Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Nightmare City 6

In the first hour after the Nightmare City forum opened, the hottest topic wasn’t about the game, but rather a flaming war between different schools in the daily life section.

The more popular posts would be displayed on the front page, leading to more people flooding in. Even if many had already graduated, seeing someone insult their alma mater, they would immediately charge in.

The competition between schools was already intense to begin with, and the various inter-school competitions held every year only led to more conflicts, so this kind of thing happening was very normal.

Zhou Zhou watched the screen as replies insulting each other’s schools flew by rapidly. After hesitating for a while, he posted another response.

“Everyone, don’t fight. I just want to know what school is more remote.”

His original plan was to ask others and find an extremely remote school that most people hadn’t heard of. That way, when Eddie and the others asked, he could say he studied at that school, and no one would be able to verify if he really did or not.

But now, not only had he not gotten any answers, even the question he just posted was quickly buried under a deluge of messages without anyone responding to it.

Since no one was answering, he might as well ask something else.

“Are there any remote, unknown planets?”

This was to prepare in case anyone asked where he lived, as he had learned from Mo Lan that people now lived on different planets. Asking someone where they lived would also likely be a common question, so he needed to be prepared.

But, using a similar questioning method to before yielded a similar response.

Everyone started arguing again, this time over discrimination between different star systems and planets, completely ignoring the OP’s question.

Zhou Zhou was the instigator of both flaming incidents: “……”

He exited the thread and remained silent for a while before giving up on asking any more questions.

He clicked into the game section, wanting to see if there were any NPCs in the game similar to himself.

The game section was also very lively, with people asking about clearing strategies, looking for teammates, and writing personal accounts. Zhou Zhou browsed through, noticing a newly posted thread.

“Pure newbie, about to enter my first instance, seeking advice from seniors on what to watch out for.”

Zhou Zhou clicked in out of curiosity, even though he had already entered several instances himself, but he also wanted to know if there was anything else to be careful of inside instances.

The very first reply in the thread was, “Whatever you do, don’t die!”

Followed by a bunch of agreements.

The OP replied: “I know this, if you die or fail to clear an instance in the game, you need a revival item to re-enter, and 10,000 points is really expensive. Thank you senior for the advice, I’ll be careful.”

“That’s not what I mean, do you know you’ll become a ghost if you die?”

“Ghost?”

“If you die, the system will generate a ghost based on your appearance to assist the NPCs in killing players inside the instance.”

“Does it have any relation to the actual person? Does it give points?”

“It has no relation to the actual person, ghosts are instance constructs, they don’t give points. But most importantly, players nowadays are really weird. Not only will they not avoid ghosts, they’ll actively go and capture them. After capturing them, they’ll squish them into all sorts of shapes and even play with them like balloons. Just imagine, if a player captures a ghost that looks just like you and starts playing with it in all kinds of ways, wouldn’t you find that really offensive?”

“Uh… but if I’m dead I won’t be able to see it, so why would I care?”

“After dying in an instance, you can see what happens to your ghost through the quest log, don’t ask me how I know.”

“It does sound a bit… but for the sake of clearing, attacking ghosts shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“If it’s for clearing I won’t say anything, but I’ll post a video and you can see for yourselves.”

After saying that, the last person posted a video clip.

The video used a third-person perspective, and the faces of the players and ghosts were all censored.

Zhou Zhou clicked on it and saw a scene inside a library, where a male student in a white shirt pulled a ghost out from between the bookshelves by its ear. He then proceeded to squeeze and stretch it, even molding the ghost into a sphere shape before stuffing it into his pocket and leaving.

Although he couldn’t see the face, the player’s demeanor was casual, clearly not in any danger, giving the impression that he was just messing around with the ghost out of boredom.

Zhou Zhou looked up, blinked his eyes, then looked back down at the video. The library was the one in Romancing Saga Academy, and he recognized the faceless person as himself, while that ghost was the very first one he had encountered.

“Hahaha, so tragic for the ghost~”

“Hahahahaha, the senior was right, you really can’t die in instances, this death is just too undignified.”

“Anyone know who that guy is? From his build he seems to look quite good, might as well try hitting on him early and have him teach me how to play with ghosts too.”

