Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 60

Chapter 60: Nightmare City 8

The little octopus used its tentacles to cling to the edge of the red bucket, struggling to climb out of it. Its moist, large eyes kept staring at Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou also looked down at the little octopus. Its plump, pinkish appearance was still as adorable as ever. Its chubby tentacles waved around, as if greeting him. Walking a few steps towards the captain, Zhou Zhou squatted down, his line of sight level with the little octopus. He gently stroked the little octopus’s head with his finger.

As if startled by Zhou Zhou’s bold action, the little octopus clinging to the bucket rim suddenly fell back into the bucket, splashing out a few drops of water. Zhou Zhou continued to peer into the bucket, and the “thrashing” little octopus inside was waving its tentacles vigorously, lively as could be.

Zhou Zhou’s head was almost diving into the bucket now, and there was no way the captain could have missed such an obvious action.

He looked down at Zhou Zhou, who seemed intent on climbing into the bucket, then moved the bucket aside. But Zhou Zhou just squatted there and inched forward again.

The captain: “……”

In the end, he still placed the bucket on the ground, letting Zhou Zhou have his fill of watching.

The players present seemed startled by the captain’s sudden appearance, and for a while, no one spoke up first.

Seeing the players’ looks of bewilderment, as if still doubting his identity, the captain stroked his large beard: “You just said the instance I designed was very messed up?”

Seeing the captain standing there, alive and speaking to them, the players became even more doubtful that they were trapped in an illusion.

“Why don’t you slap me, and I’ll see if I can wake up,” Ah Jiang mumbled to his companion beside him.

His companion raised both hands and slapped Ah Jiang on both cheeks, one slap per side, very fair, leaving neither side untouched. The crisp sound made everyone else regain their senses: “Did that hurt?”

Ah Jiang’s cheeks were flushed red, with symmetrical red handprints on both sides: “…Really hurt!”

Ke Li watched these people acting very nonsensically. Even if they were trapped in an illusion, simulating pain sensations in the game wasn’t that difficult, and getting slapped twice wouldn’t sober them up. He shook his head and saw that Zhou Zhou was still eagerly playing with the little octopus, while Al was just watching Zhou Zhou play with the little octopus. Neither of them seemed inclined to speak up.

Ke Li: “You’re saying the Deep Sea Creature is an instance you designed? So you created a captain character for yourself?”

Seeing that someone was finally addressing him, the captain burst out laughing: “That’s right, I designed it. How is it? Isn’t it very creative?”

One player, no longer caring whether it was an illusion or not, said indignantly: “Just that completion exit alone isn’t something a normal person could come up with.”

The others chimed in: “And the loop, and the corpses drifting up from the sea bottom, if we hadn’t noticed the anomaly, wouldn’t the rest of the days have been spent in that loop? We’d all be mentally broken just from that.”

“And also, there was only one main quest item, forcing players to fight over it. In the end, we had to give you the sword for everyone to complete the main quest. Just say it wasn’t absurd, who would give the hard-won sword to an NPC?”

Everyone vented their grievances, recalling having to swim in the sea after the ship capsized, boarding the ghost ship and falling into various traps, being chased by skeletons, looping endlessly on the seabed and being forced to watch the corpses of various passengers, and finally almost getting eaten by the octopus, each memory felt upsetting.

The captain calmly watched everyone air their complaints about the instance he designed: “If you all hadn’t messed around and taken things on my ship, most of the scenarios you just mentioned wouldn’t have happened.”

“……” Seems that was also true.

“But what about the octopus? When faced with such a huge monster, any normal person’s first reaction would be to run away. Who could have imagined the exit would be in the octopus’s mouth? Doesn’t that count as messed up?”

The captain stroked his beard, muttering to himself: “Really? I thought that exit was quite novel. Plus, didn’t you all manage to complete the instance in the end?”

Player: You call that completing the instance? Weren’t we just dragged out?

Xue Li had remained silent this whole time. Watching everyone suddenly start discussing the rationality of the instance with the captain, she couldn’t help but ask: “Aren’t game instances supposed to be automatically generated by the system? Why was this one designed by some old man, who was even here selling ships before the instance started?”

