Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 67

Chapter 67: Nightmare City 15

Zeus was very resentful, looking at the little octopus that followed Zhou Zhou back again, almost wanting to make it into octopus meatballs to eat. If it wasn’t for this octopus stubbornly insisting on following Zhou Zhou, there would only be him and Zhou Zhou at home now.

On the way back, Zhou Zhou bought a fish tank, and after coming in, he started setting up the fish tank for the little octopus.

For the past two days, the little octopus had been staying in a bucket at night, but now the bucket had been returned to the captain, and the little octopus had to live with him. So he bought a fish tank for it while he was at it.

Watching Zhou Zhou busy cleaning the fish tank and changing the water for the little octopus, Zeus was fuming but couldn’t show it in front of Zhou Zhou. He angrily lay on the sofa, pretending to be asleep, but his consciousness returned to a certain room underground in the Imperial Palace.

“Hmph!” Zeus’s figure appeared here, feeling aggrieved when recalling the smug look of the little octopus.

This was a palace underground, a secret passage built by the previous emperor in the palace basement, intended as a precaution against assassination attempts. But after it was completed, it was never actually used.

Few people knew about this place, making it suitable for the “injured” Alvia to hide here.

The underground palace was luxuriously decorated, no different from the palace above. Alvia had always been indifferent to such things and had made no changes, leaving it as it was. This was also the first time it was being used.

The wall paint seemed to be made of some kind of material that gave off a faint fragrance, which had not dissipated even after many years. The palace did not have the dampness and decay of being underground, if not for the lack of windows, it would look no different from the palace above ground.

Alvia was sitting in a chair, leisurely reading a book. The images and videos of yesterday’s assassination attempt had already spread from the capital star.  He had sustained serious injuries, and his condition was unknown.

This assassination attempt was just a probe by the other side to assess his status, as he rarely appeared in public. These people likely wanted to use this assassination to explore his condition, especially since there were previous rumors that he had been severely injured on the battlefield, leading to a decline in his spiritual power.

Fortunately, he had planned for this, allowing them to witness firsthand that his spiritual power had indeed decreased, making it easier for them to take action during the upcoming national celebration.

So for the next few days, he needed to stay here.

Zeus knew everything that happened yesterday. Alvia had made preparations in the palace long ago. The identities of those behind this, how they entered, and how they got close to Alvia, every step was within his calculations. There was no point for Zeus to go out.

Seeing Alvia leisurely reading a book, Zeus suddenly felt much more balanced.

Even though Alvia was making calculated moves on the outside, in reality, he had never even been to Zhou Zhou’s house, unlike Zeus, who was already living with Zhou Zhou and could continue living there.

Zeus’s mood changed quickly. Thinking of this, he felt the little octopus was nothing special. After all, it was just a small pet, and Zhou Zhou’s favorite must be him.

“Alvia, are your injuries better?” Zeus asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer.

Alvia turned a page but did not respond.

Seeing no response, the habitually self-talking Zeus boasted, “Guess where I’m living now? You’ll never guess. I’m living at Zhou Zhou’s place, he invited me to live with him.”

As expected, this statement successfully drew Alvia’s attention, making Zeus even more smug. If he had a tail, it would probably be sticking up in the air.

Alvia looked at him silently for a few seconds, then his gaze returned to the book, as if he had only turned his head to ponder a question from the book.

“You can only stay here, how boring. You still have to wait a few more days, but I’m different. I can stay with Zhou Zhou.”

“Has he logged off since entering the game?” Alvia suddenly asked.

Still in Versailles, Zeus was caught off guard: “No.”

Zhou Zhou had not logged off since coming online, which was rare but not unheard of. After all, it was the start of the game, and many players wanted to accumulate points, so they would stay in the game continuously. The full-dive devices had machines that periodically injected nutrients into the body, allowing people to remain in the devices for up to a month without interruption.