“Any high-res uncensored version? I just want to see what the player and that poor ghost look like.”

“Ah ah ah, nice hands!”

“No, what’s wrong with you guys? Don’t you think this player has zero morals? Simply monstrous and heartless.”

“I think it’s cute, the way he kneads the ghost seems serious yet obedient. The main point is his hands really do look nice, and his skin is so fair too.”

“The one who posted the video, could it be that you’re the ghost in the video? Otherwise how would you have gotten this footage? If I may say, I really do feel sorry for you hahahahaha.”

“You people are all the same, if you’re just going to play the game properly, why abuse ghosts? Don’t you have psychological issues?”

“???? You’re just going on and on there, are you trying to get us to sympathize with you so we can all join in verbally abusing the player in the video? Haven’t you heard of ‘to the victor go the spoils’? Since you died, just keep grinding for points properly, don’t come here trying to pick fights.”

The original intention of posting the video was likely to incite everyone to gang up and flame Zhou Zhou online, but the current players were all quite rational and not easily provoked. In the end, the one who posted the video was the one who got flamed in the thread before finally shutting up and stopping their messages.

However, the popularity of this thread slowly rose, and gradually more related threads began appearing.

“Where is the Ghost Destroyer, big money to party up!”

“Nice hands means he must be good-looking too, anyone have the Ghost Destroyer’s contact info?”

“Who’s the Destroyer? I was just offline for a few minutes, why does it feel like a century has passed?”

Zhou Zhou didn’t find any posts about abnormal NPC appearances in the game, but instead saw many new threads popping up about the Ghost Destroyer.

He now knew that this Ghost Destroyer was referring to him, since he had witnessed the whole thread unfold. But why were they looking for him?

Because he squished ghosts? Because of his hands?

He raised his own hands and examined them from various angles for a while, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Could it be that other people’s hands were different from his? Zhou Zhou was startled, worried that he had revealed something abnormal. But after thinking about it, everyone had five fingers, and so did he.

Not sure if the players were just going with the flow or looking for fun, so Zhou Zhou posted another thread.

“Don’t look for me, I’m not the Ghost Destroyer, my hands are normal, just like everyone else’s.”

“Hahaha, OP is really good at playing around.”

“The same, we’re all the same.”

“No, I’m the real one, come find me.”

“My hands aren’t normal, my hands are especially—good-looking!”

“Bro, I’ve finally found you, I’m your long-lost brother, Ghost Destroyer #2!”

Down below, everyone was laughing it up. Zhou Zhou stared for a while before closing the quest log in annoyance and lying on the bed.

The forum was useless, not only could he not ask questions, someone had even posted that little video of him, and no one would listen to his explanations, completely useless! Zhou Zhou decided he would never look at the forum again.

Lying on the bed, Zhou Zhou pouted a little unhappily. After lying there for a while, he suddenly sat up and looked contemplatively at the clothes he was wearing.

His face was censored in the video, but his clothes were seen by everyone. He had been wearing this same outfit all along, so he would definitely be recognized as the same person from the video later on, an anomaly in the game that needed to keep a low profile.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhou immediately rushed out the door in a hurry.

The next morning, Zhou Zhou sent a message to everyone to gather and prepare to enter an instance.

He had originally thought only he, Al, Qian Le and Eddie would be available during the day, but unexpectedly the ones who showed up were Al, Xue Li and Ke Li, while Eddie and Qian Le didn’t come.

“Zhou Zhou, you changed clothes?” Xue Li’s eyes lit up the moment she came online and saw Zhou Zhou.

Previously, Zhou Zhou had always worn that white shirt and blue jeans, looking youthful and sunny. In the game, not only could you project the clothes you were wearing in reality, or save outfit presets, you could also change outfits directly in the game, so constantly changing or always wearing the same thing was very common.

But today, Zhou Zhou was actually wearing a black hoodie. The style of the hoodie had a hip-hop vibe, which combined with Zhou Zhou’s obedient face made him look even more adorably cute. Xue Li held back for a moment, but ultimately couldn’t resist her nature and grabbed Zhou Zhou’s head to squish and rub.

