Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 331 - 330: Patty

After finishing the meeting with Daniel, Gawain didn’t immediately log out of the network but instead left the virtual space and returned to the conscious flat layer of the mind network.

This layer is also referred to by him as the "visible zone" — opposite to the visible zone are the layers deeper in the network that wouldn’t be noticed by ordinary visitors.

His virtual space was created by manipulating those data link layers.

"Massive computing resources with unclear destinations..." Walking down the streets in Dream City Center, Gawain muttered softly to himself, "The mind network is built on active nodes and doesn’t need fixed ’servers’ like ’Brain Servants’..."

He looked up, seeing the Eternal Sleepers walking past him. Those figures in front of him appeared as living computing nodes, and after completing his missing knowledge, his understanding of the network deepened, gaining more insights into these evil cult followers active in the network.

The Eternal Sleepers cult is a massive dark sect with an astounding number of members and a complex, hidden inheritance system. Not all Eternal Sleepers know the secrets of their own cult — in fact, many like Viscountess Lilith Kant were misguided by the Eternal Sleepers and led astray without knowing, becoming "peripheral believers" abundant in this cult.

The eternal dream-realm that allows escape from reality holds an unimaginable attraction for those who are bitter and desperate in real life. Even aristocrats and archMages find it hard to resist under certain conditions. Once you accept the lure of the Eternal Sleepers and donate your mind for the first time to this massive network, the beautiful illusion generated by the mind network that confuses reality can entrap even the most strong-willed individuals.

These Eternal Sleepers walking the streets, how many are seasoned cult followers, how many are dissatisfied aristocrats, how many are struggling extraordinary beings? Among them, could there be members of the Association of Mystics? Believers from the southern continent, or even other races? Could there be members of other religions, hopelessly waiting for advancement?

The Eternal Sleepers have already lost their faith and system of Divine Arts, just like the Druids after the White Starfall three thousand years ago. They are, in fact, a secular extraordinary organization based on magic skills, so absorbing "believers" can be done without psychological pressure. They can deceive the aristocrats and Mages, even lure those ostentatiously righteous orthodox believers and priests!

Thinking of this, Gawain couldn’t help but feel the Eternal Sleepers might be the most terrifying among the Three Great Dark Sects...

Walking with such scattered thoughts, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a slightly familiar small figure from the corner of his eye.

Gawain focused his gaze and saw a little girl in a beautiful white dress bouncing along the leaf-strewn path not far away. She jumped from leaves to stones, occasionally balancing on the slightly elevated curb of the path like walking a "single-plank bridge," an undeniably carefree and innocent sight.

That girl who calls herself Patty Gran? What a coincidence, meeting her again?

Gawain frowned, his first thought was to pretend not to see and walk away, but before he could lift his foot, the girl had already spotted him with sharp eyes.

"Ah! It’s Uncle Celsey!"

The girl exclaimed happily, then jumped down from the curb, running over to Gawain, lifted her skirt, and performed an imperfect lady’s courtesy: "Hello, Uncle!"

Her words and demeanor bore a faint trace of good upbringing, but her actions were quite clumsy.

Logging off directly now would seem too deliberate, so Gawain could only respond with a dry laugh and then, instinctively, glanced around: The woman resembling Selena Gerfen did not seem to be nearby.

"Are you looking for Sister Selena?" Patty noticed Gawain’s action, immediately spoke up in a clear voice, "Sister Selena isn’t here! She’s busy at home!"

Gawain breathed a sigh of relief, feeling quite curious as he looked at Patty and asked what he’d long wanted to ask: "How can you always recognize me here? Shouldn’t there be a lot of people using the same appearance as me?"

He was most curious about this — in this network not yet fully validated by real names, lacking a feature like usernames floating above one’s head, there’s no obvious method to identify others at a glance. Everyone could just casually pinch a persona to enter this virtual sea. The Eternal Sleepers are completely satisfied in the "primary stage of universal internet access" where everyone is free to roam, yet this little girl can recognize him every time. It’s truly puzzling.

To know, Charlie the First’s face is a popular skin in this network...

"Difficult to recognize?" The little girl looked puzzled when she heard Gawain’s question, blinking with a face full of confusion, "But I just can recognize you, even though many people look the same here, everyone feels different..."

"Feels different..." Gawain was amused and helpless: What kind of answer is this?

He felt this little girl had many peculiar aspects, naturally becoming more alert, but after a couple of such encounters, he gradually dismissed his initial suspicion: this girl named "Patty," indeed isn’t a middle-aged, greasy evil cult follower hiding in disguise...

Not even a big-shot like Soldrin would be perverse enough to this degree. This "Patty," even in the real world, ought to be not far off from being a young genius.

