Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Deep Sea Creature 14

The players were half-believing and half-doubting, but now the ship had stayed in the deep sea for longer than it had before.

Alvia did not explain to them, but began searching for an exit on the ship directly. If there really was an escape passage in the stone cluster, then there must also be a way out on the ship.

Zhou Zhou saw that everyone was still doubting, so he didn’t say much, and helped Alvia search together.

Xue Li, Ke Li and Doreen also began searching in various places on the ship again.

A few other players saw Zhou Zhou and the others searching everywhere, exchanged glances, and went to other parts of the ship to look for the exit.

The remaining players looked at the crowd searching in different places. Although they felt Alvia’s statement was unconvincing, they had nothing to do at the moment, so they might as well join in the search.

“After all, if we just stay here, we’ll eventually be eliminated. We might as well give it a try.”

“That’s right, if Zhou Zhou hadn’t discovered the reason for the loop, we might have kept looping until the instance time limit.”

“Alright, I’ll go search over there.”

“Didn’t we already search that area before?”

“Let’s search it again, maybe we missed something.”

After saying that, the players also started moving, and everyone on the entire ship was actively searching for a way out.

However, after everyone had searched every place, they still couldn’t find any leaks or flaws in the barrier. Even if what Alvia said was true, and the nearby cave was the escape exit for this instance, they couldn’t get out now, and could only stare dryly at the cave entrance separated by a layer of transparent barrier.

Alvia looked at the transparent barrier separating the ship and seawater: “Could it be that we’ve been searching in the wrong direction from the start? Instead of finding where the barrier has flaws, we need to find a way to pass through the barrier.”

Pass directly through the barrier?

The crowd pondered these words. They had searched twice without finding an exit, so perhaps they did need some method to pass through the barrier. But what was the method?

One player turned to look at the empty deck: “If the captain was still here, I think the sword we were supposed to find for the main quest might have been the key to getting out.”

But now there was no sword, as that sword had disappeared into the sea along with the captain, so it couldn’t be that sword.

“Maybe we need to perform some ritual, like doing certain actions to get out.”

“What actions?”

“How would I know? I’m just suggesting we all think about it together.”

A ritual? Zhou Zhou muttered to himself, then suddenly looked up at the ship’s mast.

When he released the little octopus, he wasn’t sure if there was a barrier on the ship at that time, but the little octopus didn’t leave directly. Instead, it climbed up the mast and jumped into the sea from the top.

So, could it be related to that?

“Zhou Zhou, did you think of something?” Alvia asked. He noticed Zhou Zhou looking up, so he realized Zhou Zhou might have discovered something again.

Zhou Zhou looked at Alvia and shared his thoughts: “The little octopus left this ship through the top of the mast, so could the exit be at the top of the mast?”

Indeed, they hadn’t searched up there before, since generally people can’t go up on top of a ship. The only place they could go up was through the top of the mast.

This was a two-masted sailing ship, but one of the masts was broken. Whether it was them sailing or the skeletons regaining human form and sailing, they had only relied on one mast.

These words immediately enlivened everyone. The player who had previously climbed the mast while being chased by skeletons even volunteered to climb up and take a look again.

Everyone watched from below as the player climbed to the top of the mast and reached out with one hand to touch the area above, but his palm still met the transparent barrier.

He tried touching everywhere he could reach, but still couldn’t find any way out.

The player shook his head at the crowd below, then slid down the mast.

“No luck, it’s all barrier up there too, I didn’t find an exit.”

The crowd couldn’t help but show disappointment on their faces.

Zhou Zhou tilted his head to look at the player, twisting the strings on his hoodie as he muttered: “That’s not what I meant.”

Before the player could understand what Zhou Zhou meant, he noticed Alvia staring at him, a hint of resignation flashing in those icy blue eyes.

“I’ll go take a look.”

Alvia climbed up the mast.

Xue Li looked up at Alvia from below and couldn’t help but say: “Look at him, even climbing a mast his movements are so graceful and deft.”

As she spoke, Alvia had already reached the top, and he gazed out at the dark surrounding sea before leaping off in that direction.

To the astonished eyes of the crowd, he really did leave the area where this ship was located, his movements smooth, as if he hadn’t encountered any obstacles at all.

The players hurriedly shone their lights to follow Alvia’s figure. He swam freely in the sea, his black hair slowly spreading out with his movements, his distinct features and sharp eyes narrowing as the glaring light hit them, looking this way.