The players who had been arguing with the captain also realized something was off and stopped, looking at him doubtfully.

The captain stroked his large beard and, upon hearing Xue Li’s doubts, explained: “Most game instances are indeed automatically generated by the system, but a small portion are designed by players. For example, the Deep Sea Creature was designed by me. However, very few people were able to complete this instance before. Even those who did only had one or two successes. This time, over ten people completed it, and all of you scored very highly on the settlement. Of course I had to come see what was going on.”

Ke Li noticed the key points: “You’re saying players can design their own instances?”

The captain nodded, his friendly, squinting smile complementing his protruding, round belly: “Once you accumulate over one million points from settlement scores in instances, you become an intermediate player and can design your own instances. The faster players’ spiritual power, brain domain values, and other data increase in the instance you’ve designed, the more points the instance designer gets, far more than what you’d get from just grinding instances and doing quests yourself.”

Ke Li was very doubtful: “I’ve never heard of this in the game before.”

“Hahaha, well the game only just started, and no player has reached one million points yet.”

“Then how did you become an intermediate player?”

The captain sounded a bit proud: “I was in the game during the internal testing phase, and only recently accumulated one million points. The Deep Sea Creature is the first instance I designed.”

The players all expressed newfound knowledge, wanting to glean more information from the captain. So not only could they do instance quests, but they could design their own instances too. Thinking of the suffering, tears, and frights they had endured in that instance, they suddenly felt motivated. If it were an instance of their own design, and players were scared into screaming, wouldn’t that be so satisfying to watch… hehehe.

Xue Li quickly retreated a few steps, what was wrong with these people? What were they thinking about with those weird expressions?

Zhou Zhou, squatting on the ground with the crawling little octopus in his hands, finally understood after hearing the captain’s explanation. In fact, some of the content had been vaguely mentioned earlier in his conversation with the resentful woman Mo Lan, who had urged him to quickly grind instances and accumulate points.

So that’s how it is. After leveling up, you can design your own instances. So the previous few instances not only had involvement from real-life NPCs, but the instances themselves were also designed by them?

But why was this fact unknown to most people in the game? Even when Mo Lan told him about it, she only briefly mentioned for him to do more instances to accumulate points, and that having black star markings meant faster point gain.

Zhou Zhou thought about this and naturally asked.

The captain had a pleasant personality and answered all questions: “Because the game hasn’t been online for very long. Many people haven’t even earned the 10,000 points needed for resurrection, so the information about leveling up will probably be announced after some time.”

Zhou Zhou blinked in confusion: “Then can you tell us in advance?”

The captain suddenly paused, his hand stroking his beard stopping: “…Seems I can’t.”

No sooner had he spoken than he suddenly vanished from the spot.

“Where’d he go? Logged off?”

“How did he leave without saying goodbye?”

“Was it really an illusion then?”

Alvia: “He was probably banned from logging in.”

The level system would indeed only be announced to players after the points leaderboard came out. So this captain, who had casually divulged the level system to the players, would likely be unable to log in for a short period of time. Even if he could log in, he would be muted.

Alvia wasn’t very clear on the details of the game, but he knew the general situation from Zeus’s frequent ramblings.

The players looked at each other: “So we can’t talk about the game’s ****? Huh? Why am I muted?”

“Seems we really can’t talk about it. Oh well, let’s just focus on accumulating points for now. Probably after some time, once players reach the required points, it’ll be announced.”

The players all agreed.

Zhou Zhou was still squatting on the ground, looking at the spot where the captain had vanished, then at the little octopus in his hands, feeling somewhat dazed.

With the captain gone, what would happen to the little octopus?

He looked towards Alvia: “Do you know when the captain will be back?”

Alvia shook his head: “Don’t know how long the system will ban him for, shortest is maybe one or two hours, longest could be a few days.”

