Backed into a corner like a reed bent by storm rain, Xianlan Yanyu had no choice but to strike an uneven deal with Nana Toki.

The terms were simple as a blade’s edge: Nana Toki would let the Lady Protagonist go, and he would sort every scrap of online data about the incident three years ago, then hand it over inside the game.

Suspicion pricked him like thorns in fog, but facing her bug-tier strength—cold as iron under moonlight—he swallowed his doubts and accepted in silence.

The Protagonist Lord moved fast, like a hawk cutting through clouds. In two days flat, he’d bundled all the intel Nana Toki wanted.

He found her in the Giant Lizard Forest, where she had just shepherded a player through one layer of the Divine Demon Tower.

“Come again next time,” she said, voice light as drifting drizzle.

She finished counting the coins from the carried player, then lifted her gaze to the Protagonist Lord. “My stuff?”

“...”

“Here. Everything’s in this.”

After two beats of quiet, Xianlan Yanyu flicked his sleeve like a magician and produced an ink-black scroll. “It records all the public-test info back then, including version notes. I can’t vouch for truth.”

“No matter. I don’t care about that,” she said, tone steady as a calm lake.

As long as she could trace a thread, the main quest might finally move.

She took the scroll and walked to a shady spot, cool as moss under stone, and unrolled it alone.

Given her current body—numbers wrapped in a veil of light—the odds of cracking a real-world mystery were steep as a cliff of ice.

She could only inch forward, one pebble at a time.

Inside the files Xianlan Yanyu compiled were tales like smoke and fire—rumors of a female player trapped in a full-dive game. Yet the processes were a jumble of mismatched details, enough to make Nana Toki wonder if this was pure hearsay.

“What’s this ‘[Shadow]’?”

A line snagged her attention like a hook. The scroll described a hidden class called [Shadow] in this very MMO, an assassin-like role—daggers and dark tools, fleet as a night cat. No one knew why the devs later removed it.

“Oh, that...” Xianlan Yanyu’s voice drifted like wind through grass. “During the public test, there was an event called ‘Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation.’ Players could opt in. Accepted players were teleported by the System into the event instance for a forced class-change quest. Clear every task, and you’d change into that hidden [Shadow] class. But the instance was brutal, and most players were green. Almost no one survived. Near the last day of the public test, just one player succeeded.”

He stood nearby, a quiet narrator beside a river at dusk.

“And why was the class removed?” Nana Toki asked, eyes narrowing like a blade-line.

“...”

Leaning against a rough-barked tree in the Giant Lizard Forest, Xianlan Yanyu turned his head slightly, then continued, words heavy as rain-soaked cloth. “Because the player who changed died.”

“Died?” Nana Toki’s expression flickered, surprise like a spark. “How?”

“Collapsed after grinding the instance too long. The Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation had a rule—once you enter, you can’t leave unless you finish everything. Otherwise, you’re trapped in that instance forever. To prevent it happening again, the devs removed [Shadow].”

“Not even forced logout?”

“No.” Xianlan Yanyu’s certainty landed like a hammer.

“And the game still dared to open a public test? Weren’t they afraid of reports?” Nana Toki’s shock rose like thunder. “An instance like that is deadly!”

“That’s why these files aren’t verified—reference only,” Xianlan Yanyu murmured, glancing at the sun hanging in the game’s sky, pale as polished bone. “If this really happened, the game wouldn’t be running now. You’ve got multiple versions of public-test data in your hand.”

“...”

Listening to the Protagonist Lord, Nana Toki dropped her gaze back to the scroll. A flicker of chagrin rippled through her, quick as a fish.

These stories felt thrilling as lightning, yet they were just rumors spun by players. Even in a lower-tier plane, the main quest never hands itself over like a ripe fruit.

“If [Shadow] is fictional, then who in this game can equip daggers—the weapon class for that role?”

Her thoughts jumped like sparks. Thorn in her hand had been the Protagonist Lord’s off-hand weapon in the original text, yet he mainly used a longsword.

Was there no class conflict between the two?

“Longsword is longsword. Dagger is dagger. If a player wants to use them, they can equip them.”

