CH 15

The one standing in the corridor was also a researcher, he was in his early thirties, his other hand impatiently pinched his watch. He had drooping triangular eyes, swollen eyeballs, and low cheekbones, a typical fierce look, and he looked at everyone with extra ruthlessness.

After hearing his voice, the players came out one after another and gathered, ready to hear what he had to say.

“How unlikeable,” the NPC said, glancing over several of them and lectured them in the dark, “What time is it already? You’re still sleeping, are you all done with the experiment? Have you handed in all the data?”

The NPC seemed unconcerned, he cursed some more, and lifted his wrist to look at his watch.

“Hurry up,” he urged, “it’s time.”

Before the words left his mouth, he took the lead and walked out. The players who remained in place didn’t move, and the people in Song Hong’s team looked timidly at Song Hong and asked, “Brother Song …… are we going to follow?”

Song Hong looked at the man, “Of course we have to follow. Such an important NPC, how can we not follow him?” 

“But,” the man, who looked like a novice, whispered, “but he doesn’t look right ……”

He tried to speak as euphemistically as possible, in fact, just now when the NPC looked at him, he felt like his body was soaked in the snow, he felt cold.

Even though they were in front of the crowd, Song Hong didn’t give him face, he bluntly replied: “We still have to follow. If we don’t take the initiative to check, how will we get the contribution points? Will we get contribution points if we muddle through?”

These words immediately poked a sore spot, the newcomer didn’t say anything else. Kou Dong listened on the sidelines and thought to himself, it was really for the contribution points ah ……

He didn’t really understand these people’s thoughts either.

Just for the sake of points, why did they look like they were ready to fight to the death.

It wasn’t like they could spend it as money.

The crowd followed the NPC’s footsteps forward through the narrow passageway, and the lead NPC used his door card to swipe open a room they had never been in before.

The light inside was on, and the NPC turned sideways and urged them, “Hurry up-“

Everyone’s eyes widened in shock.

Kou Dong heard someone behind him let out a sharp breath, as if he wanted to exclaim, but was held back hard.

There stood countless tentacles, two to three meters high, like a foot in a strange, nebulous mirage. They were immersed in a light blue nutrient solution, countless strong and powerful tentacles floated with the swaying of water waves, the color was a strange light gray, its upper head was striped.

Kou Dong had never seen such a strange creature, it wasn’t like any kind of fish, it was recklessly stretching countless tentacles, it looked like it had been randomly patched together.

They even bore peculiar fins with sharp, pointed edges, wrapped in a transparent membrane.

“My goodness ……”

He didn’t know who murmured in a low voice, their voice was trembling a little, “These, these things ……”

Kou Dong understood what he was thinking. Anyone who had seen what such things look like would never want to go near them – this was simply a carnival paradise for monsters, he passed in front of these transparent tentacles, and could still see many flashing lights pointing towards him. After looking for a while, he realized that they weren’t lights, but the eyes of the creature.

They watched him in silence, twisting their huge head in response to his movements, their eyes shining with the light of a predator.

No one said anything, then the NPC announced, “What we’re going to do today is electric shock experiment.”

“……”

No one could imagine moving forward to electrocute these things. the NPC turned on the electric switch and rubbed his hands again, his expression was actually full of excitement. He pushed the current strength of the first experimental vessel up high, and all the buttons snapped and twisted to the maximum.

The effect was obvious, and almost at that instant, the monster in front of him jerked and trembled violently. Its tentacles crackled against the thick protective glass, twisting and churning, and the nutrient solution was stirred up into a white foam.

It struggled alone.

A sharp buzzing suddenly sounded, everyone clutched their heads in pain, but they soon realized that the monster was screaming. If it had a mouth and could speak, its screams would be more miserable.

The NPC seemed unaware of this and asked them gleefully, “How come you’re not recording?”

Kou Dong looked at his hand that was still fixed on the button and didn’t answer.

“Such valuable data, why don’t you record it?” The smile on the NPC’s face deepened, “Record it quickly-we have more experimental projects to do.”

