Chapter 360: The First Meeting Between "Shadow" and Blackwatch
"Is that so..."
Although Yamauchi Sakura did not quite understand what Asagiri meant by "later," she naturally had an outgoing and cheerful personality, so she did not dwell on it too much.
She simply rested her arms lightly on the rooftop railing, tidied her brown hair as it fluttered in the breeze, looked at Asagiri beside her, and smiled.
"The weather is quite nice, isn't it?"
"The weather is nice?"
Asagiri looked up at the red moon hanging in the sky, then turned his gaze to Yamauchi Sakura. A look of pity and heartache appeared in his eyes.
"Has your disease progressed to your brain...? Truly, the life of a beauty is fragile..."
"Brain? My illness is in my pancreas..."
Yamauchi Sakura came to her senses halfway through. She raised her hand and gently pushed Asagiri's shoulder, saying with a pout,
"You're beating around the bush to call me stupid, aren't you?"
"In this kind of weather, if you can still say it's nice, then it can't be me who's stupid, right?"
"I'm talking about the air, the air!"
Yamauchi Sakura replied with a hint of anger.
Then a complicated look appeared in her eyes. After a while, she spoke softly.
"I'm always very happy when I'm with you."
"Listen to you saying that."
Asagiri waved his hand casually and smiled.
"There's no one who isn't happy when they're with me. That's my personal charm."
Yamauchi Sakura could not help laughing, covering her mouth with one hand.
"That's a bit narcissistic, you know. But... do you know why I say I'm happy when I'm with you? It's not that I'm unhappy when I'm with them, but... when I chat with you, you never deliberately avoid my condition, so I feel like I'm not being treated differently."
"I see."
Asagiri nodded noncommittally, then spoke with a smile in his voice.
"Didn't I already say it? I won't let your life end here, so in my opinion, the disease you have now is only temporary. I will definitely find a way to cure your pancreatic disease. Perhaps in this Dungeon, we can obtain an item with that effect."
"That would be best. But if we don't find it..."
Yamauchi Sakura pursed her lips, then suddenly leaned a little closer. She looked directly at Asagiri's face and spoke softly in a gentle tone.
"I'm very happy that I met you before I die."
"Ew, that's too heavy."
Asagiri looked slightly disgusted.
"Don't have such deep obsessions. In the world we live in, evil spirits really can form from obsessions like that. To prevent you from turning into a female ghost and haunting me after you die, I'd better save you."
Just as Yamauchi Sakura was about to say something more, Asagiri raised his hand to stop her and spoke softly.
"Someone is coming. You stay here."
"Mm, okay."
On the other side of the street, two Players wearing black tactical combat suits, with short blade shaped melee weapons hanging at their waists and automatic rifles engraved with glowing patterns in their hands, were moving slowly in a standard three person squad formation.
They guarded the Player in the middle, who wore a black robe and held a staff.
Just as these three Players were staying alert, they suddenly felt a shadow cover their heads. Even the bright red moonlight was temporarily blocked.
When they looked up, what entered their sight was a mysterious person wearing a long black trench coat and a black mask.
The hem of his trench coat fluttered gently in the breeze as he stood in the air as if walking on flat ground, looking down at them from above.
"You are... Shadow!?"
Seeing the shocked expressions on the two Players' faces, and seeing them raise their firearms the instant they saw him, Asagiri did not attack directly.
Instead, he chuckled.
"You three are from Blackwatch, right? It's not that I want to mock you, but the problem is, your Blackwatch characteristics are just too obvious. You might as well have your identities plastered on your faces."
Because Blackwatch members had undergone years of professional training and were seasoned in battle even before entering the Game, they were noticeably different from ordinary Players.
The most important thing was their equipment.
High level Players could customize the type of rewards they received, such as equipment, items, or abilities. The level of the reward depended on the level of the clearance rating, but the specific style was determined by the Player's deep inner needs.
Blackwatch members were well trained soldiers, so the melee weapons they chose were basically the short blades or daggers they were accustomed to using.
Rather than purely mystical abilities, they preferred to strengthen their physical ability and then use modern weapons with unusual powers.
And things like how they moved in unfamiliar environments, squad formations, and the like, to someone like Asagiri who had already had contact with Blackwatch, he could tell at a glance.
After all, Blackwatch was a modern armed organization, not a group of undercover agents. Naturally, they were not proficient in camouflage.
"Wait!"
