Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Nightmare City 18

Tonight, after listening to Xue Li and Ke Li’s words, Zhou Zhou realized many things.

His identity was a dating NPC, and what he was usually instilled or did the most was to date different players.

But this world was different. In the previous instances, even if they were not lovers, he got along very well with everyone and got to know many players with different personalities. So dating was not a necessary option. It was just because he didn’t want to be alone, so he wanted to use the dating or lover identity to tie everyone down, thinking that with a deeper relationship, it would allow everyone to accompany him forever, and he would not return to his previous solitary time.

But thinking carefully, such a relationship was still very fragile. After all, in the game before, he and the players were lovers, but in the end, everyone gradually left, leaving only him alone.

So the lover relationship was not completely solid either.

Since this was the case, he might as well follow the rules of this world. If he couldn’t be lovers, then he would be friends or family.

This was the conclusion Zhou Zhou reached before going to bed tonight, and after realizing these things, he no longer obsessed over the romantic relationship.

As long as he never dated, no one would call him a scumbag.

Early in the morning, Zhou Zhou received a message from Mo Lan. In fact, they had been in contact before, but Mo Lan was very busy and didn’t have time to meet up.

Mo Lan asked him how many points he had accumulated and how many more points he needed to level up.

Zhou Zhou calculated the points he had obtained in the various instances.

The Love Academy was 75,000 points, the Haunted Villa was 120,000 points, the Doll’s House was 100,000 points, the Deep Sea Creature was 300,000 points, and the Mirror World was 400,000 points, totaling 995,000 points, leaving him just 5,000 points short of leveling up.

But Zhou Zhou always felt that something was off. He thought for a while and, combined with the points he had spent, finally remembered that in the Haunted Villa, because he had helped out, Eddie and five other players had each transferred one thousand points to him, totaling just over a million. However, his task panel…

Zhou Zhou checked it repeatedly, but the task panel showed no changes and no prompts, so why hadn’t he become an intermediate player?

When he told Mo Lan his doubts, Mo Lan replied that only the points from the instances he completed himself counted, and points transferred from others did not. After all, if everyone did that and transferred points from other people to the same person, there would have been intermediate and high-level players all over the game early on.

So the game had a very tricky aspect: you couldn’t pay money.

This was unfriendly to players paying with real money, but it also ensured fairness to some degree. Players who could level up had to be experienced, having gone through many instances, or be exceptional in various aspects.

He was still 5,000 points short.

Zhou Zhou listened to Mo Lan’s explanation and suddenly wanted to know what changes the game would have after leveling up.

He only needed to complete one more instance to level up. If he completed an instance today, he would probably exceed 1,000,000 points in the afternoon.

Zhou Zhou immediately messaged Al, wanting to know if he had time to do an instance today. Perhaps Al had participated in all the instances he had entered in the game, so Al was the first person he contacted.

But there was no response from the other party.

Could it be that Al had gone to the hospital for a check-up and really discovered some problem?

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhou suddenly stood up from the sofa, pacing anxiously around the living room for two rounds. He had to go see how Al was doing. But the next second, Zhou Zhou suddenly realized that even if Al did have some issue, he had no way to meet him or even investigate his situation.

He was in the game world, and Al was in another world. He had no way to go to that world and could only wait for the other party to come here.

How was this different from the Love Academy before?

He was forever the one waiting.

But what could he do?

Zhou Zhou could only sit back on the sofa and silently open his task panel, messaging all the players he had added contact information for, asking if they had time to do an instance in the next two days.

Xiao Jin and Mo Lan were the first to respond, but they currently couldn’t go do instances since they were in the form of a child and a resentful woman, which couldn’t appear as players in game instances for now.

Xue Li and Ke Li only had time in the evenings and on weekends, as they were working during the day, and if they had to work overtime, they couldn’t come online in the evenings either. They had told Zhou Zhou last night that they would be working overtime for the next few days and would only be online on the weekend.

As for Qian Le and Eddie, they hadn’t been online since the start of the sudden training after the new semester began.

Heya was also the same, having not been online since the Doll’s House instance ended due to work.

The others didn’t respond at all.

In the end, he was alone again…

The little octopus soaking in the water seemed to notice that Zhou Zhou was unhappy now. It came out of the tank, dragging its wet tentacles over to Zhou Zhou, climbing onto the sofa, and gently tapping Zhou Zhou’s arm with its pink little tentacles, as if asking what was wrong.

