"My Lord!"
"My Lord, it's great that you're okay!"
Ethan finally made it onto the Desert Tree before the sandstorm completely blocked everyone's vision.
But when he turned around and looked, he discovered that Harriet and Charlie had somehow followed them up the tree as well.
The only one missing was Daji.
"Where's Daji?"
Ethan immediately frowned and was about to go look for Daji when he heard a cat's meow from higher up in the Desert Tree.
"Meow!"
"Daji!"
Ethan looked up and saw Daji on another branch about five or six meters above him, pawing at something.
He immediately jumped onto the main trunk, used a few footholds, and climbed onto the higher branch.
The birdmen naturally flew up after him.
Only Harriet was unable to climb higher because of Charlie. She could only stand on a lower branch and grind her teeth as she watched Ethan and the others.
"We agreed to be partners, yet he just leaves the old, weak, women, and children behind. And he's supposed to be a man," Harriet cursed, "He's shameless! How can someone like him still be alive? It's so annoying."
"Sister Harriet, I actually think we didn't fulfill our responsibilities as partners either, so I think..."
"Shut up!", Harriet immediately became angry after being contradicted by Charlie, "I don't care what you think. I care what I think. Anyway, he's not a man at all."
"Whether I'm a man or not, do you want to find out?"
There were only five or six meters between them, and Harriet was speaking loudly. She might even have done it on purpose.
So Ethan naturally heard her.
After hearing Ethan's words, Harriet bit her lip and shut her mouth.
After all, the fake "Lord Contract" she had signed with Ethan only stated that they could not betray their teammates. Whether that kind of thing counted as betrayal was another matter entirely.
Besides, the Lord Contract itself was only an illusion, or rather, fake mental editing.
It had no binding power at all.
If Ethan really forced himself on her, she probably wouldn't have any ability to resist.
"My Lord, it looks like Lord Daji scratched away a section here, and there seem to be words underneath."
Bird One had sharp eyes and quickly noticed that beneath a thin layer of bark Daji had scratched away, someone had carved some writing.
And the writing was actually...
English.
A language only Ethan could understand.
[The mission to protect the Desert Tree is very important. You must protect it well, because once it falls, you will be trapped in this damned place forever and will never be able to leave no matter what.]
[But if you really fail, then dig open the trunk of the Desert Tree. Inside is some Desert Tree sap. It can keep you fed and hydrated, but the price is that your body will slowly rot until you eventually become nutrients for this tree.]
[You guessed right.]
[I am a player trapped here, and I belong to one batch of players. By the time the next batch of players sees this message, it will probably be a very, very long time later. I hope someone sees it.]
[You must be wondering what I mean by a batch of players, right?]
[If you live in this world long enough, you will discover that this world is actually a giant game arena. But it isn't entirely a game arena, because it isn't virtual, it is real.]
[But this reality isn't completely real either. One of my teammates was a genius scientist. He suspected that this place was a game arena created by higher-dimensional beings or humans. They use a completely real world (a parallel timeline or a planet from another world) as the main battlefield, and they have already reached the point where they can control the laws of this world, or create new laws.]
[Anyway... what it basically means is that we are beings captured by a group of higher-dimensional creatures to play a game.]
[And according to our investigation, many batches of players have already appeared in this world. Some of them weren't even people from Earth. Don't ask me how I know. You'll understand in the future. I won't go into it here.]
[Also...]
[The fact that you've made it this far proves you're not an ordinary person. The fact that you're seeing my message means we have some fate between us. And the fact that you can read my message means you're from Earth. That's good. Then I'll tell you an important secret about clearing the game. I also hope Earth can emerge victorious in this game, because it's important. Very, very important!]
[Want to know my secret?]
Daji had scratched up to this point.
The rest was still covered by a thin layer of bark.
But Daji seemed to have lost interest and stopped scratching.
Only then did Ethan pick Daji up and continue uncovering the remaining secret.
However, after he peeled away another piece of bark, there was only a single sentence underneath.
[I buried myself inside the trunk. Once you take my remains out of this damned place, I will naturally tell you...]
[🙇🏻 You Can Support the Story Through P@tr3on—AmbitiousTranslator. It also has 40+ Chapters of all the novels and fanfics. Thanks for reading~]