Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 130

Chapter 130: New Love Academy 8

Alvia opened his eyes and found himself leaning against the bed, with a cool wall behind him, and darkness in front of him.

After adjusting to the darkness, the surroundings were very familiar, it was the dormitory of the Love Academy. On the other three beds in the dormitory, there was also a person sitting, and at the moment, those people seemed dead, with no movement in their chests.

He lowered his gaze, his eyes falling on a strange white creature on his lap. The fluffy white creature had a pair of red eyes and a pair of white wings on its back. Upon meeting Alvia’s gaze, the little pet brightened its eyes and smiled cutely.

This was a popular pet in the Nightmare City recently, with a high price. It could block one instance of damage for the player at a critical moment, and with its cute appearance, it was very popular among female players.

Alvia reached out and scratched the little pet’s chin, and its fiery red eyes immediately narrowed in comfort. Alvia tentatively called out, “Zhou Zhou?”

Sure enough, the snow-white little pet immediately nodded.

Considering that he might be recognized by others in the instance, Zhou Zhou had simply turned into a pet for Alvia the player to carry around.

“How did you become like this?” Although Alvia asked this, his hands kept moving, constantly stroking and scratching the pet.

The fluffy little pet sprawled on Alvia’s lap like a pancake and said, “I’m afraid of being recognized, and this way, you can go do missions without having to worry about me. No matter where you go, I’ll follow.”

Alvia laughed softly and stroked Zhou Zhou’s fluffy ears, his expression affectionate.

Suddenly, his smile disappeared completely, and his cold, sharp gaze turned towards the bed on the other side.

The person who had been motionless just a moment ago suddenly sat up, waving his hands in front of him and murmuring, “What is this place, why is it so dark?”

Then he fumbled and pulled out a flashlight, turning it on.

The moment the light came on, it shone directly on Alvia. Seeing a cold, icy face in the darkness was startling, no matter how good-looking the face was.

At the same time, the people on the other two beds also woke up.

The lights in the room were turned on, and the other three people squinted uncomfortably.

“So, we’re all players who entered the instance and were assigned to the same room,” one of the players inquired, but his gaze kept wandering to the pet in Alvia’s hand.

The other two players also couldn’t help but look at the little white fluffy creature.

Seeing Alvia give him a cold look, the other player boldly asked directly, “Is this a dreammare? I heard one costs 200,000 points.”

“200,000! That’s so expensive,” another player exclaimed in surprise.

The way the few of them looked at Alvia changed instantly. Anyone who could afford such an expensive pet must be a formidable figure.

The player who had initially taken out the flashlight wanted to tease the little pet, but as soon as he reached out his hand, Alvia avoided it.

The player awkwardly withdrew his hand and asked, “Well, since we’ve been assigned to the same room, there’s a chance we’ll have to do future missions together too. Why don’t we exchange names first? I’ll start, my name is Jian Dan.”

“That name really is simple. I’m Ah Yu.”

“Just call me Ah Feng.”

After the three of them had each said their names, they all looked at Alvia.

“I’m Al,” he said, looking down at the little creature nestled in his arms. “This is Zhou Zhou.”

Zhou Zhou also cooperated by raising his little paw and waving it.

The three of them all stared at the raised paw in unison, their expressions quite indescribable.

“Al, you gave your pet the name Zhou Zhou?”

“You must have done it on purpose, right?”

“Isn’t that a bit…?” Ah Yu didn’t finish his sentence, but the other two nodded in agreement.

This was the instance designed by Zhou Zhou himself, and yet Al had given his own pet the name Zhou Zhou. Was he bearing a deep grudge? Weren’t they afraid Zhou Zhou would find out and get angry, taking revenge within the instance?

Alvia understood their implied meaning and stroked Zhou Zhou’s head. “It’s fine.” After all, the person himself was right here.

Since the great god said it was fine, they wouldn’t meddle any further.

For now, the mission panel hadn’t shown any activity yet. Someone suggested going outside to take a look, since staying here wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Alvia didn’t say anything and quietly followed the three of them out.

