"Huh?....."

Ian was simply having too much of a hard time at the moment, he wasn't very adept at communication.

He was undoubtedly an ultimate shut-in. This wasn't by his own choice, though.

His disability lead to various difficulties when travelling or even moving from one house block to another.

So, he usually just spent all his days either at home or in the institute, using virtual reality to feel the somewhat limited freedom of moving which was incomparable to the current VR.

Nonetheless, Ian preferred spending most of his days using VR to learn & read. accompanied with his photographic memory, he absorbed knowledge to no bounds. Yet, that became his greatest regret later on.

As such, he almost had zero experience in interaction, he believed that if it were to be converted into stat points it would be ultimately less than 0.1!

As for him being so talkative with Drake? That was simply from spending 1~2 weeks together, and only then did Ian try to imitate fake personalities from the webnovels he read occasionally to converse with him.

Thus, talking with someone who he had supposedly just killed, he felt even more awkward.

Especially when the lion nonchalantly explained that he was talking to his brain directly. which related to him being able to see through Ian easily.

'That explains how the voice has no source!' or so did Ian mutter to himself.

However, there was one thing that made Ian his current self, and it was also the thing that led this conversion to resume more easily, that was…..Curiosity!

As Ian was lost in thought, the lion's voice seemed a bit hurried, as he urged.

{Are you done thinking yet? How about hearing more about the trade before wasting that much time thinking this deeply?}

>>>>

I snapped out of this moment of anguished reminiscences, as I placed my mind together.

'That's right, that's the main reason I even got here!'

It was not the time to think deeply about the past, he still remembered that his time was running, he only had less than 3 hours left.

[0d,2h,49m,33s]

Interacting with a dead lion was a one-of-a-kind type of experience and so was his offered trade, I mainly entered this 'Game' to encounter such new (while slightly bizarre) occurrences.

"Yes, please!"

Simple was best, or so I thought, since I wasn't yet skilled with my words. I decided to convey my will in the most simplest form of answer.

{That's more like it!}

{In actuality, this is not too much of a trade, you might even gain the most benefit. It's only because I'm so desperate, that I decided to suggest this}

He simply revealed that he was in a hurry and needed to do this more that I needed to, usually this would be truly foolish. Yet, because he was dying anyway and he couldn't affect the reality physically, it didn't seem that much of a bad choice.

After all, if I only had evil thoughts from the beginning, then even intimidating me and being secretive would yield him nothing. It might even have a reverse effect.

On the other hand, laying everything on the floor sincerely would leave a better impression of sincerity and may have positive effects.

However, I felt like he did this out of confidence instead of my previous assumptions.

Nonetheless, being this calculative was simply a new experience to me, it reminded me of my recent reckless battles, on both times I seemed to have been affected by something causing my train of thought to alter.

I was starting to understand that feeling. Yet, I wasn't able to prevent it in anyway….

{Let's first talk about my part in the bargain!}

Suddenly, a strange ball-like object flew out from an unknown direction. Before unknowingly, landing in my hand....?