Fallen Chronicles

Chapter 107 107: The Harshness Of Society

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'Hmm….'

'It seems the cooking menu in the game is still applicable here.'

Although Renji coolly placed the porridge in front of Ashe and returned to his seat, in reality, after pretending to eat a few bites, he started to steal glances at the Catgirl, worried about the taste of his porridge.

Only when Ashe began to eat voraciously, almost burying her head in the bowl, did Renji finally let out a sigh of relief. Like any cook, he felt a sense of pride seeing his cooking appreciated.

'Speaking of which...'

Similarly, a beast girl, with cooking that had the "accelerated life recovery" effect, the image of the Catgirl in front of Renji began to overlap with another figure in his mind.

That was...

A figure much larger in stature than the current Catgirl, looking fiercer, with a volatile temper, but occasionally showing a fragile and gentle side. Of course, in terms of "development," she was much more robust than the Catgirl – a fiery red figure.

Nova, as the third character Renji had acquired in 'their' group, was similar to Zero, both were found in a 'junkyard'.

After all, at that time, he had just made his first bucket of gold with Suthia, barely getting through the pioneering phase, with still very tight resources, far from having the funds to recruit people on a large scale. Not to mention, like later acquiring Lena, where he could lead an army to forcefully recruit.

Zero and Nova, one he picked up from a robot scrapyard, the other he bought from a slave arena.

Renji still vaguely remembered the ecstatic feeling when he first acquired Nova, the dragon girl. It felt no different than pulling a rare gold character in a single draw, especially a gold character with a 'Vanguard' profession.

If in the five major professions, one had to choose only one for commanding battles, 'Vanguard' would be the first choice in most environments.

With the addition of the dragon girl to his team, a powerful 'Vanguard' character significantly boosted the combat strength of Renji's team, greatly enhancing his gaming experience.

For this reason, Renji reminisced about the times he specifically made the dragon girl fight alone in many dungeons, just to level her up faster and nurture her. He did this to let Nova exclusively gain battle experience and accumulate skill proficiency.

In this scenario, the other four professions cannot achieve what the "Vanguard" can, as it requires personal strength at its peak.

Even though Nova is strong, as Renji becomes greedier, seeking more efficient and difficult high-level dungeons, he pushes Nova to solo them. This leads to many failures and direct deaths in the dungeons.

But it's not a problem for Renji. Every time Nova dies, he simply restarts the game (Save and Load) until Nova successfully solos it.

The most memorable instance for him was a rare "Insect Nest" dungeon. By letting Nova consume all the experience points in there, he was sure she could break through and advance to the "Disaster Rank" of Eclipse.

So, that day, all he did was restart the game over and over again!

He bet on the slim chance of success, from morning till he was too tired to keep his eyes open. He lost count of how many times he restarted – hundreds, thousands?

Just when Renji was about to give up, a miracle happened on his last attempt. The less than 1% chance he was betting on finally paid off.

Nova successfully soloed that dungeon.

It was then that her hard work paid off, both in and out of the game. Their combined efforts led to a qualitative transformation in Nova.

The "Dragonblood Ignition" skill, which Renji now values and has copied as a "main character skill" was the super S-tier ability Nova specially awakened after this dungeon.

Watching Nova barely surviving and completing the dungeon, Renji was overjoyed and wanted to reward her. He found only a "white quality" cooking dish in his inventory.

It was the pot of Porridge that Ashe was eating.

Later, after returning to the base, Renji gave Nova many items to boost affection, but strangely, even the "purple quality" gifts didn't increase her affection as much as that bowl of white quality Porridge did right after the dungeon.

At that time, Renji, still outside the screen, didn't understand.

But now...

He sighed deeply and looked out into the night sky.

'What is Nova doing now?'

'It's late…'

'Are you eating dinner too?'

'Hmm, I'll start by practicing with this cat girl'

'I hope when I make porridge for Nova again, she won't despise me.'

"…"

Determined, Renji, always a pragmatist, knows from the precedents set by Suthia and Zero that if Nova "catches" him, she'd probably make him solo a dungeon to regain his strength.

Five hundred years later, there might not be any monster nests, but with his current small stature, if Nova throws him into an arena full of strong prisoners...

Just thinking about it makes Renji's mouth twitch.

'It's not that I am being hypocritical'

'It's just that, unlike with Nova, I can't restart(Save And Load)!'

'If I die, I will truly die!'

So, in reality, he needs to "overthrow" her just like he did with Suthia. But this time, it's with Nova, a Vanguard with incredible personal strength. Replicating the battle with the nun is impossible now.

Therefore, he needs to avoid her strengths and find another way to collect Nova's "defeat" CG. He can't beat Nova herself, but he can defeat her forces and overthrow her rule!

'A dethroned empress'

'Heh…'

'Hehehe~'

With an evil smile, Renji was eager to speed things up. Looking at the revolutionary army's cat girl, who was already so simple and nearly corrupted by him, Renji decides to show Ashe the harshness and darkness of society.

He wants

To teach Ashe a lesson!

"Eat up and then go upstairs. Don't sleep or lock your room, just wait there, you know what I mean~"

…

…..

Half an hour later.

The door to the cat girl's room is opened, and outside is...Number 86.

The maid was holding a stack of...Textbooks!?.

Then, under Ashe's puzzled gaze, the maid instructed her to sit at the desk, opened the textbook, and began teaching mode.

[Since you can't even write, to make you more valuable, Master requires us to use some of your evening time (no objections allowed) to improve your cultural level. My task is to quickly transform you into a quality cat girl who can recognize and write characters, and is knowledgeable and reasonable] said Number 86, repeating her Master's words verbatim.

Ashe: "…"

[So, Miss Ashe, are there any characters you're particularly interested in learning?] Number 86 suggested, believing starting with interest leads to better learning outcomes.

The cat girl sitting on the small stool thought for a moment.

Then, quickly.

Her brown-black cat tail swayed under the light, her two pairs of cat ears fluttering.

"Could you please teach me how to write 'Renji'?"

Outside the mansion, Eileen, following Renji, looked at the light in the cat girl's room and was speechless.

"Just that?"

"What else?"

"Enough talking, we have other things to do."

"Now that we've really found the revolutionary army, the next step is to find the fake ones."

After speaking, Renji and Eileen disappeared into the night.

Indeed, he could forcefully rule over the revolutionary army, but how would that be any different from Nova? Besides, if everyone's using force, what makes him think he can beat Nova?

As an excellent successor to socialism, Renji's main approach should be ideological awareness. He needs to spiritually control these revolutionaries, and eventually the entire southern abandoned demi-human and beastman tribes.

'But this is very difficult, extremely difficult. My identity as a human makes it hard to control a demi-human revolutionary army'

'Ashe is just one of the catalysts'

'I need something more sensational'

Renji has no intention of helping the revolutionary army like Roland. Instead, he wants to give the shaky structure of the revolutionary army in the Sealed City… One final push.