Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Nightmare City 2

Zhou Zhou was absolutely certain that he had never seen the man in front of him before, but the shock on the other party’s face was too obvious, even the hand pointing at Zhou Zhou was trembling slightly.

The players at the respawn point also looked over, with a strong sense of gossip.

“Excuse me, who are you?” asked the handsome young man, full of doubt in his eyes.

“It’s you! You’re the guy who was playing with other players in the instance.” The man shouted at Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou: ?

Alvia: ?

Listening to gossip players: Look at what they’ve heard!

Playing with? Alvia raised his eyebrows slightly, looking at Zhou Zhou with an ambiguous expression.

Zhou Zhou thought for a moment and affirmed: “I don’t know you.”

The man’s expression immediately became serious: “Do you know Zhao Yi?”

Zhao Yi? Zhou Zhou shook his head in confusion, he had never heard of this name before.

“He did the Love Academy instance with you, and then he died in the instance.”

Zhou Zhou waited for a while, but the other party did not continue. In the Love Academy, he only knew Xue Li, Ke Li, and Al. He didn’t know anyone else, so who exactly was Zhao Yi?

Seeing Zhou Zhou’s perplexed look, still not remembering what cruel and heartless things he had done, the man couldn’t help but remind him: “When you die in the instance, you become a ghost.”

Zhou Zhou still had no reaction: “I know.”

Seeing the man’s choked expression, Alvia had already guessed what was going on. Although he and Zhou Zhou didn’t interact much in the Love Academy, he had a certain understanding of his personality and hobbies, and Zhou Zhou probably didn’t know about this rule in the game yet.

“When you die, you become a ghost. The eliminated players can see what happened to the NPC generated in their own image after becoming a ghost!”

The man didn’t expect Zhou Zhou to be so indifferent. When players die in an instance, they are eliminated from that instance. At the same time, they can see on their quest panel what happened to the ghost NPC that looks exactly like them.

This not only allows them to review their performance in the instance, but sometimes seeing the remaining players being scared by the ghosts can also be a kind of consolation for those who were eliminated.

But this guy, this guy who looks pure and innocent, and has an appearance of kindness and obedience, actually didn’t act according to common sense.

Zhao Yi was a friend he knew in real life. He was eliminated in the first instance and is now accumulating points in the real world to come back. Yesterday, he saw the video that his friend exported and couldn’t believe that a player would treat ghosts as toys, squeezing and twisting them, even holding them in their hands to play.

Although ghosts are just NPCs set by the system, and have nothing to do with the actual players except for their appearance, seeing such a scene was really depressing.

Normal players would either be terrified or run away when they see ghosts. Even the brave ones would try their best to ignore or subdue them. But this person treated ghosts as toys, grabbing one wasn’t enough, he had to catch them all.

Yesterday’s video left a very deep impression on him, and today when he was eliminated from an instance at the respawn point, he met the person himself, but the other party didn’t react at all to his own actions.

Zhou Zhou suddenly realized that other people could see what happened to ghosts after they died: “Oh~”

The man was so angry he could die. He couldn’t help but say: “You, you, you… you went too far, ghosts also have dignity.”

Zhou Zhou looked at him: “So who is Zhao Yi?”

The man: “…”

He felt that he and the other party were not on the same wavelength at all. This guy just looked naive, but was actually a black-bellied person.

“Zhao Yi is my friend. In the Love Academy, he was the ghost that you squeezed and twisted.”

Zhou Zhou immediately remembered the first ghost he saw in the library. That was Zhao Yi. At the time, he thought he couldn’t get out of the school, so he collected a lot of ghosts. Who could have thought that he would actually come out of the instance?

“Is he okay?” Zhou Zhou asked.

“He’s now accumulating points to come back. That game left him with a very deep impression!” The man said through gritted teeth.

Zhou Zhou nodded: “Oh oh.”

“Don’t you think you should apologize to him?”

Zhou Zhou tilted his head in confusion. He didn’t feel like he needed to apologize for this. The ghost NPCs in the instance were different from him. They had no thoughts, no emotions, just like his ‘companions’ before. Without players, they wouldn’t move or speak. They were different, he was different from everyone else, he had no peers.

The ghosts were just tools, just fun toys or stages in the instance for him. They had nothing to do with the actual players. He didn’t harm those players, so why should he apologize?

Zhou Zhou thought about it, the other party’s behavior seemed…

“Are you being unreasonable?” Zhou Zhou realized.

The man: “…No, I’m just…”

“We still need to buy supplies, please move aside.” Alvia’s tone was neither fast nor slow, but it successfully stopped the persistent man’s actions.

Those icy blue eyes were like sharp, piercing cold ice, causing the man to shudder reflexively. He didn’t dare say anything else.

