Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 134

Chapter 134: Dark Shadow of the Ancient Temple 1

Memories flooded towards Zeus like a tidal wave. He was only planning to modify Zhou Zhou’s thoughts, but unexpectedly received another part of Zhou Zhou’s memories.

Passively receiving the memories only took a short instant, but Zeus stood beside Zhou Zhou’s bed in a daze for a long time.

“How could this be,” Zeus muttered, looking at Zhou Zhou’s peaceful sleeping face. He then suddenly disappeared from the spot as if running away.

He was not seen for several days after that. Zhou Zhou had been modifying instances during these few days and found it a bit unaccustomed without Zeus clinging to him.

“He should be fine. All the programs are running normally. Maybe he’s suddenly interested in something else and went to study it. This has happened before.”

“But he would usually tell me first. This time he didn’t say anything before disappearing. Could it be…” Zhou Zhou lowered his head in thought. “The rebellious phase has finally arrived?”

Alvia: “…Ever since I knew him, he’s been rebelling every day.”

Zhou Zhou recalled their usual bickering and felt that did seem to be the case.

Alvia was used to it. After all, when Zeus wasn’t clinging to Zhou Zhou, in the game world, there were only the two of them in Zhou Zhou’s home.

No one else making noise, this kind of life was really nice.

Alvia sat in the living room, feeling the long-missed tranquility. Lifting his eyes, he could see the person he wanted to see, it was indeed very comfortable.

If only it could always be like this…

This thought had just flashed by when a knock on the door broke the rare peace.

Alvia: “…”

“Coming.” Zhou Zhou enthusiastically ran to open the door.

“Zhou Zhou!”

Outside stood two people with dark skin. Their wide grins revealed a row of prominent white teeth. Zhou Zhou was stunned for a moment before asking in disbelief, “Qian Le? Eddie?”

“Hey, it’s us. Long time no see, you’ve even bought a house in the game!”

“We messaged you but you never replied, so we got your address from Xue Li and came straight here.”

Zhou Zhou was very delighted, but also very puzzled, “Why did you two become so dark?”

Originally, both could be considered young and handsome, but now their entire features were blackened to the point where their handsome looks were no longer visible. If they had come to find Zhou Zhou at night, he probably wouldn’t even be able to see them.

The two of them ruefully looked at each other, appearing very coordinated.

“Didn’t we say before that we were going for training? There’s training like this every year, everyone is used to it. But this year, not only was the training time extended, the intensity was also extremely high. We barely managed to get through it.”

Just talking about it brought a flood of bitter tears.

The training did seem extremely arduous, causing the two originally somewhat youthful young men to mature considerably. Originally, their physiques didn’t seem much different from Zhou Zhou’s, but now they were much more muscular.

Zhou Zhou felt a bit envious. Although he could have Zeus turn him into any animal or freely modify his height and weight, his essence would not change, meaning his original data would always maintain this appearance.

Modifying the data could make him become even more muscular than them, like Heya’s physique, which he could completely achieve. But Qian Le and Eddie’s physiques were the result of solid training, which was completely different from simply modifying data.

However, once he became human, he could also achieve it. There was plenty of room for training in terms of both height and weight.

He didn’t know what kind of training the school had.

While Zhou Zhou was imagining his life at school, a voice suddenly came from behind: “Why are you just standing at the door? Aren’t you going to invite them in to sit?”

Alvia was standing behind Zhou Zhou, his hands casually resting on Zhou Zhou’s shoulders, a seemingly casual gesture that revealed an indescribable intimacy.

“You, what are you doing here?” Qian Le was very surprised. His black and white eyes widened, his expression of shock becoming more pronounced.

“Don’t tell me you two are together!” Eddie immediately guessed, after all, he was the first to notice that Al was interested in Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou admitted very readily, “We are indeed together.”

Qian Le’s eyes widened even more, looking at Zhou Zhou like his painstakingly protected little lamb had been stolen by a wolf, skinned, and turned into lamb skewers.

And then this lamb skewer had willingly delivered itself to the wolf’s mouth!

Eddie, on the other hand, was quite regretful. He had originally felt that Zhou Zhou would make a great partner in all aspects, but now it seemed there was no hope. And this guy was even staking his claim as the dominant partner?

