"Mmm..." A faint, sleepy groan came from beneath the old but thick blanket.
Stella's consciousness, like a rusted gear, struggled to reboot within Clara's body.
She blinked her heavy eyelids, feeling her head still groggy and her body stiff from the cold and lying down for so long.
Subconsciously, she rubbed her eyes, dizzily propped herself up with the blanket, and slowly sat up.
"Yo, awake? Did you sleep well? Uncle Cold-Leg's sleep service is genuine and reliable, though the aftereffects might be a bit strong."
A voice, lighthearted yet tinged with concern, pierced through Stella's remaining sleepiness like an ice pick!
The hair on the back of Clara's neck stood on end!
Her neck stiff, like a rusted wind-up toy, she turned it jerkily to meet a pair of blue eyes that were looking down at her with a playful smirk—
It was none other than that blue-haired guy who had knocked them out with a despicable smoke bomb and was suspected of "kidnapping" her: Sampo Koski!
"Kyaaaaaa!!!" A short, sharp, and terrified girl scream shattered the silence of the abandoned corner!
With an instinctive reaction, Clara pulled the blanket she was covered with up in a "whoosh," like a startled hamster, and wrapped herself completely inside it!
Then, the small lump beneath the blanket began to tremble violently and uncontrollably, as if it weren't a blanket, but her final fortress.
Sampo was stunned by her fluid and dramatic series of movements; the playful smile on his face froze, turning into pure bewilderment.
He looked at the trembling lump of blanket, then at his hand that he had just reached out in a gesture of "friendliness," and scratched his head: "...Is that really necessary? I didn't do anything to you, and I even covered you with a blanket..."
Inside the blanket fortress: Stella's consciousness was sounding the alarm like crazy!
[Help, help, help!! It's over! I've been caught! And by a bad guy! Am I going to be packed up and sold?! Or taken away for some weird experiment?! system panel! System! Cheat code! Help me! Think of something! Teleport! Invincibility! Transformation! Anything! Save me, save me—!!!]
As if hearing her desperate plea, the system panel that only she could see actually appeared in her consciousness, trembling and seemingly a bit reluctant (?).
A flame of hope instantly ignited in Clara's heart!
She expectantly "looked" at the panel, ready to welcome options like "Emergency Escape Plan," "Temporary Combat Boost," or "Summon Big Boss for Help."
On the panel, a line of text appeared concisely: [System status self-check in progress...]
[Detected host's current status: Freedom restricted, potential threat source 'Sampo Koski' present (Hostility: Low, Threat Level: Low).]
[Detected host's vital signs: Stable.]
[Detected host's physical integrity: Intact.]
[Comprehensive assessment: Host is not in life-threatening danger, does not meet conditions for activating Emergency Intervention Protocol.]
[Conclusion: No response will be given. Please resolve the current predicament on your own. Good luck.]
Clara: "..." (The flame of hope was extinguished by a bucket of ice water, and then stomped on twice for good measure.)
system panel! You heartless machine! Letting me die! What use are you?!
Her expectant gaze instantly dimmed, and an aura of hopelessness permeated from beneath the blanket.
Clara silently and slowly pulled the blanket down a little from the top of her head, revealing only a pair of ruby eyes that had lost their luster, as if she had seen through the vanity of the world, along with half a desperate little face written with "It's hopeless."
The gaze was too hollow, the expression too sorrowful, so much so that Sampo was startled and subconsciously took half a step back, hurriedly rummaging through the small leather pouch he carried around, which was stuffed with all sorts of strange bottles and jars, muttering to himself:
"Oh no, oh no, could it be a side effect of the anesthetic? Or did she freeze until she's stupid? I remember I brought some herbal concoction for refreshing the mind and treating mental trauma..."
Seeing Sampo's "is this person stupid?" reaction, the last bit of luck in Stella's heart was shattered.
"Forget it... just destroy everything... hurry up..."
A "breaking the pot" mentality took over. With a thought, a pale blue light flickered on her body.
In Sampo's shocked gaze, the little white-haired girl figure under the blanket elongated and changed, in the blink of an eye turning into the tall, grey-haired girl he had seen before.
At the same time, another lump under the blanket also turned into points of light and vanished—that was the Hook avatar she had retracted.
"You...!" A small medicine bottle in Sampo's hand almost dropped to the ground. His eyes widened, he looked at Stella, then at the place where Hook had disappeared, a look of seeing a ghost on his face, his voice cracking.
"Sister?! Who are you?! A living person transformation?! Or... are you Sparkle in disguise? No, that troll Sparkle isn't as... uh, weak as you?"
He asked cautiously, quickly running through in his mind all the characters he knew with similar camouflage or transformation abilities, finally locking onto that Masked Fool, but quickly self-denying it—that person wouldn't be taken down by a bottle of his anesthetic.
