Volume 1, Chapter 18 – Same Kind?

Even though they were ready to enter the dungeon, Tianyin still didn’t know if she could actually go in.

Her feelings were complicated, a mix of curiosity and unease.

“Xiaoyin, hold my hand properly, okay~”

Muxi naturally took Tianyin’s small hand and held it tightly.

“Mm, I know.”

Even though she still felt embarrassed, as the saying goes, once you’ve done something for the first time, it’s easier every time after that, right?

With that thought, Tianyin didn’t protest. She obediently let Xingyu Muxi hold her hand tight.

Still, that faint blush on her cheeks betrayed her true feelings…

Before long, the two of them stood before the swirling vortex. From afar, it hadn’t seemed like much, but once they got close, Tianyin realized it was much larger than she had imagined.

By her estimate, it was about three or four times her height.

On both sides of the vortex stood symmetrical stone pillars, each carved with strange symbols whose meaning she couldn’t understand.

“Xiaoyin, we’re going in.”

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After saying that, Xingyu Muxi stepped straight into the swirling vortex.

Because she was holding Tianyin’s hand, when the vortex swallowed Muxi, Tianyin instinctively followed right after her.

But then—

Something unexpected happened.

The moment Tianyin entered the vortex, Muxi, who had just been holding her hand, vanished. The only one left within the vortex was Tianyin herself.

Before she could even process Muxi’s sudden disappearance, everything before her eyes was swallowed by darkness.

“…”

Pitch-black.

Thrown into a strange and unfamiliar environment, Tianyin naturally panicked.

“Sister Xiaomu…?”

She called out helplessly into the darkness. But no matter how many times she shouted, that gentle, familiar voice never answered back.

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After a while, she gradually calmed down from her panic.

Even though everything around her was still completely dark, Tianyin realized something odd, aside from the initial confusion, she didn’t actually feel scared at all.

Why wasn’t she afraid?

Even as she tried to think calmly, she couldn’t understand it herself.

“I didn’t expect one of my kind to wander into this mirror space.”

A voice suddenly echoed through the darkness.

And the instant it spoke, the pitch-black space around her lit up.

“My, I didn’t think that mirror world, the one that connects to the outer visitors, would have another of my kind inside. How strange~”

It was a girl’s voice, laced with curiosity.

“Hmm, let me see… species… species… eh… species… lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-loli?! There’s actually a Loli race?!”

Whoever it was seemed to be using some unknown method to check Tianyin’s race, and when she discovered it, her voice turned full of surprise.

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Then Tianyin saw a flicker of light, and the next moment, a girl about the same height as her appeared before her.

The girl had rippling blue hair that reached down her back, and her face was delicately beautiful. Although slightly less striking than Tianyin’s, she was still undeniably adorable.

“Uh… hello?”

Faced with the sudden appearance of this girl, Tianyin instinctively greeted her.

But when the girl heard her voice, her expression became dramatically complex.

“What the heck! Isn’t ‘loli’ just a term to describe an age range? Why is it an actual race?! Isn’t that way too weird?!”

“…”

Tianyin opened her mouth slightly, not knowing what to say to that.

“Well, whatever. Even if your race is Loli, that still makes you one of my kind, right?”

In the end, the girl gave up on trying to make sense of it.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Weilan. As you can see, I have an identity different from those people from the outside world. I’m one of your kind~”

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“My kind?”

Tianyin tilted her head in confusion.

“Yup, same kind. My job is to maintain the normal operation of this mirror space that connects to the starting area. But normally, the ones in the starting area are just mirrored copies. In other words, there shouldn’t be any of our kind there at all. So why did you suddenly appear inside the mirror space?”

Tianyin somewhat understood what she meant by “same kind.” She was probably referring to NPCs like her. But as for the rest of the question, she had no idea how to answer.

After all, even though she looked the same, her body was just that of a loli, her soul, however, belonged to a boy.

So being called the same kind didn’t exactly feel right.

Of course, the girl named Weilan didn’t know that.

“Well, anyway, I only pulled you here because I noticed you accidentally entered the mirror space. But next time, don’t wander in so carelessly. That space is specifically made for people from the outside world. If one of us enters it, it’ll interfere with the system’s mechanisms~”

Her face grew serious.

“So next, I’ll send you to the main city! You shouldn’t go back to the starting area anymore, understand?”