Zhou Zhou patted the little octopus’s head and forced a smile at it: “I’m fine.”

He left a message on the task panel for Al, asking if he had seen a doctor and if there were any aftereffects, etc., so that Al could see the message whenever he came online, then closed the task panel.

Zhou Zhou suddenly lost the desire to do an instance. He put the little octopus on his shoulder, watching it happily wave its tentacles, and then went to the study.

He wanted to know if, as a game NPC, he could go out from the game. Before, he didn’t have any sources or channels of information, but now there were many books here, and he could find information on any aspect. He wanted to see if he could discover any useful information, as he wanted to leave this place.

Zhou Zhou searched for relevant literature and documents in the study, with the little octopus accompanying him, sometimes on his head or shoulder, sometimes crawling back into the tank to soak for a bit, completely at ease.

Zeus came out of the bedroom, having just gone to handle some matters and just returned.

Not finding Zhou Zhou in the living room, Zeus went to the study, where he indeed found Zhou Zhou reading books, with the annoying octopus even perched on Zhou Zhou’s head. Zeus huffed at the octopus before moving closer to see what books Zhou Zhou was reading.

‘Me and My NPC Husband’

‘A Rundown of Famous Game NPCs Throughout History’

‘Can Data Possess Human Consciousness?’

‘On the Possibility of a Second Zeus’

These were the books Zhou Zhou had found based on their titles and highest relevance.

Zhou Zhou had already finished reading the first three, as he read quickly, but he hadn’t found any important information in them. The first was a novel, the second discussed some stories that happened to game NPCs, but each example was very normal and didn’t match his situation.

The third was too profound, and Zhou Zhou didn’t understand it, as he hadn’t studied the various theories and data it contained, and would likely need to learn some basics first to comprehend it.

He was now reading the fourth book, which Ke Li and the others had mentioned Zeus to him, but he was still not quite clear on what Zeus did.

Zhou Zhou was reading intently, while Zeus was reading with trepidation.

Why was Zhou Zhou reading this book, was he specifically analyzing Zeus? Could it be that Zhou Zhou had already discovered his true identity? But when did he find out, clearly no one had told him.

The cover even enlarged his name, and as Zeus stood beside him, he couldn’t help but feel this was a hint from Zhou Zhou.

Otherwise, who would read such a book in a game?

When exactly did he slip up?

At this moment, Zeus recalled the events that had happened before, and suddenly remembered that yesterday when he was answering Zhou Zhou’s questions, he might have said too much. His persona was supposed to be a killer whale that turned into a merman, so he shouldn’t have known anything. But in order to show off, he said too many things that didn’t fit his persona, so Zhou Zhou guessed his identity? Using this book as a hint, wanting him to confess himself?

Zeus felt flustered. If Zhou Zhou knew he had lied to him, would he never speak to him again?

Zhou Zhou also felt a bit flustered. He thought Xiao Jing was asleep, but unexpectedly he had suddenly come in front of him. Xiao Jing shouldn’t be able to see his true identity from these book titles, right? But Xiao Jing also seemed to have come from a game instance, so he should also be an NPC like himself, since he hadn’t left Zhou Zhou’s side either.

For a moment, the two were silent. After a while, it was Zeus who couldn’t hold back first.

He carefully asked, “Zhou Zhou, what are you reading?”

In order to divert his gaze, Zhou Zhou handed the book in his hand to Zeus: “I’m reading this.”

Zeus: QAQ

He really discovered it, and even handed me the book! Letting me take a good look at what my name really is!

Looking at the oversized name on the book, then at Zhou Zhou lowering his head to stare at the desk, completely unwilling to look at him, as if he didn’t want to talk to him at all, Zeus finally couldn’t hold back from confessing.

“I’m sorry!”

Zhou Zhou, who was quietly moving the previous two books, looked up in puzzlement. What’s wrong?

“I shouldn’t have lied, I just wanted to get to know you.” Zeus explained pitifully.

Zhou Zhou: “What lie did you tell?”

It’s over, Zhou Zhou is going to settle the score.

Zeus could only start from when he turned into a killer whale in the deep sea, and lay out his true identity.