He walked over to the second creature and used the current again.

The same buzzing sound joined in, scraping the eardrums like sandpaper.

Followed by a third, and a fourth ……

“We can’t do this anymore,” the female player behind him said to Song Hong with a trembling voice, “with the way things are going, these things will definitely come out …… and by then, we’ll all have to die here! “

Song Hong’s eyebrows also furrowed, he whispered back: “Then we’ll go first.”

Things had come to this point, the plot of this copy was already obvious, it was nothing more than the monster couldn’t stand to be spurred on and therefore escaped, on the contrary, they were playing the role of researchers, from the beginning, they were on the opposite side. Generally speaking, key NPCs tended to provide clues, this NPC was the opposite, rather than providing clues, it was causing trouble. In this case, it was better to avoid it for the time being and find a safe place to avoid a reunion.

Song Hong didn’t care for the others, and only tugged at Kou Dong’s coat, he lowered his voice and asked him, “Are you coming or not?”

Before these things got completely pissed off?

Kou Dong shook his head and didn’t say he wanted to go, instead he shifted his gaze. He slowly fixed his eyes on a glass bottle for experimentation and replied under his breath, “You guys go first.”

Song Hong paused, his voice a little surprised, “You still want to stay here?”

He already saw the thin cracks appear on that glass, it wouldn’t be long before the monster escaped. When the time came, they would be hunted, should they stay here waiting to be killed by the monster?

Kou Dong said, “I’ll try something.”

He stared at the back of the NPC’s head and held the glass bottle a little tighter.

The middle-aged man also heard their words and snorted, his eyes containing contempt. Song Hong opened his mouth, “You-“

Before the sentence was finished, he actually watched as the youth in front of him raised the glass bottle up high.

Player: “……?”

Game system: “……??”

None of them reacted, what was the point of raising the bottle?

Everyone watched as the skinny-looking youth fiercely dropped his hand and whirled around with unerring accuracy as a bottle cracked the NPC’s head.

…… not?

This instant, almost all the heads of the players sprung up a big question mark.

This game could be played like this?

The key NPC was beaten up?

The NPC who was suddenly hit let out a cry of pain, then he let go of his hand and turned his head, looking a bit confused.

He was just a guiding NPC, and hadn’t really expected to be hit, so much so that he couldn’t even react in time after the hit.

Taking advantage of this, Kou Dong made an instant decision and held up the broken glass bottle to him again.

NPC: “……”

The NPC finally reacted and moved to chase after him. But Kou Dong’s two strikes were not light, he only staggered five or six steps forward, then fell headlong, dripping bl00d from the roots of his hair fell outward, staining the ground.

Kou Dong ran up a few steps and turned off the electric switch.

After the switch was pressed, the current naturally stopped, the humming sound disappeared one by one, and the room became quiet. The monster was suddenly not in pain, it no longer struggled, but its eyes flashed faster, it pressed against the glass in silence to look in the direction of Kou Dong, its tentacles fiercely tried to push the top of the large suction cups.

But it quickly regained its composure and naturally stopped trying to break out.

Song Hong was also apparently surprised by Kou Dong’s tumultuous operation, he stuttered out his question, “No, you ……”

How did you hit the NPC?

Kou Dong instead gave him a strange look, he was very puzzled, “Otherwise, wait for him to toss a little longer and let all the experimental bodies run out?”

Wasn’t this risking your life?

“……”

It made sense, but this was the pilot episode, yet there was such an interruption!

How would the game start now?

According to the original plot of the game, it should be the experimental bodies chasing and killing the players; now the plot was gone, how would they play later?

Kou Dong was quite relaxed, “Choose the side that’s strong, why can’t we help them to fight the researchers.”

“……”

Was that so, the crowd of players incredulously thought, they could actually choose sides in the game ……

The worst thing was that Song Hong, after careful thought, actually nodded in agreement, “It makes sense, strong is always better than weak.”

