Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Strange Shadows in the Villa

Zhou Zhou crouched beside the human-shaped mosaic, and just as he reached out his hand, Qian Le, who was standing behind him, noticed it.

He immediately pulled Zhou Zhou’s arms back, dragging him away from that eerie thing: “Zhou Zhou, step back, don’t touch it!”

His hand that was about to grab the ghost was forced to retreat. Zhou Zhou sat on the ground, being dragged away, looking up at Qian Le with a dazed expression.

Why couldn’t he touch it?

It wasn’t until they were several meters away from the ghost that Qian Le stopped dragging Zhou Zhou and looked towards it from afar.

The white ghost finally separated from the human-shaped mosaic, floating in front of everyone.

The ghost’s appearance was exactly the same as the “living” person on the ground, even the glasses were perfectly replicated. A semi-transparent white body, an expressionless face, hollow eye sockets, several players who were seeing a ghost for the first time thought it looked very eerie.

“What is this thing? The player’s soul?” Seeing the ghost floating motionlessly in front of everyone, a chubby young player reached out his hand, wanting to poke it.

The moment he touched the ghost, the ghost, which had been still, suddenly looked at him and shrieked, “Give me back my life!”

Before anyone could react, the ghost charged straight at the player and went through his chest.

The chubby player was startled by the ghost’s sudden voice and movement, touching his chest in a daze.

The other players were also shocked and scattered in panic.

Qian Le even dragged Zhou Zhou back several more meters.

“Are you okay?” someone shouted at the chubby player. The ghost had just entered his body, so they didn’t know if there would be any problems.

The chubby player looked up and smiled, “I’m fine.”

The others didn’t say anything, looking at him with complicated expressions.

“Are you sure you don’t feel anything wrong?” another player asked nervously.

The chubby player who had been possessed by the ghost was smiling, but the corners of his mouth were almost reaching his ears, his round face contorted in a creepy, forced smile. He even unintentionally pushed up his nose bridge, making a gesture as if pushing up glasses, even though he clearly wasn’t wearing any!

Recalling the bespectacled ghost earlier, the players took a few more steps back.

“I, I…” he seemed to want to say something, but was stuck like a broken record, unable to get the words out for a while.

Heya stood beside Qian Le and Zhou Zhou, looking at Zhou Zhou who was still sitting on the ground, and pulled him up.

Zhou Zhou finally didn’t have to drag himself anymore. After standing up from the ground, he stared at the player’s chest with burning eyes, as if trying to see where the ghost had gone through his chest.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?”

“Not sure, could it be that he was possessed by that ghost just now?”

“Will there be any effects?”

“I don’t know, the ghost in my last instance would just follow the player, with no other abilities.”

“The one in my last instance just stood on the player’s head and wouldn’t leave, but it didn’t possess them like this.”

A few players discussed from afar, none of them daring to approach. Meanwhile, the chubby player who had been standing beside the human-shaped mosaic was stuck for a while, then suddenly glared at the group of players discussing, just like the ghost earlier, and shrieked, “Give me back my life!”

He then charged like a cannonball towards the direction of those players.

“Shit!”

The group of players gathered together immediately took off running, but before they could run a few steps, the chubby player, seemingly unable to turn, slammed headfirst into the wall with a bang.

In an instant, there was another human-shaped mosaic on the ground.

On this slightly plump human-shaped mosaic, a white mist soon appeared again, but this time the mist was significantly more, and when it was about to solidify into a human shape, everyone saw that there were actually two ghosts, one was the chubby player’s, and the other was the bespectacled ghost that had entered his chest earlier.

The two ghosts hovered motionlessly above the human-shaped mosaic, just like the previous scene.

“What are you guys standing around for, run! Those two will definitely possess someone again soon!” Heya shouted a warning to the dazed players.

The players finally reacted and scattered in panic.

Zhou Zhou looked at the two ghosts up close with reluctance, then looked at Qian Le, who was nervously asking him where to run, and the visibly agitated Heya, pointed with his finger: “Let’s run upstairs first.”