Perhaps geniuses truly exist... accessing the Eternal Sleepers network at the age of ten or something.

Thinking this, looking around and noticing Selena Gerfen was nowhere to be seen, Gawain felt it was acceptable to have a chat with this peculiar young girl. So he began walking slowly along the shaded path with her, seemingly casually asking, "Do you come here often?"

Patty seemed curious, "Uncle means come to this garden? Or to this dream?"

This little girl simply views this virtual space as a "dream"? How can there be such a dream realm in the world...

Gawain muttered to himself, but showed no expression on his face: "I mean this ’dream.’"

"I come here often, especially at night, I definitely have to come here," Patty stuck out her tongue, "because if I don’t enter this dream, I can’t sleep well..."

"Can’t sleep well?" Gawain frowned, "Why?"

Patty seemed to be an innocent child, answering almost everything Gawain asked: "Because my body aches and itches..."

As she said this, a slight expression of resistance and fear appeared on the girl’s face. Gawain originally wanted to continue questioning, but swallowed his words and somewhat awkwardly changed the subject: "By the way, I haven’t seen your parents here—aren’t they ’comrades’ from the church?"

’Comrades from the church,’ was a colloquial term believers used among themselves, and Gawain believed that even if Patty was truly naive, she would have often heard similar expressions in this network.

The young girl shook her head: "My father passed away a long time ago... my mother is very busy, and she doesn’t like it here."

Her father had passed away, and her mother seemed opposed to the Eternal Sleepers? So how did this little girl connect to the network?

So she wasn’t brought into the sect because of her parents?

Various speculations turned in Gawain’s mind as he silently pieced together possible real-life scenarios for this little girl, while simultaneously asking: "I see... So what does your mother do? Why doesn’t she like it here?"

"Mom says she doesn’t like immersing herself in dreams, but I don’t understand what that means," Patty said as she jumped onto the curb next to her, wobbling forward, "and Mom is a very impressive person! Everyone in the castle listens to her!"

Gawain couldn’t help but pause in his steps: "A castle? Do you live in a castle?"

"Yeah! A very big castle!" Patty said happily, "and my room has very big windows too!"

A castle with big windows? Such architectural styles are uncommon in this era...

Gawain quickly speculated on the girl’s possible real-world identity: She should be a noble, but from her demeanor and speech, she didn’t seem to be of a very high-ranked noble descent. She lived in a castle with big windows, but in this era, the castles of Anzu’s nobility usually doubled as military fortresses, typically having narrow windows and very high skylights. So perhaps she’s not from Anzu... but it’s not certain, as newer, more comfortable castle and manor styles have recently become popular around the Plains of the Holy Spirits, and some southern regions’ nobles are mimicking these styles as well...

With these thoughts in his mind, Gawain said in response: "That sounds wonderful. By the way, are there tall mountains near your castle? Or perhaps rivers and forests?"

He wanted to inquire about the geographic features around Patty’s castle to determine approximately which country she might be from—although he might not find out anything, he still wanted to try.

However, after hearing these questions, the young girl shook her head: "I can’t quite remember... from a young age, Mom wouldn’t let me leave the castle, saying it’s very dangerous outside. But Uncle, I’ll tell you, this morning I secretly asked a maid to take me to the terrace! I could see a large snowfield below the castle! Don’t tell anyone, okay? Mom rarely lets me up on the terrace... though she left a few days ago."

Gawain mused to himself and casually replied: "Oh, your mother went out, huh."

"Yes, Mom said she’s going to be a guest at Count Hosman’s place, she’s been out for several days..."

"Oh, Count Hosman... Count Hosman?!"

Gawain absent-mindedly repeated, but suddenly realized, his eyes widening.

He had heard that name!

Not long ago, in Amber’s report!

"Yes, Count Hosman," Patty seemed a bit startled by Gawain’s reaction, "Uncle... do you know the Count?"

"...No, I just didn’t expect the person your mother is visiting to be such a big person, I got startled by the word ’Count’," Gawain fabricated an excuse casually, as children wouldn’t think much about it, but his mind was already churning with thoughts.

Could there be another Count Hosman in this world? Gawain couldn’t be sure, perhaps there could be, as the human lands are divided into four kingdoms in four directions of the continent, each with its own independent but vast aristocratic system, countless land nobles, it’s hard to say if there would be nobles with the same name and title across the north and south of the continent, but rather than believing in this baseless possibility, he believed more that the Count Hosman Patty mentioned was the one he knew!

The land noble from the south of Anzu, Carloff Hosman.

Then Patty is actually the offspring of some noble in the south?

Her surname seems to be Gran... there indeed seems to be a Gran among the southern aristocracy!