Seeing the other’s attitude as the man of the house, naturally leading them into Zhou Zhou’s home and even asking what they wanted to eat.

It was really a bit infuriating, making one want to bite him.

Qian Le glared at Alvia again and again. In the end, he was even glared at by Zhou Zhou. He angrily muttered, “I just said we should come here. Why didn’t Xue Li and the others want to come? They only gave us the address. It turns out they were afraid of disturbing you two.”

Zhou Zhou: …Probably not the reason why Xue Li and the others didn’t want to come.

Eddie, however, quickly accepted this: “Zhou Zhou, do you have time recently? Let’s go do some missions together.”

Alvia guessed that these two had probably just come to find Zhou Zhou after returning from training, and didn’t know that the current Zhou Zhou no longer needed to do missions.

“Zhou Zhou is already an intermediate player, he doesn’t need to do missions anymore.”

“An intermediate player? Zhou Zhou, you’re already an intermediate player?” Qian Le was very surprised.

Eddie opened the forum, prepared to search for information about intermediate players. But he didn’t even need to search, the homepage already had many posts related to Zhou Zhou.

After Eddie read through a few of them, his gaze towards Zhou Zhou also changed. The great Demon Lord mentioned here was really the same Zhou Zhou he knew?

Worlds apart.

Qian Le then realized his oversight. He looked at Alvia, “You’ve been doing missions with Zhou Zhou for so long, you’re not an intermediate player either, are you? No way.”

Eddie: If Qian Le gets beaten up, it’s his own fault.

Zhou Zhou also felt Qian Le’s tone was a bit strange, but his trust in his friend prevented him from overthinking it. He subconsciously wanted to defend Alvia.

But Alvia spoke before Zhou Zhou could open his mouth: “Sorry, I’m also an intermediate player.”

Zhou Zhou was very surprised: “You’re also an intermediate player? When did this happen?”

“For a while now, but I’ve been too busy lately to design instances.”

“Wow, then we can design instances together in the future.”

“Okay.”

Qian Le didn’t expect to inadvertently make things worse. However, since he was just mouthing off and saw how Zhou Zhou was defending Al verbally, he naturally extinguished the fire.

“So you won’t be doing missions with us anymore?” Qian Le was a bit disappointed, but thinking that Zhou Zhou no longer needed to and that he could gain points much faster by designing instances, there was really no need for him to painstakingly do missions anymore.

“No, I’ve always wanted to do missions together with everyone. Although designing instances is very rewarding, I’m happiest when doing missions with everyone.”

Alvia didn’t speak. Although he only wanted to be with Zhou Zhou, he still hoped Zhou Zhou could do what he liked according to his own wishes. Since he liked being in crowded places, there was nothing he could do about it.

Qian Le was delighted: “Then when do you have time? We can do a mission together. We’re on vacation for the next two days, available anytime.”

Zhou Zhou thought for a bit: “How about tomorrow? It’s the weekend tomorrow, Xue Li and Ke Li are also off. Why don’t we all go do an instance together?”

They arranged to meet Qian Le and Eddie tomorrow evening, because Alvia also had to work tomorrow, only having time in the evening.

Zhou Zhou sent messages to Xue Li and Ke Li as well. Originally, Zhou Zhou wanted to ask if Heya would come too, but Alvia stopped him.

“If you call him, he’ll definitely come, but he’ll just suffer. It’s better not to.”

Originally, Zhou Zhou had only thought that it would be fun for everyone to be together. But thinking about how Heya was afraid of ghosts and would definitely suffer if he came, it was better not to. He could invite him next time for a mecha game or fighting game.

After arranging the time to do the instance, Zhou Zhou was in a great mood, humming a tune he didn’t know where he had heard, designing his new instance.

It felt like it had been a long time since he had done an instance with everyone.

The next evening, everyone gathered.

Zhou Zhou and Alvia arrived at the meeting place first. Qian Le and Eddie soon arrived too. The two of them had coincidentally met in the training wilderness and endured the difficult training period together, so their relationship seemed pretty good.

Xue Li and Ke Li were the last to arrive.

After all six had gathered, Zhou Zhou formed a party and selected an instance. On the selection interface, there was a blank star. If clicked, it would turn into a black star, representing a real person playing, with higher difficulty.

Before selecting, Zhou Zhou asked his teammates for their opinion.

