Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 108

Chapter 108: Cozy Cottage 2

Ke Li was even doubting if he had seen it wrong, he opened his eyes wide and looked towards the peephole again.

However, the man outside who was looking at him with a slight smile really looked exactly the same as him, even the details of their clothes were completely identical. If it weren’t for the fact that the other person was in a different position and his actions were different, he would have thought he was looking in a mirror.

A sense of eeriness arose, Ke Li stared in horror at the person outside.

“Who is outside?” Xue Li noticed that her brother had stiffened up, as if he had seen something unbelievable.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

The sound of knocking was right in front of them, the slow and forceful knocking sounded as if it was knocking on Ke Li’s heart, making his chest tighten repeatedly.

His throat felt like it was blocked, Ke Li said in a muffled voice: “The person outside looks exactly the same as me…”

Before he could continue, the mission panel sent out another notification.

【Main Mission 2: Don’t let the guests who suddenly visit catch you.】

The slightly playful words immediately made the two realize that the visitor outside was the one mentioned in the mission panel.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

The door was knocked on three more times, but this time after the knocking ended, the person outside didn’t pause like before, but started turning the doorknob.

The doorknob inside the room also shook accordingly.

They had tried before, the doorknob on this door couldn’t be turned at all, and there was no keyhole either, but now the sounds coming from outside indicated that this door could clearly be opened from the outside.

The two were suddenly alarmed in their hearts, they absolutely couldn’t be caught by the other party!

Before they could react, the door was suddenly pulled open a crack, the sunlight inside the room passed through the crack, casting a clear line of light on the man’s face outside, the light and shadows dividing the man’s face in half, making him look extremely eerie.

“Ke Li” tilted his head, his gaze immediately locking onto the two terrified people inside the room, he smiled and said: “I’m coming in.”

“Shit, run!” Ke Li didn’t expect the other party to act so quickly, it was no longer realistic to try to close the door and stop him from entering now.

They had originally thought that the small area of the house would be very convenient for them to find the key, but now, the completely exposed room left them with nowhere to hide.

Xue Li pulled Ke Li into the study, the two leaned against the door, this was the only place that could temporarily stop the other party from entering.

“Bang!”

The study door made a loud noise, unlike before when the other party was politely knocking on the door outside, now the other party was acting extremely violently, as if he would break down the door in the next moment.

“What should we do, we can’t keep doing this, we won’t have time to find the key.” Ke Li realized the key point, they couldn’t be caught by the other party, but simply running away like this wasn’t a solution either, after all the instance only gave them twelve hours, if the other party kept chasing them closely, when would they have time to find the key?

“Fight him? But we don’t have any weapons.” Xue Li felt the tremors coming from behind her back, the study door wouldn’t hold up for much longer. Most of the points they had accumulated had been converted into interstellar currency, they didn’t have many decent props.

“There are two of us and only one of him, two against one should at least let us hold out for a while, I have a way that should be able to delay him for a bit.” Ke Li said to Xue Li.

“Bang! Bang!”

The visitor outside was kicking the door with extreme force each time, the study door was shaking precariously as if it would collapse at any moment. Finally, the wooden door couldn’t withstand the other party’s such violent door-breaking method, not only were there several cracks kicked into it, but the two metal hinges on the door were also gradually falling off.

After the last impact, the overburdened door finally fell down.

“Ke Li” strode into the study, in his view, the players inside had nowhere to escape, it would only take a few minutes to catch them.

However, those two players didn’t try to block the doorway, nor did they scream in panic when the door was broken down.

When his gaze fell on the two people inside the room, suddenly a strong light shone on him, clearly it was daytime, but this strong white light still made it impossible to look directly at, and as he turned his head to avoid being blinded by the light, he felt a sharp pain in his legs.

“Quick quick quick! Hit him!” Xue Li shouted while holding the lighting tool.

Ke Li was now holding a wooden stick, and when the other party’s vision was obstructed, he fiercely struck down at his legs.

Caught off guard, the visitor fell to one knee, clearly this strike had significant force behind it.

Next, his calves and arms were also heavily struck several times by Ke Li with the wooden stick.

Although the wooden stick couldn’t defeat the other party, as long as they could limit his movements, it would be easier for them to escape later, so Ke Li only attacked the joints of his hands and feet.

On the next strike, the wooden stick was grabbed by a bulging, vein-covered hand, it seemed the visitor who had been ambushed was very angry.

He turned his head to look at Ke Li, those familiar eyes were gradually turning red, looking terrifying.

