Octavian Cruise Ship Group 2

"Jingle ......"

With the bell ringing, his shoes stepping over the cold tiles, and a pair of dark red eyes silently taking in everything around him, Caesar pushed open the kitchen door and stepped into the back kitchen of the cruise ship.

The floor is covered with white tiles, the whitewashed walls on both sides are yellowed by oil smoke, the black kitchen counter has been turned off, but some of the prepared food is still on the tray, and some chef's hats and aprons are thrown on the floor, and it seems that you can still imagine the busy scene of the kitchen before the alarm sounds.

Caesar stopped, and his eyes fell on the plate of fruit tart that had been made on the kitchen counter next to him - on the brown tray, the white plate was covered with pieces of paper, on which were placed three desserts: strawberry fruit tart, kiwi fruit tart, and banana fruit tart, and the sliced fruit was placed on the tart crust, decorated with chocolate cream and matcha powder, which looked very delicious.

Caesar blinked, thought for a while, silently held the long knife in her hand, she opened the faucet by the sink and was about to wash her hands, but saw that the faucet was flowing blood.

"Gollum, Gollum......"

The sound came from the sewer pipes fixed to the walls, as if something was rushing down the sewer pipes.

Caesar took a step back, sword in both hands, and made a battle stance.

"Gollum—"

The sewer pipe was breached, and a whole bunch of mechanical creeping bodies rushed out of the sewer pipe! Their oval-shaped worms fit just enough to fit in the pipes, which run throughout the cruise ship. As they burst out of the broken end of the pipe, mechanical limbs emerged from the worm's body, and they jumped and landed on the kitchen counter in the back kitchen, the round mouth at the front of the oval body biting, and the sharp teeth protruding outward, as if to bite Caesar's flesh off in one bite.

Three, five, ten, twenty......

They stand on the kitchen counter, on the food shelf, on the floor, on the oven, and surround Caesar, and the smell of fish instantly spreads throughout the kitchen.

"Roar—" The derivatives of the mechanical creep roared angrily, but after all, they were not as good as the parent body, and they did not dare to rush forward.

"Hmph."

Caesar snorted, and she turned on the fire at the kitchen counter beside her, digging the long knife in her hand into the fire.

The blazing flames jumped, and the tongue of fire rolled up the sharp blade, and the originally cold blade burned a little red.

If you want to cut something, of course, the red-hot knife is the sharpest.

"Roar—" A token rushes over! Caesar instantly rushed out of the knife in the fire, slashed it with a single sword, and the two derivatives surrounded her, she leaned down to dodge the attack of the token, slashed the limbs of the token, and raised her foot to kick it out!

The tokens fell on the two companions, but then four or five more came around.

They kept shrinking the encirclement, Caesar rushed left and right in the encirclement, each slashing at the soft body of the derivative, the exploding worm body burst out of the smelly liquid, Caesar turned around and dodged the stinking liquid, she stepped on the stool, jumped onto the kitchen counter, pulled out her pistol, "bang bang", and fired three shots in succession to kill the three derivatives that surrounded her.

Swing a knife, shoot, dodge, swing a knife, slash ......

There are fewer and fewer derivatives.

Their corpses fell to the ground, struggling for a moment before stopping.

Each of her knives landed on the soft body of the derivative, like a chef cutting meat. Her movements were fast, the adrenal hormones in her body were soaring, and the blood of the derivatives spurted on her, but those eyes seemed to be red, revealing excitement.

"Die!"

She stabbed the rushing derivatives, stuck the three last derivatives in quick succession like a skewer of meat, and threw them out with all her might!

The three tokens smashed into the nearby cabinet, slamming open the door.

"Click."

Hearing the unusual sound in the cabinet, Caesar had a murderous look in his eyes, and threw the knife out with his backhand, which was stuck in the head of Arthur, who was hiding in the cabinet.

Arthur looked at the sharp knife, and could feel the temperature of the blade of the pot, so he grazed his right ear and nailed it into the plank behind him, just five millimeters away, and the knife was stuck in his ear.