Once they left the dormitory, they found that there were quite a lot of people outside, with people coming and going along the hallway, all equally cautious.

“Could everyone here be a player?” Ah Feng stopped a few people and asked, and incredibly, they really were all players.

Without any prompts given, the players present didn’t know what to do.

“We’ll probably have to wait until a certain event is triggered before getting mission prompts. Let’s go outside and take a look,” someone said.

Among the four of them, regardless of temperament or appearance, Alvia didn’t seem like an ordinary person. However, since he spoke so little, Ah Feng gradually became the leader of their little four-person team.

They easily left the building. In the nighttime campus, a gentle breeze blew, the lights were bright, and there were quite a few players coming and going around them, with noisy sounds coming from all directions. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

“Which way should we go?” Jian Dan looked around and asked.

“The map here is quite large, and we don’t know what place or event might trigger a mission. Let’s just wander around and get familiar with the area first. If something happens later, it’ll be easier to escape too,” Ah Feng said with the air of an experienced player.

So the four of them strolled around the campus, and whenever they encountered a secluded corner, they’d comment that they could hide there in case of any danger.

During this, Ah Yu also ran into one of his companions, they had entered the instance together, but had woken up in different places. His companion looked a bit fierce, but had a nice personality. Since he was completely bald, everyone just called him Bald Guy, and he had woken up in an office in the school building.

One more person joined their little team, and at the same time, they discussed whether waking up in different places might have some special meaning, but for now the situation was unclear, so they couldn’t determine anything.

Alvia didn’t participate in the discussion, hugging Zhou Zhou and following behind the others. He seemed to be surrounded by an aura that warned strangers to keep their distance, so the others didn’t dare chat with him either.

Zhou Zhou, who had turned into a small pet, was very interested, perking up his little body to listen to the people in front talking.

“Over here! Come over here quickly!” The group discussing heard someone shouting loudly, so they immediately headed towards the source of the voice.

Past the woods was a lake, and there were already quite a few people gathered by the shore. Ah Yu and the others had a hard time squeezing their way to the very front.

Two bodies that had been recovered were laid out on the ground by the lakeside, a male and a female. From their appearance, they seemed to have just become adults. Their skin was bloated from being soaked, and their entire bodies looked swollen.

“I woke up nearby, saw something floating on the lake surface, so I took a small boat over to check it out. Turned out to be two corpses, so I figured it must be related to the mission and quickly hauled them out,” an excited young man with dark skin said.

“Are you also a player?” someone asked.

The young man grinned widely. “Yeah, how could I retrieve corpses if I wasn’t a player?”

The players looked at the two corpses on the ground, appearing utterly terrifying under the lights, and then at the young man’s bright smile. He had hauled them up all by himself? His heart must be huge.

“Weren’t you scared?” Ah Yu couldn’t help but ask.

“Nah, what’s there to be afraid of? I’m studying forensics, so I’ve seen plenty of corpses. These two are actually quite tidy. You guys don’t know, I used to follow my teacher for internships and saw so many corpses that had already rotted, covered in…”

“Okay, okay, we believe you,” Ah Feng quickly interrupted him.

“Since you’re studying forensics, can you tell how these two died?” someone asked.

“I did a simple examination before calling you all over. There are no obvious external injuries, and their fingers, mouths and noses are clean, so they most likely drowned. But if you want to know more specifics, we’d have to do an autopsy.”

“An autopsy? You want to autopsy corpses in a game?”

The young man paused. “Yeah, it doesn’t seem quite right. Never mind then, this is just a game after all, and these two aren’t really dead.”

The young man walked away from the bodies and wiped his hands, ready to go elsewhere.

At that moment, all the players received a message on their mission panels.

【Main Mission: Play your role well and find the killer who caused the deaths of the two students by the lake.】

The players simultaneously reached out and grabbed the young man’s collar from behind, politely but firmly pulling him back.

“You said an autopsy, right? You’re the professional, so you do it.”

