Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 138

Chapter 138: Dark Shadow of the Ancient Temple 5

One was Alvia. After all, his lover had been harassed, even though he knew this was part of the storyline and the other person was just a lifeless NPC, he still felt unhappy about it. Alvia, who was already exceptionally cold, had an aura that was fully unleashed. Even though the ghost had been captured, none of the players present dared to move.

It was only after Zhou Zhou went up to him and said something in his ear that his demeanor finally softened.

The other was Xue Li, whose face was two feet long, exuding a thick resentful aura that was even more terrifying than the ghost.

Ke Li sighed, “Earlier when Zhou Zhou was standing behind you, I guessed that ghost was going after Zhou Zhou and bumped into you by chance. Didn’t you think about your appearance… Oww!!!”

Xue Li twisted Ke Li’s arm without any expression on her face, and Ke Li’s painful scream made everyone tremble and back away.

After “executing” the talkative Ke Li, Xue Li slowly raised her head and threatened, “Nothing happened just now, there was no lecherous ghost, and I didn’t say anything either, understand?”

The players quickly nodded, afraid of being “executed” like Ke Li if they were slow.

Afterwards, Xue Li and Alvia were like unstoppable forces, easily subduing the next three ghosts they encountered. The Tousled Hair Ghost, the Rakshasa Ghost, and the Big Head Ghost.

Everyone knew that Alvia was very powerful, but they didn’t expect that the enraged Xue Li was also not to be trifled with, grabbing the Tousled Hair Ghost’s hair and swinging it around several times.

Even Ke Li, who was holding his arm, was dumbfounded.

At this point, they had eliminated six ghosts, leaving four remaining to complete the mission.

As the sky gradually brightened, they searched the temple for a long time but couldn’t find the remaining ghosts.

“There’s still one place we haven’t looked,” Zhou Zhou said, looking at the tall tower not far from the temple. He had also thought about this tower last night, but it was too dark then. They kept finding ghosts in the temple, so they never had time to go there.

Now that it was bright, and they couldn’t find any here, they might as well go to that tower and take a look.

There was a back door leading out of the temple, and a winding path led up from there. In ten minutes, they reached the base of the tower.

This tower had nine floors and was built with blue bricks. It didn’t seem to be completed yet, as the inside was bare, without even a ceiling or painted beams, just a barren space.

The tower wasn’t very tall. The first floor could barely accommodate all nine of them standing, and the side staircase made of blue bricks was small and cramped, so the higher they went, the fewer people it could hold.

Originally, Zhou Zhou was going to go up first since he had the most ghost-catching talismans. As long as he could stick them onto the ghosts, they would succeed.

But he was stopped by the trio, who wanted to go up and explore first.

“Ever since we entered the instance, we haven’t done anything and have just been following you. Although there’s a high chance we’ll pass by doing so, we still feel a bit uneasy inside. This time, let us go up and explore.”

Seeing their shared attitude, Zhou Zhou’s goodwill towards them increased a bit. “But if you go up, there might be danger.”

They might even get eliminated.

The three players were quite nonchalant about it. “If you’re talking about danger, you’d face the same danger going up first. Besides, even if we do get eliminated, it just means our strength isn’t enough yet.”

Zhou Zhou liked making friends and was friendly to players with good personalities. Since they insisted, he gave them a talisman to stick onto any ghost they encountered.

These talismans were down to four, with only Zhou Zhou and Xue Li having them. In this instance, they could be considered two completely unrelated teams, as the mission didn’t require them to form a party.

Currently, the credit for obtaining items and capturing ghosts all went to the other team. In fact, after joining them, the progress of the three players’ missions had also been gradually increasing, meaning they could also pass by just stubbornly sticking with them.

However, they didn’t play games just to gain points or levels but to enhance their spiritual power, so facing difficulties head-on was their style.

Originally thinking they’d just be cannon fodder, they didn’t expect Zhou Zhou to give them talismans, so they naturally accepted this favor.