Although the water pressure in the deep sea is extremely high and an ordinary person going out might instantly die, Alvia didn’t seem affected at all, obviously the environment at the sea bottom in this game instance was different from reality.

However, the life value and countdown timer above his head had started decreasing again, indicating that once they left the ship, they would have to find the escape exit before those values reached zero.

Unable to speak now, Alvia gestured with his hands for the people on the ship to swim towards the cave they had discovered earlier.

Although entering the seawater would cause the values above their heads to decrease, it was still better than waiting here forever.

One by one, the players climbed up the mast and leaped out into the sea.

Sure enough, everyone managed to leave the ship successfully, and they swam towards the cave Alvia had pointed out with joyful expressions on their faces. Even if that wasn’t the escape exit to complete the instance, as long as they could break free from the loop and escape that ghostly ship, it would be worth it, much better than their previous idea of killing each other to get eliminated together.

Fewer and fewer people remained on the ship. Zhou Zhou pursed his lips, staring apprehensively at everyone swimming outside in the sea area.

Xue Li and Ke Li were also about to leave, but they turned around and saw Zhou Zhou standing there motionless.

“Zhou Zhou, why aren’t you leaving yet?”

Zhou Zhou opened his mouth, wanting to say that he might not be able to leave because he couldn’t swim. But after realizing that all the players they had encountered in the instance could swim, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he told Xue Li and Ke Li that he planned to leave last.

The two didn’t suspect anything and left the ghostly ship together.

Now only Zhou Zhou remained on the ship alone.

He had been solely focused on figuring out how to get out, but hadn’t thought about what he would do after leaving.

The other players’ swimming skills were all very good, and they could hold their breath underwater for a very long time, obviously very familiar with such an environment.

But Zhou Zhou had never experienced swimming before, so after going out, he absolutely couldn’t swim as smoothly as the others.

When he first entered the Deep Sea Creature instance, he had tried it out already.

If Alvia hadn’t suggested using the flight talisman to leave, Zhou Zhou might have just kept drifting on the sea clinging to a wooden plank.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhou suddenly remembered something.

Previously when entering the instance, after realizing Xue Li and Ke Li weren’t by his side, Al had said not to worry about them, that they could swim.

How did Al know that? He didn’t know Xue Li and the others before, and had never seen them swim.

Zhou Zhou looked up to see that most of the players had already swum into that undersea cave, and none had come out after entering.

Could it be that in the outside world, everyone knows how to swim, so Al spoke so confidently?

Recalling the scene where he almost drowned in front of Al, Zhou Zhou’s heart raced. Could it be that he had already exposed his abnormality?

Just now he was still worried about how he would get out, but now Zhou Zhou was clearly more worried that Al would discover his abnormality.

As he was pacing anxiously on the deck trying to come up with a plan, he noticed Al staring at him from outside the barrier.

Zhou Zhou was startled, thinking Al had already entered the cave long ago.

Alvia pointed upwards, indicating for Zhou Zhou to come out.

Zhou Zhou shook his head. Since Al already knew he couldn’t swim, he probably also knew why Zhou Zhou was still here.

Alvia looked at Zhou Zhou, the value above his head constantly decreasing. He moved closer to the barrier and said something to Zhou Zhou inside.

Although it was just mouthing words, Zhou Zhou saw them.

“Don’t worry.”

The anxious and tense emotions from just before instantly settled. Perhaps it was because he had received so much help from the other party, or perhaps it was because Al always saved him in the most critical moments, seeing Al say not to worry, Zhou Zhou really did let his worries go.

Zhou Zhou tightly pursed his lips, staring intently at the other as if confirming, but Alvia’s expression remained unchanging. He also looked at Zhou Zhou, his icy blue eyes appearing exceptionally pure against the dim background of the surrounding deep sea.

Finally, Zhou Zhou started moving, beginning to climb up the mast, while Alvia outside swam upwards at the same pace.

There was no one else around now, as all the players had entered the undersea cave.

The original illumination had all been taken away by the players, and the sea bottom returned to darkness and silence.

In this vast underwater world, it seemed there were only the two of them now. As Zhou Zhou climbed towards the top of the mast, he would occasionally glance at Alvia to confirm his position.

And Alvia was always waiting for him at the closest spot.

Zhou Zhou stood at the top, calling out to Alvia outside the ship: “I’m coming out now.”

He didn’t know if his voice could pass through the barrier, but Alvia seemed to have heard, nodding at him.