Xianlan Yanyu caught her doubt like mist on a sleeve. He drew a keen longsword from his equipment bar, silver as moonlight, and said, “This game has no strict class divisions. One person can be anything. It’s all about choice.”

“I see...”

She closed the scroll, thoughts drifting like low clouds, then spoke slowly. “Your intel helps. Per our deal, we’re square. From now on, I won’t meddle in anything tied to the Mist-and-Rain Realm. You can go.”

“...”

“What? Something else?” she asked, one brow lifting like a drawn bow.

Was he interested in these threads too?

“Nothing.”

Contrary to her guess, the Protagonist Lord gave her a long, meaningful look, then rose on sword-flight and left the Giant Lizard Forest like a streak of light.

Before he left, he reminded her of their terms. “Stay away from the Mist-and-Rain Realm.”

Nana Toki would comply, duty-straight as a blade. A villain with a professional code keeps her word.

Not bothering the heroine? Easy enough. In this plane, the heroine’s persona hadn’t collapsed; as long as she didn’t try to court death, Nana Toki would be merciful—one eye open, one eye closed.

System: “...”

After parting from the Protagonist Lord, Nana Toki drifted back to the Divine Demon Tower’s entrance, ready to carry more players and mint more coins.

She was just about to shout on the world channel when a weight dropped on her right shoulder like a sandbag from nowhere. In a blink, the newcomer—Never Say Quit—didn’t even get a word out before his vision spun like a windmill. When he came to, a white-jade dagger stared him down, sharp as frost.

[Nearby] Never Say Quit: “Spare me, hero! /I surrender, /Mercy!”

“Hm? You?” Nana Toki had been about to end him with one stab. She peered at the familiar face under her knee. “Didn’t I already carry your Divine Demon Tower? What are you doing here?”

“I’m... I’m not here for the Tower.”

With a dagger kissing his cheek by mere centimeters, Never Say Quit swallowed hard, throat dry as sand. “I’m here to ask for something else.”

“Something else? What?”

She flicked the dagger away like a swallow folding its wings, rose, and dusted herself off. “I’m busy making money. If you want me to carry other instances, take the door on the left. This little demon only does the Divine Demon Tower.”

She was an NPC with a professional code, after all.

“...”

This NPC was something else.

He pushed himself up, shaky as grass in wind, and glanced at the double rows of debuffs in his status bar. His lip twitched.

Yep, the tripwire debuff had gotten nastier again.

Unplayable if nerfed? Honestly, unplayable even without.

“Speak. If it’s not the Tower or another instance, what do you want?”

Nana Toki felt good today; her voice was warm as late spring.

“Ah... it’s nothing big.” He scratched the back of his head, sheepish as a kid caught stealing pears. “When the next version launches a new event, we hope you’ll team up with our Moonlit West River folks to farm rewards. If you don’t want to, pretend I never asked.”

“...”

Smart guy—hug the thigh before the bell rings.

Nana Toki didn’t mind seizing an edge that felt like cheating, wind behind the sails.

But one thing gnawed at her like a mouse in the pantry.

“How do you know the next event is team-based?”

She eyed the man, gaze thin as a blade. “The game just ran the Most Beautiful Goddess selection. Who knows when the next one lands? Where’d you get intel?”

“Embarrassing to say...” He rubbed his neck, a guilty shade crossing his face. “A friend at Otto Game Company told me. Our server cap is only level seventy, right? Others are eighty-five. He said the planners want our zone to keep running, so next version’s event will open the cap to eighty-five.”

He cleared his throat, hope flickering like a campfire. “So... can you help?”

He’d heard the next-level-cap event was huge as a mountain, even involving guild-on-guild clashes. If they seized the early route, Moonlit West River might not take the lion’s share, but the rewards would be rich as a harvest.

“That’s not impossible. If I’ve got nothing that day, I can help.” Nana Toki thought, a drift of calm settling. If she was just data and couldn’t leave, she might as well play hard inside the game. “Besides that, do you know anything else about the next event?”

“Uh... I didn’t get the details. I only remember my friend saying the event’s name was ‘Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation.’”