Free Web NovelChapter 227: Chapter 198: Hitting It Off
"Don’t move! Nobody move!"
The second level started again, and Doudou issued his command.
"Listen to me. Get ready... forward... stop! Xiaolv, the one in the front, you jump first."
Xiaolv made a small hop onto the ice.
"Pull back, pull back! Okay, Xiaocheng, you’re second."
"Xiaohui, go."
"Xiaofen, yes, just like that. Very good."
Before he could finish, Xiaofen couldn’t stop in time and slammed into Xiaohui. Like a chain of dominoes, they crashed into each other one by one, and the scene instantly descended into chaos.
"Don’t hit me, don’t hit me!"
"Just jump! Why don’t you jump?"
"I’m out of health!"
Amid a flurry of screams, they chalked up two deaths.
They hadn’t made it any farther than their first attempt.
"It’s all your fault, Xiaofen! Why couldn’t you stop? You made everyone crash."
"That’s because Xiaohui was standing too close! I had no room to slow down."
"Oh, right, right, so it’s my fault, is it?"
"It is your fault!"
"You’re a big dumb pig!"
"Bounces right back to you!"
"Bounces back your bounce-back!"
When kids start arguing, well... how do I put this? It gets really, really loud.
Everything devolves into a screaming match, where victory is decided by who can shriek the loudest. And kids don’t usually admit defeat.
Scientifically speaking, screaming is a privilege reserved for the young of apex predators.
Like the terrifying upright ape, or Dragons.
When their young encounter danger, they scream—the louder, the better—to attract adults for defense.
Animals at the bottom of the food chain don’t do this, because it’s useless for the adults to come back. It just turns one death into the whole family getting wiped out.
And for useful adults like Humans and Dragons, a scream means danger, which in turn means trouble.
That’s why hearing a scream makes one feel anxious and annoyed. It’s written in the genes.
Right now, Doudou and Zog’s genes were kicking in.
"Quiet!" Doudou roared.
He still had a lot of authority among the kids. How else could he be the gang leader?
"Stop fighting! We have to beat this level. We should at least get the reward."
Hearing Doudou say this, the other seven "young heroes" quieted down for the time being.
But they still muttered threats at each other under their breath.
"Don’t you dare crash into me later!"
"Hmph. As if. I’m more worried about you crashing into me."
"If you make me fail this level, I’m gonna hit you."
"If you hit me, I’ll go tell your mom you stole money from home to buy a spinning top!"
"You wouldn’t dare!"
Zog listened with great interest. ’He actually dared to steal his mom’s money? Points for using it to buy a spinning top, but stealing is still some real bratty behavior.’
’Maybe I should arrange for someone to secretly tell that kid’s mother the truth.’
’Ma’am, you wouldn’t want your child to start down the irrevocable path of thievery, would you?’
’In that case, please treat him to his favorite meal of broom and clothes hanger.’
Meanwhile, Doudou was still seriously trying to strategize.
"The ones who aren’t as good at the controls go first. Try to stay to the right on the ice, don’t bump into each other, and leave space for the people behind you, got it?"
"Got it."
"Okay."
"I didn’t mess up, it was Bill’s fault."
The kids answered half-heartedly.
"It doesn’t matter whose fault it is," Doudou said, feeling mentally exhausted. "Everyone, let’s work together now and beat this... this Cute Cat Park thing."
Zog looked at Doudou, and it was like seeing a reflection of his younger self leading MMO raids.
Being the leader was never an easy job. You never knew who was going to mess up at what critical moment.
"Xiaofen, you jump first."
"Why? My controls are..."
"No, your controls are bad, so you go first. Okay, next up, Xiaohui... perfect, amazing! Xiaocheng... no, Xiaohong, don’t move! I said Xiaocheng!"
But it was too late. Xiaocheng and Xiaohong, who had started at the same time, collided in mid-air, setting off a chain reaction. It was time for a round of bumper cars.
"No! We agreed Xiaocheng would go first!" Doudou threw down his controller, his composure starting to crack.
"Ah? I thought I *was* Xiaocheng. I can’t tell the difference between these two colors," that player said innocently.
"Wait, what about these two characters?" Doudou asked, pointing to Xiaofen and Xiaozhi.
"Uhh..." He squinted, staring hard for a long moment. "They look the same, too."
Right. They had a colorblind player.
"It’s okay."
Doudou sounded like he was comforting the colorblind player, as well as himself.
"No matter how many times we die, we *will* beat this level."
Then he immediately started a new attempt.
"Just jump! If it’s too slippery and you can’t stop, just jump."
"Don’t rush!"
"Press jump first, then left, and you’ll stop in mid-air! If you hold a direction while jumping, you’re just going to fly off the edge!"
"You guys are usually so good at games. Why are your skills failing you now?"
"Aiya, what now... sorry, that was my bad."
The once high-spirited kids of the Role-Playing Gang had collectively fallen into a depressed funk.
Doudou was silent for a moment, then decided to force the kids to take it more seriously.
"Whoever makes the first mistake gets a point. In the end, whoever has the most points isn’t allowed to read the new comics for free."
As soon as he said that, his little buddies immediately sat up straight, their eyes glued to the screen.
’That’s more like it. This is perfect,’ Zog thought, thoroughly satisfied. ’It’s feeling more and more like a raid.’
’Whoever messes up and causes a wipe has to send a red envelope in the group chat.’
One of the major perks of being in the Role-Playing Gang was that whenever a new comic came out, Doudou would buy it immediately—multiple copies, in fact—for everyone to read freely.
Not only that, but he had also bought the former Twin Tower City branch of the Drama Guild and converted it into a small warehouse to store his collection of figures, models, dolls, and toys that he had no other place for.
This little warehouse was also free to visit, and on weekends it was even open to non-gang members.
