Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Deep Sea Creature 12

Several players on the deck looked up at Zhou Zhou climbing up the mast.

“What is he doing?”

“Sightseeing perhaps? The view from up there is more expansive.”

“Or maybe he’s just bored and wants to move around a bit.”

“You guys don’t get it, when I was up there before, the sight lines were really great. It’s the best spot for feeling the wind or watching the sea.”

“But weren’t you yelling for help the whole time you were up there? How did you have the mind to sightsee?”

“……”

“Hahahahaha~”

The players didn’t see the handkerchief on the sail, thinking Zhou Zhou might have just gone up to enjoy the scenery since he was bored on the ship. They chatted and joked while playing cards.

The little handkerchief moved very slowly at first, but when Zhou Zhou climbed to the middle of the mast, the moving little handkerchief seemed to sense danger and suddenly sped up, running all the way to the top of the mast.

Zhou Zhou kept his eyes fixed on the handkerchief, feeling like it had come alive and was running upwards quite fast.

When the little handkerchief reached the top of the mast, Zhou Zhou was only a little over two meters away from the top. He climbed up unhurriedly, his eyes unmoving from the handkerchief.

The little handkerchief lay at the top, hesitated for a moment, then suddenly jumped down, as if trying to jump into the sea to avoid Zhou Zhou’s pursuit.

But less than two seconds after it jumped, it was caught by a hand.

Zhou Zhou held onto the mast with one hand while extending the other to catch the handkerchief just as it tried to jump into the sea, the timing perfect.

Not having time to figure out what this wandering little handkerchief was, Zhou Zhou started climbing down the mast. During this, he found the little handkerchief struggling in his hand, so he tightened his grip slightly.

After coming down from the mast, it seemed like the other players wanted to ask Zhou Zhou what he had been doing up there, so they gathered around him.

Zhou Zhou was afraid the handkerchief would run away if he loosened his grip, so he used both hands to cover it, secretly opening a small gap to peek inside.

The players who were about to speak saw Zhou Zhou’s expression like he was looking at a treasure and immediately became curious, crouching down to also look inside. But the gap between Zhou Zhou’s hands was too small for them to see anything.

Through the gap, Zhou Zhou could only see the struggling handkerchief, but the sensation in his hands didn’t quite feel right. Besides the smooth feel of the silk handkerchief, there was another cool, chilling sensation.

“What are you guys looking at?” A player who walked over from another part of the deck asked, puzzled by this group of people crouching and peering into Zhou Zhou’s cupped hands with a cautious yet curious expression, as if looking at some treasure.

One player stood up, his expression serious. “Actually, we don’t know either.”

Player: “……”

They didn’t know what they were looking at here? Looking at air?

Zhou Zhou’s hand below slowly clenched into a fist, grasping the handkerchief. When he caught the handkerchief trying to jump into the sea earlier, he realized the weight was off. How much could a handkerchief weigh? There must be something else inside.

His hand was full of something soft and squishy, similar to the feel of a ghost, but not as bouncy. Zhou Zhou pulled on the corner of the handkerchief with his other hand, and what was inside immediately appeared before everyone’s eyes.

“Woah.” The group of players exclaimed in amazement, and even Zhou Zhou couldn’t help but open his eyes wide.

After removing the handkerchief, there was actually an octopus in his hand. The octopus was entirely pink, with a pair of large black, moist eyes that were abnormally large for an octopus, practically like a cute, cartoon octopus. Its feel was cool and chilled, not at all the sliminess of a regular octopus, but rather quite dry.

“When did an octopus sneak onto the ship? And it’s such a cute one too.”

“It’s so small, it must still be a baby.”

“What species is this?”

The grown men started commenting on the adorable little octopus. With nothing to do on the ship, the octopus Zhou Zhou caught had become the center of attention.

Zhou Zhou held the octopus in one hand and the handkerchief in the other, examining it carefully. How strange, why could this handkerchief be touched? He and Al had discussed in the rest area that according to common sense, the handkerchief should have become an object players couldn’t touch, like the cigar and lighter. Yet the handkerchief was still tangible, just like before.

And why did this little octopus carry the handkerchief to try and escape? Did it treat the handkerchief as its nest?

The players were still discussing the extremely cute little octopus when one player suddenly said something that immediately sent the discussion careening off in a completely different direction.

“Something that cute might be delicious too.”

“……”

“Grilled octopus is pretty tasty, but this one is so small, it probably wouldn’t even get stuck in your teeth.”

“Stir-frying is better. This octopus may be small but it’s plump. You could probably get a small plate out of it.”

