One thing to say, in this unfortunate case of disciplining the children, Little Darling was actually quite innocent. He was simply enjoying his food a bit too much and couldn’t resist smacking his lips. He also made some loud noises when he heard the sound of a delicious player passing by, all of which led to his punishment.
Even teaming up to scare people behind Xu Yintang’s back wasn’t enough to allow them to indulge in a secret taste. Apparently, their playful antics wouldn’t be spared, and even trying to sneak a bite while “Mom” was reading was a risk.
The truth is, Little Darling was behaving well, following his mother’s instructions to avoid eating the two best things and only eating what had already died. However, he was unfortunate enough to be disciplined mid-meal.
Seeing Little Darling crying, covered in sticky, viscous, and muddy liquid running down his skin, Xu Yintang couldn’t help but feel regret for the child, who had just managed to look somewhat decent but was now turning into a mess.
Meanwhile, Second Treasure stubbornly fought for his right to enjoy a feast.
In Xu Yintang’s consciousness, he was holding him down from jumping around, smacking his butt. Then ruthlessly and vexatiously grabbed the skin of the back of the neck, causing Second Treasure to turn into a soft lump. He would only be let go if he admitted his mistake without crying.
Second Treasure, covering his sore buttocks and jumping around, was once again brutally disciplined by his mother. He cried in pain and finally admitted his mistake.
Xu Yintang looked at Little Darling, who had turned into a crying mess but still didn’t touch his food. Then, he glanced at Second Treasure, who was repeating “I won’t steal food again” a hundred times while desperately absorbing the panic and chaos in the air. Xu Yintang sighed, his head aching in pain.
He couldn’t believe that he had to raise these little rascals until the day he died. Being a mom was indeed an overly noble profession.
“I’ll say it again,” Xu Yintang firmly held Little Darling and pulled at Second Treasure, reiterating the three principles for the youngsters, “The two players are off-limits. You can only eat what has already died, and when you eat, don’t scare people. Understand?”
Little Darling raised his tentacle, gesturing that he had indeed been obedient and hadn’t touched the food his mother forbade. So, he didn’t understand why he had been spanked.
“Little Darling is the big brother, not watching over his little brother. Both are guilty,” Xu Yintang decided to employ a ruthless collective punishment, bringing Little Darling into the camp of disciplining Second Treasure.
Right now, Second Treasure was still in his belly, and he couldn’t be entirely sure that he would be able to keep this child from sneaking some forbidden bites when he is born. He decided to preemptively ask the little cub to help him keep an eye on his other offspring.
Second Treasure has no say in this matter. He can only watch Little Darling occupy the position of older brother because he was born first. To be precise, whether their species has the concept of siblings is still up for debate.
Xu Yintang patted the sulking Second Treasure, then patted the suddenly defiant Little Darling who had become an older brother, “Alright, go out and play, remember what I said.” After a pause, he warned, “Three strikes, and if you make the same mistake again, I’ll really get angry.”
While the two cubs were in the room, Xu Yintang didn’t feel anything strange. However, the “translator” he had kidnapped from a group of cultists had been significantly affected. In just a few minutes of Xu Yintang educating the children, the cultist, who had initially resisted vigorously, turned pale and had a vacant look in his eyes. He looked no different from a lifeless wax figure.
This won’t do. Xu Yintang patted the translator’s cheek to wake him up, and he also asked Secound Treasure to use his soul-soothing skills to help him regain his sanity, lest he truly go insane. The cult’s scriptures contained too many obscure and metaphorical terms, and without a translation assistant, Xu Yintang would have a hard time reading all the information he wanted to see before dawn.
Second Treasure was in a bad mood and patched up a few leaks in the cultist’s sanity, which the other person didn’t feel, only experiencing intense pain in his head like needles. It forcibly kicked him out of the state of shock.
Get a grip! Get up!
The middle-aged man with stubble on his cheeks sprang up from the ground in an instant. When he saw Xu Yintang, he retreated as if he were seeing a demon, crawling backward until he bumped into the wall, still shrinking into it as if that would prevent him from being caught.
“Alright, let’s continue,” Xu Yintang sat back on the soft sofa, opened the half-read “Rituals of Nightmares,” and smiled at the trembling man.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ktf wjc fzqibvfv lc lcafcrf ofjg, j tewjc’r cjaegji ybvs gfrqbcrf ktfc fzqfglfcmlcu rbwfatlcu eccjaegji jcv afggloslcu. Ktlr jaagjmafv Vfmbcv Kgfjregf, jr lo klat j vfilmlber ogjugjcmf, jcv tf kjr afwqafv ab ub jcv ulnf atf meialra j ilmx, cba tjnlcu tjv fcbeut bo atf glmt jcv rkffa ajraf bo tlr rbei.
