"Yikes! Wait, that's not okay! I am not emotionally prepared yet!"

"Stop the nonsense, undress!"

"Wait... Ouch! Don't be so rough! Do you ever consider whether someone can handle something that thick?!"

"Ah... Your mark is already left inside my body, Li..."

"Please distinguish between inside and outside of the body... Just because I draw a magical seal for you, you make it sound like this. You are truly something."

Using both hands and feet, Li pressed Princess Tiran firmly on the bed and watched her squirming underneath him. Although he couldn't help but sigh at her movements, his hands were not gentle in the least. The pen used to draw magical seals was similar to a tattoo pen, but the ink used was specially made, enhanced with materials to boost magitech abilities.

Exhausted from putting a lot of effort into finishing the seal, Li dropped the pen, breathed a sigh of relief, and rolled off Tiran's body to sit on the side, lighting a cigarette... Sorry, I meant, sucking on a lollipop.

Glancing back at Tiran, whom he was quite familiar with as the princess, Li couldn't help but quip, "Hey, cut it out with the eye-rolling and drooling. There's no one else here, who are you acting for?"

"Because it really hurts..."

Tiran sat up on the bed, looking aggrieved. After tidying her disheveled clothes a bit, she couldn't help but reach out to touch the slightly reddened skin between her butterfly bones, where Li's rough actions had left their mark.

"Don't touch it for now," Li stopped her, "It won't hurt after a while. Although I was a bit harsh, it was necessary to make the seal clear. After all, it's my first time using this type of pen to draw the Magic seal."

"Is this your way of retaliating privately? Just because I didn't want to test your ridiculous device with my body?" Tiran complained a bit resentfully.

"... You could interpret it that way." Scratching his cheek a little, Li nodded seriously. After some thought, he added, "If you don't agree, come bite me."

"I wouldn't go that far..." Tiran snorted, stood up and walked to the washroom to wash her face, and then examined the Magic seal engraved on her back in the mirror.

The deep blue lines, possibly due to the inclusion of magitech substances, shimmered with silvery fluorescence. The intricate and intertwined pattern, however, looked much better than she had imagined.

"Can I ask, what exactly is added to the ink material of this tattoo?"

"Mithril."

"Aren't you afraid I'll get heavy metal poisoning?!" Tiran widened her eyes.

"Heavy metal... toxicity, I specifically experimented with mice, no issues."

"Have you ever considered the difference between a mouse and me?" The princess sighed, "But it does feel different, more useful than I imagined."

A drop of water fell from her fingertip, free-falling towards the floor, each detail appearing incredibly vivid and lifelike in the elongated time. Manipulating the rules of time, one of the two skills of entry-level Holy Rank.

Clang!

A muffled sound resounded as the water drop shattered into pieces on the ground, and Tiran leaned heavily against the nearby mirror, one hand on her head, a pained expression on her face.

"What's wrong?"

Without the strength of a Holy Rank, Li completely missed what had just happened when time was extended, only seeing Tiran suddenly weak. He thought there was an issue with the seal he had drawn.

"Don't worry, just a sudden headache; it might be a side effect of utilizing the rules."

Due to the sudden sharp pain, I dared not move my head for the moment, but the corners of my mouth couldn't help but curl upwards. Tiran gently raised his hand to comfort Li, saying, "It seems a bit forced after all. The control of the rules can only be maintained for a moment. If it were the spatial rules, the skill like Spatial Fracture Blade probably could only be used once... but at least it can be used now."

"You truly amaze me, Li."

It was indeed good news, and regardless of the side effects, at least he would have the strength to face Yuan once again.

"But the side effects are indeed a problem."

Li's expression was somewhat conflicted. Assuming it would cause considerable damage to the body, it's best to avoid using this thing if possible.

"It's alright. I'll know when to use it." Tiran shrugged, stretched lazily, and returned to the bedside with a forceful yawn, "Sleep, sleep!"

"Little Tiran, if you really encounter the person who took away the Golden Dragon, even if it imposes a great burden on your body, you would still use the rules, right?"

Standing behind Tiran, Li asked calmly.

"...Is that even a question? Otherwise, being pinned down by you for no reason isn't my style at all. I'm always the one on top!" Tiran blushed as he turned abruptly.

"Princess, please watch your words and actions and don't act rashly." Li responded to Tiran's suggestive remark with a straight face, "I never imagined that the Silver War Maiden who evaded Balivryer so many times would fall into the hands of a dragon... or should I say claws?"

