Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Nightmare City 22

Because Zeus said that Zhou Zhou had now become an intermediate player, which unlocked a lot of new content, Zhou Zhou happily bid farewell to Alvia and returned to his home in Nightmare City.

Only Zeus, who didn’t have a chance to run away, was left alone to face Alvia.

After being out for so long, the little octopus waved its tentacles excitedly to welcome him back. Zhou Zhou fed the little guy and then began looking at his quest panel.

He had received many messages, all from friends he had added. Most people were congratulating him on becoming an intermediate player, and there were also players he had met in other instances asking if he had any tips for clearing them.

Zhou Zhou read through all the messages from his friends and replied to each one.

However, tips for clearing instances? He didn’t really have any tips.

Zhou Zhou recalled his experiences in the various instances, and he felt that the reason he was able to clear them smoothly, if he had to say, would be his friends.

It was because of Ke Li and Xue Li that he bravely entered this place from the Love Academy instance, it was because of Alvia’s appearance that he and her progressed together in the various instances, and it was also because of Qian Le, Eddie, Heya and others that he had a lot of fun in the instances.

He carefully replied to the players asking for tips.

“Having a group of good friends will allow you to clear smoothly.”

It seemed extremely perfunctory, but it was indeed Zhou Zhou’s true feelings from the bottom of his heart. If it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t have been able to clear the instances on his own.

Although he didn’t know why only his score was ridiculously high when they all cleared together, he still had to thank all the players he had met.

After replying to the messages, Zhou Zhou finally began to carefully observe the quest panel after leveling up.

The originally light blue quest panel had turned a light golden color. In the personal center, a small “Intermediate Player” title had been added after Zhou Zhou’s name.

The biggest change to the quest panel was the addition of a new module.

【Instance Design Module】

After upgrading to an intermediate player, you can design instances for players to challenge, and the higher the quality of the instance, the more points the designer can earn each time players challenge it.

For beginner players, the only way to earn points was by clearing instances and receiving the corresponding points based on the results.

At the intermediate level, if you can make an instance that meets the game’s requirements, has high quality, and has a wide range of player participation, you can earn points as long as players participate, with no limit on the number of times, which is much more efficient than clearing instances yourself.

Zhou Zhou looked at the instance design module, which had relevant rules for the instance’s name, scene, location, NPCs, items, and so on. All of these elements had to be designed according to the requirements. Afterwards, it would undergo a review process, and if the instance didn’t pass the review, it couldn’t be put into use.

Zhou Zhou read through all the content for a long time before finally finishing. After reading it, he felt that designing an instance that met the requirements was really difficult.

He didn’t know where to start.

At that moment, Mo Lan, who he had replied to earlier, sent another message asking to meet up.

Zhou Zhou immediately put aside the idea of designing an instance. It had been a long time since he had seen Mo Lan. Although the two had been in contact, they hadn’t met in person since their last meeting at the restaurant.

Mo Lan invited him to meet today, and Zhou Zhou originally wanted to go out immediately, but the little octopus he hadn’t seen in a long time clung tightly to him and wouldn’t come down no matter how he coaxed it, so in the end he had to bring it with him.

The meeting place Mo Lan arranged was outside the beginner village in Nightmare City.

Although Zhou Zhou rarely wandered around in the game and didn’t know much, he did know that Nightmare City only had one massive beginner village. Everyone did quests inside the beginner village, and some people had tried to go outside the towering city walls out of curiosity, but they all failed.

Now Mo Lan wanted him to go outside the city, but how could he get there?

Zhou Zhou blinked in confusion, originally planning to ask Mo Lan, but before he could ask, he suddenly remembered something and went to his front door.

Previously, when purchasing housing, one of the included features was the ability to teleport directly from your home to a certain location, costing one point each time.

And when Zhou Zhou checked the places he could go, he surprisingly saw an address like “Outside the Beginner Village” on the list, which hadn’t been there before. It seemed to have appeared due to his level up.

Since he now had a way to go outside the city, Zhou Zhou brought the little octopus on his shoulder, spent one point, and was teleported from his home to the place he had arranged to meet Mo Lan.

The scenery in front of him was his home one second, and the next it changed to a vast expanse of black and white.

Zhou Zhou looked at the large white grid in front of him, somewhat confused.

Was this really outside the beginner village of Nightmare City? Why was there nothing here?

And where was Mo Lan?

When Zhou Zhou turned his head, he could see the majestic city walls in the distance and the numerous buildings inside the walls. Even from this far away, the massive and magnificent cluster of buildings was the most prominent existence in this space.

