What?! The Gamemaster And The Top Player Are Dating?!

[By the way, where are you going?"

"Can't you see?" Zhihao whispered so that no one else could hear. They were all busy with watching Kazan go crazy mode so no one really paid attention to the demon prince, "I'm slipping away."

[...]

[Why am I not surprised?]

Zhihao walked towards Li Ling and kneeled near the table, he leaned in closer to the man's ears and whispered, "Don't you think we should get out of here?"

"You caught me." Li Ling opened his eyes and turned his head. 

The two came face to face once again and Zhihao was reminded of the kiss from earlier.

"You look really handsome up this close." 

Zhihao's ears turned bright red as he heard Li Ling complimenting him. He reacted immediately and stood up in an instant, "L-let's go."

Li Ling smiled, he really loved the reactions this man gave him. 

"You bastard! Turn around! I'm doing this for you! How dare you?! How dare you treat me like this?! Do you really want me to burn this place down?!" Kazan was still making a ruckus and the crowd was quite interested in hearing him spout nonsense. 

The demon king couldn't take it anymore. In his eyes, this was a low-ranked demon who was not even qualified to say his son's name yet, here he was, cursing him out loud. How could a father just stand and watch this happen? 

The demon king stepped in between the two and Kazan could no longer see Taki's back. 

"What are you spouting?!" The demon king was enraged and his voice that was previously scary now became even more so. Zhihao was sure he was going to have nightmares listening to this voice. 

Kazan shut up as he looked at the demon king who was glaring at him. 

"What do you want to say? Speak clearly!" The demon king glared at this lunatic. 

Zhihao took this time to slip away along with Li Ling. 

It wasn't that nobody realized he had run away, but those who did were too scared to point it out.

Zhihao ran for a while and finally, they had some distance between them and the festival. 

"That was... fun." Li Ling chuckled. 

How was any of that fun?! More and more unexpected things just kept on happening one after the other. Everyone was pointing their fingers at each other. Doji and Kazan had gone crazy. The demon king was angry and the festival had clearly turned upside down. 

Zhihao looked back at the man in shock but after a minute passed, he couldn't help but break out laughing, "That was fun." 

The two were laughing as if they had heard the world's best joke ever and Alvi simply stared at them as if they were a pair of crazy lunatics who had run away from the asylum. 

Zhihao didn't know why he was laughing nor did Li Ling. They were simply laughing because the other was laughing. Everything that had happened was shocking however it was so unbelievable that it made them laugh now that they looked back at it. 

[It seems Kazan's craziness was contagious.]

By this time, Alvi was already considered a background commentator, thoroughly ignored, and forgotten. 

[Did you two forget about the mission?]

Zhihao suddenly stopped laughing. 

That... was exactly what had happened. They had stupidly got carried away and forgot that they had a mission to complete. 

Now that Zhihao thought back to the mission they were given, it really was impossible to complete it with the girl named Hasumi missing. 

Now that they were out of surveillance, Zhihao could openly ask Alvi any question he wanted. 

"Alvi, can you repeat our mission."

[Your mission is to lead Hasumi and Itsuki to the other world and make them participate in the annual ghost festival.]

Zhihao thought about it for a minute and he found something out of place. 

Itsuki was already here and he had only bought one more person into this world. 

Everyone thinks the soul had already found a vessel, but if Itsuki was safely standing beside him, it meant that there was just one person left which was Hasumi. 

There being a third vessel was impossible since Taki was the only demon who was freely able to travel to the human realm with the tunnel. If there was no other vessel then the one the soul had captured was Hasumi. 

Since the festival was already about finding a vessel for the soul, that meant he had indirectly completed the mission since the two humans had already participated in the festival but they were still here which meant something was wrong. 

Zhihao looked at the little girl, "How come we haven't cleared the mission yet?"

[Your mission was to make them both participate in the festival but you messed up because of Doji and Kazan's plan.]

"Since the soul is not there anymore, how are we supposed to complete the mission?"

Alvi suddenly smiled,

[You can't solve this mission anymore.]

[You have already failed.]

"..." Zhihao was silent for a minute as he absorbed everything the girl had said to him. It took time to register it in his brain but when he finally understood, he couldn't help but cry out in surprise, "Huhhhhhh?!"

[You heard right.]

[You can no longer solve this mission.]

[You failed.]

"But how can that be?" Zhihao couldn't believe it, "If we failed, shouldn't we be thrown out of this level?"

[Not really]

[This is stage two.]

"What do you mean?" Li Ling asked calmly. 

[Stage two has a special feature.]

[You no longer have only one mission.]

[If you fail the main mission, you can complete the secret mission and clear the level.]

Zhihao sighed in relief. For a second there, he almost had a heart attack. He was having way too much fun for all of it to end this soon. 

"What is the secret mission?" Zhihao asked, optimistic that since the bot has been helpful so far, it will continue being helpful. 

Alvi chuckled. 

[It s a secret mission.]

