Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Doll’s House 2

Alvia looked around and found that this time all the players had come in teams of five or six people, with no single players at all.

This situation should be relatively rare, because Nightmare City had not been online for long, and many players were going solo, at most joining forces with other players only after entering the instance to complete missions together.

Even their own group had only come together because of Zhou Zhou, and they basically didn’t know each other that well.

As for the other teams present, the one in the front consisted of five burly, well-built men standing there arrogantly, looking down at the other teams disdainfully. They also appeared to have collected the most eggs so far, with at least two eggs per person and still searching for more of different colors.

The other two teams looked more mixed, with all sorts of people, probably like them having met while doing previous instances together.

Then there was the team standing at the back, with four people whose appearances were quite similar, smiling in a very friendly way.

Alvia could tell at a glance that they were all from the Sharp family. He didn’t expect to run into scions of the Sharp family in the game. Although they had never seen his current appearance in the game, the Sharp family was notorious for their deceitful and cunning ways. Now that four of them had shown up, there was no telling what they might do in the game.

There were five teams in total, nearly thirty people altogether. Did this instance require teamwork?

Alvia wasn’t sure, but by the time he finished observing the other players, everyone had collected their colored eggs.

The short little trees were only about knee-high to the players, shaped like miniature pine trees. At the base of each little pine tree was an egg of a different color.

The egg Zhou Zhou had picked up was white at the base with light golden patterns, and it was almost weightless.

The others had also picked up an egg from the ground closest to them. Xue Li’s had red patterns, Ke Li’s was blue, and Heya had grabbed one with brown speckles.

As for Eddie, he had taken a long time choosing, since there were many eggs on the ground. After much deliberation, he finally selected one with pink patterns, which seemed to be the rarest color.

Seeing that Al was just standing there without choosing an egg, Zhou Zhou found one with green patterns close to Al and handed it to him.

“Al, here’s one for you!”

Alvia looked at the egg with green patterns that Zhou Zhou handed him and took it without a word.

After receiving it, he found that the egg was warm and very light, not feeling like there was anything inside at all.

Everyone then started examining the eggs they had chosen, trying to see through them in the sunlight, but they were completely opaque with no shadows visible.

Some people also shook their eggs, but there was no sound from within.

Xue Li held her egg in one hand and guessed, “Could it be that a little chick is going to hatch from these?”

Ke Li looked at the multiple eggs in everyone else’s hands and gave her an incredulous look. “Have you ever seen chicken eggs this big?”

The colored eggs were about the size of an adult’s palm, so they definitely couldn’t be chicken eggs.

“Well, maybe they’re eggs from some other animal?” Xue Li said defiantly.

“You idiot, these are virtual eggs from inside the instance, so they don’t have to be from any real animal, do they? For all we know, a person could hatch out of them,” Ke Li felt his own guess was more plausible.

“Hatching a little baby would be nice,” Xue Li looked at the egg in her hand expectantly.

Eddie muttered, “…Have you forgotten this is supposed to be a horror game?”

Xue Li and Ke Li both turned to Eddie with reproachful looks. “Can’t you let us have a little hope for once?”

Eddie shrugged and didn’t burst their bubble, saying flippantly, “Alright, alright, my bad. I’m sure it’ll be some cute little animal or baby inside.”

Zhou Zhou cradled the egg in his palms, frequently looking down to make sure he didn’t drop it while walking. Heya held his egg loosely in one hand, silently walking behind Zhou Zhou and watching him, as if worried Zhou Zhou might accidentally drop his.

The atmosphere in their group was very harmonious, but the other teams weren’t nearly as friendly.

The burly men’s team had each person grab multiple eggs, actively choosing different colors and patterns. If they noticed another team had a particularly rare color, they would forcibly take it away.

They didn’t dare mess with Zhou Zhou’s group because of Heya’s presence. As for the four from the Sharp family, although they looked quite young, their similar appearances and bearing set them distinctly apart, so the brawny men left them alone too.

After observing for a while, Eddie and Ke Li noticed that only their group and the similar-looking four-person team had taken just one egg each, while everyone else had at least two.

“Zhou Zhou, what do you think, should we grab a few more too?” Eddie asked.

Zhou Zhou looked puzzled. “Why do we need more? Didn’t the mission just say to adopt one each?”

Ke Li said, “But what if the ones we have don’t hatch? Then we’d fail the main quest, right?”