Apart from Alvia, everyone unanimously decided to choose a relatively simple instance. But for them, what difference did simple or not make? It seemed they would be the ones suffering either way.

Following everyone’s opinion, Zhou Zhou directly started matching for an instance.

Following the map given by the instance matching, they took various means of transportation, but ended up going further and further off the beaten path.

“Are we doing the instance in these deep mountains and old forests? Could we have taken the wrong way?” Xue Li looked around. They had been walking in the deep mountains and old forests for a long time, but still hadn’t reached the mission location.

“No, we’re almost there.” Zhou Zhou checked the map’s directions and said, gazing ahead.

Ten minutes later, everyone stepped out of the forest and saw a group of people waving at them in the distance.

“Who are they? Do you know them?” Eddie shaded his eyes, feeling that the people in the distance seemed excited, jumping and waving vigorously, as if afraid they wouldn’t be seen.

“NPCs probably, must be related to our instance mission,” Ke Li guessed.

As they approached, the group immediately came to greet them. They were dressed in coarse hemp clothing, the exposed skin all very rough, as if weathered by wind and frost.

Moreover, their hairstyles and clothing styles looked very rustic. Zhou Zhou recognized at a glance that these people’s attire was from ancient times.

Upon seeing them, these villagers appeared eagerly: “The masters have finally arrived, our village is saved!”

Qian Le was completely confused: “Masters? What masters?”

The villagers seemed not to have heard Qian Le’s question, surrounding the group and moving forward.

“Wonderful, you are the saviors of our village.”

“With the masters here, those filthy things will definitely be eliminated, restoring our peace.”

Alvia heard the key word from them: “What filthy things?”

An elderly white-haired man gazed at the nearby mountain peak, his face full of reminiscence: “It started about a month ago…”

Apparently, their village had always maintained the temple in the rear mountain, often going there to pray. If anything happened in the village, they would also ask the monks from the temple to perform rituals. Most of those monks were also born in the village.

A month ago, they discovered that all the monks living in the temple had disappeared.

They had originally thought the monks had some business and left, but there was no trace of them for several days. Some even saw strange black shadows in the temple at night.

“We first thought the temple might have been robbed, with the robbers killing everyone, but we couldn’t find any corpses at all, and the incense offering money in the temple was untouched. There must be some unclean thing in the temple, so we spared no expense to invite masters from outside the village to eliminate those filthy things.”

The old man spoke clearly while narrating the details, his eyes filled with tears.

After listening to the old man, Zhou Zhou asked: “What did the black shadows look like, and where were they seen? Do you have a map of the temple?”

The old man did not answer any of Zhou Zhou’s string of questions. He only held Zhou Zhou’s hand, urging him to definitely eliminate those evil spirits.

Alvia separated the old man clinging to Zhou Zhou’s hand: “It seems our mission is confirmed.”

By now, they had reached the foot of the mountain. Although not very tall, the mountain peak allowed a direct view of the temple at the top as well as the high pagoda slanting behind it. A gentle breeze carried the melodious sound of temple bells ringing.

“That’s the temple up there. Be careful, masters,” the villagers earnestly cautioned.

Xue Li noticed that while the six of them stood together, those villagers were standing far behind: “Um, aren’t you all going up? At least send a guide?”

The villagers waved at them: “Be careful, masters.”

Xue Li: …So it’s just us going up, while they’re only here to give the prologue?

Ke Li looked amused: “They’re just NPCs. It’s pretty good that they’ve told you the mission content and background.”

Xue Li: “I just saw them full of heartfelt tears, looking so worried and sad for us. But in reality, look how fast they’re running away, they’re already out of sight.”

As if being chased, the villagers waved at them as they receded further and further into the distance, as if standing on an automatic conveyor belt. The scene did look quite comical.

“Alright, let’s go up. That should be the location for our mission this time.” Eddie looked at the temple on the mountain, raring to go.

The six ascended the stairs. From the first level to the last, Zhou Zhou counted in his heart, a total of one hundred levels.

As they stepped onto the final stair, the mission panel also sounded.

【Instance Name: Dark Shadow of the Ancient Temple】

【Mission Content: Eliminate all ghosts in the temple.】

Xue Li’s face fell: “There really are ghosts inside.”