She stopped. The thought alone made Shadow Lady’s chest puff out even more proudly. Hehehe, since that’s the case, her Shadow Lordship had to press the advantage immediately. Win, she won again! Could Alice do that?
An achievement never reached—unlocking Little Silver Dragon’s defeat CG. The sight of a dragon holding hands and embracing. She’d take her down in half a day. Something Alice, that useless loser, couldn’t do in eighteen years… She could hardly wait! When that defeated dog Alice wakes up and sees her and Little Silver Dragon, taking advantage of Little Silver Dragon’s current shyness, they’d go straight to dinner, a movie, a hotel, and then…
After all, your Shadow Lordship lives to see this!
Selina, however, suddenly stopped in her tracks.
“Hehehe, her expression at that moment is going to be absolutely priceless.”
While Shadow Lady was still lost in her rosy fantasies, she stared at the tavern on the corner ahead, her eyes gleaming.
“Mhm-hm~ Here she comes, here she comes, the impatient Little Silver Dragon!”
“Alice, since you’re fine now, let’s hurry over to—”
“~”
Shadow Alice looked at the sparkling light in Selina’s eyes and felt she had already seen through everything.
“Mhm-hm-hm, Little Silver Dragon is so impatient, seeing a little tavern and wanting to take a pretty girl inside, hee hee! Oh well… I’ll indulge you, since your Shadow Lordship is kind and beautiful!”
“Silver Dragon?”
“What do you mean, ‘that Alice’s shadow doesn’t allow you to harm that silver dragon’?”
“Twinkling and shimmering, serving as mood lighting for their date!”
“And what’s this about her commanding you to ignite your ghostly flames and flicker like lights?”
A scrunched-up expression, both feet stomping the ground, hands trembling with rage.
Playing dating sims now? Disgusting, absolutely infuriating! She even tricked me out of the real Alice! They toy with others in their Holy Faith—how dare anyone toy with her!
On top of that, the news that Qingyu had been captured and brought back by the Shadow Soldiers made several veins bulge on her forehead in anger.
“Isn’t this just the shadow refusing to become an independent person? And here I am, killing myself to buy her time, but she—”
Just thinking about it made her grind her teeth so hard they nearly shattered.
“How dare she, how dare she!”
She was the one who always toyed with others, and now her pride was severely wounded. What angered her most was feeling like she, the “true god’s” messenger, wasn’t even a person—just a tiny shadow that could vanish at any moment!
Just thinking about it made her grind her teeth so hard they nearly shattered.
She took an angry step forward and slammed her foot heavily onto the ground.
In an instant, the dark shadow beneath her feet began to seethe like boiling magma.
A burly black humanoid form, drenched in black mud, slowly rose from below the earth.
“Go, Slave of Sin Number Ten, and tear that disobedient shadow limb from limb for me!”
Inside the little tavern, Shadow Lady watched Selina, who was seriously searching for someone, and wore a look of utter helplessness (V~).
Just minutes earlier, after Selina had pulled her hand and led her into this shabbily decorated tavern, nothing blush-inducing had happened at all.
Instead, she had walked straight up, weaving past messy tables, grabbing a burly drunkard, and starting to ask him about leads on her two missing companions.
So you grab a girl’s hand with sparkling eyes and drag her into a tavern… just to find someone?
Shadow Lady felt she simply couldn’t understand the brain of a silver dragon.
Little Silver Dragon, hey?
Do you even see what kind of situation this is? Black Mist surrounds this island, and with it being essentially cut off from the world, the law has almost completely collapsed. Not to mention those armored Shadow Soldiers outside, ready to take lives at any moment.
Guess whether the people in this old tavern are drowning themselves in drink until they puke again and again just to escape the reality that death could come at any second?
See if he’s even listening to you? Still over there waving his hands around.
And, are you drunk too? What do you mean your companions are a vampire invisible to normal people and a little fox that’s super smart but can’t talk?
Ha Ke, already completely dazed from the alcohol, staggered to his feet and irritably shooed Selina away.
“So what’s the point? We’re all going to die here anyway.”
The other patrons in the tavern didn’t even spare them a glance, continuing to raise their bottles and chug the liquor into their stomachs, as if that could numb their fear of death.
“We won’t die—the knights of the Papal State will come up and save us soon!”
Selina tried to soothe the burly man before her.
“Knights? You mean the ones outside the window?”
Ha Ke stood in front of Selina, reeking of alcohol, his towering frame nearly twice the height of the Silver Dragon Girl.
He shot Selina a glare and pointed at the Ghost Soldiers endlessly roaming outside the window. Clad in heavy armor, they still patrolled every corner of the streets with disciplined precision, like grim reapers ready to reap lives at any moment.
“Don’t you get it yet? We’re done for, little lady. Even Her Highness Alice has been defeated—none of us are getting out of here alive!”
“While those monsters have temporarily stopped attacking, while this tavern still has plenty of food and booze!”
“Instead of clinging to those hollow hopes, we might as well drink up and enjoy the happiness right in front of us!”
His eyes, dark from sleepless nights, bulged as he roared with drunken breath.
Selina was pushed back a few steps by his force, and just as she was about to—
The dim lamplight rippled over the girl’s figure as Alice turned back and gave her a warm smile. Then, holding Selina’s hand, she walked slowly, step by step, under everyone’s gaze, up to the center of the stage.
“Who said Lady Alice was defeated? Am I not right here?”
Good, good. Young man, that line about “even Alice couldn’t do it” has already caught this Shadow Lordship’s attention.
Getting back to the surface—doesn’t that just mean I’ve beaten that little tsundere again?
At that thought, Shadow Lady rubbed her hands together in excitement.
“Hehehe, if I successfully lead this group of washed-up old men out of here, then up on this stage…”
A passionate speech. She’d stand on that broken-down stage and give a passionate speech.
The noise in the tavern was far too chaotic; the air only grew heavy for a moment before the clamor resumed. No one paid any attention to Alice, who was performing her heart out on the stage.
But whether it was the dim lighting or the clinking of glasses in the tavern…
Even as she shouted herself hoarse until the dust in the tavern trembled—”I’m telling you, I have a way to get every single one of you back to the surface!”
“You can all live, really, all of you can live!”
—the sound clawed at her throat, yet the crowd below remained unmoved.
The shadow of the original “Alice” slowly lowered her hand, head bowed, staring at the silent ground below…
It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m used to it. After all these years as a shadow, aren’t you most used to being ignored?
Forget it, forget it. Once a bad shadow, always a bad shadow!
Hmph, this Lordship never wanted to save these commoners anyway—what do I care whether they live or die!