"So, why are you dragging me down with you?" Chen Luo said with utter despair while sitting behind Raven and holding onto her waist.
This two-person super go-kart could truly be described as extremely cramped.
Sitting in the back seat, Chen Luo had no choice but to hold onto Raven's waist.
Chen Luo felt like Raven was someone hanging off a cliff's edge, yet still trying to pull Chen Luo - who was standing safely on solid ground - down with her.
Harming others without benefiting oneself.
"Misfortune shouldn't be mine alone. Don't move your hands around; hold on tighter," Raven said coldly.
"You tell me not to move around, yet also tell me to hold tighter. You're really making things difficult for me," Chen Luo complained.
Due to gender differences, Chen Luo didn't dare hold Raven's stomach and instead supported her waist, minimizing contact area.
"Your hands holding my waist keep tickling me! You might as well just hug me properly," Raven said, resisting the urge to squirm.
"Oh, alright then." Hearing Raven say that, Chen Luo could only wrap his arms around her stomach.
[Ding! Achievement requirement met. Obtained (Loli King) title.]
Hearing this prompt, Chen Luo was momentarily stunned.
"These ungrateful little things," Chen Luo muttered quietly to himself.
As the bar owner, Chen Luo naturally knew what was happening inside.
Since Raven insisted on dragging someone down with her, Chen Luo became the unlucky one.
To increase the little lolis' favorability and achieve the accomplishment, Chen Luo told them the bar would supply unlimited ice cream.
So sometimes, for certain foodies, the kindness of providing food can actually weigh more heavily than the grace of saving their lives.
It's truly absurd beyond belief.
But Chen Luo didn't really dislike such people - at least they were easy to increase favorability with.
Come to think of it, how many achievements does Chen Luo have now?
5-star: [Saint Chen] [Honkai Terminator]
4-star: [King of Children] [Loli King] [Friend of Non-Human]
3-star: [Demolition Derby] [Apocalypse Redeemer]
Among these 7 achievements, 4 increase favorability.
If a female animal-eared loli under 14 appeared now, wouldn't the initial favorability be at an 80% discount or even higher?
Actually, in Chen Luo's demolition series achievements, he had already demolished over 1,000 buildings, and the points were still rapidly increasing. This sufficiently demonstrated the efficiency of those Honkai beasts dedicated to demolition.
As Chen Luo's subordinate Honkai beasts, they enjoyed the bonuses from the Puppeteer's Stigmata, and as summons, they also had the achievement bonus from Demolition Derby.
In the field of demolition, even a large Husky would have to admit defeat before these Honkai beasts.
The problem was that this achievement only had a 3-star and a 5-star version, with no 4-star achievement in between.
"Hey, Chen Luo, as an almighty traveler, don't you have any other means of transportation?" Raven felt somewhat irritated by the warmth pressed against her back.
I don't even have a boyfriend yet!
"Huh?" Chen Luo, who had just drained a Honkai beast and collected its Honkai crystal into his inventory with threads, was momentarily stunned.
"What did you just say?"
"I said, don't you have any other transportation? Or use that magical teleportation ability of your bar!" Raven said loudly.
"My bar can only appear where it has appeared before. I've never been to the World Serpent, so how could I open a door there?" From an angle Raven couldn't see, Chen Luo rolled his eyes at her.
But... other transportation...
Chen Luo subconsciously scanned his inventory and... saw the small floating battleship inside.
Ah, it seemed he did have other transportation.
Hmm, should he mention it now? Would he get beaten if he did?
Chen Luo felt that if he gave Raven a reason to lose her temper now, she might truly erupt.
So... what floating battleship? What was that? How would he know he had such a thing?
Besides, it wasn't like he was driving anyway, and while Raven drove, he could conveniently collect some Honkai crystals. Why not?
One could never have too many Honkai crystals.
So even if Raven dragged him out as unlucky company, ultimately only Raven would suffer.
Poor Raven...
Maybe he shouldn't ask for that $30 for the Honkai crystals?
Although Chen Luo's super go-kart had limited seating, its speed was quite impressive. After all, it could even drift while towing Kiana, demonstrating its performance.