Ke Li tried to pull the wooden stick out a few times but couldn’t get it out, looking at the enraged expression on that face that was exactly the same as his own, he somehow felt a sense of fear arise.

Realizing that their attack had failed, Xue Li saw her brother still “gazing deeply” at the other person, she hardened her courage and quickly ran up, pulling Ke Li to run away: “What are you spacing out for!”

The position where the visitor was standing had exposed the study room door, the two of them quickly ran out through the doorway.

“Go outside!” The room was too small, there was nowhere to hide in the living room, and the bedroom had many severed hands, neither of those were places they could hide. Xue Li noticed that the visitor hadn’t closed the door when he came in, maybe they could go hide outside for a bit.

But as soon as they reached the doorway, the door that was open to the outside seemed to have a mind of its own, slamming shut with a bang.

The entire house became an enclosed space, their range of activity was limited to only this area.

The visitor from the study also came out.

His appearance now looked vastly different from Ke Li’s.

His previously calm face was now extremely ferocious, his eyes filled with red, his damaged limbs bent unnaturally as he moved forward, and even more shockingly, as the two players looked on in shock, the visitor realized that his hobbling, limping leg was slowing his movement speed, so he actually dropped down to all fours, his joints twisting abnormally, the two could even hear the jarring, teeth-grinding creaking sounds coming from him bending his limbs.

The originally handsome “Ke Li” had turned into a bizarrely shaped mutant, he stared at Xue Li and Ke Li standing in the doorway, like a giant spider eyeing its prey, and in the next moment pounced over.

The speed was extremely fast!

Both of them were almost scared to tears, as the other party pounced over, Xue Li forcefully pushed Ke Li, allowing the two of them to split up and run in different directions.

Xue Li ran towards the kitchen, while Ke Li ran towards the living room.

And the twisted mutant kept its eyes fixed on Ke Li, unhesitatingly chasing after him, clearly holding a grudge from the previous incident.

“Help! He’s chasing me!” Ke Li shouted in panic, running around the dining table to evade the other party’s attempts to catch him.

After entering the kitchen, before Xue Li could even close the door, she noticed that the monster wasn’t paying any attention to her at all, only chasing after Ke Li.

Although she was temporarily not in danger, she couldn’t just stand by and watch Ke Li being chased. She ran into the kitchen and frantically opened all the drawers, actually finding a weapon inside one of the drawers.

A kitchen knife.

Xue Li picked up the kitchen knife and ran to the kitchen doorway, yelling to Ke Li who was still running circles around the table: “Run this way!”

Ke Li was really about to burst into tears, he had almost been caught several times, and after circling the table a few times, the other party lost patience and jumped onto the table in an attempt to intercept him. If it weren’t for him running fast enough, he would have been caught long ago.

Hearing his sister’s voice, Ke Li immediately ran towards the kitchen, and the moment he entered, the other party closely followed behind.

Xue Li’s heart was pounding, she held the kitchen knife in both hands, and the moment Ke Li ran into the kitchen, she took a step forward and fiercely swung down at the mutant following directly behind Ke Li.

In that moment, shielded behind her, Ke Li watched his sister’s heroic figure and was extremely moved.

“Ting~”

The crisp sound of metal clashing rang out, and Xue Li and Ke Li silently watched the scene in front of them.

The imagined scene of blood and flesh flying, or the sight of the NPC disappearing immediately after being struck, neither of those happened.

The other party caught the kitchen knife with one hand, grasping the blade tightly with its palm facing up.

Seeing the two dumbfounded people, the mutant smiled coldly: “The knife wasn’t sharpened.”

Xue Li’s lips trembled: “We’re doomed.”

Ke Li looked at the other party in despair: “Spare our lives.”

Not long after, the room fell silent.

The mutant had disappeared, if it weren’t for the pitiful broken study room door still lying on the floor, you wouldn’t even be able to tell it had been there.

The two players were also nowhere to be seen.

The only new addition was two fish lying on the kitchen floor.

The two fish were about the same size, lying flat on the floor, the same look of despondency in their eyes.

Who could have imagined that being caught by the visitor wouldn’t result in direct elimination, but instead being turned into salted fish.

It was too much of an insult!

Time ticked by minute by minute, the two fish lay on the floor, occasionally flopping around in an attempt to leave the kitchen and find the key, but finding it too difficult, they could only obediently continue lying there.

As the sun set in the west, the light inside the room gradually darkened, the house was as quiet as if there were no living beings inside at all.

After who knows how long, the two fish on the kitchen floor turned back into human form.

Ke Li grumbled as he stood up, glancing at the time and realizing that two hours had already passed, leaving little time remaining.