Originally Zhou Zhou wasn’t one to hesitate, otherwise he wouldn’t have so decisively followed Xue Li and the others to leave his most familiar environment for an unfamiliar place back then.

Since he had placed his trust in the other party, he would not doubt again.

Closing his eyes, he leapt outwards. He felt as if he passed through a thin membrane, and after that, his whole body suddenly became heavy, as if bound by shackles, unable to freely control any part.

When someone caught him, Zhou Zhou instinctively grabbed onto their clothes.

He slowly opened his eyes in the sea to see Alvia’s smooth jawline. When Al looked down at him, Zhou Zhou saw himself puffing out his cheeks like a pufferfish reflected in Al’s smiling icy blue eyes.

Although he couldn’t swim, Zhou Zhou still knew to hold his breath underwater, but he looked really strange, kind of stupid.

Originally planning to swim towards the cave together while pulling Zhou Zhou, but now with Zhou Zhou clinging limply in his arms holding his breath and staring stupidly, Alvia could only maintain this posture as he swam them both towards the cave.

Inside the cave was also completely dark without any light. Alvia swam further along the cave path, which curved upwards after a straight stretch.

He continued swimming upwards. During this time Zhou Zhou remained still, having regained his senses now but also knowing that Al was having difficulty carrying him while swimming, so he obediently stayed put to avoid causing more trouble.

Soon Alvia spotted a light source ahead and swam towards it, surfacing above the water.

It turned out this was a naturally formed stone cave hidden here, the principles behind its formation unclear, but inside there was no water and sufficient oxygen present, just as Alvia had guessed.

A few flatfish-like dark gray fish would occasionally surface to breathe, seeming to rely on this oxygen source to survive at the sea bottom.

Zhou Zhou and Alvia came up onto the shore together.

Xue Li, who had been waiting by the shore, quickly came over.

“Zhou Zhou, why were you two so slow? I almost thought something had happened to you.”

Originally she had wanted to ask about Al too, why did the first one out come in last, with his life value almost in the red, but she didn’t dare say it, feeling a lack of presence before him.

“Ah Jiang, wake up, wake up!”

The few of them were drawn by the miserable shouts coming from up ahead.

Zhou Zhou shook the water droplets from his hair as he looked over in that direction.

It turned out that during the process of swimming out, one player had their life value reach zero and been eliminated.

His body was carried up by the other players. Over these past few days of interaction, everyone had gradually become familiar and gotten along very well, so naturally they felt pity seeing a companion eliminated.

It’s just that this person’s demeanor was too exaggerated. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the person lying there was really dead.

“His life value was almost at the critical point originally. It took about three minutes from the ghostly ship to here, not requiring too much life value. He must have expended too much earlier. If you were close, you can contact him again after leaving the instance,” a player sincerely said from the side.

The player mourned: “Dying in the game is still a kind of death. We were just about to clear it, how could you fall here? Where am I supposed to find you after going out, you didn’t even leave me a way to contact you!”

The others: …That last part was the key point, huh.

The player mourned for a few minutes, then suddenly seemed to think of something and asked the others: “What do you think, now that Ah Jiang is gone, what about his ghost…”

Everyone paused and looked at the player lying on the ground. Two red zeroed-out values glowed above his head, casting an eerie red glow on his face under the red light.

Recalling their previous encounters in the instance, the crowd fell silent.

It was very possible!

The mourning player immediately stood up: “Let’s hurry and move forward to find the escape exit, otherwise once Ghost Ah Jiang wakes up, we’ll waste more time again.”

Since everyone’s clothes had gotten soaked by seawater again, their life values were also continuously decreasing. Although not as much as when underwater, it was still very dangerous for those whose values were reaching the critical point.

They might get eliminated halfway through.

Like Alvia, his original value was about the same as Zhou Zhou’s, higher than the other players present.

But now, because he had stayed underwater for too long, his value had decreased the most, making him one of the players with the lowest values remaining.

Without minding their drenched clothes, the group headed deeper into the cave.

The visibility inside the cave was decent, not because of the players’ illumination tools, but because there were scattered colorful crystals lining the cave walls that emitted different colored lights, conveniently lighting up this path.

One player was very curious about these crystals and wanted to break off a piece to examine, but the moment he touched a crystal, his life value immediately dropped.

If the others hadn’t warned him, he would have probably been eliminated right there.

