Free Web NovelChapter 133: Chapter 133: Living NPC
Bai Wu quickly made up his mind:
"Let’s go have a look."
After Prayle’s Eye scanned the area, Bai Wu noticed that everything he saw on this floor was marked as normal, even with a minimalist art style, and he could sense that the standards of this Denglin Technology branch building were quite high.
Although the floor now looked a mess, as if there had been some turmoil, it had all happened not long before.
The "npc" was inside a room... interestingly, this room was locked from the outside.
Whoever was inside had no idea how long they had been trapped, and after calling out with no response, they had started to ram the door with their body.
But as Bai Wu had observed, the standards here were pretty high—so were the doors, and quite sturdy at that.
Arriving at the door, Bai Wu and Wu Jiu saw another note.
[Door: Forcibly breaking the door has a chance to alert monsters and will consume one point of weapon durability.]
Another covert multiple-choice question.
Weapon durability was only at ten points, and judging by this process, facing a swarm of monsters would clearly make the weapons not durable at all.
Because this was a game scenario, and the simulated time was supposed to be Denglin City seven centuries prior, Bai Wu and Wu Jiu felt no guilt about not saving the person behind the door.
"If monsters are attracted, the weapon’s durability will lose more than just one point," Bai Wu reminded Wu Jiu.
Wu Jiu looked at the door, didn’t think for too long, then drew his knife, cut the chain, and kicked the door open with one foot.
"Thank heavens! Just when I heard your voices, I was wondering if you were monsters! I never expected that, besides me, there were other survivors in the company!"
The person who spoke was dressed in a common professional suit, wearing glasses, and had the air of an upper-class intellectual on his face. With thick hair, he didn’t at all resemble someone who worked in research. The smile on his face was sincere.
He was trapped in a print room, with many papers scattered around that were not accessible or retrievable. What made this scene different from reality wasn’t just that its art style was an overly simplistic pixel style; the biggest difference was that many things here were just part of the set, uninteractive.
Bai Wu and Wu Jiu both saw the note about this person:
[Health: 5/5, Movement Speed: 1, Defense: 0.]
From this, Wu Jiu could deduce that this person was likely just a normal human being. But the additional information that Bai Wu saw completely overturned the word "ordinary."
[A Denglin Technology company interviewer, he had been working here for less than three months when an experimental body escaped from Denglin Technology’s headquarters. It went on a rampage, making everything go from bad to worse. He doesn’t know much, but having him with you is better than wandering blind in this dangerous city.]
From the differing notes on the previous items, Bai Wu was sure the notes provided by the game itself and those from Prayle’s Eye were completely different scenario notes.
The game’s notes were only applicable to this game; Prayle’s Eye’s notes were the real remarks.
If this was true... then was the man before them really a Denglin Technology company interviewer?
A living person? A living person from seven centuries ago, from the Pre-Tower Era?
Had he lived for seven hundred years? The note didn’t mention him as being dead, at least indicating he was indeed in a normal state, but it was impossible he had been trapped here for seven hundred years.
The npcs here might have some other form of survival.
Initially, Bai Wu thought that the npcs were just a friendly cameo by the Evil Fallen, but he hadn’t expected them to be real people.
What exactly was going on in this area?
"By the way, I haven’t seen you before; which floor do you guys work on?"
The interviewer felt a bit uneasy while sizing up Wu Jiu and Bai Wu.
"My friend and I are security guards for this company. I am a Level One guard, and he’s a Level Five Guardian Emperor," Bai Wu replied seriously.
"What? Security guards... the company has levels for guards?"
Moreover, one security guard was thin and tall while the other was petite, neither embodying the presence of a guard. Definitely not the ones I interviewed.
"There are ranks. Kill ten bandits to upgrade to a Level Two Protector, kill fifty bandits to become a Level Three Guard Master, save the company six times to advance to Level Four Guard King, and save the city to become the Level Five Guardian Emperor."
Bai Wu was dead serious, and Wu Jiu took it as usual.
The interviewer was startled, then offered an awkward smile as he said,
"You’re quite humorous, making jokes at a time like this. Since you’re security guards, could I stay with you... I’m really hungry, and this place is quite dangerous. I feel like I might not be able to escape on my own."
[Side mission: Mo Cheng’s plea for help. Mission reward unknown. Mission failure condition: Mo Cheng dies. Note, if the mission is accepted and Mo Cheng dies, the main mission will also fail.]
Another prompt that both Wu Jiu and Bai Wu could see.
Even though Wu Jiu had never played an RPG game, he felt that there was something unreasonable about this mission. Why would the main mission fail if an NPC from a side mission dies?
Moreover, this NPC named Mo Cheng appeared to have no attack power, no defense power... He just seemed like someone who could easily die.