Many full-dive devices now had this function, though it was still not widely used, with a maximum duration of only one month.

After all, the human body still required other trace elements and daily exercise; otherwise, the muscles would atrophy.

Zhou Zhou had only been logged in for a few days, so his body would not have any issues. Not logging off would not arouse suspicion either.

Alvia nodded, saying nothing more. After pondering for a moment, he put down the book, got up from the chair, and walked to open the door to a hidden room in the palace.

Although this looked like just one palace, it actually had several highly concealed small rooms. Even if someone searched here, they would not be able to find all the hiding places right away.

Zeus had never been here before because the place blocked all signals. But not long ago, Alvia had reconnected all the signals, allowing Zeus to appear here now. Seeing Alvia walk off, he hurriedly followed.

He watched as Alvia pressed something, causing a door to appear. Zeus couldn’t help feeling speechless, the previous emperor must have been terribly afraid of dying to have so many hidden rooms everywhere.

He craned his neck to see what was inside but found only a full-dive device setup.

“You… brought the full-dive device down here?” Zeus asked.

“You said I’d be bored staying here, didn’t you? I might as well log in and do some instances,” Alvia replied calmly as he turned on the device.

Zeus could easily guess who Alvia would be looking for to do instances with. When Alvia and Zhou Zhou entered an instance together, Zeus wouldn’t be able to join, only able to wait outside with his eyes glazed over until they came out. Watching Alvia’s calm and composed face, Zeus felt he detected a hint of ridicule.

Isn’t he fond of showing off? Well, Alvia can bring someone into the instance and show off in there, where Zeus won’t see.

“No, no, no!” Zeus tried to stop Alvia, but they had only been together for less than two days, how could they be separated now?

However, his hand passed right through Alvia’s incorporeal form, as Zeus had no physical body to block Alvia with.

Seeing Alvia log in, Zeus hurriedly rushed back to Zhou Zhou’s place.

“Zhou Zhou!” he leapt three feet off the sofa, startling Zhou Zhou and the little octopus, who stared at him in surprise.

Zhou Zhou wondered what happened to Zeus, why did he seem like he had a nightmare? The little octopus was just surprised at how high this guy could jump.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Zhou Zhou asked, and at that moment, Alvia’s message came through.

As the system ruler of Nightmare City, Zeus knew what message Alvia had sent, but there were some rules even he could not intervene in, only able to watch as Zhou Zhou read the information.

Zhou Zhou received Alvia’s message, asking when he wanted to do an instance.

This was the first time Zhou Zhou had gone two days without doing an instance. Previously, he did about one instance per day, with the most being two instances in one day.

For the past two days, other than returning things to the captain and dealing with Xiao Jing’s matter, he had not sent any invitation messages to others, and everyone else seemed busy, so no one had messaged him either.

He did not know if he would revive after dying in an instance, so he had been avoiding doing instances these past two days.

He had been thinking that with everything so busy lately, he could put off doing instances for now.

But in reality, he could not keep delaying it anymore. Most of his points had been spent on buying a house, and he did not have many left. In Nightmare City, points were needed for everything, so he could not just keep delaying like this.

Moreover, he now had Xiao Jing and the little octopus to take care of. As for whether he could revive after dying in an instance, he would find out when it actually happened. He could not keep letting fear hold him back.

After arranging a meeting location with Alvia, Zhou Zhou got ready to head out.

The little octopus’s fish tank was also set up, and Xiao Jing and the little octopus could keep each other company.

“You two stay put at home. I’m going to do an instance, and I’ll probably be back tonight,” Zhou Zhou told them.

Naturally, the little octopus did not want to stay with Zeus, intending to climb onto Zhou Zhou’s shoulder and go with him like usual. But before it could climb all the way up, Zhou Zhou put it into the large fish tank.

“Zhou Zhou, can you not go? I’ll be scared by myself,” Zeus blinked, trying to be cute to persuade Zhou Zhou to stay.