Although it only dropped from one-fifth to the critical point, it was enough to make him regret being so careless.

Zhou Zhou, who had originally been itching to touch them, put his hand down after seeing the player’s life value drop.

“Do you think this cave could be the escape exit, and we’ll clear the instance once we exit?”

“It’s possible, I’ve encountered it before where leaving through a certain passage counted as successful completion.”

“Finally reaching it, this instance feels like it took a really long time.”

“Well this instance tested eyesight, intelligence, decryption, imagination, perception and all sorts of random abilities, not sure if any players who entered it before managed to clear it.”

“Not sure, but we can ask on the forums later.”

The players chatted relaxedly, since they would be clearing the instance soon after all.

The light ahead grew brighter and everyone quickened their pace, guessing which part of Nightmare City they would exit into.

Zhou Zhou blinked his eyes doubtfully. Were they really going outside now? But that didn’t seem right.

With previous instances, they generally exited from the same place they entered.

According to Xue Li and the others, for Love Academy they entered and exited through the same room, for Haunted Villa they entered and exited through the small broken elevator outside, and Doll’s House was the same, entering and exiting through the same passage. When they entered the Deep Sea Creature instance, it was through Colt Lake, so when exiting shouldn’t they also go through the lake waters?

Why was the exit location different from the entrance this time?

As they approached the bright light source ahead, everyone walked faster and faster.

But when they excitedly stepped into the illuminated area, what they saw before them was an even larger stone grotto.

The players: “…”

Where was the city? Where was the completion?

Why was there another cave?

Unlike the previous winding narrow path, this stone grotto was extremely large, with an extraordinary height and width that was practically the size of a small concert hall.

It was densely surrounded by many cave entrances of varying sizes.

And the light source they had seen before came from the countless crystals packed densely inside the grotto, clusters of these crystals protruding from the walls and decorating the ordinary grotto in an exceptionally dazzling way.

It was completely silent inside the stone grotto, with no sound except the players’ incredulous questions and the continuous echoes bouncing back.

Alvia frowned, how did he hear Zhou Zhou’s voice?

Zhou Zhou was standing right next to him, his eyes slightly downcast as if pondering something, not uttering a single word throughout the whole process. Yet amidst the clamor of the players’ voices and echoes, he heard Zhou Zhou’s voice.

These players were of different ages and genders, and none had a voice similar to Zhou Zhou’s, so where did that voice come from?

“Did you hear that?” Alvia turned slightly towards Zhou Zhou.

“Huh? What?” Zhou Zhou snapped out of it and asked blankly.

“Listen carefully to those voices.”

Zhou Zhou set aside the jumbled thoughts in his mind and focused on listening to the sounds inside the stone grotto.

“There’s my voice in there,” Zhou Zhou quickly realized after hearing a few lines, very certain it was his own voice.

Alvia scanned the grotto, then suddenly gestured at the players. The previously noisy players all fell silent after seeing the gesture.

Zhou Zhou found it a bit strange and secretly committed Alvia’s gesture to memory.

The voices inside the cave continued, but now only Zhou Zhou’s voice remained speaking, repeating the discussion the players had just been having. If it wasn’t now isolated, it would have been difficult to pick out from amidst the other voices.

“There’s something in here!” One player, hearing the familiar voice echoing in the cave, glanced at Zhou Zhou and suddenly exclaimed in hushed horror, eyes wide.

Everyone had heard it.

The voice inside also abruptly stopped when it was left as the only one remaining.

The stone grotto returned to silence again.

Although the grotto appeared extremely spacious, its walls were riddled with many cave entrances just like the passage they had emerged from, some deep and some shallow. At a glance, the lighting inside all of them seemed dim, with nothing visible inside.

Alvia narrowed his eyes and scanned the surroundings. After leaving the ghostly ship, his spiritual power had recovered somewhat, allowing him to probe various areas now.

Before long, he fixed his gaze unwaveringly on the largest cave entrance in the grotto, sensing a living presence inside.

“Did you discover something?” Zhou Zhou asked, noticing Alvia’s intense stare.

Just as Alvia was about to say there was a living creature inside the cave, a commotion suddenly came from within that cave entrance.

It sounded like falling rocks, or something dragging against the ground.

Everyone immediately became more alert.

They saw a huge monster squeezing out from the cave, it seemed to be a red octopus, its enormous tentacles covered in suction cups continuously rolling and advancing, each tentacle three to four meters long. When it emerged from the cave and coiled within the grotto, for a moment no one could even count how many tentacles it had.