However, when he turned his head, intending to call out to Xue Li to hurry up and continue searching for the key, he found that Xue Li, who had also turned back to human form, had her hands resting on her abdomen, lying peacefully on the floor with her eyes closed.

Ke Li didn’t understand: “What are you doing?”

Xue Li kept her eyes closed: “I’m thinking.”

???

“This definitely isn’t an instance designed by Zhou Zhou, we must have gone the wrong way.”

Ke Li remained silent in response, instance names wouldn’t coincide, Xue Li was just fooling herself.

“No matter who designed it, let’s just clear it first before discussing, by the time you’ve been lying here, maybe we’ll have found the second key already.”

Xue Li opened her eyes and got up from the floor, no longer saying anything, but silently went to look for the key.

Night was about to fall, although the light inside the room was dim, they had an extremely bright lighting tool that could blind people, so their vision wasn’t really obstructed.

They had thoroughly searched the entire room on the surface, then the two started focusing on the details, not leaving a single suspicious spot unexamined, whether it was the floor or the walls.

Xue Li checked the few books placed in the study room, then carefully stared at the bookshelf and desk, feeling and knocking on them, discovering that when knocking on a certain spot on the desk, the sound was different from other areas.

She leaned in close to the desk and knocked a few more times, the sound it made wasn’t as crisp as other areas, muffled to an extent.

“Ke Li, come take a look, I may have found it!”

Xue Li called over Ke Li, who was lying on the wall knocking here and there, and the two examined the desktop together, though there didn’t seem to be any issues with the color or luster.

Ke Li took the unsharpened kitchen knife from the kitchen, though this knife couldn’t even cut a radish now, damaging the desktop would be a piece of cake.

After scraping off the varnish on the desktop, the problematic area did indeed seem to be filled with sawdust.

The two looked delighted, it really did seem to be the key without a doubt.

Before they could even remove the sawdust underneath, there was another knock-knock-knock at the door.

The two immediately stiffened, recalling the horror of being turned into salted fish.

What, here it comes again?

Ke Li suddenly remembered that the mission panel said “guests”, plural, meaning there was more than one visitor.

“Quick quick quick! Don’t worry about the person outside for now, just get the key first.” Xue Li urged, since no matter what they did the other party could get in anyway, obtaining the key first was the top priority.

Ke Li sped up his efforts, finally clearing out all the sawdust that had been filled in, but underneath there was no key, only a note.

【The second key is inside the visitor’s body, please keep at it!】

Xue Li: “……”

Ke Li: “……”

Ke Li’s hand holding the small note trembled slightly, he forcefully crumpled the small note into a ball, took a deep breath, and said through gritted teeth: “Let’s go get the key.”

Xue Li was also quite speechless, but she had one question: “What does it mean for the key to be inside the visitor’s body?”

When the door opened, Xue Li’s question was answered. Standing outside was a pale yellow teddy bear plushie about twenty-odd centimeters tall. Its adorable look and fluffy appearance made the two of them let down their guard slightly.

So the key was inside the teddy bear plushie?

The two glanced at each other, feeling that this visitor didn’t seem too scary, obtaining the key should be a piece of cake.

However, when they noticed the silver-white dinner knife the little bear was holding, their expressions cracked slightly.

Under the illumination of the bright lighting tool, the little bear’s eyes reflected two red beams of light like lasers. They saw it raise the small knife held in its round, chubby paw, and say in a wheezy voice: “Anyone touched by the knife will turn into various objects.”

The silver little knife was highlighted shining brightly by the lamplight, dazzlingly bright, but Xue Li and Ke Li looked at this little dinner knife without the slightest urge to laugh.

Three minutes later.

Xue Li sat on the floor gasping for breath, tightly grasping the hard-earned key in her hand.

The little bear looked plump and chubby, but was extremely agile in its movements, spending most of the time chasing the two around.

But with their combined efforts, and even at the sacrifice of Ke Li, they finally managed to kick away the dinner knife and capture the little bear, pulling the key out from the zipper on its back.

In the instant the dinner knife was kicked away, Ke Li turned into a chair.

The little bear that had its key taken disappeared on the spot, and the dinner knife disappeared along with it.

Having survived the ordeal, Xue Li sat on the floor, her gaze towards the chair beside her filled with complexity.

The brown rattan chair stood there silently, blending perfectly with the overall color scheme of the room, as if it had been there all along, showing no trace of having been a person.

Xue Li sniffled, feeling a bit tearful again, now she was the only one left.

“Brother~”

Xue Li gazed at the rattan chair with teary eyes, Ke Li had turned into this, would he still be able to revert back, or had he already been eliminated?

