CHAPTER 264: CHAPTER 264: REAL-LIFE FIGURINE COLLECTOR

"His life was nothing to boast about; his only concerns on the battlefield were his wife and daughter. He feigned death to escape the war and found me on a samurai’s corpse... He must have longed for affection, yet lacked courage..."

Red Armor wasn’t talking about itself, but rather about the... hmm, Corpse Ghost inside it. The rice balls it ordered weren’t for itself either; they were for the Corpse Ghost.

After all, it was just a ’Strange Creature’ that had only been awake for a few months, much like a baby. Moreover, unlike a Ghost, it had no past life and, naturally, bore no grudges.

However, it also couldn’t maintain its physical form for long, so it needed a body to ’prop’ itself up. When Red Armor awoke, a Corpse Ghost was already wearing it.

This Corpse Ghost possessed little reasoning, so Red Armor easily controlled it, using it as the ’core’ of its own body to move.

Red Armor was attracted to the Ghost Stall because the Corpse Ghost was drawn to it; the attraction actually had nothing to do with Red Armor itself.

And since Red Armor’s consciousness was practically fused with the Corpse Ghost’s, it effortlessly revealed the Corpse Ghost’s fundamental desires to the female shopkeeper, making this Ren Suo’s easiest seasoning task to date.

Red Armor: "Let him be released."

I’d never tried cooking for a crazed Demon Ghost before. Such Demon Ghosts were either already dead or, if not, wouldn’t eat food—they only ate people.

After Red Armor ate the rice ball, in just a matter of seconds, its body seemed to swell slightly, fully puffing out the armor, and its height also increased a little.

"He has completely let go," said Red Armor. "He asked me to give you his thanks on his behalf."

"I shall use his body to wage war upon the world." Red Armor looked at the female shopkeeper and asked, "If I separate from him, he will dissipate into nothingness. Can I fight for the Fairy Palace in this form?"

Game prompt: "’Red Armor’ requests to solidify into a humanoid form. Do you agree? If agreed, ’Red Armor’ will no longer be equippable, but its Life Value and Combat Power will double. However, each battle Red Armor participates in will consume 1 Merit Point."

"Red Armor will become a permanent prop."

There was certainly no reason for me to object; I needed both Defensive Power and Combat Power anyway. Besides, there were pros and cons. By foregoing its equippable form, Red Armor wouldn’t just be a main fighting force but could also help the female shopkeeper draw fire.

And to think... it would consume 1 Merit Point! What did that mean? This meant that if I agreed, with "Plucking Feathers from a Flying Goose," I would essentially gain 1 Merit Point from the Mini-World Game Console from every battle! Though my account wouldn’t show an increase in Merit Points, in reality, I was profiting!

So Ren Suo happily agreed. Then, Red Armor sat cross-legged beside the food stall like a Door God, acting as security.

Every customer who came by would see a tall, white-haired military commander in red armor standing next to the Ghost Stall. Ren Suo soon found that he could somewhat judge their power based on their reaction to Red Armor.

Those who paused for more than three seconds were basically weaklings.

Those who paused for less than a second would require the female shopkeeper and Red Armor two or three rounds to handle.

And if someone completely ignored Red Armor... When Ren Suo was serving the 76th customer, he met such a person.

She was a beautiful woman with blue hair and a snow-white complexion, dressed in a white skirt.

When she approached, Red Armor, who had been sitting cross-legged, immediately stood up and placed its hand on the hilt of its sword. A path of frost trailed behind her. She slid over Shinobazu Pond as if on a skateboard, freezing the swaying lotus leaves and the still black swans into ice sculptures, her movements carrying a trace of icy, cruel beauty.

Yet the blue-haired woman didn’t spare Red Armor a glance, simply taking a seat in front of the Ghost Stall, her hands resting on the table. When she sat down, frost even formed on the tabletop.

"What would you like to eat?" Whether they were bald or beautiful, the female shopkeeper treated all customers equally.

"Sukiyaki," she said. "Steaming hot Sukiyaki."

Sukiyaki, essentially a beef hot pot, was a quite common dish.

The female shopkeeper nodded and started preparing, while the girl, under Red Armor’s anxious gaze, began to tell her story.