Zhou Zhou said with certainty, “They’ll definitely hatch.”

“How do you know?” Eddie asked.

“Because I think everyone will be able to hatch theirs,” Zhou Zhou replied.

Perhaps it was a form of groupthink, but even though Zhou Zhou made sense, the system had only instructed them to adopt one each, seeing the others take so many while they only had one did make them a little anxious.

The system had only said to adopt one, but it didn’t say they couldn’t take more, right?

Seeing Ke Li’s indecisive look, Xue Li knew what her brother was thinking. She sidled up and put her arm around his shoulders, then gave his arm a vicious pinch. “Zhou Zhou says we stick to one, so don’t you remember how we cleared the last instance by listening to him?”

Ke Li grimaced in pain, remembering. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Zhou Zhou, he was just worried they might fall behind compared to the others taking so many.

But if they were going to trust Zhou Zhou’s judgment, then one it was.

Eddie was also a clever person, and seeing that the group had reached a consensus, he didn’t bring up taking more eggs either.

“Hey, what do you think, these eggs feel so light, could it be that some of them are duds that won’t hatch at all?” One of the Sharp family youths said while holding his red patterned egg up to the sun for inspection.

“Yeah, the weight doesn’t seem right. Maybe the main quest is for us to find the real ones that can hatch from all these eggs on the ground. Otherwise it would be too easy,” the youth next to him worried.

“Then what do we do? If they don’t hatch, does that mean we’ll get eliminated?”

“Well, there are so many eggs here. Let’s crack open a few of the different colors and take a look inside. That way we can see the difference between the good ones and the duds.”

The other two youths chimed in agreement.

The four of them were speaking loudly enough that many others overheard and started examining the lightweight eggs in their own hands, which indeed didn’t feel like anything was inside.

Some of the burly men also heard and looked at the multiple eggs they were holding, thinking that surely at least one of them would hatch.

“Crack.”

One of the brawny men casually crushed an egg, the crisp sound immediately drawing everyone’s attention.

He looked down at the eggshell in his hand, now broken into several pieces, completely empty inside.

He tossed the shell aside and said to his companions, “That one was a dud, totally empty.”

Could it be that the good and bad ones were differentiated by color?

Seeing the green eggshell the brawny man had discarded, players from another team also crushed one of their own green eggs.

It was truly empty inside too!

They hurriedly signaled their teammates to discard the green eggs and pick up some new ones instead.

Ke Li and the others all looked towards Al, as his egg was also green.

Only Zhou Zhou anxiously watched Al’s hands, his gaze differing from the others who thought Al’s egg might be empty, as Zhou Zhou was simply afraid Al would crush the egg.

“What about the weight of the eggs in your hands?” Al asked.

Not understanding why he was suddenly asking, the others replied that theirs felt light, barely any weight at all.

“Since the weight is about the same, I’d guess they’re probably all empty if you crack them open,” Al said.

As soon as the words left his mouth, the first burly man who had crushed an egg seemed to open up a few more of different colors, only to find that without exception, they were all empty shells.

Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Then does that mean we’ll all fail the quest?”

Al glanced at the four Sharp family members who had first brought up the good and bad egg theory. They had been the first to suggest it, yet each only had one egg and none of them had moved to break their own. Instead, they stayed in the back observing everyone else’s actions from afar.

“Just because they’re empty now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. This is just a game, it’s not possible for it to be an unwinnable situation right from the start. Just hold onto the eggs you picked up and don’t listen to what others say or do,” Al advised.

“I think so too!” Zhou Zhou nodded in agreement.

Xue Li and Ke Li exchanged a look, and Eddie also felt Al made sense, reaching to touch the pink egg in his own hand reassuringly.

Of course, Heya would never go against what Al and Zhou Zhou said either.

“Aaaahhhh!”

As everyone was still trying to figure out which eggs weren’t empty, a sudden scream of terror rang out.

It was the first brawny man who had crushed the empty green egg. Now he was clutching his face and howling in pain.

“What’s wrong?” One of his companions took a few steps forward anxiously.

“My face, my face hurts so bad!” the man cried out.

The other teams all turned to look, not understanding what was happening.

The burly man kept his hands over his face, howling nonstop, then suddenly reached out to his nearby companion. “Help me, my face hurts so much!”

