"Secret," Teest cut off the inquiry straightforwardly.
After all, Golden Sword would definitely guess that they were Players. This guy didn't even reveal his real identity, so they were under no obligation to answer every question.
Billy was stunned for half a second, then quickly caught on. "Sorry, I got a bit excited. It's just the White Demon, uh…"
"Is it an ominous symbol?" Nol continued the conversation.
Billy pinched the bridge of his nose. "I personally don't believe in this. I'm just worried that everyone will be targeted by the Eternal Church. Honestly, this could interfere with our actions."
After finishing, he glanced at the boy, Aesop, who was happily chewing on the leftovers. "But since we've already saved him, this child himself is innocent. I'll think of a way on my end."
Mentor crossed his arms, remaining silent.
The little black dragon flew close, looking at Billy with both eyes. "You are indeed from the Alva Merchant Group. You seem to understand these things well. We just noticed that this child has amazing recovery abilities. His other aspects seem very ordinary."
"The Eternal Church wouldn't just look at recovery abilities. There are plenty of creatures with strong recovery abilities," he continued, seemingly unintentionally.
Looking at the reaction, Golden Sword definitely knew something.
On the table, Teest's ears also perked up.
Billy seemed a bit troubled. He was probably struggling between "a merchant won't easily sell information" and "needing to make these people understand the severity of the situation".
Eventually, Billy scratched his head. "I'm not a core figure, so I just know a bit of the surface. Have you guys heard the ballad of the White Demon?"
"I've heard a bit, 'crawling out of the coffin', 'only tells lies' and the like." Teest straightened his soft white fur.
"Putting aside the exaggerated biases, there are truths in the ballad," Billy said. "Besides being able to recover more easily, it's said that White Demons have a 'second life'."
Teest stopped grooming his fur, Nol almost forgot to flap his wings, and Mentor expressed interest with an "oh".
Billy lowered his gaze. His smoke-gray pupils were nearly black in the shadows. "No matter how exaggerated the death, White Demons will resurrect after dying, but only once. Silver-white hair color is rare to begin with. Coupled with this trait, it's not surprising they are deemed 'ominous'… The Temple of Life also holds a negative stance towards White Demon, believing their existence tarnishes life."
"Ha, their thoughts have changed quite a bit now." Mentor fiddled with his hidden Player earring.
Everyone present knew what he was implying. Compared to the White Demon's single resurrection chance, Players' ability to "resurrect infinitely" was obviously more exaggerated. In the current era of Players everywhere, the traits of White Demons weren't considered rare.
Coincidentally, this directly relates to a question Nol had been curious about for a long time—
Rapid recovery, resurrection, were all weaker versions of Player privileges. Was there a direct relationship between the "White Demon" and Teest's "incomplete Player privileges"?
Nol stared at the frozen big cat on the table, as well as White Demon Aesop who was focused on wolfing down his food, magically shielded from sound.
He suddenly felt a chilling sensation.
It was the system again.
Star Stealer Sol summoned Players through the system, and Joy Garden was also pulled here for unknown reasons. Star Stealer Sol tried to control the system, excluding Nol, the administrator, but the system always popped out at some point, preserving his life.
Regardless of whether the "White Demon's" Player privileges were complete, they were undoubtedly managed by the system.
Here it came again, the sensation of everything slowly weaving into a net.
Nol dared not look at Teest, focusing intently on the boy, Aesop—if this child's situation was the same as Teest's, then after the system officially started, he would also be mistakenly recognized as a "Player". However, Aesop's ears didn't display the Player earrings.
What's the difference?
Is it a coincidence that Teest and this child have a slight blood relation?
Nol held his breath, silently summoning the system popup. This time he didn't check quests or attributes but quietly used the tip of his tail to scroll through the code, entering a command.
[Check individual "Aesop's" stats]
Strictly speaking, "force viewing stats" was an administrator privilege.
He had become much stronger than before. Such a level of system manipulation should be possible, right…?
Sure enough, things didn't go as smoothly as he thought. After receiving the command, the system didn't respond for a long time. Nol frowned. His tail quietly swiped several more times, catching Teest's attention with his moving paws.
After persisting several times, a crooked popup finally appeared. The popup's frame was twisted, and the text was small and blurry, emitting a vague sense of grievance.