It was a very common story. Forty years ago, a girl, unable to bear her boyfriend’s infidelity, clung to him day after day. Eventually, he tricked her into taking sleeping pills, abandoned her on a snowy mountain in winter, and left her to freeze to death.

There’s nothing new under the sun. But after she finished her story, frost had spread all over the area near the Ghost Stall. Even the surface of Shinobazu Pond, very close to the Ghost Stall, had begun to freeze. Frost even began to form on the armor of Red Armor, who had stood still the whole time.

Even without going closer, I knew the girl was releasing a powerful area-of-effect ground Skill, whether intentionally or not.

"I haven’t eaten anything warm in a long time," she said. "I can’t enter cities and can only stay on remote mountains, watching as snow covers the forests throughout all seasons. Whenever I encounter people, I give them time to escape...

"In the nine months since I regained life, I have been alone. My heart is cold as ice, as if everything good has been frozen solid, impossible to shatter or crumble, just sitting there like knots, unsightly and useless.

"Then, I felt you." She looked at the female shopkeeper. "It was like finding someone to share body heat with in the midst of an endless blizzard.

"So I ran down from the mountain. I ran for a long, long time, until I finally found you."

I was fully alert this time. The customer’s Desire wasn’t hard to understand: love and loneliness. But it was nearly the end of Ghost Walking, which meant this customer was going to be very difficult. In fact, several previous customers had fought with the female shopkeeper and Red Armor over issues of taste. I wondered if the game had intentionally scheduled such customers to appear last. If I had encountered such people earlier, I certainly would have reloaded the game multiple times to teach them a lesson: "This tofu is too sweet," "This tofu is too salty," "This tofu is too spicy," "This tofu is too greasy"... I loved to crush these finicky customers head-on. At those times, I fancied myself Town Guardian West, able to make Lu the Commandant choke without lifting a finger. However, in reality, these encounters usually ended with me giving the customers a thorough beating. After all, the time cost was too high; encountering these customers was hours into gameplay, and reloading would mean losing those hours. Considering this, my competitive spirit subsided, and I even felt inclined to feed them trash.

But by now, I had figured out Red Armor’s combat power—its Health Points were only half of the female shopkeeper’s, but its Attack Power was two-thirds of hers. For Red Armor to be so terrified, even if this customer couldn’t defeat both Red Armor and the female shopkeeper, she could at least deplete a considerable amount of the shopkeeper’s health. After all, in this game, the only way to restore health within a single day was to consume supplies. I had intended to save the supply items until the last day.

It took a full ten minutes to get the flavor right. The female shopkeeper pushed the Sukiyaki forward. As the hot steam wafted onto the customer’s face, a touch of blush appeared on her pale cheeks.

"It’s this flavor..." she murmured softly and silently finished what looked like a three-person portion of Sukiyaki.

After eating, she wiped her lips lightly with her finger, clearing away all traces of grease.

"I really wish I could eat delicious food like this every day... It’s a pity you’re not a man," she said to the female shopkeeper, leaving behind a ring before drifting away.

"Ice-cold Engagement Ring: All attacks have a chance to freeze the enemy for one turn (unable to act), with a probability of 30% to 100% depending on the enemy’s strength."

High risk, high reward, huh... Ren Suo thought.

The picky customers I had beaten up before usually gave edible or drinkable gifts that added attributes. In contrast, customers who were properly fed often gave gifts with powerful auxiliary effects that were highly valuable in combat. I had also taken some time to test it and found that there was a slight difference between beating up customers and satisfying their hunger to receive gifts. There wasn’t necessarily a hierarchy between the two, but the latter usually yielded rarer or even unique special props.

Once the girl had left, Red Armor finally exhaled and said to the female shopkeeper, "If Your Excellency were male, a fight might have been inevitable."

Female shopkeeper: "Why?"

"That was a Snow Maiden. She freezes men she fancies into ice sculptures and takes them home to cherish," Red Armor explained. "Although Your Excellency certainly wouldn’t be afraid, I was worried that this food stall might not withstand the ensuing fight."

Oh, so she was a Real-life Figurine Collector, the type who’d passionately exclaim, "Aah, this is my husband!" and then freeze the person to take them home as her husband. A truly formidable individual.

Ren Suo checked the time and wondered, It’s almost over, and the Transcendent from the Martial Spirit Squad still hasn’t shown up? They’re so slow.