“Oh right, I almost forgot, I bought some seasonings from the store earlier. We may not have a pot, but we could probably grill it on the ship.”

“Hahaha, why did you bring seasoning to the instance? Did you really plan to eat? There probably wouldn’t even be one bite per person.”

“Well, we’ve got nothing else to do anyway.”

The topic shifted from the octopus’s cuteness to its eighteen ways of preparation. One player listening to the discussion gulped audibly.

Zhou Zhou wasn’t sure why the topic had changed so quickly. He blinked blankly while holding the octopus.

The little octopus had a round head and short, plump tentacles, the pink little blob looking utterly adorable.

After struggling for a while and failing to break free, it seemed to resign itself, blinking its large eyes at Zhou Zhou without moving.

But when the players’ discussion gradually shifted to how to cut it up most reasonably so everyone could get a bite, tears welled up in the little octopus’s large eyes before it suddenly raised its head.

And then sprayed a mouthful of red ink at the enthusiastically discussing players.

Players: “……”

Even Zhou Zhou wasn’t spared, getting splattered in the face, the others even more covered in the red ink.

When more bored players gathered over after seeing this group of ink-faced players, they were stunned, thinking the players had been attacked.

“What happened to you!”

Players: “……Nothing.”

“That doesn’t look like nothing! You’re all injured like that.”

“……Really, nothing happened.”

The players hurriedly started wiping the red ink off their faces and bodies. Though the octopus was small, it had quite a large amount of ink, thoroughly spraying everyone around it.

Zhou Zhou put the handkerchief in his pocket and used his hand to wipe the ink off his face. The color of the ink did resemble blood stains, and the smell when he sniffed it…

He put his finger under his nostril and sniffed, giving the little octopus a puzzled look before suddenly saying to it, “I’ll roast you little octopus later.”

“Pffft pffft pffft.”

The little octopus spat ink at Zhou Zhou again. This time Zhou Zhou was prepared and quickly moved his hand away, the ink splattering on the deck.

“Braised?”

“Pffft!”

“Stir-fried?”

“Pffft!”

“Release the little octopus back into the sea.”

This time there was no pffft. The little octopus looked at Zhou Zhou expectantly with its large eyes, its little tentacles fidgeting restlessly.

It seemed this pink little octopus could indeed understand what they were saying.

Seeing this little octopus constantly pffft-ing, the other players didn’t dare get too close again. Though so tiny, it could really spray. The amount of ink it spat just now might have been more than its own body volume.

Zhou Zhou caught the octopus and ran over to Alvia, leading him to the captain’s quarters. The captain had already woken up and gone to the wheelhouse, so the rest area was currently empty.

Placing the little octopus on the table, Zhou Zhou’s previously excited expression turned serious as he told the squirming, escape-minded little octopus, “Write a few words on the table and we’ll let you go.”

The little octopus immediately used all eight stubby little legs to scurry towards the edge of the table, but was blocked by one of Alvia’s fingers.

“If you write, I won’t just let you go, I’ll also return your handkerchief.” Zhou Zhou took the handkerchief out of his pocket and waved it in front of the little octopus.

The little octopus’s moist, shiny black eyes stared intently at the handkerchief, then it extended a tentacle to its mouth and sucked on it.

The tip of the tentacle was immediately stained red with ink. The little octopus used its tentacle to write two words on the table.

Bad guy!

Not only was it written very neatly, but it even included the punctuation mark.

“Ah, so you were the one writing the ship’s log. And the words on the plate were written by you too.” Zhou Zhou immediately recognized the little octopus’s handwriting as identical to the undated ship’s log entries, and the line of text on the bottom of the plate that dropped in Room 106 was also written by the little octopus.

The little octopus glared at Zhou Zhou, one tentacle pointing at the handkerchief.

Although Zhou Zhou still had many questions he wanted to ask the little octopus, he kept his promise and returned the handkerchief.

After getting the handkerchief back, the little octopus immediately placed it on top of its head, revealing only its eyes as it stared furtively at Zhou Zhou and Alvia.

“You said its writing is so neat, who taught it? And why would it write a ship’s log, when did it write it, where is the ship’s log now?” Although he now knew part of the truth, Zhou Zhou had even more questions. Since the little octopus clearly didn’t want to cooperate, Zhou Zhou could only ask Al.

Alvia studied the little octopus in thought, “Could it be that the handkerchief originally didn’t belong to the captain, but to this octopus? And after we picked it up, the octopus secretly came to find its handkerchief. The message on the plate might have been a warning not to tamper with things on the ship.”

