was stunned for a moment.

"Captain Yang, if you have any concerns, we can go with you! Everyone in the Knights can come with you to take a look over there!"

Guren originally intended to encourage Yoshimiya Noon in this way, meaning, 'Everyone in the Knights is your support, and if you're feeling down, they can comfort you.'

But those words seemed to have touched a nerve somewhere in Hiyomiya Noon's heart, and she suddenly said it in the Black Sword Knights' voice channel.

"I'll go and take a look by myself!"

"Alone? But Captain Yang Gong..."

"alright!"

Vice-captain Hiyori seemed to have sensed the princess's thoughts, so she explained to the other members on behalf of Hiyomiya Noon.

"You guys haven't even played 'Rose Kingdom,' so this place is meaningless to you. Besides, everything in there is 'fragile.' Just imagine letting a bunch of clueless kids walk into your room full of figurines and models. Just thinking about it makes you feel uneasy and terrified, doesn't it?"

Think carefully about the scenario of letting a bunch of clueless kids walk into your room full of figurines and models.

Vice-Captain Scarlet Sakura's words sent chills down the spines of the Black Sword Knights, giving them goosebumps.

After Vice-Captain Hiiro persuaded the group of members who were yelling and wanting to rush in with the princess to back down, she made a quick gesture to None Hitomi and said...

"Go quickly, Yang Gong-chan. Whether you're going to reminisce or have a good cry, if you keep your mind so tense, it will eventually break down. Didn't you initially seek out Xia Nuo'er to release your stress?" Fei Ying said.

"……Thanks."

After thanking the vice-captain, Noon Himegami entered the resting place of the Shanor alone, which was actually a map of the Shanor's cemetery.

Kiyono Gray straightened his collar and disappeared into the ranks of the Black Sword Knights.

We've finally reached this point! Let's go... Phase Two begins!

Chapter 53 Miss Player, can you cry now?

A long chapter of 4700 words! Please continue reading!

The map for the resting place of the Shanor people is located in a sea of ​​flowers.

Above this sea of ​​flowers blooming with pure white blossoms, hundreds or even thousands of life-preserving devices, resembling coffins, are displayed.

Sleeping within each of the life freezers is Shanor, who was cherished and loved by his female players in the past in "The Principality of Roses".

But the lives of these Shanor are now so fragile that they can only rely on this 'coffin' to survive.

Noon Hiyomiya controlled her character as she walked across this pure white sea of ​​flowers.

She'll just tell the truth: she came here for one very simple purpose—to cry.

The crying here is in its literal sense.

Because crying is the best way to relieve stress, Noon Hiyomiya has become so pragmatic that she even uses her emotions.

The intense battles on the front lines of the game, coupled with various external evaluations, have naturally put a lot of pressure on Noon Hinami.

When the pressure builds up to a point where she can no longer bear it, None Hiyomiya will search online for a bunch of 'tearjerker' games, anime, TV series, hand-drawn animations, movies, and the like.

In short, anything is fine, as long as it's tear-jerking enough.

She would use the emotions evoked by these 'tearjerker' works to have a good cry, releasing all the pressure she had accumulated, and then throwing herself into the next battle with renewed fighting spirit the next day.

So, this was also the reason why Noon Hitomi initially decided to 'take down' Shanor. She wanted to use Shanor's tear-jerking storyline in her third playthrough to cry and release her stress.

In the end, the storyline of Xia Nuoer's third playthrough did indeed achieve that, making her cry bitterly once.

And today, None Hitomi came with the same purpose.

Her crying wasn't out of sympathy for Shanor's plight, but rather out of a strong 'purposeful' desire to release her own stress, and to achieve this goal, she 'incidentally' sympathize with Shanor.

This is the cold-blooded and ruthless side of this Miss Aries.

Unfortunately, when Yotsuya Noon walked to her own life freeze device with a white flower, she found that no matter what she did, she couldn't...

I can't cry.

Is it because there's a lack of immersion or engagement?

She looked at Shanor, who was sleeping in the life freezer.

Her Xia Nuoer was still wearing the original clothes, because what Yang Gong Naoyin and her Xia Nuoer did most often was to spar and compete. She had never done anything unnecessary like buying clothes for Xia Nuoer or sending him to school.

"When you fought me, you seemed so strong and invincible, and now you're suddenly telling me that you're lying here and about to die... I really don't feel any of this."

The lack of a sense of reality is probably the biggest reason why None Hitomi couldn't cry.

First, after being warned by a friend, I watched the CG of Shanor Village, which showed that she and her Shanor had only been separated for less than a week. Then, in the game's setting, her Shanor and she had been separated for who knows how many years.

This resulted in Noon Hitomi having no real connection to the storyline of Shanor Village at this point. The Shanor people lying in the life freeze pods seemed like a group of exquisite dolls, or perhaps just exquisite character model data.

The tragic setting is that 'the Shanors sacrificed their souls to save the player's half-body, thus ending up only able to maintain their lives in a life freeze pod'.

In Hitomi Noon's mind... it was just a line of text that the game writer wrote on a whim.

She simply couldn't empathize with this pile of exquisitely designed character models, or with just a single line of text written by the game's writers.

Even if the situation of the Shanor people in front of her was terrible, Yang Gongnaon really didn't feel it at all.

"So be it."