Chapter 99: Maybe She’s Still Alive

At the time, she hadn’t noticed anything, so she could only assume she’d fainted from fright.

“When you woke up, did you see… her, or that beast?” Su You wasn’t trying to make Dolly relive that painful memory on purpose. The reason she kept asking was because the character “Qinyao” felt strangely familiar to her.

It was the same kind of familiarity she felt with Meike, but since she didn’t know much about Qinyao yet, she couldn’t be sure if she was the one who would become so fearsome in the future…

“No, I didn’t see anything when I woke up.” When she came to, everything she had was gone—probably stolen by the person who’d grabbed her earlier. Other than that, there was nothing around: no bodies, human or animal. Only the bloodstains on the ground showed that something terrible had happened there.

“If you didn’t see anything, maybe your sister Qinyao is still okay.” If this were the real world, Su You would think that even if there was no body, the person was probably gone, given the huge difference in strength.

As for why there was no body… maybe the beast dragged it away?

But this wasn’t the real world—anything could happen here. Plus, Su You remembered that in the later stages of the game, there was a female character named “Qinyao” who appeared.

Her story was very similar to the one Dolly described—she too was separated from her family because of a beast.

Although most NPCs in this world weren’t connected, “most” didn’t mean “all.” There were still a few NPCs with ties to each other.

For example, Meike’s beloved was a high-level seamstress that players could sometimes recruit in the later stages.

Su You didn’t know if she’d have a chance to meet that gentle woman here, but if she did, she’d definitely recruit her—not just to make up for a certain regret, but also to have someone who could keep that mischievous guy in check.

Before meeting her, Meike’s heart was all about cooking—everything else came second. But after she appeared, she became his number one.

…

Back to Dolly’s story.

Su You knew there was a powerful woman named Qinyao, but Dolly didn’t know that, so she naturally thought Su You was just trying to comfort her.

“Maybe…” Dolly didn’t argue with Su You about it—there was no need. Besides, she knew Su You meant well.

Su You could tell Dolly didn’t really believe her, but she didn’t explain further. After all, even she wasn’t sure if the two Qinyaos were the same person…

But even if they were, it wouldn’t matter, because the Qinyao she knew wasn’t a recruitable NPC. In fact, she was opposed to Su You—or rather, to all the human lords like her.

“To be honest, I’d really like to believe you, but we both know it’s unlikely.” Dolly said this with a smile, but anyone looking at her would know it wasn’t a real smile.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you’re actually a lot like Sister Qinyao…” She didn’t mean in appearance, but in a certain special quality.

Just as she’d always felt protected and cared for by Qinyao growing up, she now felt a similar, inexplicable sense of security around Su You. That was also why her affection for Su You grew so quickly.

“Let’s not think about this anymore. Get some rest.”

“You too, my lady… I feel much better now that I’ve talked about it. Sorry for worrying you.”

It was an unpleasant night. Even though Su You knew she was different from them, she still couldn’t see them as just NPCs—neither before, nor now.

After all, she herself was just a string of data now. There was really no difference between her and them. So after hearing this story, Su You couldn’t help but feel affected.

But she quickly pulled herself together and went back to her room to rest.

…

…

A night passed.

The seventh day dawned in the digital world, and there were less than three days left before the dark creatures attacked.

The first thing Su You did that morning was gather a large amount of materials and head to the mine with Lake and Doya.

Normally, she would have brought both Lyle and Lake, but since Doya’s arm had mostly healed, she wanted to check out the place where monsters spawned.

There weren’t many people in the territory, so there was no need for all four of them to go. Someone had to stay and “watch the house.”

Plus, Su You calculated that it had been almost two and a half days since the relay station was built. The merchant should be arriving today or tomorrow.

To avoid missing the merchant and losing the chance to trade, Dolly and Lyle stayed behind to keep watch and greet any guests.

…Led by Lake, Su You and Doya stopped about twenty meters from the stone gate.

After more than a day, the area around the stone gate was now crawling with ghostly skeletons. Su You could see at least twenty of them, not to mention the ones hiding in the nooks and crannies.

Ghostly skeletons were aggressive monsters, so to avoid alerting them, the three of them only dared to stop this far away.

“My lady, that’s the stone gate we told you about… Just like you said, it really does spawn ghostly skeletons!” Looking at the dense, flickering skeletons ahead, Lake felt a chill run down his spine.

He pulled his gloves from his pocket, ready to fight at any moment.

Although their goal today was just to help Su You fence off the stone gate, the skeletons were clustered around it like loyal gatekeepers. They’d have to defeat them all before they could do anything about the gate.

But there were only three of them, and Su You herself couldn’t fight. With just Lake and Doya, it would be two against twenty—each of them would have to take on ten. That was impossible.

What’s more, Doya didn’t have a proper weapon yet. Unarmed, she couldn’t make use of her range as an excellent archer, so her combat ability was basically the same as Su You’s."

"Here is a fluent, natural English translation of your provided text:

---