He looked at Bai Wu, who at that moment asked a strange question:
"Mr. Mo Cheng, can you do a Thomas Flair?"
"What?"
"A Thomas Flair. Ideally, a 4320-degree spin. I’d like to see that..."
Wu Jiu was baffled, and Mo Cheng was equally confused. What kind of bizarre conversation is this?
"Ah..." Mo Cheng gave Wu Jiu a pleading look.
Of course, in the world of square people, such things as facial expressions are intangible and can’t be literally translated.
"If you don’t do it, I won’t take you with us."
"But why..."
"No reason, I just want to see you do a Thomas Flair."
Mo Cheng glared at Bai Wu, but Bai Wu was immune to such stares and said to Wu Jiu,
"Captain, let’s go, let’s not bother with him. We’d better hurry before that monster comes back."
Although Wu Jiu didn’t understand what Bai Wu was up to, he still nodded, going along with Bai Wu’s nonsensical talk.
"I’ll do it! Isn’t that good enough!" Mo Cheng immediately caved at the mention of a monster.
"It’s just a Thomas Flair, not a striptease!"
Saying so, Mo Cheng prepared to spin with his head to the ground. Wu Jiu suddenly felt like laughing, then quickly reminded himself of things that were not funny at all.
Back in the hospital room, when Bai Wu watched himself imitate Cain, was it the same feeling as he now had watching Mo Cheng attempt a Thomas Flair?
But a 4320-degree spin is not something an average person could achieve.
Mo Cheng did one rotation and felt like some of his hair had worn off, so he gave up.
Bai Wu, however, nodded and said,
"That’s enough. I was just joking, don’t mind it. Come with us, we’ll help you get out of here."
"Eh? That’s good enough?" Mo Cheng didn’t grasp what Bai Wu was really after.
"Yes, but you have to listen to us. You should run all your decisions by us, or we won’t take any responsibility if something goes wrong. You should know how dangerous this building is."
Mo Cheng scrambled to his feet, nodding excitedly after hearing Bai Wu’s words.
Wu Jiu still didn’t understand what Bai Wu was actually doing.
Bai Wu also didn’t explain in detail to the captain. freewebnσvel.cѳm
The penalty for failing the mission was very high, and Mo Cheng’s attributes were even weaker than his own as a Level One Explorer, which indicated that the reward for the mission was also very substantial.
Bai Wu believed that an NPC like Mo Cheng, who could die with just a couple of touches, if he could get through the game scenario with him, it meant that there were many possibilities to avoid combat within the game scenario.
As long as Mo Cheng didn’t do anything foolish.
And just now, whether it was the conversation about the security upgrade, or the act of performing the Thomas Flair, Bai Wu was certain of one thing: Mo Cheng had his own will and was not controlled by the "game program."
At least, he believed that making Mo Cheng perform the bizarre request of the Thomas Flair wasn’t within the "game’s" expectations.
And the fact that Mo Cheng didn’t do a 4,320-degree spin, which is twelve rotations, also showed that he had control over his own body and was not dominated by the game program.
Another point was that, in this game, there were no restrictions on movements; although there were only those few attributes, one could perform many actions that wouldn’t be possible in a real game.
Throughout this process, he noticed that Mo Cheng had a very strong desire to survive.
In conclusion, Bai Wu believed that Mo Cheng wouldn’t act like many escort mission NPCs from various games, who were not only weak but also had a penchant for charging toward monsters.
In his previous life, when he played these games, he only thought the game designers were idiots, wondering why escort NPCs would actively walk towards monsters?
The three of them quickly arrived at the stairwell entrance.
Wu Jiu originally wanted to ask about how to turn Liu Mu back into a human, but since Bai Wu was questioning Mo Cheng, he was not in a rush at this moment.
"What exactly happened to this building? Why did it suddenly become like this?"
"Aren’t you security guards?"
"Can’t security guards take vacations? Can’t security guards be unaware of certain things? Must security guards know everything about everything? When will security guards be able to stand up for themselves?" Bai Wu was very angry, though from the tone of his voice, he was clearly reciting lines.
Mo Cheng felt that Bai Wu was acting strangely, but given that one was wielding an axe and the other a dagger, both with kind expressions, he decided to start speaking from the heart:
"Two years ago, there were many monsters on the outskirts of the city, and people often turned into monsters inside the city too. But Denglin Technology Company was never affected. This company claims to be researching monster antibodies, and they have the earliest person who turned into a monster!"
If one were to consider the Evil Fallen Transformation as a virus, then the earliest person who became a monster would be Patient Zero.
If this information was true, then this exploration might yield incredibly significant intelligence.
The premise was, all of this had to be true.