It was Qian Le’s first time doing an instance, and he had encountered such an exciting scene right at the start, already scared out of his wits. Upon hearing Zhou Zhou’s words, he immediately ran towards the spiral staircase.

Heya followed and ran as well. He was tall, with big strides, and seeing that the two short Zhou Zhou and Qian Le were lagging behind, he grabbed them by the back of their collars, one in each hand, and ran upstairs.

The wooden spiral staircase seemed to tremble under the weight, making thudding footstep sounds that attracted the players who were still hiding around. Some of the quicker ones also immediately followed and ran upstairs.

At this point, the ghosts finally started moving again.

Shouting “Give me back my life,” they drifted towards the players.

Fortunately, the players were far away at this point, and the ghosts’ speed wasn’t fast, so for the time being, no players were possessed.

The remaining players finally realized that the ghosts’ possession range was only on the first floor, so while avoiding the ghosts, they ran desperately towards the second floor.

The last player, who was the farthest away, was about to be caught by the two ghosts. When the ghosts were only a few centimeters away from him, one of his feet stepped onto the stairs.

The next moment, the two ghosts seemed to have lost their target, stopping in their tracks. They then turned around and drifted aimlessly on the first floor, still repeatedly shouting “Give me back my life.”

A group of players sat on the ground, exhausted and disheveled. Those few minutes had felt like a near-death experience.

Heya was in good physical shape, so a few steps didn’t tire him out. He looked at Zhou Zhou, who was leaning over the railing, stretching his neck to look downstairs, and asked, “How did you know the second floor was safe?”

Zhou Zhou turned to look at him, tilted his head in thought for a moment, then said, “If the ghosts could move freely everywhere here, we would all be wiped out in less than an hour.”

If being possessed by a ghost would kill the player, and then their death would add another ghost, repeating in this cycle, there was no way anyone could avoid it.

“And the second floor might not be safe either,” Zhou Zhou added, then pointed his finger at the first human-shaped mosaic downstairs.

That person had fallen from the second floor railing here earlier. Zhou Zhou had seen it when he was leaning over, the railing was intact, not broken. So why did that person scream? What exactly did they see? And why did they fall?

Although Zhou Zhou didn’t say it explicitly, Heya also thought of those things. He looked at Zhou Zhou with a changed gaze, not expecting this seemingly naive and gullible kid to actually have such meticulous thoughts.

After answering Heya’s question, Zhou Zhou continued to watch the ghosts downstairs, his lips tightly pursed, his eyes full of disappointment. He felt that they might not be able to play with the ghosts in this instance.

The players searching for the exit on the second floor had already gathered in the hallway. When they heard the screams, most of them had come out of the various rooms, finding the situation on the first floor rather eerie, so none of them went downstairs.

At this moment, they were quite relieved that they had gone upstairs early, otherwise they would have been chased and possessed by the ghosts too.

Another player who was in the same group as the bespectacled player was very confused. He and his teammate were searching for the exit in the hallway, agreeing to search one side each. At that time, he had his back towards the bespectacled player, and when he turned around after hearing the scream, he only saw his teammate falling, with no idea what had actually happened.

Luna glanced at Al, who was standing alone in the corner, and said to everyone slowly, “So what should we do now? We can’t go to the first floor for now. Since there are so many of us on the second floor, why don’t we re-group? More people can keep an eye on each other, so if anything happens, the people around will know what’s going on.”

Most players, having experienced or witnessed the ghost possession just now, felt that more people would be safer, so they agreed with Luna’s suggestion.

There were currently eighteen people left, and they were divided into three groups of six each.

There were six rooms on the second floor, so each group could search two rooms.

As Luna wished, she was grouped with Alvia, along with her previous teammate and Zhou Zhou’s trio.

The six of them entered the innermost room on the left, which was a study with bookshelves on three sides, filled with books on the upper part and cabinets with doors on the lower part that needed to be opened one by one.

There were also several desks in the room that needed to be carefully examined.

Alvia flipped through the books on the shelves, listening to the woman who kept chattering non-stop beside him, indirectly asking about his job, family and income in a roundabout way. Finally, he turned and looked at Luna directly.