That was where they usually stayed, the beginner village of Nightmare City.

However, the area under his feet was completely different from inside the city walls. The sky and ground were both white, with black lines dividing it into a grid of squares, and staring at the repeating black and white grid for too long could even make one feel dizzy.

Before Zhou Zhou could react, the little octopus on his shoulder had already become woozy.

“Zhou Zhou~ Over here~”

A familiar voice rang out not far away, and Zhou Zhou looked towards the source to see Mo Lan waving at him.

Mo Lan still had the same appearance as when he first met her, a pale face with a bluish tinge, dark black hair, and those black pupils without any whites, appearing even more chilling and terrifying against the eerie black and white grid.

To Zhou Zhou, however, this appearance was quite familiar and welcoming. He thought he had found the wrong place at first, but seeing Mo Lan confirmed that he was in the right place as agreed.

Behind Mo Lan was a parked aircraft, and because it was completely white, Zhou Zhou had glanced over it without noticing when it was stopped on the large white square.

He happily ran over to her, and they were both very happy to meet.

Mo Lan’s red lips contrasted with her pale blue face, making her smile appear even more eerie. Even the little octopus, who was scared when it first saw Mo Lan, had its usually lively tentacles meekly curled around Zhou Zhou’s hair, timidly looking at Mo Lan.

After the two successfully met up, before Zhou Zhou could ask about Mo Lan’s recent situation, she brought him onto the aircraft.

“Let’s go~ Meet up with~ The others first.” After saying that, Mo Lan skillfully piloted the aircraft into the air.

Zhou Zhou was completely confused. Who were the others?

The aircraft flew at an extremely fast speed, flying over the vast expanse of black and white grids, quickly reaching their destination for this trip.

Even Zhou Zhou couldn’t help but open his eyes wide when he first saw the cluster of buildings below.

This was a place different from the beginner village of Nightmare City, it was a small city.

Both the surrounding walls and the buildings inside were simple and crude compared to the beginner village.

But this was a place Zhou Zhou had never been before. He had never imagined that outside the ridiculously massive city of Nightmare City, whose map he still didn’t fully understand until now, there was actually a hidden small city.

“This is~ A secret~ Only known to intermediate players,” Mo Lan explained when she saw his dumbfounded look, which was strangely similar to the pink little octopus on his shoulder.

After Mo Lan parked the aircraft in the open square, and they both got off, Zhou Zhou finally realized the true difference of this city.

The people here were not human.

Not only were there people who looked very similar to Mo Lan’s ghostly appearance, but there were also kids running around everywhere, clowns handing out balloons to passersby, a person with two heads arguing with each other on one body, and even the little dogs running on the ground were over a meter long.

All the creatures here were different from ordinary humans.

Zhou Zhou stared at the people around him in awe. Although each one looked more different than the last, in Zhou Zhou’s eyes there was only curiosity, pure and unsullied, seeing right through them with a single glance.

The corners of Mo Lan’s crimson lips curled up. She knew that no matter when, Zhou Zhou would never let her down, he was still that player who could smile and greet her even when he first saw her terrifying appearance.

“Welcome to the city of intermediate players.”

Mo Lan spoke this line clearly and articulately, without her usual slow drawl with a lingering tone. It sounded very formal and serious, as if she had practiced it countless times.

Zhou Zhou suddenly realized why, apart from instances, he had never seen Mo Lan, Locke, Xiao Jin and the others in Nightmare City before. He thought they had logged off and gone home, but it turned out they were all in this other city within the game.

Following Mo Lan into a restaurant, Zhou Zhou found that the “people” nearby were all staring at him.

To ordinary humans, each of these people looked grotesquely horrifying. Being stared at so intently by countless pairs of eyes like that would make one’s legs go weak and teeth chatter from fear. But not only was Zhou Zhou not afraid, he even smiled and nodded politely at them.

Noticing that everyone was still looking at him, Zhou Zhou even waved at them.

An existence that was completely normal in the beginner village of Nightmare City had become the most unique sight in this monster-filled place. Zhou Zhou didn’t know how strange he must seem in the eyes of these people, he only noticed that every single person who made eye contact with him would quickly look away first.

Although he was puzzled as to why everyone was staring at him with strange looks, as soon as he saw the group of people in the restaurant, Zhou Zhou could no longer dwell on it.

The moment Mo Lan opened the door to the restaurant room, Zhou Zhou saw many familiar faces.

Xiao Jin and his group of friends, the captain of the Deep Sea Creature, the seven drivers identical to those from the Mirror World, the old butler and Locke from Night Castle, the NPCs he had met in the instances were all here!