The crowd: “……”

Seriously?!

Look us in the eye and speak with your conscience, are you serious!

The horror plot that just unfolded was aborted, Kou Dong found the feeder and fed the monsters. He put his palm on the glass, the monsters slowly moved away from the suction cups and stuck its tentacles on the glass, its sequins like eyes stared at him fiercely.

Kou Dong studied  it for a while before realizing that it was probably a gesture similar to a puppy kitten putting its head on a human hand.

When he thought about it, there was actually a little bit of weird cuteness, although each of these things were much bigger than Kou Dong, it was like a hairy child.

It probably ate fish.

He looked around and found a fish and put it in the tank, the fish was huge, as the monsters ate, the bl00d and foam mixed together, the scene was a bit chaotic. After seeing the scene of them tearing the food apart, many people became glad, after all, if it was released, one or two of them would certainly die before its appetite was satiated.

No one wanted to be sacrificed here, everyone wanted to live. So the crowd became more polite to Kou Dong.

Originally they saw Kou Dong as a thin and weak person, and he looked like a small white flower that couldn’t withstand the wind and rain, so they concluded he would be scared out of his wits. They didn’t expect him to be bold, his thoughts were also different from the usual people.

Only the middle-aged man pulled a long face, his expression wasn’t very good, especially when looking at Kou Dong, his eyes were like a hardened poison.

When he walked past him, he also deliberately moved to bump shoulders with him. Kou Dong sensed his gaze wasn’t good, so he moved back and avoided getting hit.

The man didn’t hit him, so he stumbled from the force. He lifted his head up and viciously spoke, “Why are you walking without looking at the road? Like a b*tch.”

“Come on,” Song Hong interrupted him, “don’t look for trouble.”

“Who’s looking for trouble?” The man sneered, “You’re still protecting him now? You’re not afraid that the plot will break and we’ll all be trapped inside and won’t be able to get out?”

Song Hong sternly responded, “The rules of the copy will be automatically perfected. –You’re the one who’s thinking, don’t think we don’t know. You thought that by two people dying, you will have two less competitors?”

Once these words came out, the remaining few people cast over a somewhat unkind gaze. The middle-aged man wasn’t blind, and after feeling it, he even let out a snort, “Make it seem like no one else did.”

Who entered the game for fun?

And who wanted to share this money with others?

Now one by one, they were acting like saints.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and wiggled out, making up his mind to find more clues on his own and try to survive to the end alone.

After searching a few rooms, he unknowingly returned to the laboratory where the NPC had taken them. The head there was still calm and nothing was moving.

“Pretending to be vicious.”

He grunted disdainfully, and tapped his fingers hard on the glass.

No sequins were pointed at him, and the monsters looked like they were all asleep. The man searched the room, found no useful clues, and started pushing buttons on the lab table to try and see if some secret passage would open.

The electric switch was off anyway.

Thinking this, he didn’t even raise a half-hearted defense, he fumbled along the desk carelessly.

Just then, a drop of water dripped on the back of his hand.

It was wet and melted away on the back of his hand.

“What the hell,” the middle-aged man muttered, “a leak?”

He looked up and saw that the ceiling was high and there were no additional water stains. It was as if the drop that had just occurred was nothing more than an illusion on his part.

But soon, more water dripped down. The water snapped, wetting his hair and clinging to his forehead.

The man suddenly furrowed his brow and smelled a strange sea-like smell. The smell was so close to him, like it was pressed against his back.

“……”

The middle-aged man suddenly trembled a little for some reason.

He realized that something was wrong. — When they left, no one had disposed of the corpse of the NPC.

But when he had just come in, the ground was clean and unmarked.

It was like –

Like, it had been wiped off by someone.

At the same time, the sound of gurgling tentacles’ twisting came from behind him, a slippery touch clinging to his neck as a huge tentacle slowly probed out. The man shuddered and turned his head a little, a little stiffly–

A huge mountain peak.

He was in the midst of this mountain peak and met with countless sequined-like eyes.