6: Chapter 6: Because I am a law-abiding good person (seeking collection and votes) 6: Chapter 6: Because I am a law-abiding good person (seeking collection and votes) The metal wires that had snapped were still lodged inside his body, and though the soft tentacles were handy, removing these long thin lines was proving to be somewhat beyond his strength.
A few hundred meters ahead, a vast open space appeared before He Ao.
The decoration of this space was extremely minimalistic, consisting only of two rows of gigantic bookshelves, crammed with paper books.
In the corner, there were piles of skulls and finger bones, along with various writing utensils.
He Ao had been wondering where Job and his group had gotten their offerings from, and it turned out they had stolen them from the home of this Priest.
However, this place did indeed resemble somewhere a Priest of the God of Knowledge should reside.
He Ao’s gaze swept over the rows of books on the shelves.
He bypassed the abstruse philosophical works and focused instead on finding books about history and news, as this would help him quickly understand this world.
According to what the system had said before, he seemed destined to return to this world in the future, so gaining an understanding of it was essential.
He was also searching for books related to the summoning ritual.
Although he had a vague memory of how to conduct the summoning, he was concerned that his nebulous recollection might be incomplete, and felt it was more reliable to find some written records.
Among these books, the history and news categories were not abundant.
It took him a while to find two books in the corner.
He extended his tentacles and pulled them out, but as soon as he opened the pages, he was stunned.
The two books contained nothing—just plain white paper.
He quickly flipped through a few more books at random, and they were also blank, with only one or two elementary textbooks still retaining their content.
This reminded He Ao of those coffee shops that displayed fake books to boost their sophistication,
So the Priest of the God of Knowledge didn’t actually read all these books, and hardly any of them were genuine—were they just for show?
Where is your professional dedication as a Priest of the God of Knowledge?!
Damn, this fake Priest!
And just then, He Ao suddenly felt a sense of danger rising within him once again.
He turned his head and looked at Selena, who was suspended in the air by him.
“Yezola, you still have your sanity, right?
Were you trying to save me just now?
Why did you save me?”
Under the skull-like gaze, Selena suppressed her fear and tried to change the subject, hoping to buy some time.
She had only just finished erasing all the data and was beginning to reload the operating system.
During the system reload, she was entirely devoid of combat capability, and her backup basal motion system would lose most of its functionality due to data occupation.
At this moment, she could barely move her mouth and head slightly.
Her eyes widened as she watched He Ao, seemingly waiting for his response.
He Ao glanced at her, then slowly moved his head closer and closer.
His skull-like head, with its enormous oppressive presence, seemed like a demon from hell, gradually battering down her psychological defenses.
The danger posed by a rational Evil God Priest versus a mad, chaotic one was entirely different.
The latter could be easily dealt with by a regular investigative team, or even a well-equipped, high-ranking investigator.
The former, however, would require a full team of investigators led by an inspector, or even the mobilization of the City Defense Army.
Just as a frail human with intelligence could set traps to hunt fierce beasts, a rational yet cunning Evil God Priest was dangerous and mad.
In hunting them, a moment’s inattention could turn the hunter into the prey.
For instance, Selena herself had experienced such a transformation firsthand, from a hunter who controlled life and death, to being entangled by tentacles and possibly even becoming the plaything of Prey.
Although Job’s sneak attack from behind played a part, the endurance and cunning displayed by the Evil God Priest before her far exceeded her expectations.
It was even beyond belief how he managed to snap the restraining device; Selena felt this was somewhat beyond her understanding of the world, and she could faintly see the metal wires left inside He Ao’s body where the restraining device had been snapped through his tentacles.
She even wanted to ask He Ao, “Doesn’t that hurt?”
If she had known earlier how terrifying this Evil God Priest was, she wouldn’t have ventured out of the city so easily to hunt him down,
She was beginning to doubt whether the consortium had bribed her superior to deliberately assign her a mission meant to end in death, but upon reflection, she dismissed that thought from her mind.
It must have been an accident, for although her superior was somewhat unreliable, his character was still trustworthy.
He Ao had no idea that, in this brief span of time, Selena’s mind had flashed through a multitude of thoughts; he brought his head closer to Selena while his other tentacles rapidly flipped through sets of books.
To be fair, using hundreds of tentacles was indeed much more efficient than just two hands.
In the midst of these actions, he had already brought his head close to Selena’s face, revealing a smile,
“Because I am a law-abiding good person,” he said.
He was responding to Selena’s earlier question about “why he saved her.”
Selena watched as a skull-like head approached her, its mouth parted to reveal glistening white teeth, with strands of fresh red meat even entangled between them.
She felt her sanity assaulted once again.
Such a terrifying and bizarre scene could probably make school children cry in fear.
He Ao was unaware of how horrifying he looked at the moment, and in the absence of mirrors, he tried to make Selena feel more at ease by intentionally putting on a ‘friendly’ smile.
It seemed to have a good effect; Selena wasn’t causing a fuss anymore and had quieted down quite a bit in a short span.
She must have sensed his goodwill.
And there, facing him, Selena gradually recovered from her fear, admitting that she had indeed been terrified to the point of numbness for a moment and was still somewhat afraid even now.
For an instant, she even thought He Ao might actually eat her.
But after being scared so many times, she felt she was becoming somewhat accustomed to it.
A rational and sane Evil God Priest still carried an intense madness and a way of thinking different from ordinary people, so she began to attempt to find weaknesses in He Ao’s thoughts through conversation,
“Your law-abiding means attacking us as soon as we entered?”
He Ao had not attacked them, but it must have been the act of the previous Evil God Priest, Yezola, before his Advent.
However, the rules of the game required He Ao to accurately play the part of Yezola without being detected, so he bared his teeth in a smile, “You intruded into my home, I have the right to protect my own life and property, this is self-defense.”
There seemed to be some logic in his words, but something felt off.
So she probed further, “Your self-defense means killing seven people and then subduing me in this place?”