Slurp, take one more bite… just one last bite…
“Alright, you can’t have this one either,” Xu Yintang timely rescued his translator and said helplessly to the man, “My children are a bit mischievous. I hope they haven’t caused you any trouble, Your Excellency, the Pope.”
The man couldn’t speak anymore, he could only make incoherent sounds in his throat. The way he looked at Xu Yintang was as if he were seeing an incomprehensible monster, far from the fervent devotion he had shown when facing the statue of Daeis in the hall.
Despite being officially recognized as devout servants of Daeis, and his two children were one hundred percent Daeis’ kin.
Human nature can be fickle.
Xu Yintang could imagine that if the final sacrifice succeeded in summoning the entity of Daeis, or even just the shadow he had seen, the scene of the sacrifice would turn into a human hell far more chaotic and terrifying than when the moon faded.
So, how did things get to this point…
Blame it on the great Daeis.
…
Originally, when Xu Yintang left the storage room, his plan was well-structured. He intended to search for the room where the Church kept its records and, using the time before dawn, find out if there were any methods for painless childbirth. Of course, it would have been even better if he could find a parenting guide for his two little exotic offspring. As a novice mom, taking care of two offspring of different species at once was quite a handful.
In short, his plan was peaceful and friendly, and he had no intention of interfering with the Church of Nightmares’ ritual activities. Everyone would coexist peacefully and take what they needed.
However, within just a few steps of leaving the storage room, Xu Yintang sensed that something was amiss. The air was thick with a delicious and intense fear. The sounds of despair and turmoil echoed through the building. As the moon faded during the ritual, it was as if Daeis had abandoned them, and the impact of collapsing faith was too much for the worshippers to bear.
The strong, vivid emotions stirred Second Treasure, and the fear-stricken and despairing corpses of the worshippers emitted an aroma that made Little Darling’s mouth water. Following the scent of the food, Xu Yintang reached the ground floor. The surviving worshippers had lost their rationality and were resorting to cannibalism, creating food that was irresistible to the offspring. It appeared as though Xu Yintang wasn’t feeding his children.
The so-called Pope took the opportunity to intervene. He seemed to believe that tonight’s events were all part of Xu Yintang’s scheme, to some extent, and he shouted Daeis’ name, calling for Xu Yintang to be sacrificed to the great mother goddess.
According to the game’s normal setting, this Pope should have been the final boss of this dungeon. His combat abilities were on par with what a boss should have, he had a good mix of melee and spellcasting abilities. However, if it weren’t for his two protective children rushing in, Xu Yintang would have been stabbed multiple times and broken several bones to defeat him.
Of course, with two devoted children protecting their mother, there was no suspense. Xu Yintang easily acquired a humanoid map and translator. He proceeded to open the room containing the church records on the second floor.
Unfortunately, the Pope informed Xu Yintang that, despite the church’s existence for centuries, no one had ever researched painless childbirth. At best, he could only tell Xu Yintang, “Only those who have cast away their fear can give birth to the seed of Daeis.” This was information Xu Yintang was already familiar with and had put into practice.
Xu Yintang wasn’t about to give up. He continued to search through the church records, leaving his offspring with the Pope. With their mother’s rules of “No harming players,” “Only eat the deceased,” and “No scaring people (or inducing suicide).” The cubs turned their attention to the Pope. It was good that they hadn’t scared the Pope to death.
…
Back in the room with the Pope, Xu Yintang assured him that he would leave once morning arrived, offering him a cup of coffee and trying to engage in a friendly conversation. The Pope’s imposing stature and presence made him feel uneasy in the corner. Xu Yintang assured him that he only wanted to learn about childbirth and child-rearing, with no malicious intent.
The Pope finally spoke and accepted the coffee, even though he remained quite uneasy.
“I have to thank you,” Xu Yintang smiled at the Pope, “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have these two adorable children.”
Outside, Second Treasure was overjoyed and tapped his silly older brother who was busy eating.
“Mommy praised us! I’m a good child!”
Little Darling was so frightened by the words that it retracted its tentacles into its mouthpiece. Even though it experienced a faint sense of joy as a result of the food, any positive emotion related to love still instinctively caused it pain, and it couldn’t comprehend why its younger brother was so excited because of their mother’s praise.
Mommy praised us?
How scary…
Second Treasure had no idea what his silly older brother was thinking. He notified his brother with a sound and didn’t care that his older brother dropped his food from his mouth. He confidently followed behind the two most delicious humans, stealthily attempting to absorb the fear emanating from them.
Mommy only said we can’t actively hunt them or scare people, but she didn’t say we can’t lick and eat the crumbs if they scare themselves, Second Treasure thought triumphantly, wagging his nonexistent tail. He was quite pleased with his own cleverness.