"Li, are you talking about me?"

Tiran turned sharply, her pretty face flushing.

"Obviously, who else would I be talking about?" Li also came to the bedside to tidy up his bedding and pillows, giving a gentle yawn.

"Not... isn't it too obvious?!" Tiran leaped onto the bed, covering her head with a pillow and blanket, rolling back and forth on the spacious bed.

"Please don't behave like an ostrich, okay?" Li looked at the beddings that Tiran kicked into disarray, raised an eyebrow, and said, "But from a personal perspective, I do support your... relationship with that Golden Dragon, Aya, isn't it? Leaving aside the fact that the data collection for Dragon's physical attributes isn't complete, I'm also very interested in the topic of whether humans and Dragons can produce offspring."

"Get out!"

...Considering they probably wouldn't arrive at Wu Xi Relay Station on patrol until close to noon the next day, it seemed like Tiran could sleep in. However, after dealing with the problem of the engraved magic array for a while, Tiran also felt a hint of fatigue and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Rustle...

Tiran didn't sleep very soundly; there seemed to be strange movements around him. Initially, due to drowsiness, he didn't pay much attention, but as time passed and his energy recovered during sleep, those eerie noises became clearer and increasingly difficult to ignore.

"What the heck?!"

Unable to bear it any longer, Tiran abruptly opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a huge dark figure standing by his bedside, wielding a weapon like a sword, its blade reflecting the moonlight shining through the window.

Nearly instinctively, his body fiercely kicked out a roundhouse kick almost as soon as he opened his eyes, landing squarely on the face of the intruder, sending him flying and crashing into the hall outside the bedroom, rolling a few times before hitting the wall hard.

"Li? Where are you?!"

Tiran, who had just gotten up, did not first check what he had kicked away, but noticed that Liecho, who should have been sleeping next to him, was nowhere to be found.

No one was there, but when he touched the spot where Li had been sleeping, there was still some warmth and a lingering scent of bitter herbs that had stuck to his body after years of studying Magic potions.

The bedding didn't seem messy, so it must have been his own doing. At least he hadn't been abducted, which was a relief.

Perhaps due to the spell he had cast, Tiran surprisingly felt much clearer in his mind.

"So, what kind of person is this guy."

Tiran picked up the weapon that had fallen to the floor by his bed when he kicked the intruder away, and his expression turned puzzled.

A kitchen knife?

Walking out of the bedroom and into the hall, Tiran approached the unconscious intruder who lay motionless on the ground, appearing more intrigued.

This guy was wearing the same clothes as the innkeeper? Could there be a traitor among the staff?

No, leaving aside the idea of a traitor, this guy... didn't seem like a person at all.

—Of course, Tiran's kick had twisted the innkeeper's neck at an unnatural angle, and she suspected that even the guy's spine had been broken, so whoever he was, he was definitely dead.

But the thing was, his body was stiff and cold, definitely not in a state that could be revived.

"So, did I just stumble into some kind of horror game world? Is he going to suddenly rise up and start biting people?" Tiran smirked. She wasn't afraid of something like a biohazard crisis; it was the uncertainty that was the most terrifying.

After a couple more kicks with no response, Tiran decided to take the kitchen knife and check outside.

In any case, she had to find Li and the others first. Recalling the mysterious bell she had heard outside earlier, Tiran's sense of unease only grew.

Exiting the room and reaching the corridor, the view outside heightened her suspicions.

Darkness.

The entire Five Creeks Inn was enveloped in the darkness of night.

Tiran remembered Xia Yu assuring her before bedtime that the staff would keep the inn well-lit all night, and Shuma and the mercenary leader were supposed to take turns keeping watch. Logically, even if the grassland people were attacking, there was no reason for them to silently kill everyone in the inn.

Descending to the lobby on the ground floor of the main building, everything was just the same as when she had arrived. There were no signs of destruction, no smell of blood in the air, everything was clean, just bathed in darkness with only the moon and stars shining above.

"No one here?"

After circling the front yard and the cottages where the staff lived on both sides, Tiran didn't see a single person, dead or alive.

What's going on? Is this really a horror game?

Tiran's composure remained unchanged, as her strength was unquestionable, making the typical horror game antics ineffective here.

"Following the pattern, I bet that guy with the broken neck in the room earlier is also gone now."

With that thought in mind, Tiran circled back to the room on the second floor of the main building.

And there lay the old innkeeper, still in the same position, his neck twisted quite artistically.