Zhou Zhou stared at Alvia for a moment before turning to ask the little octopus, “Is that how it is?”

The little octopus nodded from under the handkerchief.

Alvia: “Maybe it wrote the ship’s log imitating the captain’s format, not including dates because you don’t know the date?”

The little octopus hid deeper into the handkerchief, seeming a bit embarrassed.

“You really are amazing.” After hearing Alvia’s analysis, Zhou Zhou truly felt this little octopus was incredible. Not only could it write, but it could write ship’s logs too, and he couldn’t even understand the various data entries inside.

Understanding their praise, the little octopus’s tentacles peeking out from under the handkerchief waved happily.

After clarifying the secrets of the handkerchief and ship’s log, Zhou Zhou became even more interested in this octopus, but he had already promised to let it leave.

“Do you want to stay on the ship with us?” Zhou Zhou sincerely invited.

The little octopus shook its head vigorously. It had heard those people wanting to eat it, stir-fry it, slice and grill it. This place was too terrifying, it wanted to return to the sea.

Zhou Zhou cupped the little octopus in his hands and brought it to the side of the ship. The little octopus used two tentacles to hold the handkerchief wrapped around itself. It turned to look at Zhou Zhou, curling his thumb with one tentacle, then flipped over from his palm, crawling across Zhou Zhou’s body to the deck.

“You’re not leaving?” Zhou Zhou asked in pleasant surprise.

The little octopus, handkerchief still atop its head, turned to look at Zhou Zhou again before continuing to crawl forward, all the way up to the mast, returning to the top.

It then leapt off, the small handkerchief spreading like a parachute in the wind as the little octopus, clinging to the handkerchief parachute, drifted slowly down into the sea.

Zhou Zhou: “……”

Afterwards, Zhou Zhou watched from the ship’s side for a while, trying to spot the little octopus’s location, but unfortunately it didn’t resurface after jumping into the sea. And under the captain’s lead, the ship kept rapidly advancing, making it impossible to see anything.

Night was soon falling, not the violent winds and rains of the previous night but rather a very calm evening. Countless stars twinkled in the sky, and the cool sea breeze brushed past the ship. Realizing this temperature wouldn’t drain life values, the players sprawled out on the dilapidated deck to gaze at the stars.

It wasn’t until deep into the night when the winds picked up that they returned to the captain’s quarters. The captain still hadn’t come back from the wheelhouse, and all the players were waiting in the rest area for the third day to arrive.

In the middle of the night, the ship suddenly began violently shaking, abruptly waking the drowsy players.

They rushed out of the rest area, not even caring about the strong winds, looking out towards the sea.

Although there was a bright crescent moon hanging in the sky, all they could see was the sea surface rising and falling. No one had any idea what was happening.

The ship’s passengers also sensed something was wrong, scrambling out of their cabins screaming and fleeing in all directions. Though the players couldn’t hear their screams, the looks of terror on their faces were clear.

Zhou Zhou and Alvia looked out at the sea, where a ship twice the size of their double-masted sailing ship was approaching, its target clearly their vessel.

Moreover, the side of the approaching ship had numerous cannon ports, clearly indicating hostile intent.

Under their watchful gaze, the enemy’s cannonballs landed in the sea not far from them, sending water splashing several meters high. The ship violently rocked from the restless waters.

Although the captain struggled to change course and shake off the enemy, that ship was larger and faster, quickly catching up after not too long.

“Look, there’s a ship attacking us!” The players finally noticed the other vessel.

The people on that ship all carried swords and guns, their expressions excited and ferocious, in stark contrast to the panicked passengers on this ship.

“That’s a pirate ship,” Doreen calmly stated.

“What should we do?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” One player looked very relaxed as he summoned his particle cannon, having gone over an hour since its last use. Let’s see him sink this pirate ship.

The player stood at the closest point on the deck to the pirate ship and took aim with the particle cannon. Blue particles immediately gathered as he fired a blue energy beam towards the pirate ship’s side.

This beam was especially striking in the night, like a blue ribbon of scattered stardust extending ever farther into the distance until disappearing from sight.

Before the confident smile could even leave the player’s face, he noticed something amiss.

The pirate ship remained completely unharmed, continuing to fire in their direction.

“But how? My particle cannon didn’t work, do they have some kind of advanced defensive weapon?” The player asked in shock.

Doreen sighed while covering her forehead. Were these players here to tell jokes?

“That ship and the passengers on our ship are the same, we can see them but not touch them. We can’t do anything, we can only watch.” Alvia’s voice was cold and detached.

The sailors retrieved some small boats from the storage hold to help the passengers escape, but the small boats hadn’t gone far before being hit by the pirate ship.

