Free Web NovelLiu Jiayi didn’t respond, but she had clearly reached the same conclusion. Otherwise, the moment the one-hour mark arrived, she wouldn’t have immediately gone ashore with Bai Liu to calculate their harvest.
“Besides, the game has already given us a hint,” Bai Liu said evenly. “Honest labor is not necessarily the required path to promotion—or rather, honest labor is the stupidest possible path.”
“In the real world, the fastest way to climb upward is usually by exploiting the labor of others.”
“So when direct labor can no longer provide adequate returns, there’s only one option left.”
Bai Liu lifted his eyes toward the endless flower field.
“We steal the rose petals gathered by other workers.”
“But there’s a problem.” He rested his chin against one hand thoughtfully. “At the moment, these flower pickers appear to be NPCs. Offending a large number of NPCs at the very start of a game isn’t a wise move.”
“Just like in an actual workplace, openly stealing a coworker’s achievements is something only an idiot would do. Alienating the people you work alongside creates hidden dangers for your future promotion prospects.”
Bai Liu turned toward Liu Jiayi.
“So from that perspective, we need a more reasonable target to rob.”
“The refugees,” Liu Jiayi answered immediately, meeting his gaze directly.
Bai Liu stood and casually pulled Liu Jiayi to her feet as well, brushing dirt from her shoulder.
“Exactly. There’s no more suitable target than the refugees.”
“In this game, the refugees might count as monsters, or they might count as NPCs. But according to the processing worker, these refugees steal rose petals.”
“So rather than directly clashing with the other flower pickers, all we have to do is take back the roses the refugees steal.”
Then Bai Liu smiled.
It was the kind of smile that looked perfectly professional and perfectly fake at the same time.
“But the prerequisite for all of this—” he said mechanically while patting Liu Jiayi’s shoulder, “—is that our Little Witch can completely suppress the refugees and recover the stolen roses.”
Liu Jiayi stared at him silently before the corner of her mouth twitched.
“You planned this from the beginning, didn’t you?”
Then her expression tightened.
“But this plan is dangerous. You’ll be exposed to too much risk.”
In truth, Liu Jiayi had considered this strategy as well.
But she wasn’t certain what level the monsters in this Level 3 instance would be, nor whether she could successfully hold them off. That uncertainty was why she never voiced the idea aloud.
Naturally, she had never considered letting Bai Liu—a player who had originally only been F-rank and had barely climbed to C-rank—directly face monsters inside a Level 3 game.
More than that, it was simply part of Liu Jiayi’s personality.
She was too accustomed to carrying everything herself.
Subconsciously, she always positioned herself at the very front to protect her companions.
Attack and defense.
Poison and antidote.
That was the role of a witch.
And it was also the reason Liu Jiayi had become one.
Whenever she wasn’t absolutely certain she could fully protect the people beside her, she would hesitate.
If she became the primary attacker, Bai Liu would temporarily lose all protection.
And inside a Level 3 game with a death rate exceeding ninety percent, that was an extremely dangerous gamble.
But Bai Liu effortlessly ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) dismantled that hesitation.
“Of course I’m in danger,” Bai Liu admitted with a smile. “But clearly, you’re in even more danger.”
“Still, this is the plan with the highest cost-performance ratio available to us. There’s no reason to hesitate.”
He lowered his hand and casually brushed away a streak of mud beneath Liu Jiayi’s right eye, interrupting her attempt to speak.
“You only need to focus on doing what you’re supposed to do. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll stay beside you and support your attack.”
“If you fail, we’ll probably die together.”
“If you succeed, then we clear the game together.”
“In this game, there’s no value in only one of us surviving. Because afterward, we still have even bigger victories we need to win together.”
Bai Liu looked directly into Liu Jiayi’s eyes, roses reflected faintly within his own.
“Do you understand what I mean?”
“I’ll stand on the front line with you and cover you.”
“We’re partners.”
Liu Jiayi froze slightly.
Then she slapped away the hand wiping dirt from her face, turned her head aside, and drew a deep breath.
“...Understood.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait.” Bai Liu looked out into the distance. “We wait for the rose-stealing refugees to ripen.”
“Then we stop picking roses...”
“...and start harvesting refugees instead.”
Liu Jiayi frowned.
“And when exactly do you think these refugees become ‘ripe’?”
“When they come after us.”
Bai Liu cast a glance toward the half-empty burlap sack lying beside them.
“We’re the flower pickers with the lowest harvest.”
“Normally, plunder follows the order of highest yield to lowest. So if the refugees eventually target us, that means they’ve already attacked every worker carrying more roses than we are.”
“Even if some attacks failed, by then they should have accumulated at least eighty kilograms of roses.”
“So before that happens...” Liu Jiayi narrowed her eyes slightly. “...we need to prepare for their attacks.”
Even while saying this, she carefully avoided stepping back into the flower field.
In fact, she moved even farther away from it.
The place where they had been resting was already some distance from the flowers, but the instant Liu Jiayi stepped back, Bai Liu immediately followed suit and retreated farther as well.