Upon seeing half of his face, those close by instinctively took a step back in horror.

“What the hell is going on?” Eddie was more proactive than the man’s companion, having already rushed over to see the commotion. Catching sight of his face, even Eddie was startled.

By now the burly man’s face was covered in white cracks that kept spreading, going down from his face to his neck, even his exposed arms developing the same fissures.

“Help me, hurry and help me,” he kept pleading with his companions, even trying to walk towards them.

But his equally horrified companions backed away from him.

“Aaarrgghh!”

With a loud crack, the man’s howls abruptly ceased as his entire body split apart.

Or rather, he seemed to be a smashed plastic dummy shattering into pieces, with jagged white cross-sections at every fracture line but no trace of blood or visible muscle or bones inside.

The same companion who had been speaking and moving normally just moments ago was now shattered into fragments, with one piece containing his eye even falling in front of the remaining burly men.

The wide-open eye seemed to stare accusingly at his comrades, as if questioning why they didn’t save him.

“Aahh, stay back!” One of the remaining men was so horrified by the eyeball fragment that his legs went weak and he fell to the ground, instinctively releasing the eggs in his hands which then scattered and dropped.

He kept scooting backwards, even crushing several small trees and eggs underfoot in the process.

The disturbing scene left everyone present feeling utterly terrified.

Why had a normal person just suddenly turned into…that?

“Aaahhhh!”

Another scream pierced the air, this time from the player on a different team who had mimicked the burly man by crushing his own egg.

Cracks now covered his face too, and soon enough he split apart in the same manner.

Severed limbs scattered to the ground, the lack of blood somehow making it even more horrific.

It was broad daylight with pleasantly warm sunshine and a beautiful surrounding scenery, yet everyone felt an icy chill.

They had noticed the commonality between the two victims, they had both crushed their eggs.

The remaining players couldn’t help but feel relieved that they had merely discarded theirs instead of crushing them.

Except for the terrified burly man who was now staring in horror at the crushed eggs behind him.

He suddenly stood up and ran desperately towards the distance, as if believing he could escape this ill fate befalling his companions by fleeing the area.

Under everyone’s watchful gaze, he ran farther and farther away, until he too split apart into pieces that dropped onto the far-off grassy field.

The once arrogant and overbearing team of five burly men was now down to three, the survivors clutching their handfuls of eggs in terror, wanting to throw out these cursed objects yet afraid that accidentally crushing one would lead to the same demise.

Eddie gasped, because he had been up close witnessing everything firsthand. The severed limbs scattered on the ground, while looking more like smashed dummies than anything, still presented a more gruesome sight than being censored into human-shaped mosaics.

At least that would have been less frightening to look at.

Glancing again at the shattered pieces, Eddie noticed the cross-sections were jagged and uneven, with varying sizes too.

The first burly man’s pieces were larger with only a few chunks, while the second player could be described as utterly shattered into tiny bits scattered everywhere, impossible to reassemble.

The way they looked…

He suddenly had a realization and looked down at the egg in his own hand, then immediately ran over to Zhou Zhou, being careful not to step on any other eggs along the way.

“Oh man, oh man, quickly protect the egg in your hands!” he exclaimed upon reaching them.

“I saw it too. If the egg breaks, we’ll get eliminated, and in such a horrific way,” Xue Li said, feeling traumatized already.

Eddie said gravely, “Not just that, I noticed how shattered they became matches how their own eggs broke. These aren’t really eggs, they’re our very lives!”

Ke Li’s eyes went wide. “You mean if our egg cracks, we’ll split open the same way?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess so.”

The other players realized this too and their faces paled, carefully setting down any extra eggs until they only held one each.

Afterwards, no one dared make any sudden movements, terrified of accidentally breaking the egg in their grasp.

One of the Sharp family youths shook his head and said to his companions, “Looks like we guessed right, if the egg breaks, you really do get eliminated. And it doesn’t matter if it was the one you chose or just one from the ground, we can’t damage any of them.”

“Yeah, but those other guys are interesting too, acting just like us by not making any other moves.” He glanced towards Zhou Zhou’s group.

In every team, there was always someone who took the lead, and although Zhou Zhou’s group hadn’t explicitly stated who was in charge, everyone had only come together because of Zhou Zhou in the first place. So they naturally deferred to him, looking to him for guidance on any issues, establishing him as the de facto leader by unspoken consensus.

