Volume 1, Chapter 81 – I’m Really Not Heavy

As everyone knows, when the game Subworld began its official release, the company behind it had already announced some information about the game.

No, to be precise, they had only revealed a bit of information.

Subworld had no closed beta. It went straight into open beta from the start, and to prevent players from entering the game completely blind, the official team released some basic details for everyone to understand.

Among these basic details was the description of the factions.

As one of the Eight Great Factions, some information about the Graveyard faction was naturally made public.

The Graveyard, composed mostly of beings with undead traits, was described as a place where entities existed that had already died but continued to linger in the world in some conceptual form. Of course, “undead” didn’t literally mean they could never die, but rather that they were beings who had died once and now existed in another form of life.

That was the Graveyard. One could say everyone in the Graveyard was something that had once lost its life but somehow lived again.

Such a simple description naturally drew the attention of countless players, stirring in many of them the desire to become undead themselves.

After all, becoming an undead in a game wouldn’t affect reality. Experiencing the feeling of death firsthand sounded thrilling just to imagine.

However, when players entered the game and began choosing their races and identities, they discovered there was no Undead race to choose from at all.

Because there was no option to become undead, those who wanted to experience it could only hold their frustration in and settle for another race.

But now, a post appeared on the game’s forum.

Not only that, the player in question was none other than the top-ranked player on the Level Leaderboard, holding first place and leaving the second-place player behind by a full five levels.

Within a few hours of being posted, countless lurkers emerged from the shadows. In no time, the thread’s popularity skyrocketed to the top of the forum’s front page.

The post also detailed exactly how the top-ranked player used their undead identity to level up quickly.

The method was simple.

After killing an enemy, use Soul Summon.

Yes, Soul Summon. The skill all players who had become undead possessed. It revived the corpse of a slain enemy, turning it into an undead minion to fight for you.

Such a simple skill description practically blew the minds of all who read it.

“Am I seeing things? You can revive corpses as undead and make them fight for you? What kind of god-tier skill is this?”

“You don’t get it, do you? Would it even make sense for the Undead to not have a skill like that?”

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“Seeing this skill makes me think, if I were undead too, I’d spend all day reviving corpses until I had an army of skeletons!”

“The guy above hasn’t slept, clearly. Let me wake him up with a splash of reason.”

“……”

In short, that one post triggered an undead craze across the community in just a few short hours.

Even some rich players offered huge sums to contact the top-ranked player, hoping to learn firsthand how to change their race into Undead.

And then, an hour later, another post appeared.

The poster was the same as the previous one, and the new post was titled:

【How to Transform into an Undead】.

Shock.

The post contained extremely detailed information on how to become undead, and the method described was surprisingly simple.

Go to the instance called Death Knight, farm until you get the Frost Sword, and once it drops, use an Identification Scroll to appraise it.

After the identification, a prompt would appear:

“Do you accept the curse?”

The next steps didn’t even need explaining. Once a player accepted the curse, they would naturally transform into an undead and automatically learn the unique undead skill, Soul Summon.

In short, the method sounded very simple.

The instance Death Knight was only a level-50 dungeon. Considering most players were around level 60 to 70, it was laughably easy.

“Why does this dungeon name feel so familiar? And that weird method of turning undead too… I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before?”

Some players began to raise questions after reading the post.

Of course, those questions quickly faded, and the topic didn’t cause much of a stir.

However, the method of becoming undead began spreading among players. And after the first person successfully transformed using this method, more and more players followed suit.

Before long, an undead craze swept across the entire player base. Though of course, some players still chose not to transform and remained their original race.

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A few days later, the game world became filled with bizarre scenes of players roaming the wild with groups of skeleton minions following behind them, grinding levels like they were on a casual stroll.

“……”

Of course, that was all happening outside. For Tianyin, it didn’t concern her much at all.

…

A new day began, and under the forceful urging of her loli disciple, Tianyin got out of bed and left Snow White City with Bingxue and Mengyao.

The game’s world design was quite arbitrary. Snow White City was named that way because it sat at the foot of a snowy mountain. Which meant, naturally, that upon leaving the city, Tianyin realized the road ahead required her to climb that snowy mountain…

A snowy mountain!

