Chapter 294: Anna Kane

Just as Perry Yates finished her card fusion, the pets she had inherited from Anna Kane suddenly trotted over, circling her feet in a state of extreme anxiety.

"What’s wrong with you all? Are you sick?"

Perry Yates quickly crouched down to check on them.

Although she hadn’t hatched these pets, and they weren’t usually very affectionate with her, she was their owner now, after all.

Besides, while these pets weren’t Divine Beasts, they all possessed Divine Beast bloodlines—and high-purity ones at that.

As a result, some of them looked remarkably similar to the Divine Beasts of legend.

The pets kept gesturing with their paws, as if trying to tell Perry something.

Normally, a master could understand their contracted pets, but Perry had never been able to understand a word they said, nor could she recall them into their card forms.

After a short game of charades, Perry finally understood what they meant.

"You want that Character Card?"

The pets nodded vigorously, then looked at Perry with expectant eyes, as if to say, ’Can we? Please?’

Perry Yates wasn’t a fool; she already had a few suspicions about the identity of that Character Card.

’It couldn’t be Anna Kane, could it?’

Perry took out the card and tossed it forward.

The golden card instantly erupted in a flash of light, transforming into a person as it landed.

Once she got a clear look at the person’s face, a knowing expression spread across Perry’s face. Who else could it be but Anna Kane?

’I can’t believe it. I refused to take her with me back then, yet she still found a way to get out.’

Fortunately, Anna Kane had become a card under her control, so Perry wasn’t worried about betrayal.

The moment Anna appeared, the little pets swarmed around her, each one expressing how much they’d missed her.

"So their contracts really are tied to you."

Hearing this, Anna Kane looked at Perry Yates with a hint of embarrassment and guilt. "I’m very sorry for using you, but I really couldn’t stand the thought of living that same, predictable life all over again."

She had been reborn. If she was just going to live the same life as before, what was the point? She might as well have stayed dead.

To avoid repeating her past mistakes, she took a drastic measure, betting everything on a chance at a new life.

And as it turned out, she had succeeded.

Looking at her surroundings, she knew she had escaped that terrifying game and arrived in a completely new world.

Although she was now just a card in this world, still subject to another’s will, it was nothing compared to the life she’d left behind.

After hearing Anna Kane’s story, Perry Yates was a bit dumbfounded. ’She’s actually been reborn.’

’But she seems a little different from the reborn characters in novels.’

In novels, the reborn characters are always murdered before getting a chance to start over.

’This time, I’ll make everyone who betrayed me pay the price! Then I’ll activate my cheats and dominate the survival game!’

That’s what Perry was thinking, and driven by curiosity, she voiced her thoughts.

The answer she got was:

"I was reborn, it’s not like I suddenly became the chosen one. Besides, I wasn’t murdered in my past life. You could say I died of old age.

However, I did get very lucky after being reborn, but that’s only because of my extensive survival experience and my decades of knowledge about that world. It has nothing to do with anything else.

And it’s precisely because I died of old age that I wanted to escape that game even more."

"Since you know so much about this game, let me ask you—have you ever seen a type of monster that’s black, looks human but isn’t, and waves hello when it sees people?"

Perry Yates was still brooding over the monster that had destroyed one of her five-star cards the moment it appeared.

"I know them. They’re creatures called Executors. Players absolutely despise them. They show up at random, always at night. If you run into one, the best thing to do is hide in a car. Whatever you do, don’t fight it head-on, because an Executor can make anything it touches vanish.

Although the Executor disappears too, it’s not the real body that vanishes, just a Clone.

Oh, and Executors don’t kill people outright. They torture their victims, making things disappear bit by bit—items, internal organs, even their Talent and memories."

After hearing Anna Kane’s words, Perry’s first reaction was, ’What! So that was an Executor?’

’I could tell it was bad news just by looking at it.’

But hearing that last part sent a chill down her spine.

’Executors can even make Talents disappear!’

Perry now felt incredibly lucky that she had only lost a card. If she’d lost her Talent, she would have been truly finished.

’No, wait, I guess I wouldn’t have to die. To prevent anyone from copying my Talent, I made a copy of it myself. I’ve kept it carefully stored away as a backup.’

"I never thought the Copy Card could be used like this."

Then, she turned to Anna Kane. "Now that you’re one of my cards, I’m not just going to ignore you. But don’t think for a second I’m going to set you free. You’ve seen my true identity, so I can’t let you leave. You’ll live here from now on. You can go out if you wish, but you must inform either me or the butler. One more thing—if you see me outside, act like you don’t know me."

Hearing Perry say this, Anna asked curiously, "May I ask why?"

"The reason is simple. Here, I’m the mysterious owner of The Card Tavern. Outside, I’m just Perry Yates, with no connection to it.

Unless you’d rather follow Perry Yates than the owner of The Card Tavern."

"I’ll stick with Perry Yates, then. I can sense another card here on the same level as me. He’s rejecting my presence. If I stay here, we’ll probably end up fighting," Anna Kane said.

The main reason was that she hadn’t yet adapted to this new card body of hers. Although she had great power within her, she had no idea how to use it.

’Besides, the other one is clearly one of Perry Yates’s cards too. Since we’re on the same side, why fight each other?’

"That works, but we won’t be able to hide the fact that you’re a card. I don’t have the power to just invent an identity for you out of thin air."

’Even if I tried, it would be discovered within minutes. After all, I’m affiliated with the Survival Game Administration now, and they’re definitely monitoring me.’