After thanking Zhou Zhou, the three players went up the stairs one by one, with the others following closely behind. The higher they went, the fewer players could fit, and people gradually stopped at the lower and middle floors of the tower.

By the ninth floor, only one player could go up.

One of the three went up, but there was still nothing there.

The tower wasn’t finished yet, and the inside was bare, so there was no need to search carefully, each floor’s layout was in plain sight.

Everyone felt a bit disappointed since they had been too successful in finding ghosts before but now couldn’t find a single one.

They carefully went down the narrow, steep stairs without handrails, one by one.

“It seems the remaining ghosts must still be in the temple. Let’s go back and search carefully.”

“Could it be that the remaining ghosts only appear at night? You think about it, most of the ones we caught appeared at night.”

“It’s possible.”

The players discussed as they descended floor by floor. The last player was the only one who entered the ninth floor and tightly gripped the talisman, originally hoping to contribute but ending up empty-handed.

Feeling a bit unwilling, he glanced back but met a pair of cold, ferocious yellow eyes.

The player was instantly chilled to the bone. When did this appear? Why was there no sound at all?

Before he could cry out, the player suddenly vanished from his spot.

The players in front didn’t notice anything amiss and were still discussing where to search next.

A yellow talisman floated gently to the ground and was picked up by a pale white hand.

Zhou Zhou looked at the familiar talisman, then at the few people coming down the stairs, puzzled. “How did the talisman end up on the ground?”

Ke Li and the others, who had decided to let Zhou Zhou and Alvia rest below based on the trio’s earlier conversation, heard Zhou Zhou’s inquiry and pointed behind them, saying, “Wasn’t the talisman with that… person?”

The player who had been at the back was gone.

And they hadn’t heard a single sound.

The trio had become a duo, and these two also confirmed through special means that their missing companion had been eliminated.

There was indeed a ghost hiding in this tower, but no one had seen what it looked like. They had been too careless. Because they had been so successful before, they had let their guard down, giving the ghost an opportunity to strike.

Xue Li looked at the mission panel: “The mission panel shows all the ghosts we’ve encountered, and the one in the tower is the Hanged Ghost.”

After losing two companions, the two remaining players wanted to go up and subdue this ghost, but they were stopped by the others.

Qian Le patted his own chest: “Leave the rest to us, I’ll go up and check out the situation.”

“With your courage? I’ll go,” Eddie had already taken a few strides up. Now everyone was gathered on the first floor, and they had seen the last player on the third floor, which meant he had disappeared on the second floor.

Eddie stepped onto the stairs, poking his head out from the stair entrance to observe the second floor’s environment, but found nothing.

“Nothing on the second floor, I’ll keep going up.”

Qian Le followed closely behind, holding a talisman and keeping an eye on his surroundings while also watching Eddie’s movements.

All the way up to the eighth floor, they still hadn’t found anything.

Eddie carefully walked up the stairs to the ninth floor. The higher they went, the smaller the tower’s interior became, with even the stairs becoming much narrower.

He tilted his head up towards the ninth floor and was startled to find a person hanging from the horizontal beam.

This person was the player who had disappeared earlier, hanging from a white sash tied to the beam, neck askew, face frozen in terror, and eyes bulging out of their sockets. Right as Eddie looked up, their gazes met.

“Woah!” Eddie lost his footing and almost fell off the stairs. Qian Le quickly braced his back, preventing an accident.

“What’s going on? What did you see?” Eddie was blocking the entrance to the ninth floor stairs, so Qian Le couldn’t see anything from behind.

Eddie closed his eyes: “That player has been hanged up there.”

“Huh? Did you see the Hanged Ghost?”

Eddie paused. Earlier, he had made eye contact with the player’s corpse but didn’t see anything else.

“Let me take another look.”

Eddie poked his head out again, this time deliberately avoiding looking at the corpse and searching around instead. The ninth floor was small, and after sweeping his gaze across the ground, he saw nothing. Steeling himself, he looked up.

The first thing he saw was the wooden horizontal beam, with the white sash swaying slowly in the wind from the window.