Zhou Zhou patted his head. “It’s okay, don’t be afraid. If you’re scared, you can talk to the little octopus. I’ll be back soon.”

Zeus: “…” He wanted to talk to Zhou Zhou, not some octopus.

Although Zhou Zhou sometimes did not understand the situation, he was very perceptive when it came to emotions. He could tell that Zeus was not actually afraid, probably just wanting to go with him. But with his current identity and appearance, he could not let others know, so he had to stay home for now.

Seeing that he could not persuade Zhou Zhou, and not wanting to throw a tantrum that would anger Zhou Zhou after finally getting to stay, Zeus could only watch longingly as Zhou Zhou left.

After Zhou Zhou went out the door, Zeus sat dejectedly on the sofa. “Once a person has weaknesses, they’ll always hesitate before acting.”

If it had been Alvia in front of him, he probably would have thrown a tantrum already, even though Alvia would have just ignored him. But with Zhou Zhou, he only wanted to show his best side, not doing something unbefitting like throwing a tantrum.

The little octopus in the fish tank watched the dramatic Zeus, crawling to the tank’s edge and spitting a few times, finally managing to spit red ink onto him.

Zeus: “…You’re dead.”

Xue Li and Ke Li had gone to work, Heya had not logged in for a while, probably still busy with the previous matter, and Qian Le and Eddie had started school early, so they could not log in either. This time, the instance would only have him and Al.

“Let’s go,” Zhou Zhou said when he met up with Alvia, wanting to get the instance done quickly since there were people at home waiting for his return.

Alvia nodded, waiting for Zhou Zhou to form their party and select an instance.

Zhou Zhou chose a black star-level instance again, as those instances did give very high point rewards. Last night on the forum, he saw that most instances awarded between a few hundred to ten or twenty thousand points, with some of the more difficult ones giving even higher rewards.

But there were also people whose point totals suddenly spiked to tens of thousands, which he guessed were human-designed instances with higher rewards.

The next moment, both their quest logs received the instance location.

128 Xuan Le Street.

Another unfamiliar location, but Nightmare City was indeed massive, and the places they had visited so far did not even make up one percent of the entire map.

Following the map’s directions, they took public transportation to Xuan Le Street, which had many shops selling various transportation devices like aircraft, small spaceships, levitation devices, and more, though the required points were extremely high.

The street was lined with parked aircraft and all sorts of bizarre transportation devices.

When they reached number 128 according to the map, they found no buildings there. Number 127 was a shop selling aircraft, number 129 was a repair shop, with about a five-meter gap between them and no building or door number, just an empty lot.

Zhou Zhou double-checked the map and quest log several times. “We didn’t take a wrong turn.”

So why could they not find number 128?

A middle-aged man sitting by the side eating crackers had been watching Zhou Zhou and Alvia wander around for a while. After wolfing down the last of his crackers, he approached them.

“What are you looking for?” The unkempt middle-aged man asked, bits of cracker flying out as he spoke.

Zhou Zhou did not react strangely to the man’s appearance. “I’m looking for number 128.”

The man looked Zhou Zhou and Alvia up and down. “Doing an instance quest?”

Zhou Zhou nodded.

“Follow me,” the middle-aged man beckoned and walked in another direction.

The two exchanged a glance before following.

After a few steps, the man stopped in front of a car. It was an extremely old and dilapidated model from thousands of years ago, who knew where he had dug it up from. Its white and ash-gray exterior had paint peeling off in several spots. Compared to the luxurious aircraft parked around, the contrast was glaringly obvious.

“Get in,” the man told them as he opened the door. “I won’t leave until the car’s full, so you two get in and wait.”

After saying that, he went back to where he had been sitting and pulled out another cracker from his pocket.

Zhou Zhou blinked, looking at the antique car, then at the few words spray-painted in black on its side.

“128.”

So Xuan Le Street 128 was mobile.