Stella slumped in the cold corner, hugging her knees, and replied in a calm, flat tone: "I am no one. Just a plain, unremarkable Trailblazer from the Astral Express who happens to have the ability to transform and summon avatars, but both my main body and avatars are pitifully weak, easily beaten by anyone, and now unfortunately fallen into your hands."
Her tone was so flat, as if she were narrating someone else's tragic story.
Sampo: "..." (Why does this self-introduction sound so sad yet funny?)
However, right at this bottom of self-abandonment, Stella suddenly thought of something.
She slammed the system panel open and quickly browsed her character list.
[March 7th: Lv.11] (Highest) [Stelle: Lv.9] (Main body form, also leveled up a bit) [Dan Heng: Lv.1] (Pitiful) [Herta Puppet: Lv.1] (Pitiful) [Bailu: Lv.1] (Pitiful)...
Her gaze locked onto [Clara] — Lv.9!
"Huh?!" Stella was stunned. She remembered very clearly that after leveling Clara to Lv.8, her materials were used up.
How did it become Lv.9? When did it level up? Could it be...
In her mind, the image of Svarog blasting those few Abnormality creations to pieces when they first landed flashed by.
"Could it be... defeating Abnormality monsters also grants EXP?! Even if it's killed by a summoned character?!"
A bold conjecture struck like lightning!
Her originally dead-grey eyes instantly reignited with light, even brighter than before!
She abruptly lifted her head, looked at Sampo who was still rummaging for "brain-healing medicine," and asked in an eager voice that was almost a shout: "Hey! Sampo! Nearby! Where can I find a lone, preferably weaker Abnormality?! Tell me quickly!"
"Huh?!" Sampo was caught off guard by this sudden, 180-degree turn in attitude and question. His hand shook, and that bottle of "calming potion" actually dropped to the ground.
He subconsciously pointed in the direction Stella was indicating—which was the entrance to this abandoned corner where stray Abnormality usually wandered.
"Just... just over there at that ventilation duct entrance, occasionally..."
Before he could finish his sentence, as if a gift from fate, a small Abnormality that looked like a deformed ice bat, flapping translucent wings, happened to fly out from that duct entrance, making a faint "squeak" sound.
Stella's eyes lit up "whoosh"! Like a wolf that hadn't eaten for three days seeing meat!
"Opportunity!" She shouted in her heart, without hesitation, immediately summoned! "Summon Clara!"
The little white-haired girl and her steel guardian instantly appeared in the corner.
Svarog's reaction was as fast as programmed; his scarlet electronic eye instantly locked onto the target, raised his arm—Zzz—Boom!
A beam of energy, not particularly thick but incredibly precise, shot out. The poor ice Abnormality didn't even understand what happened before it exploded in mid-air into a small cluster of ice crystals and dark energy, quickly dissipating.
Almost simultaneously, Stella stared intently at [Clara]'s EXP bar on the panel. It moved! It really moved!
Although it only increased by a tiny sliver, barely visible to the naked eye, it had indeed increased!
"Awesome! It really works!!" A huge surprise exploded in Stella's mind like fireworks. She completely forgot her current situation and her status as a "kidnapped" victim, excitedly jumping up from the ground, like a child discovering a game secret for the first time, her face overflowing with pure, almost spilling-over joy!
"EXP! It's EXP! Killing monsters lets me level up! Hahaha! There's hope! I'm finally saved! I won't have to be a 'combat power of five' weakling for the rest of my life!!"
She danced with joy, almost wanting to spin around on the spot.
And Sampo, on the side, was completely dumbfounded.
He watched helplessly as this grey-haired girl, who just a moment ago looked "hopeless," suddenly jumped up as if she'd been injected with chicken blood, summoned that weird robot that explodes and disappears, killed a lowest-level Abnormality monster, and then became... ecstatic? Dancing with joy? Muttering something about "EXP," "leveling up," and "there's hope"?
This violent emotional shift and leap in behavioral logic completely exceeded his understanding as a veteran intelligence dealer and scalper in Belobog!
"It's over, it's over, it's over..." Sampo's face turned pale, he scrambled to pick up the medicine bottle on the ground, and frantically rummaged through his bag again, muttering to himself.
"She's really broken! Her brain is really having issues! Are the side effects really this big? Or are the brain circuits of outworlders different from ours? Where's the medicine? Where's my special mind-clearing medicine?! Must treat her!!"
The look in his eyes as he watched Stella had completely changed from the initial vigilance and suspicion to a frantic "This person is definitely mentally ill, I must find a way to deal with (or cure) her!"
Stella was still immersed in the ecstasy of discovering a way to level up, completely unaware of Sampo's terrified, "looking at a mental patient" gaze.
She had already started planning how to use Sampo as a "local guide" to find more Abnormality to "farm EXP."
One thought she had found the dawn of becoming stronger, the other thought the other person was having a mental breakdown and needed immediate treatment... This scene was increasingly developing in an unpredictable, comical direction.