[Why do you think I'll tell you?]

His mood went down faster than it had risen up. This bot really was... annoying!

Li Ling smiled, he had already predicted that this bot won't be telling them anything but he still found it cute that Zhihao would try nonetheless. 

"Then how will we know what we are supposed to do?" Zhihao asked again. 

[The secret mission will pop up when you trigger the scenario needed.]

"How will we do that?" 

[I can't tell you how.]

"..."

Really a useless bot!

[But]

"But?"

[I can say one thing.]

[The scenario would soon be triggered even without your meddling.]

Zhihao didn't know why but he felt like he wasn't going to like the secret scenario. 

"A-Zhi..."

Zhihao looked at the man who had suddenly called him and went silent, "What happened?"

"Can you hear that?"

Zhihao shut his mouth up and tried to pay attention to the sound but he couldn't hear anything. 

Li Ling saw Zhihao's confused expressions and understood that this man didn't notice it.

"The festival."

"What about the festi- Oh...!" Zhihao suddenly caught on. 

When they left the festival, Kazan was still making a ruckus, and the demon king was enraged at him. There should have been a dispute that followed and if that had happened they should have been able to hear the screaming voices but it was too silent. 

Did the festival go silent now that Taki had run away as well? No. That was not possible. Even if everyone else stopped talking, Kazan would have still continued shouting. 

Zhihao and Li Ling shared a look and they both nodded. They were going to go back and check, just in case. 

Zhihao was already a bit bothered by what Alvi had said. The secret scenario was going to be triggered even without their meddling. If something was to happen, it would naturally be caused by something. The cause would need a person who turns the switch on in order to turn the lightbulb on. If the scenario was going to be triggered without the interference of these two players, it would be triggered by someone else. 

Everyone else was at the festival and Doji had run away from it. If there was someone who would trigger the secret mission, it would most probably be either Doji or Kazan. 

Zhihao had no idea where Doji had run off too and the festival had suddenly gone silent. Their best bet was going back to the festival and sneaking around to see what was happening. 

Zhihao felt a bit stupid. He had run away from the place and now he was going back. 

[Are you going back?]

Zhihao nodded. 

[Better be prepared.]

Zhihao looked at the ten-year-old girl with suspicion. This bot knew something they didn't and it was nerve wrecking how she would not be telling them anything but teasing them with hints every now and then. 

Zhihao, "I'm not sure if you'll answer this but what is the soul they were all talking about?"

Alvi nodded happily. 

[So you know I won't give out spoilers?]

[hehehe]

[But you should have asked this question before.]

[I would've still answered it.]

['m a really helpful bot.]

"..."

"Don't boast about yourself. Just tell us." Li Ling snapped, his eyes focused in front of them, not bothering to even glance at the bot that was happily skipping beside them. 

[Rude!]

[The soul is their god.]

"They have a god?" Zhihao asked in shock.

[Well something like that.]

[This is a demon god.]

[The worst of the worst.]

"Isn't that Satan?" Zhihao asked innocently. 

[This is a game. Gods and demons are different here.]

[Any similarity to real-life characters is purely coincidental.]

"..." Zhihao shut up immediately. 

[This demon god doesn't have a body to contain its tainted soul simply because no vessel can control his soul.]

"His?" Zhihao cut in. 

[Yeah, it's a male.]

"That's shocking."

Li Ling, "Huh?"

"It's just that so far in the game we have only come across female goddesses. It's kinda shocking that this one is a male." Zhihao responded as he scratched his neck. 

[You are right.]

[So far you haven't come across any male gods.]

[This may be your first but please remember that this is a demon god]

[He's different than the other goddesses you have come across.]

"Understood." Zhihao nodded as he stepped on a stick and he jolted at the sound of the breaking stick, "Damn it, that scared me!" 

Li Ling looked down at the stick and then back up at Zhihao's face, "Be careful."

[This festival is about trying to revive their god.]

"By giving it a temporary vessel?" Zhihao kicked the stick away and asked absentmindedly. 

[The soul is only compatible with a human vessel and if the vessel is a demon, the ceremony may cause the soul to go on rampant and destroy this whole place.]

Zhihao stopped as he heard this. 

Li Ling looked back at him, "What happened?"

"Remind me what that crazy demon said."

"What did he say?"

"Alvi, by destroying, do you mean burning this whole place down?" Zhihao asked as he looked at the bot with anticipation. 

[How do you know that?]

Zhihao felt his heart go still. He had guessed it right.

"Run!"

Li Ling stared at the back of the man who had suddenly started running back to the festival, "Wait! Where are you running off to?"

Not a second later, Li Ling and Alvi also ran after him and caught up to Zhihao. 

Zhihao threw a side glance at the two and kept on running, "We were fooled."

"Huh?" 

"Hasumi is not the vessel that the soul took over. It's Kazan."

"What?!"

Zhihao had a look of disbelief on his face, he glared at the bot who was silent all this while, "Alvi lied to us."

"What do you mean lie?"