Before Zhou Zhou could process this great surprise, Xiao Jin and the others had already run over to him.

The little blond angel shouted Zhou Zhou’s name as he ran over and hugged him.

The other dozen or so kids also swarmed over, and Zhou Zhou instantly became a human climbing frame for the children. The little octopus, on the other hand, stared wide-eyed in terror, then used its short, stubby tentacles to scramble up onto Zhou Zhou’s head.

Although the little octopus didn’t have a good memory, it clearly remembered the voices of these kids who would use plush toys as vessels to run around and make a mess in Zhou Zhou’s home every day, even bullying it.

“Why are you all here?”

After accepting the kids’ enthusiastic hugs, Zhou Zhou looked at everyone in the restaurant, clearly very happy.

“Of course~ To congratulate you~ On leveling up~” Mo Lan reverted to her usual drawl as she said slowly amid the group.

The others also greeted Zhou Zhou. The seven drivers identical to those from the Mirror World even revealed their original appearances in front of him. It turned out that their middle-aged man form was Number 7, the driver who transported them into and out of instances, while the others all looked different and were even of varying ages.

The captain still had his lazy demeanor. After greeting Zhou Zhou, he originally wanted to catch up with the little octopus, but the wary little octopus thought the captain was going to separate it from Zhou Zhou again, stubbornly refusing to come down from Zhou Zhou’s head. When the captain reached out his hand, it even swatted him away with its small tentacles.

This infuriated the captain, who cursed it for being ungrateful.

Locke was also happy to see Zhou Zhou, constantly trying to sneak closer to him. But his large, intimidating appearance made these sneaky movements seem rather comical, with the kids even mockingly imitating his actions.

The old butler, still leaning on his cane, greeted Zhou Zhou in a very restrained and elegant manner.

It was only after Zhou Zhou had greeted everyone that he learned from Mo Lan the reason for their gathering here.

Before Nightmare City went live, the players in the beta test were not humans, but rather minority races from the outskirts of the empire. They were ostracized because their appearance and customs were completely different from humans, or rather, most humans didn’t even know these races existed.

However, when Nightmare City was in beta testing, these races were specifically invited to enter the game first. After layers of screening, those who were qualified in terms of spiritual power and various other aspects became intermediate players.

After the game officially launched, their job was to design instances for players to challenge.

For these races whose appearances were markedly different from humans, this game was essentially using their unique appearances or abilities to scare players, causing their spiritual power and brain wave fluctuations to reach maximum changes in order to stimulate the development of spiritual power.

At first, they felt that although this job offered high rewards, the nature of the work was somewhat insulting to them. After all, who wants their special appearance to become a tool for scaring others? Wasn’t that blatantly saying they looked terrifyingly different from normal people?

But after listening to the game staff they were liaising with, they learned that this was only the beginning. As the game developed further, they would gradually be accepted by human players and might even become the game’s most popular beings.

It sounded like a pipe dream, but they decided to give it a try anyway, since they wanted to integrate into human society themselves.

In fact, up until now, most players who encountered them either screamed or ran away, and some even fainted.

As for why the players’ psychological state was so fragile, it was deeply rooted in the history of the empire. The cultural gap caused humans to lose many precious aspects of culture, while the rapidly advancing age of technology turned people into staunch atheists who didn’t believe in intangible things, relying solely on the unique resilience and perseverance of humans to become the largest group in interstellar space.

So in the interstellar age, they had never even heard of supernatural beings like ghosts and spirits, dismissing them entirely.

The original intention of Nightmare City was to stimulate the growth of people’s spiritual power. While extreme situations like near-death could also stimulate spiritual power, this method had many drawbacks, possibly leaving severe psychological scars, and the potential for even greater harm to the brain domain if something went wrong during the near-death state.

Coincidentally, during research on stimulating spiritual power, some ancient ruins from old Earth were excavated, and some of the content provided a reference for the experts.

Fear was a more mild stimulus compared to extreme situations.

This was also why many instances featured ghosts and spirits, and the minority races that matched these forms were incorporated into the plan.

As more and more players leveled up to intermediate and advanced, based on the need for instance design, their understanding and tolerance of these minority races would increase. They might even need the assistance of these races while designing instances, forming a transition period to gradually have humans accept these minorities who looked different from them.

Before Zhou Zhou, Mo Lan had also encountered some players who weren’t afraid of her, but Zhou Zhou was the first to show her a friendly attitude.

She was also eager for Zhou Zhou to level up to intermediate quickly so he could understand them, allowing more minorities to know that humans weren’t just afraid of them, there were also kind people like Zhou Zhou who would actively show goodwill.

