Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Nightmare City 9

The two stared at each other for a long time. Just as Zhou Zhou was about to lie to conceal his identity, Alvia suddenly turned his head back to gaze at the distant lake.

“Aren’t you cold wearing those wet clothes?”

Zhou Zhou: “Huh?”

He looked down and realized that after Al had brought him up from the lake earlier, the clothes they were wearing were still wet.

When other players went offline, the next time they entered the game, their clothes would be dry. But if they stayed in the game continuously, their clothes would get wet like in reality and slowly dry over time. However, if the clothes were damaged, they would not be restored, and the damaged parts would remain.

Zhou Zhou did feel uncomfortable when they first came ashore, but he was so focused on playing with the little octopus that he didn’t pay much attention to his clothes, which were still wet.

“No, not cold.” Zhou Zhou breathed a sigh of relief. So Al was talking about the clothes, not about swimming.

Since he was completely ignorant of the outside world, he didn’t know whether everyone could swim or if it just happened by chance that the players in the same instance could all swim. Before Al exposed this, he couldn’t bring it up himself. What if he made things worse by explaining unnecessarily? If Al hadn’t noticed it, bringing it up himself might arouse suspicion.

If he needed to change, he would have to change all his clothes. Zhou Zhou looked around, and there were players strolling everywhere around Colt Lake.

“I’ll go back and change later. Al, aren’t you going back to change clothes?”

Zhou Zhou looked up and asked him. He was sitting on a small stool, his pair of amber eyes looking at Al obediently, as if the words were cycling endlessly in his eyes.

Aren’t you going back? Aren’t you going back? Aren’t you going back?…

As if he couldn’t wait for Al to leave.

Alvia had originally planned to stay and keep him company, but it seemed that Zhou Zhou didn’t need him here.

He sighed: “Then I’ll go first?”

Zhou Zhou immediately waved: “Goodbye~”

Alvia: “……”

Al went offline, and Zhou Zhou immediately felt much more relaxed. He always felt like he might expose himself at any moment in front of Al, especially since Al seemed to be present whenever he slipped up. Fortunately, Al didn’t seem suspicious.

Although he enjoyed doing instances and missions with Al and had unconsciously become dependent on him, Al was more perceptive than others, as shown by his early attitude towards NPCs. So whenever Zhou Zhou realized he was behaving differently from others, he felt uneasy around Al.

The bucket was right in front of Zhou Zhou, and he looked at the little octopus resting on the edge again. He gently poked it with his finger: “Little octopus, when will your owner come?”

“Little octopus, when will your owner come?”

Zhou Zhou: !

Zhou Zhou was amazed. Although he had a vague sense that the little octopus could speak in the instance, witnessing it firsthand still felt strange. Especially when after he finished speaking, the little octopus actually repeated what he said in his voice, with the same tone and intonation.

Discovering that the little octopus could mimic his speech, Zhou Zhou sat there teaching it to talk, and the little octopus, which remained silent in front of others, cooperated very well, mimicking whatever Zhou Zhou said.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“You’re so smart.”

“You’re so smart.”

“……”

The two conversed for a while until the little octopus seemed tired, and Zhou Zhou stopped.

It was almost afternoon now, so Zhou Zhou sat on the small stool and took out some small fish jerky to eat. His beef jerky was almost finished in the instance, but he still had a lot of small fish jerky left.

The little octopus had been resting quietly in the bucket but came out again, perhaps smelling the aroma or hearing the sound of Zhou Zhou chewing.

Its little tentacles were raised high, pointing at the small fish jerky in his hand.

“You want some too?”

Zhou Zhou took out a small fish jerky and handed it to the little octopus. Its pink tentacle curled around the fish jerky and brought it to its mouth. After eating it, the tentacle was raised high again.

Its moist eyes seemed to say, “More!”

Zhou Zhou generously shared the small fish jerky with it, taking one piece each, and they ate a lot.

When Xue Li and Ke Li came back online to find him, Zhou Zhou’s small fish jerky supply was nearly depleted. He had eaten a lot, and the little octopus had also eaten quite a bit, probably several times its own size in total.

“Hey! Zhou Zhou.” Xue Li walked towards Zhou Zhou, “You’re still waiting. I guess the captain won’t be able to come back today.”

Ke Li followed behind his sister: “Yeah, don’t wait anymore. Haven’t you gone offline yet? Aren’t you going to go eat?”

Zhou Zhou blinked: “I’ll go back later.”

The two didn’t inquire further and simply sat down by the lake. After all, there was no dirt or anything in the game, so it didn’t matter if they lay on the ground.

Sitting in the game and basking in the sun, they could feel the warmth of the sunlight on their faces.

“Weekends are the best,” Ke Li said with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah,” Xue Li agreed, posing the same way as her brother as they sunbathed.

The little octopus, munching on the small fish jerky, looked curiously at Xue Li and Ke Li. After they arrived, although it continued eating at the same pace, it didn’t say another word.

Seeing their leisurely demeanor, Zhou Zhou thought he could ask them questions about the real world since Xue Li and Ke Li were the first ones he had met, and they were the closest among his current group of friends.

“Xue Li.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you two swim? When did you learn?”  He wanted to know more about the world outside the game.

Xue Li didn’t think too much about it and answered directly: “Didn’t we have swimming lessons as part of the curriculum starting from elementary school?”

Ke Li suddenly seemed to remember something and laughed: “Do you remember? When you first started learning to swim, every time you went into the water, you came back up after drinking a whole belly full of water.”

