Volume 8 - CH 145.2

“In a vegetative state…” mumbles Xü Beijin.

It does give him new ideas.

He doesn’t have an intricate understanding of the medical details of a vegetative person, but he has heard rumours about them.

For example, their EEG graph shows scattered activity, so they haven’t actually experienced brain death.

And people also say that those people aren’t actually unable to perceive the outside world anymore. They just can’t wake up from their ‘sleep.’

Xü Beijin doesn’t know about the scientific definition of ‘life’ either, but he suspects, that the Fy’ecas would count a vegetative person as entirely alive, and they must also be capable of extracting the brain waves from them.

So a vegetative person like Xie Zhijin might actually be more like ‘life’ as the Fy’ecas and Maertons would understand it, given they themselves are beings practically constituted by a consciousness alone – and humans would perhaps classify them as artificial intelligence, or some kind of machine life, that can live without a form.

That’s what makes Xie Zhijin special.

And also, quite possibly all others who are in a similar state.

Being cast into this game by the Fy’ecas while being in a vegetative or similar state might have caused peculiar changes to them, for they are treated perhaps like beings of sole consciousness rather than of the flesh, which the Fy’ecas label ‘antiquated’ and ‘primitive.’

Regardless, that might explain the sharper senses and instincts Xie Zhijin has in the game.

In other words, he won’t truly lose himself in Nightmares. If one tries to quantify the qualities of a being in this game in statistical terms, Xie Zhijin would possess abnormally high mental fortitude, strength of consciousness, recognition of his self-identity, etc.

And possibly, Xü Beijin and Lin Qin as well, who are also more like the Fy’ecas and Maertons at this point, rather than human.

Well, at least Xie Zhijin still has his body, but Xü Beijin’s and Lin Qin’s are clearly nowhere to be found anymore.

Xü Beijin can’t help but close his eyes for a moment, looking somewhat exhausted. He doesn’t know how he can possibly explain all this to Xie Zhijin, to explain all these unwarranted, civilisation-ending catastrophes that have befallen humanity.

He can’t even explain to him what Fy’eca and Maerton even are, or what the two species identify as life.

Therefore, all he can say is, “it might possibly be a quirky bug in the game.”

Excusing everything with bugs isn’t a good habit;

But at least, it should be enough to make Xie Zhijin understand the implications.

Though the man just blinks in response, looking confused.

Xü Beijin explains, “anyway, you did lose your memories in the Ultimate Nightmare, and that makes you succumbed; at the same time, you haven’t actually lost your sense of self. You were able to perceive a problem with ‘reality’ thusly.

This created a contradiction; you were both sane and insane, both succumbed and lucid.

The game would be treating you as a Missiontaker who has succumbed, so you are left to end up in the grey fog outside the Tower.

This situation means that, when you enter a door leading to the grey fog, a bug has to be triggered; no game would check twice whether you’re succumbed or not, so your earlier amnesia took precedence, allowing you to return from the Ultimate Nightmare to the Tower.”

Without flinching, Xü Beijin bullshits his way through.

Well, most of it is actually true. Those who are succumbed in the Ultimate Nightmare and enter a door inside will naturally end up in the grey fog; that’s actually the same mechanism that removed succumbed players in other Nightmares of the Tower.

The only difference is that the grey fog has connected the Tower to the Ultimate Nightmare right now.

There are a few cases to consider.

Are they madmen who were already in the grey fog?

Are they madmen who succumbed in the Ultimate Nightmare?

Are they sane people who still were inside the Ultimate Nightmare?

The first group is to be transported from the grey fog to the Ultimate Nightmare as the difficulty, the ‘danger’ within. That is their duty.

The second group is returned to the Tower via the doors in the Ultimate Nightmare’s grey fog – basically, the crowd of insane people gathering outside on the bottom floor. These people have been treated the normal way via the game mechanic’s treatment of the insane, and of the grey fog.

If it’s the third group, as in, players who accidentally enter through a door in the Ultimate Nightmare, the game actually randomly teleports them through another door in the Ultimate Nightmare.

It is actually similar to how doors work in Xü Beijin’s Nightmare – as a connecting path inside the Nightmare itself.

Given that Xie Zhijin is back at the Tower, the game must be treating him as insane, even though he is actually lucid.

Xie Zhijin thinks he understands.

He doesn’t know why Xü Beijin would know about all these intricacies, but that was a watertight explanation of what happened to him.

He felt he had his wits with him entirely, though the game thinks that he is insane, succumbed because he has lost his memories of the Tower. So someone insane like him had to be put into the grey fog, such is its function – to accommodate all who have lost themselves.

That’s why he returned to the Tower, and it’s nothing strange;

The stranger thing is, the fact that he had his wits about him.

Xie Zhijin goes over their conversation, and wonders if the fact that he is in a vegetative state might be what is keeping him sane in this case.

It’s a bit ironic to him.

Then he lets himself calm down, and asks about other things.

