Chapter 26: A New Calamity

Ying Su also hopped over a couple of times and ate a little. It tasted strange, but it should be edible.

However, after the person feeding them finished giving them the food, they picked up their cage and placed it in a dark spot.

It was really uncomfortable, but they had to make do.

Ying Su was also adapting to the current situation, but she was still full of questions.

First, the place where she revived was wrong. Where was this, anyway?

Shouldn't she have revived in the containment facility's prison cell?

No, no... If she thought about it carefully, if the Parrot was her, then the information on the file wouldn't have been written that way.

But this was also very strange. Why did she revive here? Could it be simply because she had changed bodies?

That shouldn't be the case. After all, her system was a Save/Load System. That meant she must have come here before to have a save point...

And if she had a save point here, shouldn't she have revived here?

"........"

Ying Su thought for a moment, then looked at the remaining number of loads displayed on her system: 5.

Wait, how many times had she revived?

Four times in total. That meant her initial number of revives should have been nine!

But why exactly nine?

It wasn't a neat number like eight or ten, which felt intuitively strange.

Furthermore, based on what she knew, she should currently be in the time before she went to the containment facility. At that point in time, she should have been captured and stuffed in a dungeon, right?

And if she revived, it should have been in that dungeon, right?

Wait, wait, wait.

Ying Su started re-organizing her thoughts.

Putting all the conditions together: Suppose her initial number of revives was ten. That would mean she died once before going to the containment facility and loaded a save.

But she had absolutely no knowledge of this. There was no such memory in her recollection.

And that save point should have been here. It was just that, for some unknown reason, she couldn't revive here.

So, the conclusion Ying Su reached was:

She had died once, lost her memory, and in a previous cycle, this save point had developed a problem. It was corrupted.

As a result, she could only revive at the save point in the containment facility. But why was it usable now?

Damn it, what exactly had she experienced before?

Things were piling up and getting more and more complicated.

Better to deal with the immediate situation first.

She examined the cage. The lock was actually very simple, just a regular latch. The wall also had ventilation holes. Her gauntlet sword could extend out, transform, and open the lock.

"Stop looking. You can't get out. You'd be better off helping me finish this stuff quickly." Just as Ying Su was still observing, the hamster next to her suddenly spoke with a voice like a middle-aged man.

"Gah?!" Ying Su turned to look at him.

"Whoa, you scared me!" the hamster exclaimed, then added, "Don't make a fuss. Don't make her unhappy!"

"Gah?"

"Listen, if you want to live, you have to follow the rules here.

One, you must finish your food. Wasting food makes you a bad child.

Two, you must exercise daily. Neglecting your body makes you a bad child.

Three, you must be obedient. Disobedience makes you a bad child.

Four, you cannot escape. Running around makes you a bad child.

Five, you are a bad child."

"Gah gah! Bad child, bad child!" Ying Su chirped.

"Shh, don't be so loud. Ugh, listen. Since you arrived, the amount of food she gives has increased quite a bit. You have to help finish it too." The hamster said this and went back to vigorously shoveling food into its mouth.

Ying Su, however, didn't eat. After her experience at the containment facility, she understood she couldn't believe everything she heard or blindly follow every instruction.

"Hey, are you even listening to me?" the hamster said. Ying Su just kept turning her head to look at him. "Are you deaf?"

After calling out for a while with no reaction, the hamster grew even more agitated. But there was nothing he could do except try even harder to eat the food. Still, quite a bit was left. So, he went to dig in his sand bath, buried the leftover food inside, and covered it up.

Then he ran on his wheel for a good while. Only when he seemed truly exhausted did he climb back onto his little platform to sleep.

Ying Su watched all of this.

After seeing so many strange things at the containment facility... even considering that she herself was now a strange thing... she was no longer surprised by such sights.

A talking hamster?

No, no. It should be a human who had turned into a hamster.

And what was the deal with those rules he mentioned earlier?

But thinking about it, not following those rules would probably lead to something terrifying.

Judging from his actions, though, he hadn't finished the food either. He buried it in the sand, already violating the rule...

Was it okay as long as you weren't discovered?

Then the judge or enforcer of these rules must be that girl who brought them back.

The human here.

However, Ying Su's condition for clearing this stage was simple. She just needed to do as the file stated: use her computer to browse some small websites, then stir up trouble and expose things. Naturally, someone would come here to investigate.

She would then be taken to the containment facility.

Everything she was doing now was to close the loop of her timeline as a human. The Hounds were always chasing Ying Su, but what did that have to do with her, the Parrot?

She had already jumped out of that timeline to act separately, essentially escaping the pursuit of the containment facility... no, the pursuit of the Supreme Council.

It's just that she had ended up in another place she didn't understand.

"Oh right, I think there's something I haven't looked at yet."

Ying Su opened her system again. "System, show me the rewards from the final stage."

[Final reward being drawn. Reward distributed: Volk Royal Bloodline]

[Volk Royal Bloodline Reward Grade: D

Among the thirteen hidden bloodline clans, the descendants of Count Volk formed this tribe. Possesses the ability to transform shape, capable of hiding within human society in various forms, and can also fight by liquefying and changing into various forms.]

"A shape-shifting ability graded D?" Ying Su muttered to herself.

As the reward was drawn, she immediately felt as if her entire body had turned into some kind of liquid. She could freely rearrange her form, but the degree and strength of the transformation depended on her mass—essentially, how much blood volume her entire body contained.

And obviously, being the size of a palm was considered good for her now. In comparison, Olivia's mass level was already enough to transform into a concrete mixer truck and ram someone.

Although she wanted to try it right away, she glanced at the hamster beside her.

Forget it. Better to be careful.

It wasn't time to expose herself yet.

"Wait, isn't this a vampire's ability? Does that mean I'll crave blood?!" Ying Su suddenly realized something. "And be afraid of sunlight, unable to swim, and all that..."

However, the favorability system, which now only had one task left, could no longer answer her.

"And the worst part is... members of the same bloodline should be able to sense each other, right? When I eventually run into Olivia, how am I supposed to explain this situation to her..."