[NPC: Aesop]
[Civilian – Lv.5]
[HP: 48/50 | MP: 2/2]
[Strength: 9 | Agility: 4 | Intelligence: 5 | Physical Defense: 10 | Magical Defense: 2]
[Status: System Anchoring]
…Huh?
Nol synchronized the scene in his eyes with Teest, quietly poking the explanation icon following the status.
[System Anchoring: The individual has persistent running instructions. During the individual's lifespan, the system cannot be completely shut down.]
Perhaps Teest couldn't understand, but Nol was somewhat familiar with this explanation—it was similar to when certain programs were running on a computer, preventing it from shutting down until they were manually closed.
This confirmed that the child indeed wasn't categorized as a "Player", and "White Demon" wasn't an official definition provided by the system.
He didn't specifically look at Young Teest's attributes during the time reversion. Fortunately, now that Teest was a Player, he still had the chance to browse through the system's historical logs.
Nol pondered for a moment, jumped to Teest's side, covering the cat with his wings. [I think I need to check your upgrade records.]
[Go ahead.] The cat's tail wrapped around the hard tip of the black dragon's tail. [No need to be so polite.]
[Thanks.]
Nol faced Mentor and Billy, his tail tip continuing to move swiftly, preparing to access the system's internal player upgrade records.
This wasn't sensitive data nor involved power distribution. Sure enough, Nol succeeded again. He directly specified some early record information for Teest.
The system threw the popup in front of him, still blurry, like a crumpled note unfolded.
[NPC: Teest]
[Civilian(?) – Lv.5]
[HP: 390/390 | MP: 35/35]
[Strength: 97 | Agility: 25 | Intelligence: 43 | Physical Defense: 80 | Magical Defense: 39]
[Status: System Anchoring]
Nol: "..."
Although both were level 5 civilians, Teest and that child's stats were worlds apart. Was this the change brought by the Supplement Demon potion?
The question mark after "civilian" was probably due to his transformation into a Supplement Demon. Obviously, "Supplement Demon" wasn't an official definition recognized by the system.
But that wasn't the point. NPC Teest's status also had the "System Anchoring" description.
So, according to the current speculation, his status bar should have always had related descriptions before becoming a Player.
Nol frantically scrolled back. The data scrolled at high speed through the system popup.
Teest indeed became a Player when a large number of Players logged in. The timing matched. But looking at those few records before he became a Player, the status bar had a different explanation.
[Status: System Anchoring [Administrator Assistance Rights]]
What's this now?
Nol started to scroll back, reviewing Teest's upgrade data one by one, finally finding the moment of status change—
[Ouch.] His fluffy knight came over. [This is really interesting. We should have looked at these earlier.]
Teest obtained "Administrator Assistance Rights" on the day they performed the time reversion, the day Nol personally witnessed Young Teest's resurrection.
[Maybe because the system saw me kiss you.] Teest wagged his tail excitedly. [Maybe because it found out we got married and the authority between spouses are shared, and so on.]
It could also be because the system detected Adult Teest's Player identity, Nol thought.
The Player and the administrator teamed up to return. The system definitely noticed this fact. It specifically marked Teest, granting him Player privileges upon "official launch"… This didn't seem like a mere misidentification, but rather a compliance with the known future.
But he didn't plan to say it. Nol looked at the proud cat knight. After all, "true love's kiss" sounded much sweeter.
If the truth was what he thought. "Teest becoming a player" was an indirect effect of their return to the past, not some "unknown self" within him intentionally doing so.
Even if there were still many mysteries surrounding the "White Demon", this thought comforted Nol quite a bit.
That was nice. He didn't expect such an unexpected gain from a trip outside.
The current focus of his work was "investigating Star Stealer Sol". If it wasn't for this child's sudden appearance, he definitely wouldn't have turned to investigate the White Demon, nor would he have thought to look through those historical record data.
Since having problems with his head, it was rare for things to go this smoothly.
Nol happily lifted his eyes, catching a glimpse of Mentor's lavender eyes behind his glasses. Mentor's eyes flickered between the White Demon boy and Nol, then he gestured to Nol.
"What a coincidence," Mentor said silently.
Just a brief sentence and the warm sense of security that Nol felt disappeared, leaving him feeling startled once again.
Noticing Nol's unusual reaction, Teest's soft body pressed closer. His cat tail wrapped flexibly around the dragon tail and the purring sound vibrated against the gem-like dragon scales.
[Don't worry too much about that guy.] Teest said, [We're not as weak as we used to be.]