"Strange things in the city were becoming more frequent, monsters were appearing more often, many companies went bankrupt and closed down, many stores also shut their doors for good. Only Denglin Technology remained the same as it had been years ago... I heard about this and came here to work, good grief, they say at that time there were tens of thousands of emails sent to this technology company, and I guess I was one of the lucky ones."
Mo Cheng paused, then added:
"But yesterday... everything changed, that monster got out!"
"The earliest one that mutated?"
"Yes, it was like a powerful source of infection, causing the people around it to continuously mutate, it was too terrifying, we must by no means take the elevator! I saw it with my own eyes, the people in the elevator, one by one in agony, growing all sorts of strange things."
What Mo Cheng was saying was the truth. After he heard the alarm on the seventh floor, he intended to take the elevator to leave immediately.
But as soon as he left the office, he saw a big crowd congested at the elevator entrance, and these people already had some features that were not human.
The sight scared Mo Cheng so much that he quickly retreated back to his room, shivering and cowering.
About an hour later, when he noticed there was no sound anymore, he came out again. However, he could still hear some painful cries from the sixth floor at the stairwell entrance.
Frightened, he kept running up to the higher floors.
"Impressive. By the way, is it the year 2123 now?"
"What? What’s this about the year 2123? Bro, why do you always talk in such a bizarre way? Don’t scare me like that! It’s already 2128..."
Bai Wu was startled.
Up until now, the severest mutations he had heard of occurred in 2127, when many people had already moved into the High Tower.
He had thought that 2127 was the last year of the Pre-Tower Era... fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
But it was actually 2128?
This meant that the mutations outside the tower were even more exaggerated than in 2127, but there was still a large number of humans who hadn’t become Evil Fallen. They were still wandering in or around the city, looking for supplies to survive.
Just that... if they couldn’t enter the High Tower, with the rules outside the tower becoming increasingly distorted, they were inevitably heading towards Evil Fallen Transformation.
The three of them were talking as they climbed the stairs. They had reached the thirteenth floor, and so far, they hadn’t encountered any monsters.
But as they were about to enter the twelfth floor, a large group of monsters with black skin and extremely irregular facial features, looking as if they had melted halfway like chocolate, rushed up at them.
Wu Jiu instinctively stood in front, protecting the others, while Bai Wu shielded Mo Cheng and said:
"Don’t leave us!"
"Don’t worry! Even if you told me to go, I wouldn’t leave!" Mo Cheng spoke with a crying tone, clearly frightened.
This group of monsters totaled sixteen, all clad in white lab coats.
In the center was a particularly burly monster, whose note read — [Infected Experimenter lv2, Life Points 10/10, Attack 4, Defense 0. Movement Speed 1].
The rest of the monsters were level one infectees: [Infected Experimenter, lv1, Life Points 8/8, Attack 3, Defense 0. Movement Speed 1].
In that instant, Bai Wu calculated the fight outcome between their leader and the group of monsters.
"The leader’s basic defense is 1, plus 1 from the ring, which makes two. But the monsters’ attack is 3, which means each monster will force the leader to lose one life point, and there’s one that will make him lose two."
"The leader’s attack is 6, and with Evil Fallen Must Die, that’s 12 points. Theoretically, the leader could take down one small fry with each strike, but Evil Fallen Must Die has a durability of 9, and one point was already used in unlocking earlier. Meaning, it’s best to save the weapon for those monsters that might not be penetrable by his strength alone."
Bai Wu already had the answer. As the monsters were about to charge, he said:
"Leader, take advantage of the stairwell to avoid facing multiple monsters at the same time, and if possible, try not to use your weapon!"
Wu Jiu immediately understood Bai Wu’s meaning, nodded, and said:
"Got it."
The three of them fought while retreating. Since their movement speed was the same, Wu Jiu faced the same number of monsters consistently. Due to the varying order of the monsters, it was basically one monster being taken down by Wu Jiu, with another one rushing up immediately afterward.
In this game, it seemed that all creatures’ attack speeds were fixed.
Although Wu Jiu wasn’t faster, if Mo Cheng could pull off a Thomas Flair, Wu Jiu was also capable of making complicated evasive maneuvers.
After all the monsters were dealt with, they retreated to the fourteenth floor.
The stairway of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth floors were littered with the bodies of various monsters.
Mo Cheng said:
"Is this the power of a Level Five Guardian Emperor? Terrifying indeed!"
Bai Wu was also satisfied, though this time they had the advantage of location.
If they were attacked by monsters from above and below... Even if Dwarf’s body could execute certain evasive actions, he might still lose a lot of life points.
Bai Wu didn’t think the dozen or so monsters they had just faced were all there were. In the year 2128... it was likely that the city was so infested with Evil Fallen that they could be described as a flood.
"Guys, look... It seems those monsters dropped something." Mo Cheng pointed out.