Seeing Asagiri slowly descend to the ground, the two Blackwatch members holding firearms immediately lowered their muzzles.
"We don't want to fight you."
"Oh?"
Upon hearing this, Asagiri became interested.
"Based on my understanding of you Blackwatch members, you wouldn't think this way out of fear of me. So the reason you don't want to be hostile toward me is...?"
Seeing that Asagiri had no intention of attacking them directly, the three Blackwatch members could not help breathing a sigh of relief. Their tone also became respectful.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but the goal of this Game is not to create hostility between Players from different worlds, but to allow Players from other worlds to cooperate to a certain extent."
Hearing that Blackwatch had reached the same conclusion as him, Asagiri did not reveal anything directly. He simply smiled casually.
"How did you come to this conclusion?"
"The Trial of the third stage. I don't know what the Trial content for your world was, but the Trial for our world was that all high level Players from the world you live in, including you, descended in projection form after clearing the third stage Dungeon."
When they said this, complicated expressions appeared on the faces of the three Blackwatch Players.
The Shadow projection that had descended into their world did not possess the ability to fly.
That meant the other party had not mastered this ability after clearing the third stage Dungeon.
But just now, when Shadow appeared, the three of them had clearly seen that he could float in the air and move as nimbly as if he were walking on flat ground.
And now, this was the fourth stage Dungeon.
In other words...
Even without participating in Dungeons, Shadow's abilities would continue to grow.
To put it simply, this was truly absurd.
"At the beginning, we dispatched troops to fight the descending projections. Needless to say, the results were disastrous. Blackwatch suffered extremely heavy losses. However, it was during that battle that we discovered something."
The Blackwatch member sighed, his tone heavy.
"What we should truly be doing is not fighting the projections of high level Players, but guiding those projections toward dangerous Cursed areas. By using the power of Players from your world, we can seize control of those regions from the Cursed entities."
His voice became even lower.
"If we had intentionally guided them from the start... perhaps we could have achieved far greater results, or even reclaimed an entire city."
"Is that so."
Asagiri nodded noncommittally.
He thought that Blackwatch must certainly have a brilliant Commander.
Just from the projections descending into another world, that Commander could tell that the system did not want Players from different worlds to kill each other.
Since that was the case, the reason Players from other worlds entered that Cursed world for Dungeons was simple.
It was to gradually, step by step, eliminate the Cursed entities of that world.
However, during this process, the Dungeon locations selected by the system overlapped with the areas Blackwatch controlled as experimental grounds, leading to conflicts between Players from both sides.
As long as they could save the world and return that world, which was forever trapped in darkness, back to human control, they could commit the cruel act of turning a city into a zombie virus testing ground.
And just as easily, they could ignore past conflicts and seek cooperation with the once hostile Shadow.
An extreme salvation organization that would stop at nothing.
That was Blackwatch.
Looking at the three Blackwatch Players before him, Asagiri's eyes remained completely calm. He was only pondering a question.
Everything the other side said was logical.
But what if...
These three people were the Uncontrollables?
Even if they were telling the truth, how could he be sure these three people could be trusted?
Ultimately, after assembling the Player front for this Dungeon, how would they distinguish the Uncontrollables among them?
If they could not be identified, then the Players' action plans would be known to the Uncontrollables.
Rather than putting themselves at an information disadvantage, it would be better to act independently from the start.
"Wait here."
Asagiri stood on the street.
He was merely standing there, not even deliberately using Unrestrained Tyrant to emit waves of power. Yet the three Blackwatch members, who knew just how powerful he was, could not help breaking out in cold sweat.
"While we wait for the other Players to arrive here..."
Asagiri looked at the three Blackwatch Players opposite him and spoke softly.
"Tell me, how exactly did the world you live in become the way it is? When did the Cursed phenomena begin to appear?"
"The appearance of the Cursed phenomena..."
One of the Blackwatch members carefully recalled for a moment before speaking.
"Widespread appearances likely began two years ago. It was from that time onward that we, Blackwatch, began researching ways to counter the Cursed..."
At this point, the Blackwatch Player suddenly froze.
A look of confusion appeared on his face as he muttered to himself.
"No... before that, we... seemed to have already found a way to counter the Cursed... But why did we start from scratch a while ago? And why do I feel..."
Watching the Blackwatch Player's expression, a strange look appeared in Asagiri's eyes.
He instantly approached the man, stared directly into his eyes, and spoke slowly.
"You..."
"Are you missing a part of your memory?"
.....
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