Arthur looked up and met Caesar's dark red eyes.

She stood on the kitchen counter, her chest heaving slightly from the slaughter.

Beneath her, there was a dead derivative of the ground, the blood of the derivative staining her clothes red, like a survivor who had just crawled out of a pile of dead people.

They looked at each other, and for a moment none of them spoke.

Arthur moved to the side, pulled out the knife with all his might, and he took a few steps forward, placing the knife beside Caesar with a gloomy face.

He was besieged by two or three mechanical creep tokens, threw himself into a small alley, and fought hard to kill the three tokens, and then heard Caesar's foot bell, originally wanted to hide in the cabinet and wait for her to walk over, but he didn't expect that there were twenty or thirty derivatives rushing out of the sewer, and the appearance of these derivatives made him expose his whereabouts, and it was too late to hide.

Simply, he sat down on a stool on the side and said it calmly.

Caesar picked up the knife, turned the blade, and pointed it at Arthur: "Are you hiding from me?" ”

Her eyes narrowed, with doubts and a little dissatisfaction.

She lowered her voice, expressing her displeasure.

This is a red flag.

She wasn't happy.

"I didn't." Arthur opened his eyes, although the answer was negative, but inevitably his heart was empty.

“…… Are you afraid of me. ”

"You're just a thirteen-year-old girl, I'm afraid of what you're going to do."

“…… Arthur, do you hate me. ”

Hearing this, Arthur raised his head and looked at Caesar: "Before I do that, let me ask you a question. ”

“……”

"Do you think players who have died will reappear in the [Minghe System]?"

Caesar was silent for a long time, then she put away her knife and sat down on the kitchen counter.

"You got it."

"Hmm."

"You do...... Same with him. ”

"But I don't remember those things."

"It's normal that the system will deprive players of their memories, especially new players in each round." Caesar's voice was calm, and there was less hostility in his voice.

Arthur sighed, he got up and walked to Caesar, put his hands on the little girl's sides, circled her in front of his chest and the kitchen counter, and looked at her seriously: "Caesar, whether I am [Will] or [Arthur], what I want to tell you is that every life should be respected, maybe you follow the rules of the game and kill many people for the sake of winning or losing, maybe they are indeed heinous and committed serious crimes, but after all, they are all living beings, when you choose to slaughter, you must keep guilty in your heart." ”

"Guilty?" Caesar blinked in confusion.

"The player you kill may have nothing to do with you, but they may be someone's husband, someone's son, someone's father...... They also want to get out alive and return to their families. You have deprived them of their lives, and you have deprived them of hope, of their future, and I know that your hands are stained with blood, and that you have traveled a path that ordinary people cannot imagine, that you have become accustomed to the rules of the game, and that human life is even an insignificant thing in your eyes, but I hope that you will try to have a guilty heart, a guilty heart for the killings you have committed...... This is the kind of empathy that a normal person should have. ”

"Empathy?"

It means empathy. Imagine how you would feel if you were the one who was killed. Despair? Helpless? Sadness? What would it feel like to assume that all this tragedy was inflicted on you? Caesar, the twenty or so players you killed, how would you feel if you were them? ”

Caesar was stunned, she had never thought about these questions.

After three rounds of games and bloody hands, she was used to seeing the weak begging for mercy and the strong surrendering, but this was the first time that someone asked her to empathize.

If......

What if those who begged for mercy and had to die of despair were themselves? What if the person who becomes an NPC and stays in the [Minghe System] forever is himself?

Caesar lowered her head, and in an instant, many faces appeared in front of her.

It was the players who died at her hands, those who remembered the code name, those who didn't remember the code name, the only similarity was that the eyes soaked in despair and sadness seemed to condense the coldest helplessness in life, full of fear of being dragged into the endless abyss......

"I think...... They...... It's pathetic. ”

It was only after a while that Caesar said this, and this time, the murderous aura between her eyebrows had obviously faded a little.

But this sentence also made Arthur breathe a sigh of relief.