The young man looked at them speechlessly, holding up his empty hands. “The main issue is I don’t have any tools.”

After all, who brings autopsy knives when playing games?

“I have a knife! You can use it.”

“How are you going to use a cleaver? You sure you want to do an autopsy and not just dismember them?”

“Will a sword work? I have a sword.”

The young man stared speechlessly at the pile of weapons the players offered him, he couldn’t use any of those.

A female player standing in the crowd suddenly spoke up, “There’s no need for an autopsy. These two drowned, and the mission panel says someone caused their deaths, so what we need to do is look for clues from their identities and the people they knew, not perform autopsies on NPCs in the game. Most games don’t do that.”

“How do you know?” someone asked.

The female player said expressionlessly, “I’m a forensic pathologist.”

Her serious and earnest demeanor seemed far more convincing than the silly young man’s.

Besides, watching the full process of an autopsy in the game would really be too much for them.

Several players found the student IDs on the two deceased players’ bodies.

One was named Ding Yi, the other Lu Er, players were mocking how lazily those names had been given.

Both students were art majors in the same class. The student IDs only had this information, and some players had already left to search for clues in the art department classrooms.

There were dozens of players present. The players who had initially found the student IDs wanted to take them and leave, but the others stopped them. After all, the student IDs representing their identities were an important clue, so if they took them away, wouldn’t the other players be missing a clue?

“I was kind enough to tell you all the information on them since I found them first. Why can’t I take them with me?” The player said unhappily. If he had known, he would have secretly taken the student IDs and not told these people anything.

“In that case, the one who first discovered them should be the player who hauled the corpses out,” someone pointed out.

The dark-skinned young man belatedly looked up. “What did you say?” He looked completely clueless.

At the same time, all players in the school received the mission prompt, so more and more people gradually came rushing towards the lake, gathering in greater numbers. The player holding the student IDs had no chance of easily leaving now.

“So what do you all suggest? Who should we give the student IDs to?” the player deliberately asked.

In reality, everyone wanted to take them for themselves, but there were too many people around, so no one dared to claim them outright.

The situation reached an impasse. Alvia stood in the crowd, his gaze fixed on the two corpses. Suddenly, he stepped forward, bent down, and used two fingers to retrieve a student ID from the deceased male student’s pocket.

“How is there another one?” The player holding the two student IDs checked his own, looking at them in surprise.

“It was probably set up this way to prevent situations like this from happening, allowing the IDs to be obtained repeatedly,” Alvia said, holding the student ID.

The players then experimented and found that each player could only take one. If they formed teams, each team could take one ID, thus avoiding conflicts. Many players took something and hurriedly left.

“Al, let’s go too,” Jian Dan said, reminding Alvia who was still standing there with no intention of leaving.

Alvia stroked Zhou Zhou’s long fur, his gaze lingering on a certain player for a moment. “You all go on ahead.”

Jian Dan hesitated for a moment, but then realized that they had simply woken up in the same dormitory and hadn’t agreed to form a team. So it was normal for someone to want to leave and act alone now.

He exchanged a glance with the others, then said to Alvia, “Alright then, be careful on your own. We’ll go ahead.”

Players came and went in succession. Alvia chose a spot relatively far from the lake but still within sight and sat down, carefully grooming Zhou Zhou’s fur while occasionally glancing towards a certain area of the lake.

This was the first time Zhou Zhou knew how comforting it felt to have his fur stroked. He sprawled out like a pancake on Alvia’s lap, narrowing his eyes in enjoyment as he lazily asked, “Why didn’t you go look for clues with them?”

Alvia: “It’s not convenient, and finding clues isn’t urgent.”

Zhou Zhou swished his tail and let out an “Oh.” Now that Alvia was a player, he wouldn’t give him any hints, or it would violate the game rules.

“Speaking of which,” Alvia suddenly asked, “where did Zeus go?”

Zeus?

The lazy, pancake-like white creature suddenly puffed up into a ball and bounced up.

“Zeus! Zeus is still waiting for us.”

“Where is he?”