For the few internal test players, the level system and instance design in Nightmare City wasn’t a secret, although they only made up a very small proportion among all internal test players. While they were prohibited from divulging it early in the game, some still obtained the information through various channels. So the captain’s premature revelation likely wouldn’t result in a very long ban period.

Zhou Zhou gazed at the little octopus: “Okay then, I’ll wait here for him to return.”

After all, if he left, what if the captain came back later and couldn’t find the little octopus? With the captain absent now, Zhou Zhou didn’t know his contact information, so he could only try waiting here first.

Xue Li: “Zhou Zhou, there’s no need to wait here the whole time. What if he doesn’t log in for a few days? You’d be waiting here for several days then? He did say earlier that this was his only instance, so he’ll definitely return here sooner or later. Plus, he was selling ships here before, right? Coming by once a day, you’re bound to run into him eventually.”

Zhou Zhou knew, but he still insisted: “I’ll wait here for a bit first. What if he comes back soon? If I can’t wait for him, I’ll take the little octopus and go back, then come find him again tomorrow.”

After exchanging contact information with the remaining players, Zhou Zhou put the little octopus back in the bucket, then carried the bucket and sat on the small bench by the lake. This little bench was actually also left behind by the captain from when he went fishing earlier, with a fishing rod placed beside it too.

The other players left, and while Xue Li and Ke Li had originally wanted to wait with Zhou Zhou, they had spent too long in the instance and needed to log off to eat. They could only agree to come back after eating to keep him company.

In the end, only Alvia remained beside him.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Zhou Zhou asked.

Alvia: “I’ll go later.”

“Do you want to sit then?” Looking around, Zhou Zhou noticed there was only one small bench. He shifted to the side, leaving half for Alvia.

The small bench was rectangular, slightly longer than a typical square stool, just right for the plump captain to sit on. But if two adults sat on it, they would probably have to squeeze tightly together to avoid falling off.

Alvia: “…No need.”

“Oh.” Zhou Zhou shifted back to the middle, looking down at the crawling little octopus in the bucket.

Alvia wasn’t a talkative person to begin with, and Zhou Zhou was uncharacteristically quiet at this moment too, so a sudden silence fell between them, with only the sound of the little octopus paddling in the water clearly audible.

After quite a while, Zhou Zhou stared at the little octopus and suddenly said: “Al, what do you think happens if you get eliminated in an instance, does that mean you die?”

Alvia looked at the distant lake water, hearing Zhou Zhou’s question, and replied: “There are resurrection items.”

Zhou Zhou lowered his head and voiced his acknowledgment: “That’s true.”

Prior to the Deep Sea Creature instance, he had never thought about this question, since the previous instances had always gone smoothly, and the players around him always seemed very calm when someone died in an instance. To them, being eliminated meant either logging off or resurrecting at a revival point.

But what about him? If he got eliminated in the instance, logging off should be impossible, so could he resurrect at the revival point?

When they were still in the undersea cavern, Ah Jiang’s life value dropped to zero and he died. His companion had said that dying in the game was a form of death. So for him, an anomaly in the game, would he resurrect like the other players or truly die and never appear again?

Zhou Zhou didn’t know.

“If an NPC dies in the instance, do you think they’ll resurrect?” Zhou Zhou asked again.

Alvia’s gaze shifted from the distant lake towards Zhou Zhou: “NPCs are set by the system. Even if they die, they’ll respawn on the next refresh, so of course they’ll resurrect.”

Those words offered Zhou Zhou some reassurance. That’s right, since he could even earn points and do quests in the game, maybe Al was right and he would resurrect even if he died.

Zhou Zhou looked up and smiled at Alvia, but realized Alvia was frowning at him, his eyes full of probing intent.

Zhou Zhou: !

Why was he looking at him with that expression?

Zhou Zhou stared back at Alvia with wide eyes. At this moment, he suddenly recalled something, that Al had found out he couldn’t swim during the instance. Could it be that he had already discovered Zhou Zhou’s identity?

Zhou Zhou: ToT

Help! How could he cover this up?

Would it still work if he said right now that he was allergic to water, so he couldn’t swim?