This little girl is not hopeless.

She was sent into this crazy world at a young age that she didn't know anything about the world, her three views were completely shaped in this world, the winner lived, and the loser died, which has become her only criterion, she is like a blank piece of paper, sprayed with bloody settings.

But now, he found that there was still a soft place in her heart, and she might still have ordinary feelings, but she was just relatively dull.

"But ...... [Judge] never said that players need to be empathetic." Caesar looked up at Arthur.

"He will only order you to kill each other, and will not give you a reason to kill, let alone teach you how to be a human being." Arthur looked at Caesar seriously, "But you are a human being, you should have human feelings, not a killing machine, only if you understand empathy, you will truly respect life and understand the preciousness of life." ”

Caesar didn't say anything, but the murderous aura in her eyebrows had gradually faded.

After being silent for a long time, she looked up at him: "I'm sorry. ”

“…… It's the first time I've heard you apologize. ”

"In the first two games, I cheated on you, and I apologize to you." She repeated it earnestly.

“……”

"If I were you, it would be sad to be deceived one after another." She thought for a moment and added.

"You've learned to put yourself in their shoes." Arthur softened his voice.

Caesar looked at him calmly: "Although I can't understand what you mean by 'empathy' yet, I will try." ”

Arthur bowed slightly, looked at Caesar with some curiosity: "...... Would you say this because I'm like Will? ”

"No, just because you're Arthur." Caesar added, "I didn't apologize to Will. ”

Arthur nodded.

"Do you accept my apology?"

"Hmm." Arthur smiled.

Hearing this, Caesar pursed his lower lip, and the corners of his mouth seemed to raise a slight arc.

I don't know why, she felt a string that had been tight in her heart loosened a little.

She could even feel some warmth.

Warm?

Caesar frowned, and she looked around to see that the kitchen fire she had just lit was still burning.

Arthur followed her gaze to the burning flame, and suddenly, he noticed a small pile of something resembling white starch piled up next to the kitchen counter.

"What's that?" He stepped forward in confusion, twisted some powder from his fingers, and sniffed it in front of his nose.

"Flour?" Caesar said, jumping off the kitchen counter.

"No, it smells like ...... Ammonium nitrate?! ”

Arthur was stunned for a moment, he turned his head to look at the burning stove, and suddenly realized that ammonium nitrate would explode when heated to a certain extent!

"Get down!" Arthur pulled Caesar by the hand, hugged her and threw herself out, and at this moment, the ammonium nitrate, which had been heated to a certain extent by the flame, suddenly exploded!

"Boom-" A loud explosion rang out in the kitchen, shattering the walls of the kitchen and scattering dust from the ceiling bricks to the ground.

Arthur held Caesar under his arm, and the explosion knocked over the kitchen cabinet, right on Arthur.

"Salad ......"

It wasn't until there was no movement that Caesar got out from under the cabinet.

"Arthur......" She put down the knife in her hand, pushed open the wooden cabinet that pressed Arthur, and helped him sit up, "Are you still alive?" ”

“…… Next time you can ask me if I'm hurt. ”

"Oh, are you hurt?"

"It's okay, it's just that my back was smashed......" Arthur stood up with the kitchen counter, feeling a pain in his back, but fortunately, his spine was intact and did not affect his movements.

He raised his head and looked at the blackened kitchen counter: "It's strange, how can there be ammonium nitrate in the kitchen?" ”

"It must have been the one-eyed bomber who came to the kitchen." Caesar said angrily, "The next time you see him, you must kill him." ”

"Caesar."

“？”

"Empathy."

“…… I'm sorry. ”

Although she casually said sorry, there was no mistake in her eyes.

(Forget it, take your time.) ）

(After all, the country is easy to change, but the nature is difficult to change.) It doesn't happen overnight to change one's personality. ）

Arthur thought to himself and looked to the other side of the kitchen, "Maybe One-Eye has done us a great favor." ”

Caesar followed his line of sight and saw a large hole in the wall of the galley, and beyond the hole was the deck.