The two ships grew closer and closer. All they could do was watch as the pirates boarded, seizing various goods from the ship, water, food, treasure was carried off box by box, leaving the remaining people dead.

They could only helplessly observe this scene, unable to take any action. Even if they wanted to go beat up the pirates, they would just be making contact with empty air.

The players’ moods were heavy, no longer the carefree, casual atmosphere from when they idly chatted before. Everyone watched solemnly.

The passengers, sailors, the captain’s corpses, all were thrown into the sea. After pillaging everything on the ship, the pirates set it ablaze, the wooden sailing vessel quickly catching fire.

The players were powerless to intervene in the previous events. It was like watching a documentary firsthand, only able to observe as bystanders, utterly incapable of changing history.

Once set aflame, the wooden hull was soon half-burnt, the ship’s body constantly tilting and collapsing inwards.

This ship was about to sink.

“I see there are still a few spare small boats in the hold that weren’t taken. Let’s hurry and take the small boats to leave.” The players shouted before running to the stern, working together to retrieve the small boats and drop them into the sea.

“There are two boats total, barely enough for all of us.”

One player spoke while trying to jump into the sea, but when he stood at the ship’s edge, he found himself unable to jump off no matter what.

Starting from the ship’s hull, it was as if this vessel was encased in a transparent barrier – the small boats could leave freely, but they were trapped inside.

The other players panicked, trying various methods to escape the ship, using up all sorts of items, but there was no way out, they were sealed inside this ship.

“What do we do now?” The players fretted anxiously, never expecting their elimination would come from sinking to the seafloor along with the ship.

The ship sank lower and lower. The players could only crowd towards the stern, but soon even that disappeared beneath the surface.

When the first player was about to submerge completely along with the ship, everyone took a deep breath, hoping to stay alive a little longer. But their hopes were dashed.

The barrier’s effect continued. Although half the ship had burnt away, the barrier’s existence was like trapping them inside a glass bottle filled with air.

With no need to hold their breath, everyone immediately exhaled in relief, thinking they had narrowly avoided drowning.

The ship’s hull continued sinking, allowing them to observe the surrounding marine landscape. If not for the horrifying events they had just witnessed, they would surely marvel at the passing schools of fish and bizarre sea creatures in better spirits.

“Say, how deep is this ship going to sink? We’ve been descending for over ten minutes now, right?” One player carried a lantern as he asked.

The seafloor grew darker the deeper they went. Eventually they could see nothing at all, the players taking out their own illumination tools. Though the seawater couldn’t drown them, the silent, pitch-black depths were still unsettling, especially with no idea what would come next.

After a long period of time, so long the players figured dawn must have arrived outside, the ship finally stopped.

The players peered over the ship’s edge with their lights, finding the vessel seemed wedged between clusters of rocks, surrounded by jagged, bizarre formations crawling with indescribably strange creatures.

“You don’t think we’ll have to wait here for seven days, then get eliminated for running out of time?”

“I sure hope not, at that point I might as well just jump into the sea and go back.”

“Maybe this is the goal location to advance.”

“You’re joking, right? This is where we advance? We can’t even get out, and just think about the water pressure out there, we’d be dead the moment we stepped outside.”

One frustrated player opened his quest log to check if any new quests had been issued, only to find the first main quest, to find the item of highest value, was already marked as completed! When did that happen? How did he not realize?

After asking around, he discovered everyone present also had it marked as completed. The system had abnormally failed to send any notification this time. None of them regularly checked the quest log out of the blue, so no one knew when exactly it displayed as completed, or how they had even fulfilled the main quest at all. Everyone was utterly clueless.

Zhou Zhou pondered, “Could it be that the first team to find the sword got marked as completed, and then when the sword was given to the captain, everyone else also got marked? The system only told us to find it, not what to do after. It seems there might have been a hidden rule that once the captain received the sword, all players on the ship would be marked as completed.”

Zhou Zhou’s analysis made sense, but everyone just stared blankly. This was way too much of a scam.

Following normal human logic, if only the first team to find the sword completed the quest, others would definitely try to seize it in order to advance, and even if they managed to seize it they would protect it carefully. They would absolutely never give it to the skeleton captain. With that condition, only one team could ever complete the main quest, the hidden requirement of giving the sword to the captain for everyone to complete would be impossible for anyone to know.

It really was too much of a scam. If not for their self-awareness and lack of any thoughts to seize the sword, combined with Zhou Zhou simply handing it over to the captain, how could such a hidden condition ever be met?