That's right. Nol shook his head.
They were the strongest on this ship, and the third strongest, Pope Fischer, was in confinement. The Alva Merchant Group didn't have a god-level existence either, so they could just take things as they came.
Star Stealer Sol couldn't possibly drop a moon on the ship, could it?
He turned his head, and his nose touched Teest's cool nose tip. Mentor coughed and gracefully returned to his own room.
"I'm going to rest," he said. "Mr. Billy, we're not familiar with the rules here, so we'll leave the matter of hiding the child to you."
"Leave it to me."
Billy smiled wearily, unmuting the sound barrier around Young Aesop. "If only they offered strong liquor here… Kid, you go sleep in the vacant servant's room first. We'll send you out later."
"Thank you, sir," Aesop hurriedly said. His greasy hands were still holding two meal packs, almost choking as he spoke.
Following Aesop's gaze, Nol looked at Billy again. While the cat and the dragon were mentally chatting away, Billy seemed not to have noticed anything unusual.
'That makes sense,' Nol thought. After all, in the eyes of Golden Sword, the two small animals just asked a couple of questions and then started rubbing against each other side by side, with no one continuing the topic further.
This level of interaction was just right. They shouldn't rush. They had plenty of time to inquire about the origins of Old Duke Alva and the "White Demon".
Nol watched Billy leave the living room, then picked up Teest by the back of his neck and flew back to their exclusive soft nest.
...
That night, Nol slept very soundly.
The little black dragon coiled on the dark red velvet cushion, its blue eyes tightly closed, resembling a carved black diamond. The faint moonlight entering through the round window turned the intricate dragon scales into captivating splendor.
Under the moonlight, the white cat's pupils dilated into perfect circles. Teest gently touched the warm scales with his paw pad and then withdrew. He then stretched out his claw, carefully pulling out a black candle from Nol's backpack. Before Kando could start scolding, Teest bit it in his mouth.
Kando almost got poked in the eyelid by the cat's teeth, remaining angrily silent in the face of the sharp feline teeth.
Before leaving, Teest hesitated and turned back. He spat out the black candle onto the floor and licked the corner of the black dragon's mouth. Nol's paw unconsciously fidgeted, sleeping soundly.
"Is that enough?" Kando spoke in a breathy voice. "I'm afraid I can't hold back the sound of vomiting."
Before he could finish, Teest bit him again without mercy.
The cat tiptoed across the soft carpet, running silently. After several turns, Teest found a dark storage room, with an "Under Repair" sign hanging outside.
"First of all."
After Teest cast a soundproof spell, Kando's tone became sharp again. "Can you two control yourselves?"
"Seeing a candle with limited experience is one thing, but I thought our great hero wouldn't mind that." The white cat fiddled with the candle with his paw.
"That person is, after all, my creator. Watching you two getting cozy is like witnessing my grandparents getting intimate," Kando said wearily. "It may surprise you, but I too, have feelings."
Teest obviously had no intention of reflecting. "I see. Then please get used to it… You surely wouldn't refuse the inquiry of a dear grandparent, would you?"
Kando snorted. "Ask away. I'm curious, what question requires avoiding That One?"
"Hmm." Teest twitched his whiskers. "Did you have an illegitimate child with someone from the Blanco family back in the day?"
For a moment, the black candle emitted an incredibly sharp killing intent, blowing all of Teest's fur back.
"Mind your words. You're insulting both me and the Blanco family." The voice of the black candle cooled down, sounding a bit like the legendary hero. "Until the end, I remained chaste."
"So you're saying you died a virgin." Teest summarized without mercy. "It seems the White Demon isn't your bloodline."
Kando: "..."
Kando: "Is that what you wanted to ask?"
This wasn't a question that needed to be hidden from Nol. Could discovering that if he found out he was Teest's ancestor, Nol would be completely devastated?
"Of course not."
Teest patted the candle on the head, his black pupils staring straight at Kando. In the darkness, he bared his sharp teeth, more akin to a predator than a cute, harmless pet.
"I need you to do something for me."
The author has something to say:
Continuing with the cat and dragon cuddling—
Kinky Thoughts:
For those who've been reading along, there are a couple of errata to the translation:
Embilly Alva's name is now Enbillick Alva. His nickname is still Billy.
The Returning Saints Council (this is one of the three major guilds led by Hot Ash) is now the Homeward Saints Guild.
Creator God is now God of Creation.