“Haa… so tired… let’s… let’s rest for a bit…”

Halfway up, Tianyin was already exhausted, her small face flushed bright red.

Her large eyes were filled with pure suffering.

She was indeed tired… After all, climbing a snowy mountain meant climbing, which meant uphill. And that was a nightmare for someone with Vitality -80%.

After walking for just an hour, Tianyin felt like she had been hiking all day.

“Master… didn’t you just rest a moment ago? Why do you need another break already?”

Mengyao, walking beside her, was puzzled, and Bingxue also looked at Tianyin with curious eyes.

“Of course… haa… I’m exhausted… I’m not lying… haa…”

Tianyin couldn’t even be bothered to explain more. At this point, she truly was panting, struggling to catch her breath.

“Well, I know you’re tired, Master,”

Mengyao’s tone softened slightly as she looked at Tianyin’s weary state.

“But Master, we’ve only walked about a hundred meters… I can still see where we rested earlier…”

“N-no way, it’s definitely more than that! It’s clearly one hundred and one meters!”

Tianyin puffed up like a ruffled kitten, insisting stubbornly.

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“One hundred and two meters.”

Silent as ever, Bingxue quietly raised her paper with the words written on it.

“Fine, but what difference does that make? Master, if we rest every hundred and two meters, how long will it take to cross this mountain?”

“Wuu… well… it’ll be soon enough…”

Tianyin replied a little guiltily.

“I don’t want to get tired of this easily either, but I can’t help it… geez, it’s not like I can change that…”

“Well, in that case, Master, I think we need to find another way to deal with this. Because at your pace, who knows which century we’ll finally reach the top of this mountain?”

“And how are we supposed to solve that?”

Tianyin couldn’t think of any good solution no matter how hard she tried.

“Unless… someone carries me up the mountain? Wuu, but that’s impossible. No matter how I look at it, Xiaomengyao or Xiaobingxue couldn’t possibly do something like that…”

“Wait a second, Master, that idea actually sounds pretty good!”

To Tianyin’s surprise, Mengyao suddenly gave her a strange look.

“Carrying Master, huh? Actually, I can do that. I did change into a hidden class, after all, so my Strength stat should definitely be high enough to carry you easily~”

“I-I didn’t say anything! That’s way too embarrassing, I refuse!”

Being carried around like that was far too shameful, and the key problem was that the one doing the carrying would be another loli!

A loli like Tianyin being carried in the arms of another loli as they climbed the mountain.

Just imagining that scene was unbearable.

“…Suu.”

And at that moment, Bingxue raised her paper again.

“I can carry Xiaoyin too.”

“Wait wait wait, no way! You two, stop thinking about it! Absolutely not, not happening!”

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Determined to preserve the last shred of her dignity, Tianyin rejected them outright.

“Master, you’re being too selfish! Good things should be shared with others, you know?”

Good things? What good things?

Tianyin’s eyes turned wary.

“Master, it’s okay. If you’re refusing because you’re worried you’re too heavy, you don’t have to think that way.”

Her disciple Mengyao now spoke like some shady old man trying to lure a little girl, her voice sweet and coaxing.

“Wuu, I-I’m not heavy!”

“Pfft, so what you’re saying is… I can carry you, right? Honestly, I should’ve known. Master’s totally the type who says no with her mouth but whose body tells the truth…”

“Is Xiaoyin that kind of person?”

The undead girl Bingxue wrote on her paper to ask.

“I’m not that kind of person! How could I possibly be someone who says one thing and means another!”

“Well, Master, don’t fuss about it. Just bear with it a bit so we can reach our destination sooner, okay?”

“Wuu…”

Her disciple suddenly speaking so earnestly left Tianyin unsure how to argue back.

The snowy mountain path really wasn’t easy. That was a fact she couldn’t deny. And while being carried would be embarrassing, at least it wouldn’t waste so much time.

If she kept moving at her current pace, resting every hundred and two meters, who knew when they’d ever finish crossing this endless stretch of snow…

“F-fine then… but wait, let me mentally prepare myself first… and also… also…”

“What is it, Master?”

“I-I’m really not heavy. Of course, if I do feel heavy, you can… you can just put me down… I can walk on my own…”