Heya certainly had an imposing presence that drew attention, but since entering the instance he had remained quiet, simply following behind Zhou Zhou like a bodyguard of sorts. And while Alvia exuded an even colder aura, perhaps due to the presence of the Sharp family making him restrain himself despite being sure they wouldn’t recognize him, he didn’t stand out much beyond having good looks.

So the one the Sharp family was observing was Zhou Zhou.

Watching Zhou Zhou carefully cradling the golden egg, one of the Sharp youths asked, “Do you know which family he’s from? I don’t recognize him at all.”

“No idea, but that really tall guy behind him is probably a mercenary.”

“Yeah, Heya right? One of the top three mercenaries.”

“To actually hire a high-level mercenary just to protect yourself in a game? They play harder than we do.”

“We’ll keep watching them for now. If needed we can try getting acquainted, including that other black-haired man in their group too. I get the sense he’s not as simple as he seems either.”

As one of the great noble families of the empire, the Sharp family was naturally highly skilled at reading people and atmospheres. Although Al was keeping an extremely low profile, they had still picked up on subtle cues that he wasn’t quite as ordinary as he appeared. Of course, they had no way of guessing he was actually the emperor.

Unaware he was being watched, Zhou Zhou solemnly held up the egg cradled in his palms high.

Seeing his ceremonious pose, Al couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing?”

“Sunbathing it,” Zhou Zhou replied.

He then flipped the egg over.

“Has to get even heat exposure.”

And flipped it again.

Watching from the side, Xue Li couldn’t take it anymore. “Zhou Zhou, you’re turning that egg too frequently. What if you drop it?”

Zhou Zhou shook his head. “I won’t drop it.”

He was holding it securely, definitely not going to let the egg fall.

Eddie came closer and noticed Zhou Zhou’s egg seemed a bit larger than his own. After some careful comparison, it did indeed appear bigger.

“Zhou Zhou, your egg looks bigger than mine. How did you make it grow?”

Zhou Zhou thought for a moment. “The sunbathing?”

Eddie looked puzzled. “But I’ve been sunning it too.”

“Then you must chant the spell.”

“There’s a spell?” Eddie’s interest was piqued.

Zhou Zhou held the egg in one hand, gently stroking the shell with the other. “Just silently recite in your heart, ‘Grow big, grow big,’ and it will work.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “…That’s it? Okay, I’ll give it a try then.”

Afterwards, Eddie did notice his own egg growing slightly larger, though the others’ eggs seemed to be expanding inconsistently too.

The rates of growth and shrinkage varied, and a few hours later Zhou Zhou’s egg had become so large he needed both hands to cradle it. If it wasn’t still so lightweight, there’s no telling how he would have managed to hold it.

Of the six of them, only Al’s green egg showed no changes at all, remaining exactly the same size the entire time.

Xue Li and Eddie grew anxious, worried Al might have ended up with a “bad egg” after all, but it was likely too late to switch now.

Al remained calm, because while the egg’s size was unchanged, its weight had increased a tiny bit, so it couldn’t be completely empty.

Of the other teams accompanying them, the burly men’s group was much more subdued now that they were down two members, quietly awaiting their eggs’ hatching like everyone else.

The one team with all their players remaining, however, decided to try finding the exit to advance. Looking around, there didn’t seem to be any large trees beyond the knee-high pines, making it unlikely there were any hollows or other exits in this area. So they all left together to search elsewhere.

The team missing one player had initially planned to leave too, but the incident with their fallen comrade had left them too frightened to go. Seeing the other teams still hadn’t made any major moves either, they stayed put as well.

Zhou Zhou walked about cradling his golden patterned egg with both hands, feeling it should hatch any moment now. Noticing the Sharp family youths frequently watching him, he even waved at them one-handedly while holding the egg.

Xue Li was nearly scared to death by his reckless action, the egg had grown so large, there was no way he should risk dropping it with just one hand after what had happened to those other players shattered across the ground in horrific fashion.

When the Sharp family saw Zhou Zhou waving at them, they smiled and waved back amiably.

Zhou Zhou had actually wanted to go over and introduce himself, but then he heard a faint cracking sound.

Looking down, he saw a thin hairline fracture had appeared at the very top of the egg cradled in his arms.

He blinked, unsure, was the egg about to hatch, or had he accidentally crushed it?