Previously being turned into salted fish at least meant he was still a living creature, but now he couldn’t even be considered that.

Xue Li sniffled and scooted closer to the rattan chair, she needed to carefully examine whether Ke Li could still be saved or not.

When she was about ten-odd centimeters away from the rattan chair, peaceful as time itself, two eyes suddenly emerged from the chair back.

The two eyes blinking in a daze on the chair back met Xue Li’s gaze directly.

Xue Li: !!!

“Ahhhhhhh! A ghost!”

Having a pair of eyes suddenly appear on the rattan chair so close sent an extremely strong visual shock, if Xue Li hadn’t remembered that this was the chair Ke Li had turned into, she would have kicked it over long ago.

Hiding far away by the window, Xue Li gazed at those lively eyes and really did tear up.

After all, she and Ke Li were blood siblings, once she got over the initial visual shock, she quickly recognized that these eyes belonged to Ke Li.

It was just that after turning into a chair, why had only the eyes recovered, looking so terrifying? Even though this was her brother, it really was terrifying.

“Ke Li?” Xue Li asked tentatively.

The eyes on the rattan chair blinked excitedly, Ke Li was still conscious, although only his eyes could move, but this also meant he hadn’t been eliminated.

Xue Li silently took a step back, she might need to take some time to get used to Ke Li’s current appearance.

This is just a game, the one in front of me is my own brother, we need to help each other out and get through this together… After muttering to herself for a while to mentally prepare, Xue Li finally approached the rattan chair with human eyes again.

Besides the strong initial visual impact, after looking for a while, it was probably, possibly, something she could get used to.

Xue Li gradually let her guard down, she just didn’t know how long it would take for him to fully recover looking at her brother’s current form. If he couldn’t recover, then in the remaining time, she would have to find the last key on her own, and then bring Ke Li the rattan chair with her to escape through the exit, that should still count as both of them clearing it successfully, right?

Xue Li made up her mind and began searching everywhere for the key. Before she could search for long, she suddenly heard Ke Li’s voice coming from the rattan chair.

“I can talk now, haha, I can finally talk now.”

Xue Li turned to look and saw that under the two eyes on the rattan chair, a mouth had appeared, opening and closing as it spoke.

Xue Li closed her eyes: …… It looks even more terrifying.

Ke Li didn’t know his sister’s thoughts, being confined in the chair unable to move at all was really too unbearable.

But now he could feel himself slowly recovering, at this rate, he should be back to human form very soon.

Xue Li continued searching everywhere for the key, while the immobile Ke Li could only help by calling out.

“Check over there, and over there, behind you, behind that spot, don’t go yet, you haven’t checked under there.”

Xue Li took a deep breath and leaned down to look under the sofa.

“It’s too dark under there, lift up the sofa and check, and over to the side too, maybe we should disassemble the sofa and look inside, the key could be hidden in there, and also… hey, what are you doing!”

After moving the rattan chair into the study room, Xue Li felt the whole world had become much quieter.

“Creak… creak…” Strange grating sounds came from inside the study.

After a while, the rattan chair actually came out on its own, Ke Li was indeed recovering, the chair’s four legs could move, and he slowly moved himself out, facing Xue Li’s expressionless face, wanting to give her a good lecture as the elder brother.

But Xue Li just moved him back into the study room, this time even closing the door.

As he gradually recovered, Ke Li loudly lectured his cruel sister from inside.

Xue Li continued searching for the key against the background noise of his nagging.

One key was in the bedroom, and another was found in the study via a clue brought in by the visitor, so the last key was most likely in the living room or kitchen, those two areas were the focus.

Two hours later, Ke Li had finally regained human form, but before he could feel happy about it, there was another knock at the door…

“Knock, knock, knock.”

The shock was evident on both their faces, could it be a mistake, it’s coming again?

*

For the first batch of players in the【Cozy Cottage】instance, the clear rate was less than one-tenth, extremely brutal.

Ke Li and Xue Li ran out of time and failed to clear it.

Sitting on a bench by the street in the Beginner Village, similar looks of four parts fear, three parts doubt, and three parts bewilderment on their faces.

The two tilted their heads up to the sky, not saying a word.

After who knows how long, Xue Li finally spoke: “I feel like I might not be suited for this game.”

Ke Li: “I have the same feeling.”

Xue Li: “That instance was too difficult, I feel like I participated in a horror, suspense, escape room, adventure battle, survival game.”

Ke Li added: “With role-playing too.” Turning into salted fish, chairs, teacups and so on.