No ghost. Eddie let out a slight sigh of relief.

Just as he was about to turn and tell the others behind him that he didn’t see any ghosts up there, he once again met the corpse’s gaze.

The player’s bulging eyes were staring right at him, not an unfocused, aimless stare, but one where Eddie clearly saw the pupils move down, fixing their gaze on him.

Everything around him seemed to slow down. He couldn’t hear what Qian Le was saying behind him, as if all his attention was focused on the corpse’s facial expression.

The originally terrified expression gradually softened, and the player with the twisted neck even gave him a faint smile, coupled with their pale skin and bulging eyes, unspeakably eerie and horrifying.

For the first time, Eddie felt a chill run down his spine, his mind going blank.

“Hey! Hey, hey!” Seeing Eddie freeze up and not move or speak, Qian Le patted his back, not understanding what was going on.

Only after Qian Le’s repeated patting did Eddie finally snap out of it. Not daring to look at the corpse again, he turned and roughly shoved Qian Le: “Quick, quick, go down!”

“What’s wrong? Did you see the ghost?” Qian Le was pushed down the stairs, originally wanting to see what was up there, but under Eddie’s shoves, he could only focus on the stairs beneath his feet.

“The player’s corpse was very eerie, I suspect that ghost is on the ninth floor.”

Qian Le waved the yellow talisman in his hand: “Then let’s go up and catch it.”

If the ghost was up there, why were they going down?

Just thinking about the scene from earlier made Eddie feel terrified. But if they didn’t go up now, did they have to wait for Zhou Zhou and Alvia to handle it themselves?

After hesitating for a while, with others asking what happened, Eddie finally made up his mind: “Give me the talisman, I’ll go up and catch the ghost.”

Qian Le felt Eddie’s demeanor was very strange. After spending this time together, the two had become quite familiar, so he eyed Eddie suspiciously and suddenly realized: “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

His voice was loud enough for the entire tower to hear.

Eddie really wanted to beat him up. Seeing the others look over curiously, he immediately said, “No, I’m not.”

By the time Eddie psyched himself up and went back up, the corpse on the ninth floor had disappeared.

Along with the white sash.

Zhou Zhou and Alvia were waiting on the first floor of the tower. Zhou Zhou also wanted to go up and take a look, but the stairs were too narrow, so even if he went up, he could only follow behind and wouldn’t be able to see anything.

Ever since the Lecherous Ghost disappeared, Alvia had been sticking close to Zhou Zhou, his expression indiscernibly gloomy.

Zhou Zhou simply took Alvia’s hand and interlocked their fingers: “Don’t be upset anymore, you’re my favorite.”

Zhou Zhou said it very naturally, and Alvia tightened his grip on Zhou Zhou’s hand. He was indeed unhappy with the previous NPC, but the real reason for his displeasure was that he realized his possessiveness towards Zhou Zhou was too strong. Before they were together, he could still convince himself that these people were his friends, and he was just a friend too.

But now that their relationship had changed, he always hoped Zhou Zhou would keep all his attention on him and not focus on others.

This instance had gathered many of Zhou Zhou’s friends from the game, so most of Zhou Zhou’s attention was also given to them, with too little left for him.

It would be better if he only looked at me, I only have him, and he only has me.

Such thoughts weren’t good, and Alvia didn’t want to become as greedy and selfish as most of the royal clansmen.

So he needed to restrain himself.

Suppressing his inner greed, Alvia gazed into Zhou Zhou’s still clear, innocent eyes and stroked his head.

Suddenly, a strange feeling welled up in his heart. In a protective manner, Alvia pulled Zhou Zhou into his embrace and scanned their surroundings.

Something was approaching.

Zhou Zhou didn’t know what was happening and lifted his head from Alvia’s embrace, his gaze falling on the horizontal beam not far away.

A woman in white was hanging there, eyes tightly closed, face purple, and a long tongue protruding from her mouth, dangling in front of her body.

Zhou Zhou’s heart didn’t stir. Blinking in Alvia’s arms, he recognized this as the Hanged Ghost.