He suddenly regretted why he came over. He didn’t know these two people at all, and if he offended that black-bellied guy, who knows when he might encounter him in the game and cause him trouble. Plus, the person beside him didn’t seem simple either. Just one look from him made the man feel timid.

The man looked at Alvia with a complicated expression as he diverted Zhou Zhou’s attention by asking what type of supplies to buy. He was very clear that he couldn’t provoke these two people, but letting it go like this made him unsatisfied and unable to vent his anger.

Seeing the man who came to provoke them fail, the other players surrounded him and asked what the conversation between the two people meant, as they were completely confused.

The man’s eyes shifted, and although those two people were not to be provoked, he could take another approach. So he embellished the story, telling the other players that Zhou Zhou was a player who enjoyed torturing ghosts.

The players present were those who had died in the instance and appeared here because they had a resurrection item. Some immediately sympathized with the unfamiliar Zhao Yi.

But some players thought it was no big deal. They died, so what did the ghosts have to do with them? However, when players exchanged information later, it became an entertaining gossip topic.

Zhou Zhou and Alvia both had very good hearing. Even though the group spoke in hushed tones, the two of them heard every word without missing a thing.

Alvia looked at Zhou Zhou leaning on the counter, considering what other supplies to buy, and asked, “Don’t you care?”

Both of them knew what that meant. Zhou Zhou looked at Alvia and shook his head: “No, let them say whatever they want.”

After going through several instances and learning from others’ words and deeds, Zhou Zhou already knew that not everyone would like him. There would always be some people who wouldn’t like him no matter what he did.

“As long as the people I like also like me, it doesn’t matter what others do,” Zhou Zhou said seriously while looking at Alvia. Xue Li, Ke Li, Heya, Qian Le, Eddie, and Mo Lan all liked him, so he liked them too. Other people he didn’t know and who didn’t like him, he didn’t like them either.

Being gazed at by those starry, brilliant doe eyes, Alvia felt as if the overly bright light in the other’s eyes was piercing him, and he slowly averted his gaze from their eye contact.

After finishing, Zhou Zhou went back to looking at the counter. He still wanted to buy a flight talisman. Watching Eddie fly in the sky before was really interesting, and he wanted to fly too. There was also a levitation talisman, which sounded interesting as well.

In the end, Zhou Zhou bought five flight talismans, five levitation talismans, a necklace-shaped resurrection item, and a pair of large white wings.

Including food, the total cost was tens of thousands. Zhou Zhou paid the points without blinking an eye, making the nearby players envious and jealous. For them, just accumulating enough for one resurrection item was already very difficult. Yet this player bought so many things, including many useless items. Those points could have bought several resurrection items.

Alvia didn’t need these items, but he still bought some.

After leaving the shop, Zhou Zhou originally thought Alvia would log off after buying supplies, but he didn’t say anything and just silently walked beside him.

The two were going to take a flight vehicle to go to the surface, but ended up encountering the four members of the Sharp Family on the street.

“It’s you guys.” Xia Yan’s gaze swept over the two of them, but his tone wasn’t as friendly as it was in the instance, carrying a hint of coldness.

Zhou Zhou also noticed the change in the other party’s attitude. When he went out to attract ghosts, he didn’t hear what these people said, so he was still very polite when facing them: “Yeah, you guys succeeded in clearing the instance too?”

Unexpectedly, this sentence successfully changed Xia Yan and the other three people’s expressions.

Did they not clear it? Zhou Zhou didn’t understand.

Xia Yan stared at Alvia intently: “Yes, we also succeeded in clearing the instance.”

If they cleared it, why weren’t they happy? Zhou Zhou looked at Xia Yan, then followed his gaze towards the indifferent Al beside him. Did something happen between them?

“Thank you for telling me the pattern of the room movements. We cleared it in the last second before the time limit.” It sounded like he was giving thanks, but there was a mocking expression on his face as he spoke.

In the instance, the pattern that this man told them was wrong. When they finally got rid of the ghosts and reached the third floor, after opening the door, they found that the children’s playground was not in that room at all. In the end, it was only after he re-deduced the pattern under the cover of his companions that they succeeded.

After finally finding the children’s playground, they had to outsmart and outmaneuver a group of brats. They only cleared it at the very last second before the time limit. If this man hadn’t given them the wrong pattern, how could he have been in such a sorry state?

“Congratulations.” Alvia said indifferently. His tone was very calm, but it successfully ignited a spark of anger in Xia Yan. However, his good upbringing prevented him from verbally lashing out at Alvia.

Xia Yan looked at Alvia coldly, then at the dazed Zhou Zhou, his narrow eyes like a venomous snake eyeing its prey: “We’ll meet again.”