“Was that instance really designed by Zhou Zhou?”

“It seems so, right?”

“Why did we have to do that instance?”

Having just come out of the instance, Xue Li only felt like her brain was a muddled mess, her reactions had become much duller, it took her a long while to recall anything.

Ke Li didn’t know either, he tried recalling what happened before entering the instance.

“It seems like it was to support Zhou Zhou.”

Xue Li: “……”

Ke Li: “……”

“Sigh~”

Neither of them was willing to recall the events that took place inside the instance.

Not to mention the disheartening events of turning into salted fish and various pieces of furniture, even the later visitors really left them speechless.

The third visitor was a little dog, at first glance Xue Li was even charmed by its watery eyes and big ears.

However, when that dog came in from outside, they realized its cute appearance was only on the surface, this adorable little dog about twenty-odd centimeters tall, only slightly shorter than the teddy bear, had a body over one meter long, severely disproportionate.

After the door closed, this little dog that looked very long, actually grew three heads, and every time it opened its mouth it revealed a maw full of sharp fangs.

This was clearly a hellhound! With its fierce fangs and sharp claws, neither of them escaped, each getting bitten by one of the hellhound’s mouths and turning into teacups.

After completing its task, the hellhound left, only leaving behind a red and white teacup lying motionlessly on the floor, awaiting the time to pass.

Two hours later they reverted back to human form.

The continuous blows had not made them lose their fighting spirit, although there was little time left, the two stubbornly found the last key.

When they mustered the courage to go retrieve the first key from the bedroom, they discovered that key had never been inserted into the lock at all.

Originally thinking the severed hands must have taken the key, the two overcame their fear, stamping their feet in anguished screams while picking through the severed hands one by one searching for the key, but they couldn’t find it anywhere in the bedroom.

At the last moment, they finally saw the key hanging from the bedroom light fixture.

But it was too late, the twelve-hour time limit had already been reached, they could only watch helplessly as the fruits of victory slipped away before their eyes, being sent back out.

It would have been better if they had just been eliminated from the start.

Although this was the shortest instance they had ever experienced in terms of time, the two felt extraordinarily exhausted, completely drained of both physical and mental energy.

Simply put, physically and mentally fatigued.

After being revived, the two silently sat on the bench, clearly having enough time left to do another instance, yet neither of them moved.

A gentle breeze blew by, the two still unmoving, like two human-shaped stones placed on the bench, passing players would occasionally turn back to look at them, wondering what those two were doing.

After who knows how long, their mission panels kept ringing with notifications.

Originally they weren’t going to bother with it, wanting to take the time to reflect on life, but the notifications were set to the highest priority, the kind only given for messages from their closest friends.

Ke Li sluggishly opened his mission panel to find it was actually a message from Zhou Zhou.

He had seen in the backend that Xue Li and Ke Li had also entered the instance he designed, so he wanted to call them over to inquire about their experience.

The two silently read the message, silently gazing at the “oh” at the end of the sentence, normally seeing that kind of wording might seem cute, but now, recalling the text prompts from inside the instance, recalling that little note, the word seemed especially hateful.

Xue Li took a deep breath and sincerely asked Ke Li: “Can we go beat up Zhou Zhou now?”

Ke Li didn’t hesitate: “I think we can.”

The two immediately perked up and transported to the address Zhou Zhou had given.

After sending the message, Zhou Zhou said to Alvia sitting on the sofa: “I called Ke Li and Xue Li over, your suggestion was completely unhelpful, I want to hear their suggestions.”

During testing, the only suggestion Alvia gave was to absolutely not let anyone know you are Zhou Zhou, otherwise you’re likely to get beaten up.

That could hardly be considered a suggestion at all, Zhou Zhou had no way to adopt it, clearly Resentful Woman and Locke had both said the instance he designed was really good.

But coincidentally, Ke Li and Xue Li happened to be among the first batch of players to participate, Zhou Zhou really wanted to know what their thoughts were on the instance.

When Zhou Zhou opened the door to welcome them, the originally gung-ho pair sucked in a breath of cold air upon seeing the interior of the house and stumbled back a few steps after catching sight of it.

Their actions were completely in sync, as if they had seen something inconceivable.

Zhou Zhou curiously followed their line of sight inside, but besides Alvia sitting on the sofa, there didn’t seem to be anything too surprising.

Xue Li and Ke Li gazed at the familiar room layout and decorations, practically thinking they hadn’t even left the instance yet.

Why was this place exactly the same as the instance setting, were they hallucinating?

For the sake of convenience, Zhou Zhou had directly used his own home as the template for the instance: ???