Zhou Zhou lowered his head in distress. “I don’t know. When we were preparing to switch instances, Zeus said he didn’t want to stay invisible anymore. I suggested he could turn into a pet like me, so he could openly follow you. Then Zeus happily went off, saying he needed to prepare. I don’t know what form he’s taken now.”

“Let’s hurry and find him.”

Alvia picked up the bounced-off Zhou Zhou again. “Since he didn’t come find us himself, he probably found something more interesting. No need to rush, we can look for him slowly.”

After saying that, he sat back down.

Zhou Zhou didn’t understand but kept worrying about Zeus’ whereabouts, frequently craning his neck to look around with an unsettled air.

Alvia sighed. “Alright, we’ll go look. Zeus definitely knows where we are.”

“Of course I know that, but Zeus definitely hopes we’ll go find him.”

Zhou Zhou wagged his fluffy, pettable tail. Alvia couldn’t resist giving it a few strokes.

Standing up while holding Zhou Zhou, Alvia glanced towards the lake again, taking a long look before leaving with Zhou Zhou in his arms.

“Let me walk on my own.” Zhou Zhou suggested. Although turning into a dreammare had made his weight and size smaller, being carried all the time was still tiring.

Alvia had no intention of letting go. “No, the ground is dirty.”

Zhou Zhou: ???There shouldn’t be any dust in the game world unless it’s a specially set scene requirement.

They hadn’t gone far when a female player approached them, seeming lost as she looked around bewilderedly.

Upon seeing Alvia, her eyes lit up and she came running over.

“Wait, could you tell me where the art gallery is?”

Initially, the distance was too far for the female player to see clearly. Only after getting closer did she notice the dreammare Alvia was holding, immediately delighted as she rushed over to pet it.

“So cute!”

Before the female player could reach out to Zhou Zhou, Alvia dodged her hand.

He had moved so quickly that the player didn’t even realize he had deliberately avoided her. She took another step forward, intending to pet the little pet’s head. This time, Alvia slowed his movements somewhat but still didn’t let her touch a single hair on Zhou Zhou.

The female player: “……”

“It’s so adorable, just let me pet it a little. Why are you being so stingy?”

Alvia showed no reaction and even used his arm to block Zhou Zhou’s curious red eyes from the scene.

“You…I’ll be able to save up enough points to buy one soon too.” The player fumed.

Alvia: “Then go buy your own.”

Don’t covet others’.

In the presence of players, Zhou Zhou wouldn’t speak, since he was currently a pet and could only silently watch the show.

“Didn’t you want to ask for directions? That way.”

Hearing this, the female player paused. After all, he was giving her directions, so she couldn’t keep getting angry at him.

“The art gallery is that way?”

“No, there are signposts that way, go look for yourself.”

After saying that, Alvia walked past her with Zhou Zhou in his arms.

The female player clenched her fists and made a few gestures towards Alvia’s back.

Don’t let me run into you again next time!

Yet Alvia seemed to have eyes on the back of his head, suddenly turning to give her a cold look while she was gesturing.

The female player: “……”

So scary!

Zhou Zhou was held securely in Alvia’s arms. He looked up at Alvia’s jawline and somehow felt a bit pleased, even though Alvia’s actions just now were very stereotypically masculine.

Alvia noticed Zhou Zhou’s change in emotion and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Zhou Zhou said as he leaned his head against Alvia’s chest, happily swishing his tail.

Players flocked towards the art gallery and the building housing the art department, causing many to get stuck at the entrance and stairwells, unable to enter. Those in front cursed while those behind shoved forward, creating chaos worse than a vegetable market.

Alvia passed by while looking for Zeus, never intending to go inside. With so many people crammed together, there was nothing to see anyway.

He even spotted Ah Feng and the others squeezed in the stairwell, their faces distorted from being pressed against each other.

Just as everyone was jammed together, a ringing sound suddenly echoed across the campus.

Alvia stopped in his tracks, listened to the bell with a thoughtful expression.

“Is this…the class bell?”