"…Exusiai, you go ahead first."
"Hm? What's wrong? Stomachache?"
"No, how should I put it…"
Looking at the worried Exusiai, Li Lin's expression became somewhat complicated.
He didn't want to believe everything his intuition brought, but everything about him manifested because of intuition. However, the current feeling was completely different from before; whether wanting to go forward, backward, follow Exusiai, or walk alone, his previously clear intuition would give him an answer, but now it was different.
A dense, heavy pressure obscured his previously sensitive, always-effective intuition; no matter how he thought, how he tried to understand, every direction was chaotic pressure. As if no matter how he chose, there would always be a segment that turned into something he didn't want, or rather, he would inevitably make some regrettable choice. This was a completely different feeling from the clear crises and calmness of the past; no matter how he thought, it was heavy pressure, like a dark cloud shrouding his heart.
The feared thing finally happened, but how should I say, Li Lin didn't feel it was incredible; instead, he felt relieved.
The time for choice has arrived. The novice tutorial has ended. It's time to rely on myself.
Humans will always pay the price for their choices.
Looking at the bewildered Exusiai, Li Lin exhaled, revealing a slightly awkward smile.
"Seems like I ate something bad this morning, you go in first, I'll find a public toilet around here to sort myself out, and I'll be there shortly."
"Eh? But, didn't they say there are some inside the stadium…"
"There's a concert going on in there, there will definitely be many people. I'll just stay outside."
"Prophet? Did you sense something?"
"…"
Looking at Exusiai, who was looking at him seriously, just like when she saved him in the wilderness, Li Lin smiled calmly and gave a thumbs-up.
"No problem, everything feels very stable, no enemies around. Kazimierz, this Knightly Nation, how could problems possibly arise? I'm just purely going to the toilet, I'll be back soon, see you in a bit."
"Alright, see you in a bit then."
"Ah, goodbye."
Watching Exusiai's half-believing, half-doubting figure merge into the crowd, confirming that the halo had already entered the building, Li Lin breathed a sigh of relief.
After making the decision to trick Exusiai away and face everything himself, that inexplicable heavy pressure disappeared, leaving behind a bone-chilling sense of crisis. The mental pressure even caused him to have a hallucination of himself strolling through a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. But since he had made a decision, he wouldn't change anything.
"If intuition really exists, if the fate in the void really follows me, what should I do… Now is the time to decide, right?"
The thing he had been worried about all along finally happened.
Picking up a one-handed sword marked as a Kazimierz specialty from an unknown corner of the street, Li Lin looked at his own reflection on the sword's spine.
Took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Felt his heart as if it were burning fiercely, his internal organs all had a stinging pain as if being forged and burned, blood coursed through his vessels, something special was urging his blood, making his pupils also burst forth with a resolute color.
The future guided by his own intuition, then he himself will face it. Although a bit unreasonable, although a bit chauvinistic, this was Li Lin's awareness. He was a person not belonging to this world, an inexplicable outsider. Finding a home in this terrifying world, letting others accept him, for Li Lin, was a warmth harder to come by than in his previous life. Not explicitly stated, but he truly, from the bottom of his heart, didn't want them to be involved in crises.
Even if he was sure they were stronger than him.
Even if he was sure, their insides might be even darker than he imagined.
But with the guidance of intuition, that inexplicable intuition that came along with his transmigration, he felt that being able to resist even one ten-thousandth of the darkness from being discovered by them was good. This was putting on a brave face, overestimating his own abilities, but Li Lin simply wanted to do it.
"Perhaps I was born with a bit of a self-destructive tendency."
Sensing the direction the crisis transmitted from, Li Lin dragged the slender blade, looking towards a dark alley distorted by light.
"Time to pay the price…"
Looking at the increasingly bizarre and twisted alley, Li Lin gritted his teeth and stepped inside.
Almost in the next instant, darkness enveloped Li Lin's vision. In his perception, the world seemed to instantly fall into some kind of inexplicable darkness; pitch-black mist swallowed everything around, but Li Lin's inexplicable intuition illuminated the path around him.
Like carving out a glorious path in the darkness, whether closing his eyes or not was fundamentally unimportant. Li Lin, holding the thin sword in his hand, slowly stepped into the interior of the alley. Opening his completely unseeing eyes, he looked directly in front of him. In the world outlined by intuition, there should be an old man leaning on a two-handed greatsword before him, his face aged, maintaining the darkness before him.
"First meeting, unknown old man. I am a tourist from Lungmen, named Li Lin."
Looking at the darkness before him, Li Lin said in a low voice.
And in less than an instant, the core within the darkness wriggled and let out a long sigh.
"First meeting, traveler from a foreign land. I am former High Knight, former Fourth Seat of the Knight Council, Midir the Lightless."
The old man looked at Li Lin, who seemed unaffected in the darkness, showed no surprised expression, and said slowly.
And behind the old man, dozens of knights with their insignia erased stood uniformly, their eyes hidden within helmets looking indifferently at Li Lin, who wore a white work uniform and held a thin sword, intercepting the High Knight, like a group of silent stones.
But in Li Lin's perception, not only were these dozens of people before him, but behind them, there was also a group of unarmored hunters wearing cloaks, aiming at him, this man powerless to even truss a chicken, with longbows. Facing this formation, Li Lin could only show an awkward yet polite smile, bowed to the calm-faced old man, then said in a discussing, exploratory tone:
"Although I don't know what you are planning, please stop here. Because my friend is holding a concert inside, could you please return the way you came?"
"…"
"…Looks like negotiations failed?"
Watching the old man silently lift his two-handed greatsword, Li Lin's pupils shrank slightly, and he gripped the thin sword in his hand.
And at the same time, thunderous cheers erupted from inside the stadium.
Sora had taken the stage.