After saying that, he left with his three companions.

“What’s wrong with them?” In the instance, Xia Yan’s attitude towards Zhou Zhou was always quite good, but after leaving the instance, Xia Yan seemed like a different person.

Alvia let out a light laugh and looked at Zhou Zhou: “Do you know the pattern of the room movements in the instance?”

Zhou Zhou: “I know. The rooms move every half hour, and they move in an S-shape each time.”

The corner of Alvia’s mouth curved up slightly, as if he was about to say something, but was interrupted by Zhou Zhou’s next words.

“However, this pattern doesn’t seem very accurate. When we were looking for the room movement pattern, the other rooms did move like that, but according to the pattern, the children’s playground should have been in the first room on the third floor. You led us to the fifth room on the third floor.”

“You noticed? The original movement pattern of the children’s playground was the same as the other rooms, but after a player opened it once, the next time it would switch with the first room on the first floor and start rotating again.”

Alvia simply didn’t tell Xia Yan about this exception. If they hadn’t acted so coldly when Zhou Zhou attracted the ghosts to buy time for everyone, or if they had trusted him and gone to the third floor together, then they would have come out with everyone else earlier.

Since there was no mutual trust, they could only rely on their own abilities.

Zhou Zhou looked at Alvia, his eyes wide with surprise, and spoke in a low, almost conspiratorial whisper: “You deliberately didn’t tell them.”

Alvia couldn’t help but laugh and ruffled Zhou Zhou’s hair: “Don’t you think what I did was…” A bit despicable? After all, Zhou Zhou didn’t know Xia Yan and those people’s true colors.

Zhou Zhou also understood the unspoken meaning and shook his head without hesitation: “I saw that when everyone was fighting the ghosts, they were luring the ghosts towards the other people.”

That was precisely why Zhou Zhou had seen that Xue Li, Ke Li, and Eddie had several ghosts lured near them and were about to be overwhelmed, so he had shouted loudly to attract the ghosts. Though later Alvia discovered that ghosts won’t attack if you stay still, so he didn’t bring it up again in front of everyone afterwards.

“You did the right thing.” If it were the him who had been stuck in the Love Academy before, not understanding anything, he would have thought that what Alvia did wasn’t good, and that no matter what the others did, he should have brought everyone out. But now he understood. Alvia had given them a chance, and in the end, he didn’t block their path entirely. There was nothing inappropriate about his actions.

Alvia took note of Xia Yan’s threat. Although it sounded like idle threats between young people, the Sharp Family would always retaliate. It definitely wasn’t as simple as just venting verbally, so it seemed he would have to keep a closer eye on the Sharp Family from now on.

The two took a flight vehicle from the suspended Sky Street back to the surface. Zhou Zhou didn’t dare say that he wanted to return to the house he was renting, as everyone else had logged off and gone home. If Al asked why he was still online so late, what should he say? He could only silently walk beside him.

The two aimlessly walked from one street to another. It was now evening, and the scenery of Nightmare City had changed to a nightscape. The brilliant lights in the distance were reflected onto the two of them, like a layer of pale mist covering them.

After walking for who knows how long, Alvia finally spoke when Zhou Zhou couldn’t help but yawn several times.

“Do you want to go to the amusement park tomorrow?”

Zhou Zhou turned his head to look at Alvia. That’s right, he said in the instance that he would apologize to Al and go to the amusement park with him.

“Yes, let’s go tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Alvia responded and, after looking at Zhou Zhou’s slightly moist eyes from yawning earlier, said goodbye before logging off.

After seeing Alvia off, Zhou Zhou returned to the house he was renting. It was already bedtime, and he had been staying up until now. Zhou Zhou then hugged his plush bear toy and immediately fell asleep.

When Zhou Zhou slept, he was very quiet, his breathing almost inaudible and his chest rising and falling very slightly. However, something in his arms seemed to be moving, a pale yellow head slowly emerging, inching out a little at a time, then pausing to observe if Zhou Zhou had woken up, before continuing to move out. Finally, it successfully escaped Zhou Zhou’s embrace.

The room was pitch black, but the plush bear’s bright black eyes were now glowing red, like two small lanterns, dimly gazing at the sleeping person on the bed.

After staring for a while, the yellow little bear suddenly reached out its round, short, and fat hand towards Zhou Zhou’s face.

At the very moment it was about to touch Zhou Zhou’s cheek, the sleeping person suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze clear as he looked at the little bear by the bed.

“What are you doing?”

Not expecting Zhou Zhou to wake up, and acting as if he had already known it would come, the little bear abruptly retreated a few steps, one foot slipping off the edge of the bed.

In the instant it fell, a hand grabbed the plush bear.