There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: A Miraculous Treasure

A Pseudo-man is a creature from urban legends. It resembles a human, but it isn’t one at all.

They blend in with crowds and feed on humans. They enjoy driving people to despair through various means before revealing themselves to prey on their victims.

They also have their own Levels. Low-Level Pseudo-men have difficulty even disguising themselves as human, while high-Level ones possess great intelligence and can drive their targets to a mental breakdown with traps and psychological pressure before slowly savoring their meal.

The woman with long, straight black hair on the ground was a Pseudo-man, but before she dropped her disguise, none of them had even seen through it.

Gripping the still-struggling Pseudo-man, Bystander A asked, "What now?"

"Why don’t we ask the Magic Conch Shell?" Duan Fei said.

"Now’s not the time for that meme. Not many people will get it," Bystander A said with a sigh.

"Let’s find the Doctor," Duan Fei suggested. "Since that mad scientist was able to resurrect Junko, he probably knows something about Pseudo-men."

"I guess that’s our only option."

By now, the long, straight-haired woman had completely shed her disguise.

Her body became pitch-black, thin, and elongated, like a humanoid figure woven from a chaotic mass of thread. It was struggling and screeching ceaselessly.

Its Power was roughly equivalent to that of an average adult, but compared to Junko, who was five times stronger than an adult, it was far too weak.

Gripping the creature, Junko felt a sticky, slimy sensation on her hand.

The Pseudo-man’s body seemed to be coated in a greasy secretion, and she could feel how slippery it was in her grasp.

The sensation was deeply unsettling to Junko, and it also made her realize that she, too, might be the same kind of creature.

After a difficult trek to the laboratory on the mountainside, Junko finally saw the Doctor in person for the first time.

To her surprise, the Doctor was actually quite handsome.

The Doctor, who was in his early thirties, was rather dashing, but his face was perpetually twisted into the crazed smile characteristic of a Frankenstein.

Seeing Junko return with the Pseudo-man clutched in her hand, the Doctor’s face lit up with excitement.

"You actually caught a Pseudo-man! That’s incredible! Bring it over here, quickly!"

Pulling on white gloves, the Doctor snatched the monkey-like Pseudo-man from Junko’s hand and shoved it into a transparent container.

As he slowly pumped the air out, the flailing Pseudo-man gradually stopped moving, falling still like a puppet with its strings cut.

Seeing this, Duan Fei was certain.

’The Doctor definitely knows something.’

Watching the Doctor begin to draw blood from the Pseudo-man and prepare for various experiments, Duan Fei went up to him and asked directly, "Doctor, how are you so familiar with Pseudo-men?"

"Because my entire family was killed by Pseudo-men."

Rolling up the sleeve of his lab coat, the Doctor revealed a scar on his arm. He said to Junko, "See this? I was attacked by a Pseudo-man. My entire family was killed by them, but I was lucky enough to escape."

"And it wasn’t just me—it was you, too, Junko. Aren’t you curious about why you’re here? About why you have no desire to go home?"

Junko stared blankly at the Doctor, her face slowly draining of color.

Memories she had deliberately suppressed began to surface, and she slowly started to recall things she had been avoiding.

"Good. It looks like you remember now. You were in a car accident caused by a Pseudo-man. Your parents were killed by it, and you were torn to pieces. I had originally intended to use you as bait to catch a Pseudo-man for my research, but your performance exceeded my expectations."

A violent wave of emotion washed over Junko, causing a terrifying black aura to radiate from her body.

She took a step forward, grabbed the Doctor’s throat with one hand, and lifted his entire body into the air.

"Tell me what you did to me! I couldn’t have just come back to life for no reason! You must have done something!"

The Doctor’s face flushed red in her grip, but he still wore that same crazed smile.

"Blood."

"What?"

"I injected you with Pseudo-man blood! During the accident, your car happened to kill a Pseudo-man, and I recovered its body. I stitched you back together and injected you with its bodily fluids. You’re a Pseudo-man now, too."

Her earlier suspicion was confirmed in that instant, leaving Junko utterly stunned.

The thought that the blood of the creature responsible for her parents’ deaths now flowed through her own veins was so nauseating that she couldn’t help but begin to vomit violently.

Black fluid gushed from her mouth. The sickening feeling made her continue to dry heave until nothing was left.

But even so, the Pseudo-man’s blood remained inside her. She clawed frantically at her arms, desperate to let it all out.

However, she had Yan Yuan within her. The blood of the Phoenix caused her wounds to heal instantly, rendering her frantic clawing useless.

"No... no... NO!"

A piercing shriek echoed through the lab, followed by the girl’s cries of despair.

Seeing her in such a state, a look of anguish crossed the Doctor’s face.

"I’m sorry," he whispered. "I... I..."

"Pardon the interruption." Duan Fei suddenly took control of Junko and asked, "Uh, since the Pseudo-man’s blood is so effective, why can’t you inject it into Junko’s parents?"

Junko suddenly snatched back control and added, "And my brother."

"And her brother," Duan Fei echoed.

The Doctor looked at the group hesitantly and said in a low voice, "Their bodies are here, yes. It’s just that..."

"Just what?"

"...Actually, I guess there’s no reason not to. Right. Why didn’t I inject them, too? The thought just never occurred to me."

For Junko, as terrifying as it was to become a Pseudo-man, the grief of losing her parents and brother was even more overwhelming.

But now, knowing they could be saved, she watched with breathless excitement as the Doctor brought out the bodies of her parents and brother and injected them with the newly refined blood of the Pseudo-man.

With a series of groans, the three bodies began to stir. Some unknown consciousness reawakened within them, and they let out zombie-like moans.

"Go home..."

"Clear the computer hard drive..."

"Clear the DVD history..."

Watching the father and brother, who hadn’t forgotten to wipe their drives even in death, Duan Fei had a thought. ’All men are the same.’

Aside from that, Duan Fei was very interested in the Pseudo-man extract.

This extract was derived from the Pseudo-man’s blood. Through repeated distillation and purification, it could be refined into a completely transparent liquid.

Because Duan Fei possessed Great Success Level Medical Skill and Bystander A had Great Success Level Reconnaissance, the combination of their abilities allowed them to perceive more information about it.

’This stuff is a real treasure.’

’A treasure that can permanently raise the cap on one’s Attributes!’