“What do I need to do to help next?” He asks, “should I go to sleep again to reenter the Ultimate Nightmare?”

“There is no need to,” replies Xü Beijin, and further asking, “what were the others doing just before you left the Ultimate Nightmare?”

“They were going to look for the developer of the AI,” says Xie Zhijin, who suddenly seems to have an epiphany and blurts out, “wait, do you…”

Xü Beijin nods, and says, “I know.”

Xie Zhijin then skips the explanation and just tells him, “they want to do something rather than nothing in the Ultimate Nightmare.”

Xü Beijin genuinely comments, “and I pray for their success.”

Because that is actually the way to resolve the Ultimate Nightmare, as dictated by the plot of the game, unlike what Xü Beijin is doing – attempting to force a conclusion to the Ultimate Nightmare by violent outside intervention.

That is when Xie Zhijin seems to recall something and says, “oh, right. I must also thank you, sir.”

Xü Beijin asks, “what do you mean? If it’s the Ultimate Nightmare’s…”

“Oh, I mean…” Xie Zhijin explains, “I want to thank you for lowering the difficulty of the Ultimate Nightmare.”

Xü Beijin “…”

Since when did he lower the difficulty of the Ultimate Nightmare?

Xie Zhijin continues on his own, “all the mad people that ran outside of the grey fog aren’t attacking people, and the Missiontakers and Actors are all able to find each other quickly… you could only have arranged everything beforehand. It was such a brilliant move!”

Xü Beijin “…”

After a slightly awkward moment of silence, he smiles and says, “oh, my pleasure.”

He’s had enough of explaining himself to these Missiontakers who always misconstrue the facts left and right! Fine, he did it! He’ll take the undue credit!

Though what Xie Zhijin mentioned is worth further consideration.

The madmen escaping from the grey fog aren’t hostile…

That actually would also make them similar to those crowding outside on the bottom floor, but Xü Beijin didn’t think deeply about that earlier.

Perhaps the Ultimate Nightmare has caused unexpected impacts on the madmen’s psyche.

Who knows what they actually think about?

Sure, both Xü Beijin and everyone else enjoy labelling them as insane, but that is only something true when compared to themselves.

They’re not absolutely out of their minds, but merely, they’ve lost some kind of rationale inside the Tower.

When they succumb to the Ultimate Nightmare and lose their memories of the Tower, they turn back into who they once were on Earth, before experiencing the Apocalypse anew in fast forward.

So for them, when they are transported through a door in the grey fog, it’s like a transmigration, almost, from Earth to a strange place——A tall, lonely building.

Xü Beijin would like think that this is a kind of revisionism for how the Apocalypse on Earth ended.

Obviously, aliens landing and taking humans away would not be recreated in the Ultimate Nightmare, even though that was the last step of the Apocalyptic plight of humanity – After the spread of the madness, and the Raining Hellfire. This stage is what Xü Beijin wants to call, the imprisonment of humanity.

That is the complete Apocalypse.

Those Missiontakers and Actors still awake would not experience it, but those who have succumbed to the Nightmares and actually thought of themselves as people on Earth still living on Earth, would be the ones to be moved from ‘Earth’ to this prison for countless humans.

Xü Beijin can’t help but say that the human designer of this game——If there really was one——they sure are obsessively concerned with minutiae.

Demanding these human players to re-experience everything in the last instance of the game. That, or possibly, they’re simply trying to jolt their fellow humans’ memories back.

And the madmen——Or, rather, ‘Terrans,’ who are possibly quite frightened that they ended up in this strange place, therefore have no aggression. Even if they do, it’s simply a result of the insanity experienced during the recreation of the Apocalypse in the Ultimate Nightmare.

If so, then why would those who have succumbed before the Ultimate Nightmare and emerged during the Ultimate Nightmare also stay non-hostile?

Xü Beijin didn’t notice, because he was busy keeping an eye on the data port, and merely occasionally seeing if the Missiontakers and Actors are doing alright.

After thinking a little, he comes to a conclusion soon enough – he doesn’t buy the theory that the Ultimate Nightmare’s difficulty was lowered.

It might be that, these insane people are still players.

In other words, in the Ultimate Nightmare, whether they attack or not, are still dictated by their own will, and not by the game’s mechanics.

‘Madmen,’ as it were——Like those who just came to the bottom floor from the Ultimate Nightmare, act ‘insane’ in all sorts of manner, primarily based on their experience in a Nightmare based on what happened on Earth, and then repeated ad nauseum for them in truly nightmarish fashion. If they are transported to somewhere that the Nightmare does not repeat again, and the Apocalypse is ongoing, but not set in stone, and Earth is still ‘living,’ rather than a charred piece of lifeless rock…

What will they decide to do? Attack people?

No. They won’t.

If NE were still awake, he might have used means like the plots for Actors to make them attack people still awake.

But NE himself is asleep, and Xü Beijin is obviously not going to do something to that effect. This means it is now up to the madmen themselves.