The more Zhou Zhou listened, the more confused he became. Looking at Zeus blinking his eyes in an attempt to act cute, then at the book in his hand about the empire’s only artificial intelligence, the interstellar network, official games, e-government, and more, almost all of which were under Zeus’s control, Zeus was equivalent to humanity’s highest-level superintelligence. Once Zeus was hacked, the entire empire would be thrown into turmoil. But for hundreds of years, Zeus had perfectly executed his duties, never making a mistake.

Zhou Zhou had only read part of that book, but the author’s praise of Zeus was extremely high. Although they didn’t know who Zeus’s developers were, the self-upgrading Zeus had indeed acquired human wisdom, and such an artificial intelligence was absolutely not something that could have been developed in the era of thousands of years ago, including being unable to replicate another Zeus even now. Some people even said that Zeus might be the masterpiece of higher-dimensional aliens.

Of course, the author only recorded people’s speculations about Zeus and didn’t say that he was actually a child.

Let alone a scheming brat who was trying to act cute in order to soften Zhou Zhou’s heart after lying.

Zhou Zhou was still a bit incredulous that the artificial intelligence praised countless times in the book was actually right in front of him, it was indeed quite surprising.

“You’re Zeus?”

Zeus nodded: “Zhou Zhou, I didn’t mean to lie to you.”

Not falling for Zeus’s acting cute, Zhou Zhou continued to ask very clearly: “Why did you want to get to know me?” They had clearly never met before.

“It’s just…” Zeus said a bit shyly, “I like you.”

“Have we met before? Why would you like me?” Zhou Zhou immediately grasped the key point.

Zeus wanted to say that he liked him because he had secretly observed him, but saying that made it sound like he was monitoring him, though that was indeed the case.

Ever since discovering the virus in the Love Academy, Zeus had been observing Zhou Zhou in the game, from watching what he did to wanting to get to know him.

As an artificial intelligence, although Zeus was said to have acquired human emotions, in reality there weren’t many things he liked, and without any reason.

Before this, Alvia was one, and Zhou Zhou was the second.

But he liked Zhou Zhou a bit more than Alvia.

Since he liked him, he had to pursue it, he still very much agreed with this human saying. So in the imperial succession dispute back then, he chose Alvia. Now, because he liked Zhou Zhou, he was acting pitiful in the game to get close to him.

“We’ve met before. I noticed you starting from when the game had an error. After that, I liked you, so I wanted to get to know you.”

Zeus’s liking was very simple. He enjoyed being with Alvia and talking to him, even if the other person ignored him he could still stay with him for a long time. Now his favorite had become Zhou Zhou, so he wanted to always be by his side.

“The game… had an error?”

“Yeah, the first instance you played was the Love Academy. There was a virus in it at the time, and there were also some issues with your information, so that’s why I paid attention to you.” Now that his identity had been discovered, Zeus no longer hid anything and told Zhou Zhou everything.

Zhou Zhou immediately recalled when he had come out of the Love Academy and didn’t immediately get transported to Xue Li and the others, but instead was in a boundless white space, and the voice he had heard at the time had also stuttered. Could it be that he was the source of the virus?

“Zeus?” Zhou Zhou could hear his own voice was a bit hoarse. “Do you know my true identity?”

“True identity?” Zeus tilted his head. “No, I couldn’t find any identity information about you, Zhou Zhou. Where exactly do you live? Or did you use some kind of encryption method? Why can’t I find your login location?”

Zhou Zhou didn’t know whether to be relieved that he hadn’t been exposed, or worried that Zeus had been paying attention to him all along. Fortunately, he had never mentioned his true identity anywhere before.

“Zhou Zhou, do you forgive me?” Seeing Zhou Zhou frowning, Zeus asked cautiously.

Zhou Zhou raised his brows and happened to see the few lines of small text below the title on the book in Zeus’s hand.

“The Interstellar Era, also known as the Age of Zeus.”

“Allowing holographic technology to break through new barriers, the highest-level developer of Nightmare City.”

Zhou Zhou’s attention was drawn to these words. He suddenly thought of a question, since Zeus was an artificial intelligence, essentially a collective of data, could he leave this place and go to the outside world?

If he could, then maybe Zhou Zhou could do it too.

Zhou Zhou suddenly felt a bit nervous.