The players never expected such a massive monster to be here. Could this not be some exit for completion, but rather the monster’s lair?

There was no time to ponder further as the monster extended its tentacles towards the players.

Everyone immediately scattered and fled.

But once they had spread out, they realized this monster’s target seemed to be Zhou Zhou, its huge red tentacle heading straight for him.

Alvia immediately pulled Zhou Zhou away to evade the tentacle’s attack.

Missing on its first strike, the agile tentacle changed directions and went for Zhou Zhou again.

The other players hiding in various spots couldn’t help commenting as they watched Alvia and Zhou Zhou being chased by the monster: “What’s up with this monster? Why is it only going after Zhou Zhou and Al?”

“Did they offend it or something?”

“How could they, we’ve never seen this octopus before, when would they have offended it?”

“Maybe it just goes by looks and is targeting the two best-looking ones.”

“…As loath as I am to admit it, that’s possible.”

As Zhou Zhou was pulled away by Alvia to evade the attacks, he heard the players’ comments and suddenly turned his head to look at the giant octopus.

A red octopus, and it was only chasing him, could it be that little octopus?

But the difference between them was too great, one was tiny, round and cute-looking. This was a gigantic, ferocious and terrifying red octopus, completely different.

Still, Zhou Zhou scrutinized the octopus carefully.

Just now this octopus had produced the same voice as him, as if using his voice to mimic the players’ speech.

And he had heard some strange echoes with Al on the ghostly ship before, could it have been this thing?

After all, the only octopus he had seen on the ship was that little one that had been there for a long time.

Zhou Zhou wasn’t sure, so he called out to the relentless octopus behind him: “Are you the little octopus?”

These words successfully made Alvia pause mid-step, as he hadn’t expected Zhou Zhou to link this giant octopus to that little one.

The players hiding in other spots also exclaimed in surprise, of course they had all seen that little octopus before, and been sprayed in the face with its red ink when discussing the eighteen ways to cook octopus.

But what did it have to do with this monster? The two didn’t even look like the same species!

The octopus didn’t respond, continuing to doggedly chase after Zhou Zhou and trying to capture him.

Zhou Zhou was carried around the waist by Alvia, the position was uncomfortable but he was used to it by now.

He had a feeling that if this was the little octopus, its aim in capturing him probably wasn’t to harm him. Although not entirely sure, he wanted to try.

“Al, stop for a bit, I want to know what it wants by catching me,” Zhou Zhou called out.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Alvia had almost never rejected Zhou Zhou’s suggestions, so he abruptly stopped in his tracks.

The tentacles behind them immediately surged forward, wrapping around and capturing the two together.

Before the players could even ponder the connection between this monster and the little octopus, they saw Al and Zhou Zhou get captured.

One player suddenly remembered he still had a particle cannon, and that it had finished cooling down and charging up. He hurriedly took it out and shouted at the two: “Don’t worry, I’ll blast this monster sky-high and save you!”

Both Zhou Zhou and Alvia could feel that when the tentacles wrapped around them, the movements were very careful, as if afraid of making them uncomfortable.

And the eagle-eyed Zhou Zhou finally found the evidence proving this was indeed the little octopus.

After the giant octopus wrapped them up, he saw the handkerchief on its head, although the handkerchief was tiny, practically negligible compared to the octopus’ massive head now, he still saw it, that little white handkerchief motionless on the octopus’ head.

Seeing the player take out the particle cannon, Zhou Zhou hurriedly called out: “It’s the little octopus, it means us no harm, it might know the exit.”

The player lowered the particle cannon, still not quite believing this thing was the little octopus. Genetic mutation? Or sea bed radiation?

Just how much radiation could turn a cute little thing into this?

The gigantic monster slowly carried the two before itself, staring at them with its two enormous eyes.

Seeing such a massive monster up close, anyone would feel afraid. But Zhou Zhou’s demeanor was exactly the same as when facing the little octopus before.

“I know you’re the little octopus. Do you know where the escape exit is?” Zhou Zhou asked. Alvia’s value was about to hit zero, if they didn’t get out soon, he would be eliminated. Zhou Zhou couldn’t afford to chat with the little octopus anymore and cut straight to asking about the completion exit.

Almost as soon as the words left Zhou Zhou’s mouth, the giant octopus swallowed the two in one gulp at lightning speed.

The players: !! This octopus eats people!