Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 207: A Voluntary Forced Reset

Even without being certain whether the northern town housed another Four-Star entity, George still had to hunt.

Large game lived in forests.

So he turned north again without pausing and ran directly into the trees.

The moment his foot crossed into the tree line, something settled inside him. Familiar ground again.

Worth noting: the Noble Crest Armor's stealth property came into its own specifically in forested terrain and darkness. Out in the open, in broad daylight, it provided no concealment to speak of.

And George's Hunter Destiny Grid and Woodcutter Destiny Grid were both at their best in wooded environments.

He could feel it now — even the air tasted different. Cleaner, richer. He pressed his palm against the bark of a large tree, and immediately sensed how long it had grown, and whether it was healthy.

'Hm. Not quite healthy. Something's wrong with it.'

George frowned. In this forest that looked lush and green from outside, he was sensing a deadness. The trees looked fine on the surface but felt hollowed out from within — the faintest pulse of life, weak and failing. Even cut down and milled, these would barely pass as standard timber. Too sick to make good charcoal.

Which meant: no game. If the trees were like this, there would be nothing living here worth hunting.He confirmed it quickly. The silence inside the forest was absolute. Sparse ground cover, no birdsong, no insects. Not a single ant.

Near the edge it was tolerable. The further in he went, the worse it felt.

Time to leave. This place wasn't safe.

George turned to exit — and at that exact moment, the depths of the forest erupted with bizarre, discordant cries, followed by dense, rhythmic footsteps, as if an entire unit had been lying in wait.

He ran.

When he burst clear of the trees and looked back, twenty to thirty figures were charging out after him. Men, women, old and young — none of them living. Their faces were blue-grey and dead. Their bodies were wrapped in grey moss that resembled overgrown fungal colonies.

But what made George's skin crawl was what sat on each of their heads: a black spider, roughly the size of a human head. From a distance, they looked like ridiculous oversized hats.

"Hehk! Hehk!"

The figures made strange guttural cries — furious, as if offended that George had disturbed their rest. Angry, strange eyes. Grinding fury. And they showed no aversion to sunlight whatsoever, charging directly out into it.

When they closed to within thirty meters, there was a burst of rapid hissing sounds — the black spiders launched themselves off their hosts like projectiles.

George had already seen it coming. He burst forward, sidestepped cleanly, turned, drew, and fired.

Thwk. Thwk. Thwk.

Three One-Star hardwood arrows hit three of the walking dead in the head with precision — punched clean through their skulls, black corrupted blood and dark tissue spattering outward.

No effect whatsoever. Three arrows, three twitches. That was it.

Which meant: shoot the spiders.

He sprinted another stretch, spun, drew, and shot a flying spider out of the air. Clean hit.

No difficulty at all. Arrow out. Spider gone. Reload and repeat. Three arrows in, then sprint again. Sprint far enough. Turn. Shoot.

Kiting at a fairly high level of execution.

And yes — the spiders were the source. Each time one died, the human puppet below simply collapsed and burst, leaving a spreading pool of black fluid on the ground.

What were these things using people as? Mobile power cells?

And the fluid: battery acid?

George was genuinely disturbed. How many more things like this existed in this world?

Magic Zombies. That was the category. Now he understood why.

After that, the process was straightforward.

These mutant spiders managing human puppets had no particular tactical intelligence — they just kept chasing, and George kept kiting them until every last one was down.

Simple enough. Just expensive on arrows: twenty-eight One-Star hardwood bolts spent.

【You have eliminated the mutant spider colony occupying the small woodland northeast of camp. You have temporarily earned the right to harvest timber from this forest.】

【You have gained 25 Contribution. Cumulative total: 650.】

【Note: This woodland will soon be occupied by other mutant creatures. Unless you secure permanent control here, you cannot donate it to the family.】

【You have received 25 One-Star spider silk threads, each 30 meters in length. These can be sold to native merchants, or sold upon returning to headquarters.】

George read all three notifications and felt no particular elation. Things had gotten complicated. He was hungry, his Stamina was sitting around 150 — technically safe, but he hadn't eaten breakfast. He'd come out here to hunt. Deer, wild boar, mountain birds at a minimum.

Instead he'd found this. Everything edible in that forest had probably been consumed by the spider colony.

He'd underestimated this.

George reflected on the miscalculation. He didn't re-enter the forest — he wasn't ready to provoke whatever was in that northern town prematurely.