The players complained that the designer of this instance must not be human to come up with such a bizarre requirement, forcing everyone into mutual slaughter. If they had killed each other off, they would never realize that simply getting along and being generous would allow the entire group to complete the quest together, there was no need for such drastic conflict.

They couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Wu Yu, Kou Li and the others now.

“Did you all feel that? It seems like the ship is moving again.” One player held his breath and focused intently on his surroundings and the area beneath his feet.

The others sensed it too. “Are we sinking to the seafloor again? Just where are we sinking to?”

But this time, the ship wasn’t sinking downwards, it was rising upwards instead.

The hull slowly ascended, exciting the players. Could this mean they were returning straight to the surface?

One player looked puzzled and conflicted. “But that doesn’t make sense scientifically. We sank all the way to the bottom, how can we just keep rising back up? Isn’t that too strange?”

The others didn’t care about those details as long as they could return to the surface.

As they passed through a dim blue area, the players gazed puzzledly at the lights in their hands. They hadn’t seen this area when sinking down earlier, and shortly after descending they couldn’t see anything at all. So just what was this place?

While everyone wondered, a figure suddenly descended from above this faintly glowing blue area, one of the ship’s passengers, an exceedingly thin, scrawny male. His eyes were closed, appearing dead as he slowly sank down, passing by the players on the ship’s side. Everyone felt a heaviness seeing this, wishing they could reach out and save these people from the pirates instead of only being able to helplessly watch them die.

One player sighed lightly while gazing at the pale man’s face. In the next moment, the scrawny man’s eyes abruptly flew open, his body now directly facing the players on the ship. The sudden movement startled everyone.

“Damn! What’s going on! Is he still alive?”

“That scared me.”

“Ahhh, what is this?”

The scrawny male no longer continued sinking, instead floating in the sea and staring fixedly at the players on the ship.

Met with this horrifying gaze, everyone felt afraid, quickly moving away from the area near the scrawny man.

But the other areas didn’t seem very safe either. In the blue sea, passenger after passenger slowly drifted down from above.

The second was a woman, her long hair floating like seaweed, her complexion pale and body rigid. Like the first man, she floated facing the ship not far away, her previously serene expression instantly changing. She opened her eyes, staring hard at the players, her eyeballs slightly protruding as if filled with resentment.

Then came the third, the fourth… Each of the deceased would float around the ship, opening their eyes to stare unblinkingly at the players.

Some had bloated from soaking in the sea after death, their expressionless faces, rigid bodies, and eerie gazes chilling the players to the bone.

If it were just one, it might be fine. But the issue was all the passengers and crew were gathered around them, a dense crowd of the dead staring intensely, making the players’ hair stand on end no matter where they went as they felt watched from all sides.

Some of the more timid players were on the verge of tears, wishing they had just kept sinking to the seafloor for however long instead of having the deceased passengers leering at them, it was truly terrifying.

In the silent ocean, this eerie blue area was like a graveyard for the dead, endlessly resentful souls drifting about, unable to find rest, only praying their killers would descend into hell.

The ship’s hull continued rising, the dead figures moving upwards at the same pace, appearing motionless at the ship’s edge.

The players trembled, originally intending to retreat into the cabins or rest area to avoid those gazes. But then they remembered those had been the deceased’s living quarters, causing their hair to stand on end.

All they could do was huddle close together, keeping their heads down to minimize their presence as much as possible.

Zhou Zhou made eye contact with the figures outside the ship, realizing they seemed to be staring at the players, not the vessel itself. But when Zhou Zhou shifted positions, he noticed they weren’t staring at him, but at the other huddled players.

So they were only staring at certain individuals? But why?

The ship continued rising until finally leaving the eerie blue area behind, the dead figures remaining there and not following. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, each second having passed agonizingly slow just now, leaving many still shaking.

Half an hour later, they could vaguely make out the sea surface, daylight filtering through from outside, it seemed to be daytime now.

Everyone eagerly anticipated reaching the surface, the horrifying gazes from before still fresh, not yet recovered. At least once back on the surface, seeing the sunlight, they could finally stop feeling afraid.

As they neared the surface, everyone stood up, craning their necks to look upwards. When the ship reemerged onto the water’s surface, they couldn’t help but raise their arms and cheer aloud.

But the cheers only lasted an extremely brief moment.

Seeing the undamaged ship floating on the surface, passengers strolling about carefree, sailors even swabbing the deck, the players lowered their arms in bewilderment. Even with the pleasant weather and warm sunshine, they couldn’t help but shudder, feeling a bone-deep chill.

Just what was going on? Weren’t all these people supposed to be dead?