Chapter 919: Chapter 918: Test of Courage Tournament (Part 2)

“What’s going on?”

Seeing Asuna trembling and hugging him, both Fang Zheng and Leafa were taken aback. Hearing Fang Zheng’s voice, Asuna finally raised her head and looked at him.

“Ah, Mr. Fang Zheng…”

“What happened to you?”

Seeing Asuna so pale with fright, Fang Zheng was a bit surprised. He knew Asuna was not good with this kind of thing, but… this was too much.

“I-I-I, um… there was a ghost… a ghost…”

“Ghost? It was someone from the combat group dressed as a ghost, right?”

Looking at Asuna in this state, Leafa was also doubtful. In theory, there were indeed several combat group members responsible for dressing up as ghosts to scare people along this path. But they were careful not to scare people to death. However, seeing Asuna like this, it was clearly more than just being startled.

Did someone overdo it?

“Eek!!!”

Just then, Asuna seemed to see something again and quickly hid behind Fang Zheng, pointing towards the nearby woods.

“Ghost… ghost… ghost…”

“Ghost? Where’s the ghost?”

Fang Zheng turned his head, looking in the direction Asuna was pointing, and then a white silhouette flickered before his eyes.

“Hmm? There seems to be a… it looks like a person though.”

Leafa naturally saw the white silhouette too, but she wasn’t as scared as Asuna. In Leafa’s view, it was probably just another combat group member dressed as a ghost.

“Let’s go over and take a look to find out.”

Fang Zheng said offhandedly and started walking towards the woods off the path, with Leafa by his side, and Asuna clinging to Fang Zheng’s clothes, following closely with her eyes shut tight.

As the three entered the woods, that silhouette approached again, swaying as it walked. This time, the three of them got a clear view of the figure.

“Eh?”

Upon seeing the figure clearly, Leafa exclaimed first.

“Mr. Fang Zheng, she doesn’t seem to be one of our guild members.”

A short distance away stood a girl who looked about in her teens. She wore a thin white dress, was barefoot, with pale skin and black hair. Hearing Leafa’s comment, Asuna became even more nervous.

“Is-is-is it a ghost?”

“She has feet, so it shouldn’t be a ghost.”

“Really?”

Hearing Fang Zheng’s answer, Asuna nervously peeked out, cautiously opening her eyes to look ahead. Watching Asuna’s response, Fang Zheng sighed inwardly. He couldn’t understand why Japanese people always judged ghosts based on whether they had feet, wondering which tradition that stemmed from…

Just then, the girl suddenly trembled and collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Seeing this, Leafa called out immediately.

“It looks like she fainted!”

“I saw it!”

As soon as Leafa spoke, Fang Zheng quickly reached the girl’s side in a single bound and picked her up. The girl was completely unconscious, eyes tightly shut. Since this was the game world, one couldn’t judge her condition through body temperature or heartbeat, but Fang Zheng quickly checked and noticed something odd.

“Strange… why doesn’t she have a mark?”

Looking at the girl, Fang Zheng was puzzled. In the game, when you focus and “lock on” to something, they usually get marked–players are green, criminals are orange. But the girl here had no mark, and she didn’t seem like an NPC. If players touched NPCs inappropriately, a warning would appear, and excessive behavior could get you ejected.

Yet, with Fang Zheng holding the girl, there was no system message.

And no mission prompt.

What was going on?

“No matter what, let’s take her back first and then see.”

With that thought, Fang Zheng made a quick decision.

After this, the courage-testing event ended smoothly. Fang Zheng didn’t halt the event just because he brought back a child, as it wasn’t anything major. When Fang Zheng returned to the base with the child, other girls also rushed in, curiously inspecting the child.

“There’s really no mark… just as Sophie said.”

“Sophie, is this the one you saw last time?”

Sophie was also brought over by the girls, and upon their questioning, she nodded.

“Yes, she’s the one I saw.”

Hearing Sophie’s reply, the girls began to chatter again.

“Looks like a regular child.”

“Could she be a child looking to join us?”

This guess was quite plausible. After all, the Dark Moon Sword was known among players for taking in homeless kids, and Fang Zheng had even advertised in the Survival Manual. If a child heard about Dark Moon Sword and wanted to join them for shelter, it wasn’t that surprising.

“Well, let’s wait till she wakes up to find out.”

Fang Zheng said lightly, silencing the others. He then glanced at the crowd and spotted Sayaka.

“Ms. Sayaka, can I trouble you to look after this child?”

“Of course, Mr. Fang Zheng.”

Hearing Fang Zheng’s request, Sayaka smiled slightly and reached out to take the child. But…

“Oh?”

What surprised everyone was that even though the little girl was unconscious, her hand was tightly gripping Fang Zheng’s clothes, with no intention to let go. Even Fang Zheng was startled; he hadn’t noticed when the girl had grabbed his clothes.

Judging by the situation, it seemed unlikely she’d let go anytime soon.

“What… should we do?”

Fang Zheng tried to get the girl to loosen her grip, but she wasn’t letting go at all. He thought about waking her up, but seeing her like this… it didn’t seem likely she’d be roused.

“Mr. Fang Zheng, why don’t you stay with her for the night and see how things are in the morning?”

In the end, Sayaka made the suggestion, with no objections from the other girls. They weren’t worried about Fang Zheng doing anything inappropriate to the girl; the girls present were familiar with his character.

“… I guess that’s the only option.”

Seeing Sayaka’s suggestion and the little girl in his arms, Fang Zheng could only nod in resignation.