Liu Jiayi’s senses were sharper than his.
If she backed away, then she had definitely noticed something.
Between Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi, many things no longer needed verbal explanation.
Whether it was deciding to calculate their harvest after one hour of work, immediately abandoning labor after realizing the efficiency was too low, or instinctively distancing themselves from the flower field now—
—their thoughts aligned naturally.
By this point, logically speaking, the refugees should already have begun attacking workers inside the fields.
Yet when they looked around, everything appeared strangely peaceful.
The flower field swayed gently beneath the moonlight.
Workers continued harvesting flowers under drifting lights.
There was no sign whatsoever of monsters or abnormalities.
That unnatural calmness could only mean one of two things.
Either the refugees had not begun attacking yet—
—or they weren’t attacking from above ground at all.
Which meant the danger was underground.
That was why neither Bai Liu nor Liu Jiayi stepped back into the field.
The overly peaceful surface forced them to consider whether something far worse was moving beneath the soil.
The flower field slowly began to rise and fall.
Under the pale moonlight, the crimson sea of roses undulated like waves.
A faint rustling sound spread through the air.
It sounded like vines dragging themselves through wet earth.
Liu Jiayi immediately placed both hands behind her back.
Black poison sealed inside glass bottles slowly materialized in her palms.
[System Notification: Does player Liu Jiayi wish to activate skill (Poison)?]
[System Notification: Confirmed. Poison generation in progress. Skill cooldown: 1 hour. Player Liu Jiayi’s stamina is rapidly decreasing...]
One after another, eight bottles of poison appeared between Liu Jiayi’s fingers.
Each bottle was filled to the brim.
Dense black mist poured from them instantly, swallowing her body whole.
The orange worker uniform she wore darkened beneath the spreading poison fog, transforming into black robes that wrapped around her from head to toe.
“Bai Liu.” Liu Jiayi stepped closer until they stood back-to-back facing the flower field. Her expression was solemn. “My Poison skill is now on cooldown. I won’t be able to use it again for another hour.”
“I also have an S-rank potential overdraft skill called Poison Fountain.”
She opened her system panel and tilted it slightly so Bai Liu could see the skill description.
[System Description: Personal Skill (Poison Fountain) — Deals indiscriminate continuous damage to all targets within range. After activation, player Liu Jiayi’s stamina bar will be fully depleted. Due to player Liu Jiayi’s young physical age, stamina depletion will trigger severe aftereffects, including extreme body stiffness and temporary inability to move.]
“These are the only offensive skills I have.”
Liu Jiayi stared at the crimson waves rolling slowly toward them across the flower field, her voice growing heavier.
“Monsters in Level 3 instances are usually at least A+ rank.”
“I can handle small numbers of enemies at that level as the primary attacker.”
“But if this turns into a swarm attack on this scale...”
“...my burst damage won’t be enough to eliminate all of them instantly.”
“We’ll be dragged into a war of attrition.”
“And at that point, we’d have to rely on healing and recovery to survive.”
“But my skills are already on cooldown.”
“Mental Bleach doesn’t work.”
“And now that the enemy is already here, we don’t have time to search for their weaknesses.”
Liu Jiayi lifted her eyes toward Bai Liu.
“The odds of winning are too low.”
“Are we still fighting?”
As a support-type healer, Liu Jiayi’s highest tactical priority had always been survival.
As long as she remained alive and retained HP, there was always hope.
But Bai Liu’s standards were completely different.
He answered without hesitation:
“We fight.”
“As long as the win rate isn’t zero, it’s worth trying.”
“You focus on attacking.”
“I have a solution.”
Liu Jiayi didn’t even have time to ask what that solution was.
Game situations changed constantly, especially inside a new instance with no existing intelligence.
The only way to survive was to adapt in real time using the team’s available resources, abilities, and immediate battlefield conditions.
That was what the League called tactics.
And now that the monsters were already approaching, Liu Jiayi had no choice but to trust Bai Liu’s battlefield command and tactical instincts.
Queen of Hearts had always intended to train Liu Jiayi into the next generation’s tactical core.
But every tactical simulation Liu Jiayi had experienced previously involved at least five S-rank or pseudo-S-rank teammates.
She had never once attempted a Level 3 game with a lineup consisting solely of herself—an A-rank support—and Bai Liu, a C-rank player.
Or rather—
Liu Jiayi would never normally choose to confront a game like this head-on at all.
The win rate was too low.
The risk of failure was too high.
That approach fundamentally contradicted her tactical philosophy.
But the one commanding the battlefield now wasn’t Liu Jiayi.
It was Bai Liu. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
And Bai Liu’s tactical philosophy could be summarized in a single word:
Gamble.
As long as the probability of victory wasn’t absolute zero—if there were sufficiently high returns attached to it—Bai Liu would always take the risk. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Without hesitation, Bai Liu pulled a snow-white bone whip from behind his back.
The roses blooming within his eyes slowly unfurled as he stared toward the surging flower field.