Of course, he had also taken ample precautions against bratty kids.
Taking a page from the Succubus at the Northern Factory, he had enchanted all the collectibles with Electric Shock Magic. Any little brat who touched them without permission would be punished with a jolt.
It got to the point where many parents would deliberately bring their children for a visit, just to let them get zapped once to learn a lesson: don’t touch things that aren’t yours.
The concentration of anime and manga fans in Twin Tower City was much higher than in other regions. Besides the Zog Group’s headquarters being located there, Doudou’s personal promotion as a Dragon played a significant role.
"Okay, last one! Jump... steady... get the key, walk forward, open the door... don’t crowd, go through one by one in order."
The punishment system had an immediate effect. After just two more tries, they passed the bumper-car level that had been tormenting them for twenty minutes.
"Great, that was fantastic! Let’s keep this rhythm and aim to beat the next level in two tries."
Doudou’s confidence was instantly restored.
They reached the next level. There was no "don’t touch me" chaos, no annoying ice. Instead, each character was now seated in a small, flying Magical Device.
The difference was that some of their Magical Devices had guns, while others had shields.
"What’s this now?"
"Look, enemies are flying over!"
"Pressing this bottom button attacks!"
"My character only has a shield. What’s it for?"
"Stop messing around and just shoot the enemies."
Xiaohui opened fire at full blast and successfully hit Xiaozhi.
"Wait, the bullets can hit teammates!"
"What kind of messed-up game is this? It has friendly fire?"
They had never seen a game with friendly fire before. It’s a must-have feature for any co-op game, the very source of capsized friendship boats.
After a few rounds, they figured out the rules for this level. The players with guns were responsible for defeating enemies, while the shields could block enemy bullets.
Each character would die after being hit twice, and that included friendly fire.
However, the merciful Zog had given them a decent margin for error. After being hit once, you could recover to full health just by dodging out of the way for a moment.
Doudou quickly figured out the way to pass the level. The eight players had to constantly change their formation based on the enemies. The front line had to block attacks while also being careful not to get shot by their own teammates.
The need for coordination was much greater than in the previous level.
Attempt #4.
"Shields up, DPS hide! It’s okay, we did really well that time. We’re about to beat it."
Attempt #15.
"Shields, stop moving around! You’re blocking our own bullets."
"If I don’t move, I’ll die!"
Attempt #28.
"If you can’t aim, don’t even try to shoot! Just hide behind a shield! You coming out just causes more trouble."
"No, you can’t just hide! We don’t have enough damage!"
Half an hour passed, and everyone had collectively lost their minds.
"It’s all your fault! If you hadn’t messed up, we would’ve passed already!"
"You died first the time before last."
"Xiaolan is a total animal!"
"If Xiaozhi is Human, I’ll eat my own foot!"
"I don’t want to play with you anymore!"
"How can you be so stupid?"
"You yelled at me! I’m not your friend anymore!"
"Fine, don’t be my friend! Who cares!"
"Aaaah!"
Who would have thought that the Role-Playing Gang, established less than half a year ago, would be pushed to the brink of disbanding by a party game?
The agitated little buddies were no longer satisfied with a war of words and moved on to the next stage.
Xiaolan’s flailing Turtle Fist was the spark that escalated the conflict. Xiaohui retaliated with a tentative front kick. Xiaocheng then entered the fray, only for Xiaolv to spot an opening and drag him to the ground with a forward lunge.
Transformation. It was a transformation sequence.
Xiaohuang struck a Mechanical Warrior transformation pose—that classic chuunibyou move kids do when they fight, with zero actual effect but maximum psychological impact.
Seeing this, Zog couldn’t help but have the camera angle adjusted to record it in greater detail.
’Xiaohuang, I hope you have the courage to watch this footage when you grow up.’
"Hahaha..."
Doudou suddenly laughed, a laugh of release, which completely bewildered the kids who were in the middle of a brawl.
However, he didn’t say anything like "Stop fighting." Instead, he quickly announced, "There’s no punishment now, but the first one to die is a pig!"
Before he finished speaking, he had already started a new round and killed a teammate with two shots.
"Haha, Xiaolv is a pig!"
In that instant, the nature of the game changed.
The other kids stared blankly for a second, then immediately grabbed their controllers again and started attacking each other.
"Wait, this is a problem! My character has a shield, this is too unfair!"
"Then from now on, anyone who kills a teammate is also a pig!"
When beating the level became a secondary goal, and making their friends look like fools became the primary one, they discovered the game’s most primitive joy.
No complex objectives, just pure fun.
"Hahahaha, how did you die again?"
"Stop laughing, you’re a piggy too!"
"Can’t be helped. None of us are Human anymore."
"How many seconds do you bet it’ll take for Xiaofen to die?"
"I bet it’ll be any second now."
"Don’t put pressure on me! Ahh!"
Amidst the joyous laughter, they actually started playing better and better, passing the final two levels in a flurry of boisterous chaos.
"What? It’s over?"
"I want to play the next level!"
"That was so fun! I think it’s more fun than the games in the game store."
"I want this console."
"Don’t worry, our gang will definitely buy one in the future. No, we’ll buy several," Doudou promised.
The playtest was a great success. Zog gave them small, chibi-style dolls as gifts and handed out surveys asking what else they would want to see on the console.
People in this era still took surveys seriously, at least reading every question and option carefully.
After seeing the children off, Zog looked over the collected surveys.
Most of the suggestions were full of childish innocence and had little reference value.
Things like, "Can the games be free?", "Can you convince my dad to buy one for me?", and "I want my dog to be able to learn how to play games too."
However, among these naive and innocent answers, Zog found one very interesting suggestion.
"Can we raise pets in the game console? My hamster died. It would be nice if little animals could live inside a game."