Even so, it took Chen Luo over half an hour to successfully break out of Nagazora.
This was also because, as a Herrscher, other zombies didn't dare attack Chen Luo.
Of course, those zombies and Honkai beasts wouldn't attack Chen Luo, but Chen Luo would attack them. Although attacking them didn't yield Primogems, he could obtain Honkai crystals.
A mature Honkai beast could yield a Honkai crystal about the size of what Chen Luo could condense in ten minutes, while a dozen basic zombies would only reach that level.
So basic zombies were truly weak.
However, more advanced warriors like those who could shoot arrows, wield dual blades, teleport, or even summon zombies were harder to deal with.
These zombies contained more Honkai energy, making Honkai crystal production faster.
Whenever obstacles appeared on the road ahead, Chen Luo's threads would clear them away.
Without Chen Luo, this journey would have taken at least another half hour.
This made Raven feel slightly better: at least this Chen Luo wasn't completely useless.
After leaving Nagazora, they traveled for another half hour before reaching another city.
One city was plunged into an apocalypse, while the other seemed to have gradually regained prosperity after a few days of recovery.
One side heaven, one side hell—this left Chen Luo with mixed feelings.
Of course, what made Chen Luo sigh wasn't just prosperity and decline, but more the strange looks from other pedestrians as he and Raven drove the super go-kart on the road.
Although the super go-kart was a 2-star item, excelling in both endurance and speed, its design was quite peculiar.
Along the way, adults looked at Chen Luo and Raven as if they were fools, but all the children had stars in their eyes.
Seriously, having such a fast super go-kart is really cool, okay?
However, sometimes when some adults looked down on Chen Luo and Raven, Chen Luo didn't mind making them envy what it means to have beauty in their arms.
Yes, you may not drive such a childish vehicle, but you don't have Raven in your arms either.
So until Chen Luo and the others disappeared at the end of the road, a certain guy sitting in a luxury car was still deep in thought.
Where exactly did he lose out?
Finally, Raven parked the super go-kart in a special private parking lot of a hotel.
But as soon as Raven parked the go-kart in the parking space, Chen Luo stored it in his inventory.
"Is this hotel a World Serpent property?" Chen Luo asked Raven as they walked through the underground garage.
"Right, of course this is also one of World Serpent's properties. I'm not clear on exactly how many properties World Serpent has - I only found out about this hotel two days before my mission." As she spoke, Raven led Chen Luo through a private passage up to the hotel's presidential suite.
"Shouldn't we bring Sora and the others to this World Serpent base now?" Chen Luo asked.
"Why are you in such a hurry? What's wrong with letting them stay in that survivor base a bit longer? Anyway, the zombies and Honkai beasts around have been dealt with by you, and with Yae Sakura, the pseudo-Herrscher, there, safety isn't an issue." Raven rolled her eyes at Chen Luo.
The bar's ability to connect to different locations at any time gave Raven ideas for many clever operations. For example, whether Sora and the others stayed in the survivor base or in the bar, they could be quickly picked up through the bar whenever needed.
It wasn't about having them stay in the bar during the entire journey. Chen Luo giving them access to the bar was purely to farm their favorability one more time, seeing if any little lolis who loved eating could increase their favorability to complete the achievement. And facts proved that there indeed were.
"It's not about being in a hurry or not. By the way, have you figured out where to settle Sora and the others? There are 15 children, you know."
"This... I already have some ideas. It should be ready in another day or two." Raven said after a moment of silence.
"You have 15 people here. No matter what, you'll need to get a villa. And although I've specially modified the Honkai crystals so their dispersed Honkai energy only meets Sora and the others' needs, they still shouldn't have too much contact with crowds. After all, ordinary people are better off not coming into contact with Honkai crystals."
Because Chen Luo modified the Honkai crystals himself, he knew exactly what they were like.
No matter how much you modify Honkai crystals, they can't be considered safe.
As a material produced from pure Honkai energy aggregation, even after modification, they still have erosiveness, and not low levels at that.