Xue Li gritted her teeth: “……I don’t remember that. And do you want me to help you recall when your pants fell off during a middle school swimming class?”

Ke Li immediately fell silent.

Xue Li snorted coldly, trying to redeem her image in front of Zhou Zhou: “But now I swim really well, basically getting full marks every time in high school.”

They had to learn swimming from elementary to high school, so that’s why Al was so certain that Xue Li and Ke Li could both swim, Zhou Zhou pondered.

“Then, are there people who can’t swim?”

“Can’t swim?” Xue Li and Ke Li looked at each other. “That’s quite rare. After all, swimming is part of the curriculum. Even if you couldn’t swim at first, you’d definitely learn it after eight or ten years. At least I didn’t see anyone who couldn’t when I was in school.”

“But I’ve heard that on some planets that are too short of water, they don’t offer swimming classes,” Ke Li recalled.

“Really?” Xue Li seemed even more surprised than Zhou Zhou. “So they don’t know how to swim at all?”

Ke Li: “It seems they only learn it after going to university.”

Zhou Zhou nodded on the side, making a note that water-scarce planets didn’t have this course, and people only learned it after going to university.

He asked a few more questions, all about common knowledge in the real world that he didn’t understand. Xue Li and Ke Li chatted with him patiently, not suspecting his intentions for asking at all.

It wasn’t until the afternoon, after repeated urging from the two of them, that Zhou Zhou finally prepared to leave.

In Xue Li and Ke Li’s view, Zhou Zhou was too immersed in the game, even neglecting to eat properly. This was the time for growing, so how could he not eat on time?

Zhou Zhou didn’t wait for the captain, so he could only take the little octopus back first.

After bidding farewell to the two of them, he returned to his rented room. As soon as he entered, he heard loud noises throughout the room.

In his small rented room, there were little dolls scurrying all over the bed and floor. When they saw Zhou Zhou return, the little dolls swarmed towards him, climbing up his pant legs.

“You’re back!”

“Zhou Zhou, Zhou Zhou.”

These little dolls were the little friends from the Doll’s House. They had been terrified of Zhou Zhou not long ago, but now they dared to climb all over him, each one calling out sweetly and affectionately. Even as Zhou Zhou walked around to find a place to put down his fishing rod and small stool, and changed the water for the little octopus, the dolls didn’t get off him, clinging tightly.

Zhou Zhou was also delighted. He loved the liveliness. As soon as he returned, he saw so many little friends. Although they were just in the form of little dolls, moving dolls were still very cute.

The little octopus, with its originally shiny round eyes, was staring widely at the little dolls on Zhou Zhou, seeming very interested.

The little friends also noticed this pink octopus. Some little girls gasped in amazement, staring at the little octopus incessantly. The little boys were even naughtier, some cheering that they wanted to eat octopus dumplings, scaring the little octopus, who could understand human speech, into retreating back into the bucket.

Zhou Zhou had a gentle expression, the corners of his mouth slightly raised as he coaxed the little octopus, also playing hide-and-seek with the little dolls in the room.

It was just that the house he rented was too small for them to move around freely.

He had been planning to save up and buy a house in the game, but they were too expensive.

Now his accumulated score was close to 600,000. Subtracting what he had spent on food and items, he still had 500,000 left, but he didn’t know what kind of house that could buy.

He had inquired about it before. Houses in the game were also very expensive, so currently, no one was willing to spend their scores on that.

But Zhou Zhou was different. Everyone else had a home to return to, but he didn’t, and he might have to stay here forever. So buying a house of his own was the best option.

Zhou Zhou was tempted. He had originally wanted to buy a huge mansion like the ones in Haunted Villa, but they were too expensive. It would be fine if there were more people, but if it was just him in a mansion, it would definitely feel empty. It would be more economical to buy a smaller one.

After thinking for a while, he suddenly remembered an important question. So he found Mo Lan’s contact and sent her a message.

He didn’t know if a score of 1 million was required to level up, or if the accumulated score from doing instances counted, regardless of whether it was spent or not.

If it was the former, then he would have to wait until he accumulated 1 million and leveled up before he could use these scores to buy a house. If it was the latter, he could spend them now.

Mo Lan’s reply came quickly, just a single sentence:

“Spend it as you wish.”

It seemed to be the latter then. Spending the score wouldn’t affect his level up, and he was only about 400,000 away from leveling up.

After changing clothes in the rented room, Zhou Zhou left the little octopus and little dolls there, reminding the little friends not to bully the little octopus, and went out.

Following the location marked on the map, Zhou Zhou went to a store where he had looked at houses a few days ago but found them too expensive, only renting for a month.

Inside the store, he looked at the exterior, location, and interior decor of various houses, directly skipping over those with scores too high and selecting from the price range he could afford.

After flipping through many pages, his gaze lingered on one for a long time.

This was a high-rise building in the center of Nightmare City. The top levels were areas that players could purchase. The house he was interested in wasn’t large, with two bedrooms and one living room, decorated very warmly. From the balcony, one could overlook the cityscape of Nightmare City. The street below was also very lively, with various shops and entertainment venues visible, and a large flow of people.

Currently, most players weren’t interested in such things. They just came online to do instances, then went home after finishing them, seeing no point in wasting scores to buy a house when those scores could buy so many items.

Some lifestyle players were interested, but tens of thousands was indeed too much for them.

It was only Zhou Zhou, whose instance scores were several times higher than others, and who could only stay in the game world, that considered buying a house.

The decor was warm and cozy, the outside was lively, perfect for him to live alone without feeling empty.

Zhou Zhou didn’t flip any further, pointing at the screen: “This one.”