“Sorry, could you please move a little further away? You’re disturbing me.” His tone was cold yet sincere, clearly unable to tolerate it any further.

On the other side, Heya couldn’t help but laugh out loud upon eavesdropping, impressed that someone could make His Majesty apologize so seriously.

Zhou Zhou also glanced towards Alvia. He didn’t think it was noisy at all. In fact, being able to hear voices was great, much better than sitting alone in silence.

Hearing Heya’s clear mockery, Luna’s expression was very unpleasant. What was wrong with this man? How dare he find her noisy?

Since she had already been rejected like this, she had no face to remain beside Alvia. With an ashened look, she walked towards the doorway. After taking two steps, she noticed Zhou Zhou looking at her and glared at him fiercely, “What are you looking at?”

Heya sneered. This woman, not daring to confront His Majesty directly, and not daring to lash out at the person who had just mocked her, took out her frustration on the vulnerable-looking Zhou Zhou instead, truly bullying the weak while fearing the strong.

Heya approached Zhou Zhou and jokingly asked, “Hey, aren’t you angry? Want me to go…”

He clenched his huge fist, hinting at Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou looked at him and asked blankly, “Why would I be angry?”

Zhou Zhou had no concept of anger. Even when someone had just snapped at him, his heart wasn’t the slightest bit ruffled, so he naturally didn’t understand Heya’s meaning.

His thoughts were so sharp just now, yet he was back to this naive look again. Was he pretending to be foolish, or did he really think there was no need to be angry?

Heya was increasingly interested in Zhou Zhou. He smiled without saying anything and returned to his own position to search for the exit.

Luna stood by the doorway, planning to go to the next room directly after the other five finished searching this one.

How embarrassing, that man had put her down in front of so many people. Did he think she would give up just like that? Just wait, sooner or later she would make him kneel at her feet.

Luna was still fantasizing about what she would make Alvia do after conquering him when suddenly, a red shadow flashed before her eyes. Alarmed, before she could call out to the others, she came face to face with a ghostly pale visage…

Alvia suddenly turned his head towards the doorway, then took large strides in that direction.

The others all looked at him in puzzlement.

Alvia stood by the doorway, observing for a few seconds, “That woman is gone.”

“What happened?” Luna’s previous teammate also immediately walked over.

Heya hadn’t noticed any commotion at the doorway and guessed, “Could she have run to another room?”

“Impossible, she was standing right here just now. She disappeared in an instant,” Alvia said with certainty.

Zhou Zhou and Qian Le also walked over to the doorway and looked around.

Before starting the search, everyone had opened all six room doors, so they could notify each other or escape in case of an emergency.

Hearing the commotion, the other two groups also came out. A crowd of people stood in the hallway, feeling uneasy and anxious. Two players had already died, and now another had mysteriously disappeared. No one was sure if they might be next.

Just as everyone was asking Zhou Zhou’s group what had happened, a player suddenly pointed towards the innermost part of the hallway and shouted, “Look at that!”

Everyone turned to look.

A white ghost stood by the window at the end of the hallway, slowly raising its head.

It was Luna!

She had become a ghost!

The players instinctively scattered and ran towards the other end, while the ghostly Luna raised her head expressionlessly towards Alvia and shrieked in a mournful wail, “Give me back my life!”

The ghostly Luna’s speed was clearly faster than the two ghosts downstairs. In the blink of an eye, she reached the doorway, her target directly set on Alvia.

Alvia stood his ground, unmoving. With his spiritual power, he could easily avoid this system-generated NPC, and even if he died, it was just a game, so he didn’t care. After all, he had already achieved his purpose for coming here.

It was just that the thought of this NPC wearing that woman’s face and possessing him was rather vexing.

As the ghost was about to enter his body, Alvia remained motionless, giving the others the impression that he had been paralyzed by fear.

Alvia felt that dying like this would be rather unsightly, and there would also be a ghost identical to him floating around reciting lines afterwards.

With his idol persona, he decided not to die after all and summoned his spiritual power to create a barrier. But just then, someone suddenly pushed him aside.

“Watch out!”

The next moment, the ghost entered Zhou Zhou’s body.