Since Sora and the others are incomplete Stigmata awakeners, their Honkai energy adaptability is relatively high, so they need to wear them regularly and won't suffer much physical harm. But if ordinary people picked these up and wore them constantly, then... let's just say learn about Honkai disease.
To use another metaphor, it's like nuclear energy.
Nuclear radiation is strong, but nuclear energy is also clean energy that greatly helps production and life.
Many people know that the probability of nuclear power plants having problems is very, very small, but it's not zero.
So even though some nuclear physics experts often promote the safety of nuclear power plants, if you tried to build one at their doorstep, they would absolutely not agree.
If Sora and the other 15 people went out wandering with 15 Honkai crystals, they'd be walking pollution sources.
Of course, since they're specially made Honkai crystals, brief contact won't affect ordinary people.
It's fine for briefly going out to buy groceries occasionally.
But things like attending school would be quite difficult. Anyone who became desk mates with Sora and the others would be pure unlucky.
"Don't worry about this. Grey Serpent promised to help me find a suitable villa. Since they don't need to provide sufficient Honkai energy supply, just providing a venue makes the application relatively simple." Raven said.
"If that's the case, then I'm relieved." Chen Luo sighed in relief.
"Alright, let's get to serious business. When are we going to World Serpent headquarters?" Raven asked.
"Huh? We need to go to World Serpent headquarters? Wouldn't meeting Grey Serpent casually be enough?" Chen Luo said surprisingly.
"I'm not clear about this either. Normally that would be the case, but this time Grey Serpent unexpectedly didn't use an ordinary clone to welcome you. Instead, he specially invited you to headquarters." Raven shook her head.
"That headquarters you mentioned wouldn't happen to be the one right above the Elysian Realm, would it?"
"...I won't even ask how you know the location of the Elysian Realm. Yes, it's exactly that headquarters." Raven was already tired of thinking about what else Chen Luo might know.
"If that's the case, then let's talk about it in half a month."
"Mm, okay, half an hour... Wait, what did you say? Half a month?" Raven was stunned.
"Yeah, half a month." Chen Luo repeated.
"Half a month? By half a month, the opportunity will be completely lost! Didn't you say that if I lent you the 3rd Divine Key, you'd accompany me to World Serpent?" Raven grabbed Chen Luo by the collar.
"Calm down, you're too close - we're about to kiss." Looking at Raven's face pressed against his, Chen Luo instinctively pushed her face away.
"I didn't say I wouldn't go to World Serpent. I just said I'd go later. Come on, I've been working hard in Nagazora for a week. Can't you let me rest for another week? Even donkeys don't work like this!"
"And don't I need to go home? I'm a traveler from another world, but that doesn't mean I don't have a home. I've been out for 7 days - shouldn't I go home and rest properly? Who keeps traveling nonstop?" Chen Luo said innocently.
Seriously, after grinding through 7 days of activities, there should logically be a period of rest, right?
"I told you, in half a month, the opportunity will be completely lost! If you don't come back to World Serpent with me, Grey Serpent won't prepare the villa for the children. You can wait, but the children can't!" Raven pinched Chen Luo's face as she spoke.
"Men and women shouldn't be too intimate! Stop pinching my face. And you actually sold me out to Grey Serpent? No wonder you're so eager to bring me back to World Serpent." After pushing Raven's hand away and rubbing his pinched face, Chen Luo looked at Raven with a hurt expression.
"How can this be considered selling you out to Grey Serpent? It's just that when I complete missions, I naturally get rewards, isn't that right?" Raven said righteously.
Originally, the reward for bringing Chen Luo back to World Serpent was $3 million. But when Raven discussed Rin's matter with Grey Serpent, she changed the agreement with him.
She changed the $3 million to a villa with a good environment, requiring it to be sparsely populated but not isolated, preferably facing the sea with places for the children to play.
But if Chen Luo went back on his word, not only would there be no villa, but even the $3 million would be gone.
"So if you don't come with me, I'll stick with you for life." Raven threatened.
"...Can you be even slightly reasonable?" Chen Luo said with a look of utter despair.