So — forage for wild vegetables it was.

What? A Rookie King wasn't allowed to eat weeds? He'd eaten worse.

He took off the Noble Crest Armor, folded it, put it in the bag and slung it over one shoulder. Three-Star Dagger out. He found a patch of particularly good soil, crouched down, and started digging.

This world's soil was fertile. The wild plants were correspondingly large and dense. Within an hour he had most of a bag filled, and had incidentally shot three unidentified small birds, caught twenty-seven grasshoppers, and stumbled upon two very fat, very unlucky marmots.

Not bad. Lunch sorted.

Back at camp, he donated everything. Five Contribution received.

No choice — the family had no stored food, so even a wild-greens-and-grasshopper stew with field mice and birds commanded maximum value.

Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue refused to look at the pot, let alone eat from it. When the mealtime window passed, the food passed naturally into George's stomach instead.

This pattern held for several days in a row.

Foraging by day, hunting mutant rats by night. The living was spare, but not unpleasant. As for Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue — he hadn't seen them for three consecutive days. No idea where they'd gone.

Nothing he could do about it.

What he could do about it was nothing.

What he actually worried about was whether the two of them had found a scenic spot somewhere and chosen to eliminate themselves. Genuinely. As long as they were alive, their presence served as a significant deterrent to the Four-Star Rat King. The moment they were gone — he was fully confident that creature would immediately decide it was time for open war.

So George worried.

That evening, though, he spotted Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue coming back. Secretive about it. The impression that they'd found some new angle to work from.

What was it?

Didn't matter — as long as they were breathing, helping passively contain the Rat King, and stayed in until the month-end summary and the new arrivals came in. That was all he needed.

The bad news arrived faster than he'd expected.

Next morning. George had just finished breakfast and was in the process of stretching when a silent notification appeared:

【Family Members Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue have not consumed any food or water from this world in the past twenty days. They have accumulated zero magical radiation within their bodies and register as fully natural, uncontaminated individuals. A high-level Ability User has detected this anomaly. This constitutes a Critical NG. They will be forcibly settled and removed within thirty minutes. After the Month-End Summary, four substitute players will join the current mission world.】

What?

How could a Critical NG this severe trigger this fast?

George's first instinct was to wonder how Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue had managed to commit such an oversight.

Then he understood immediately: they'd done it on purpose.

They didn't want to self-terminate and lose a profession card. The cleanest available exit was to trigger a Critical NG and force early settlement. They were being forcibly removed.

They'd played the exit card.

Ten days left until month-end. The Four-Star Rat King was about to have nothing holding it back.

George threw the armor aside and ran out with only his Three-Star War Bow and a quiver.

He squeezed through the third-floor gap and immediately saw, south of the town, Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue calmly executing a decapitation strike on the Bull-type Ability User.

Cat Tom and the other Bone-Claw were already down. Killed by the two women.

Those three Ability Users had never stood a chance against them.

But — why were the three showing up in broad daylight in the first place?

Were they connected to the Critical NG somehow?

George landed and jogged over. He wanted clarity. Any last words?

"Auntie, you—"

He came in looking genuinely frantic. He understood what Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue wanted to see in this moment, and for people who were supposed to be family, he was willing to deliver at least some version of what they needed.

Loyalty and warmth weren't just things you said. They were things you did.

But Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue saw straight through him. Both stared into the middle distance, giving him absolutely nothing. Not even punctuation.

Fine. We're all family here, right?

George pulled out a substantial quantity of standard gold coins and initiated a trade request to Liang Yuzhi.

With a message attached: Things have gone this far. I've lost this round. Without your containment factor, I won't be able to protect my farm. So let me die knowing the full picture — or at least sell me some food.

Liang Yuzhi rejected the trade outright.

She didn't even acknowledge him.

That was the whole point of the elaborate Critical NG they'd set up — to watch the little traitor suffer as badly as possible. Did they need his fifty-four gold coins? Please.

George turned to Li Yue with fifty-four gold coins and the same trade request. Not asking for food this time — just for the satisfaction of knowing what had actually happened.

Li Yue accepted.

Maybe she genuinely hated him down to the marrow, and the idea of him dying confused felt like it was missing something ceremonially important.

Besides — they were leaving anyway. It didn't cost her anything.

She pocketed fifty-four gold coins, and activated a Two-Star Conspiracy Card.