As always, Ke Li trailed behind Xue Li. Seeing her hugging and rubbing Zhou Zhou, he secretly rolled his eyes at her.

When Al arrived, they noticed he was also wearing black today, a thin black windbreaker. The style was minimalistic, the black emitting a faint glow, clearly quite valuable.

“Did you two plan on wearing black together?” Xue Li teased with a wink.

Zhou Zhou shook his head. He did it to disguise himself, just in case someone recognized him from his clothes.

“Xue Li, don’t you all have work today?” Zhou Zhou asked. Logically speaking, during the day Xue Li and the others should be at work, so they shouldn’t be able to come, right?

“You forgot, it’s the weekend today.”

The weekend? So they don’t have work? Zhou Zhou nodded without saying anything further, just gazing into the distance as if still waiting for something.

“Speaking of which, how come Eddie and Heya didn’t come?” Seeing Zhou Zhou looking around, Xue Li guessed he was waiting for others.

“Heya had something to take care of, he hasn’t been coming recently. Why aren’t Eddie and Qian Le here yet?”

“They can’t make it.” Alvia suddenly said, “First-year students have early enrollment for training, they’re probably packing their luggage to go to school right now.”

At the same time, Zhou Zhou also received messages from the two of them, just as Alvia had said, they had to take the spaceship back to school today and wouldn’t be able to get on the game for the next few days.

While Zhou Zhou was feeling disappointed that he wouldn’t be seeing them for a while, Xue Li suddenly asked, “Zhou Zhou, don’t you have early enrollment too?”

Zhou Zhou was startled, just about to give the reply he had agonized over last night, when Ke Li cut him off.

“Zhou Zhou is still here, so he must not be a first-year, didn’t you hear what Al said? First-years have early enrollment.”

Xue Li looked at Ke Li unhappily, she was just asking casually.

“Let’s get ready to enter the instance.” Alvia continued after Ke Li.

Zhou Zhou hurriedly nodded, opening the quest log and selecting the four of them. This time he still chose the black stars, since he was always able to meet new friends in the black star instances.

This time the instance location was Colt Lake, with the position specially marked on the quest log.

The four of them arrived at Colt Lake, an area located in the center of Nightmare City. A layer of white mist shrouded the massive lake, making it seem mysterious and silent.

Zhou Zhou and the others discovered that the marked position was actually in the center of the lake, while they were still quite a distance away from the center.

Gazing at the mist-shrouded lake surface, where anything more than ten meters ahead was obscured, Xue Li asked, “How are we supposed to get to the position marked on the map? Swim there?”

Ke Li glanced at her and pointed to the small boats nearby, saying, “Sis, look over there.”

It was only then that Xue Li noticed a dozen or so small boats tied up by the lakeshore. She had been focused on the lake surface and completely missed the boats.

The four of them bought two boats, as the boats here could only be purchased with points, not rented. Moreover, each boat could only seat two people.

These two simple small boats cost two thousand points in total. No wonder there were players by the lakeshore but no players on the lake surface, who could afford such expensive boats if not for entering an instance?

Xue Li and Ke Li took one boat, while Zhou Zhou took the other with Alvia. The four of them rowed slowly towards the position marked on the quest log.

When they reached the marked location, all they could see around them was white mist, with no sign of any instance entrance.

They remained still in the center of the lake for a while, when suddenly the quest logs of all four of them sounded an alert at the same time.

【Instance Name: Deep Sea Creature】

【Quest Content: Survive for seven days and find the exit.】

【Main Quest: The seawater is radioactive, automatic death after being submerged for over an hour, please escape quickly.】

“Has it already started? Could this be the instance location?” Xue Li looked at her quest log in bewilderment.

“But it said seawater, aren’t we in a lake?” Ke Li hesitated.

Just as they were still trying to figure out what was going on with the instance, a whirlpool suddenly appeared in the center of the lake. It started off with slight ripples before growing larger and larger, until the two small boats were pulled into it, spiraling down following the whirlpool.

Under the crushing force of the whirlpool, the flimsy small boats shattered and capsized. Before the four of them could even react, they were completely swallowed by the whirlpool.