The result was that Zhou Zhou did even better than she imagined. Not only did every minority he met sing his praises, but he also became the first player to level up after the official launch.

All the players of Nightmare City knew this name.

There weren’t many who became intermediate players during the beta, so they would usually gather in this small city and gradually become acquainted. Mo Lan often mentioned one person when chatting with her companions, Zhou Zhou.

And those who had met and got to know Zhou Zhou in other instances would occasionally tell others about his actions in those instances, as he had left a deep impression on every instance designer.

Mo Lan had been preparing to celebrate Zhou Zhou’s level up, finding everyone ahead of time to celebrate with him, this was the reason they had gathered here.

Although Mo Lan explained slowly, Zhou Zhou patiently listened until the end.

Last time, due to game rule restrictions, Mo Lan couldn’t say too much. Now she could tell Zhou Zhou everything, so she naturally had to explain it all clearly.

The captain and others would chime in from time to time while ordering dishes. Since this was a celebration, they couldn’t just sit there, they had to feast grandly.

In addition to the delicious food for the celebration, there was naturally a variety of fine wines. The captains ordered all kinds of food and drinks, then dragged Zhou Zhou to sit with them.

The captain, who had originally planned to give a bottle of wine to the guest of honor, stared at Zhou Zhou’s smooth, pale face for a long time before settling on giving him the same juice as the kids.

“Oh, thank you.” Zhou Zhou didn’t understand the captain’s dilemma as he took small sips of the juice.

“Hey, why’d you give him juice? He’s the most important person at this banquet, he should definitely be drinking wine.” One of the Mirror World NPC players shouted loudly at the captain.

“I just feel like he’s still underage, so all underage kids have to drink juice.” Although he knew this game didn’t have such strict age restrictions for other humans besides their minority races, Zhou Zhou’s appearance was just too delicate, people would believe it if you said he was sixteen.

The other players noticed that Zhou Zhou looked about the same as the group of kids beside him as he drank his juice, giving off a childlike vibe.

“Alright, if he’s drinking juice, then we’ll drink the wine ourselves.”

The intermediate players drank and chatted, while Zhou Zhou received special attention, with his bowl piled high with food and his juice never running out. If it weren’t for the fact that you could eat as much as you wanted in the game without issue, he would have been stuffed long ago at this pace.

Zhou Zhou secretly glanced at the wine the other players were drinking a few times, but his attention was soon diverted elsewhere.

Besides helping Zhou Zhou celebrate his level up, Mo Lan’s purpose in calling him here was to discuss designing instances.

Zhou Zhou had just leveled up, so he definitely didn’t understand any of this. As players who had successfully designed instances, they could gather together and Zhou Zhou could ask about anything he didn’t understand, at the very least getting help with strategizing.

When Mo Lan said this, Zhou Zhou immediately perked up, as he did indeed have many confusing questions.

Over the next few hours, the lively banquet turned into a study discussion session, because Zhou Zhou lacked so much common knowledge that there were many parts of the instance design module’s instructions he didn’t understand.

Most people would probably skip over these instructions and just start designing instances. But the ever-diligent Zhou Zhou never took things lightly when he wanted to accomplish something.

The people present provided explanations for the parts he didn’t understand. Even if there were things they also didn’t understand, the others would supplement them with a jumble of voices.

“Thank you everyone, I understand it all now.” This gathering was very rewarding for Zhou Zhou, and he felt he now knew how to design instances.

“You~ Already have~ Some ideas, don’t you?” Mo Lan guessed, seeing Zhou Zhou’s confident demeanor.

Zhou Zhou didn’t hide it either: “I just thought of some things.”

Locke dryly praised him: “Zhou Zhou, you’re so amazing.”

The captain also chimed in: “Instance design does have its difficulties. Up until now, we’ve only had one or two instances pass the review. For you to come up with ideas so quickly, you must have talent.”

Xiao Jin had an air of maturity: “Zhou Zhou, after you design it, we can help take a look and see if there are any problems.”

Zhou Zhou patted Xiao Jin’s head: “Then I’ll thank Xiao Jin in advance.”

While everyone was discussing, he had already come up with many ideas. Just thinking about turning the scenes in his mind into reality made Zhou Zhou feel impatient.

After the gathering ended, he added the location of the small city to his quest panel so he could teleport directly there in the future without needing to be picked up from outside the beginner village.

After waving goodbye to everyone, Zhou Zhou and the little octopus teleported home. He needed to start designing the instance right away.