Hiss—
Zhou Qian could be certain that they were definitely being watched by something. The intense, burning, and hungry gaze was overpowering, causing her to sweat profusely even after walking just a few hundred meters. She felt like she had been submerged in water, and it was only Lin De’an’s support that prevented her from collapsing in exhaustion.
“Do you need to rest?” Lin De’an inquired. “Or perhaps take some of the medicine you gave me earlier?”
Zhou Qian clung to her trembling legs, trying to prevent herself from passing out. “We’re almost there… Let’s keep going…”
Lin De’an was unaware that something was lurking around them. Zhou Qian could sense it only because she was on the brink of exhaustion, and regaining her composure after taking the medicine might cause her to lose this awareness, leaving them vulnerable to an attack without any warning.
So, she had to persevere, just in case the hidden entity decided to strike. At least she would be able to alert Lin De’an.
The door to the first-floor hall was within sight, slightly ajar with small gaps through which, if one listened carefully, they could hear faint echoes in the dead silence. It was like the cries of the dying, discordant and chaotic, gradually building into fragmented and impossible-to-ignore prayers.
For the glory of Daeis…
For the glory of the great mother goddess…
To awaken this decaying world from the nightmares, and to return all ignorant beings to the mother goddess’s dream…
Tempting whispers echoed in her ears, like a bug burrowing relentlessly into her mind, making them both see, as if in a trance, countless robed worshippers prostrating and fervently worshiping. The atmosphere of fanatic devotion pushed them to push open the door, stained with a blood-red moon and carved with a spiderweb design.
Behind that door, behind the faintly shimmering crack of light…
The world fell into silence.
The whispers and illusions, even the desperate cries, all disappeared as if they had never existed. The emotions that had been stirred up lingered in the air, leaving a disconcerting stillness in the moonlit hall. The altar was in the center of the hall, already desecrated by someone who had arrived before them. The once beautiful altar, adorned with colorful inlays, was now dirty and in ruins, worse than a random building’s garbage.
This was the altar that Zhou Qian and Lin De’an had intended to damage. However, the sorry state it was in now made it difficult for them to figure out where to begin.
The watch on Zhou Qian’s wrist lightly vibrated, reminding her that it was 4:30 in the morning, and there was only half an hour left until daybreak.
“Let’s rest here for a moment,” Lin De’an said firmly, looking around. He then pressed Zhou Qian down, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead. “It’s dangerous running around like this.”
Zhou Qian was too exhausted to resist being pushed down. She took out two medical glucose packs from her inventory, her hands trembling as she opened one and handed the other to Lin De’an. She forced a smile and said, “Replenish some energy, or you won’t be able to run either.”
The entity that had been spying on them didn’t leave. Instead, it inched closer and closer. Zhou Qian, as she drank the sweet glucose, felt the low, chilling breath close to her ears.
It was clear that whatever it was, it was more interested in her than the unaware Lin De’an. It made her feel as if she were being licked. It was like a cat playing with a helpless mouse, delighting in her cold sweat and her stiff and desperate demeanor.
Lin De’an continued talking to her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. She knew that Lin De’an was on guard, ready to attack, but how could they fend off something they couldn’t see or touch? Zhou Qian was so desperate that she couldn’t even cry. She was just waiting for the inevitable death.
Time passed second by second, and the watch in her pocket lightly vibrated again, this time at 4:59, with the message: [Congratulations on completing the mission.]
With that slight vibration, the weight pressing down on her soul suddenly disappeared.
At the last minute before daybreak, Zhou Qian held on until she completely lost consciousness. And Lin De’an, on high alert, aware of nothing, continued to grip the rusty ceremonial knife tightly in his hand, his eyes open but devoid of consciousness.
It seemed that, just before losing consciousness, they had heard the sharp cries of a child. The sense of panic and helplessness was truly pitiable.
“I’m sorry! Mom, I’m sorry! I know I was wrong!”
“I beg for forgiveness! I won’t do it again! I know I was wrong!”
Author’s Note –
Mother Xu Yingtang: I haven’t even given birth yet, and I’m already dealing with postpartum depression [sigh].
The gaming experience is terrible, zero stars and a bad review.
Can I really not return misbehaving kids? Even if they are unopened and unused?
Second Treasure is to smart for their own good.
They’re already a rebellion and they havet even been born yet
I really can’t wait for other players to experience the absolute trip that is our MC
+1
Pfft. Does everyone get to meet at completion of the instance? Thanks for the update 🤣❤️🤣❤️
Ai, Second Treasure!
Unique characters, I like it
Thank you for your translation ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
ayyy! these friends survived! i wonder how the children will look in real life!