There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

Chapter 46: Chapter 46: The Final Battle

"This guy’s pretty rich."

In a secluded alley, a few young punks kicked a student to the ground. With practiced ease, they pulled a wallet from his pocket, counted the cash inside, and smiled in satisfaction.

After taking the money, they tossed the empty wallet back to the student. As they turned to leave, they heard the student ask softly, "Is this how you treat a friend?"

One of the punks stared at the student, then exchanged a look with his buddies and burst out laughing.

"That’s right, that’s right," the punk said with a grin. "We beat you up because we like you. We take your money to teach you the joy of sharing."

"I see."

"Good. Now that you get it, scram and go home to get more money. That way, we can be best friends forever."

"I understand now. Pain is the way to make friends."

"...Pfft! You think we beat him stupid?"

One punk clapped his buddy on the shoulder but was met with only a silent stare.

Sensing something was wrong, the punk asked urgently, "What is it? What’s wrong with you?"

"Run... quickly..."

Then, the punk burst like a soap bubble. The expressionless student walked out from behind him, licked the blood from his hand, and said, "I understand now. This is how you make friends."

"Stay back... Don’t come any closer!"

"Why not? I want to be friends with you!"

Just as he was about to step forward and deepen his friendship with the punk, his movements suddenly froze.

A voice resounded in his mind.

A voice from the Creator.

An anomaly had appeared and begun hunting its brethren, interfering with the Creator’s plan.

For the Creator’s sake, they had to stop everything they were doing and completely exterminate the anomaly.

Letting go of the punk, they rushed toward the destination indicated by the voice.

"I’ve gotta say, aren’t you guys going a little too hard?"

Inside the lab, the Mad Doctor looked at the mountain of Pseudo-man corpses and wondered if this bunch had gone crazy.

In just a few hours that night, they had controlled Junko’s body to run through most of the town, eliminating every Pseudo-man they saw and sending the bodies back to the lab.

While alive, these Pseudo-men looked human, but upon death, they reverted to their original forms.

Some looked like tangled balls of yarn, while others were absurd creatures formed from densely packed text. All sorts of strange forms made up the unique appearance of the Pseudo-men; even the Doctor, who was preparing to study them, couldn’t possibly catalog all their shapes.

The one thing that was certain, however, was that the Pseudo-men held immense hostility toward humans.

Each day, every Pseudo-man had to hunt one human for food, and humans who were hunted and killed had a certain chance of becoming Pseudo-men themselves.

If left unchecked, the number of Pseudo-men would grow exponentially until they had consumed all of humanity.

The Mad Doctor hadn’t expected there to be so many Pseudo-men in the town.

Judging by their numbers, there were likely over a hundred Pseudo-men hiding in this town alone, and among them, there were surely some more intelligent, higher-tier species. This made the Doctor begin to worry about the future of the world.

If a single small town was hiding so many Pseudo-men, then what about other places...

Duan Fei and his group were also secretly shocked at the sight of so many Pseudo-men.

Pulling the Doctor aside, Duan Fei asked, "What about calling the police?"

"I already did, but the police didn’t believe me at all." The Doctor shrugged helplessly. "Not only that, but I’ve noticed a lot more people around me lately. I’ve probably been targeted by the Pseudo-men."

"Where do the Pseudo-men even come from?"

"I don’t know."

The Doctor stood up and, while operating the equipment to refine the Pseudo-men’s bodies, said to the others, "I’ve studied the Pseudo-men and found DNA structures from multiple organisms, most of which are not human. Therefore, I can deduce that Pseudo-men are not people."

"And?"

"Different Pseudo-men contain samples from different organisms, and some samples don’t belong to any known species. Furthermore, their genes show clear signs of being engineered, so I’m certain the Pseudo-men were artificially created."

"...That’s a little far-fetched."

"Yes, and what’s even more interesting about the Pseudo-men is that they prey on humans, but not to satisfy their hunger. It’s to extract certain Energy components from the human body. If I had to use an analogy, Pseudo-men are more like combine harvesters."

"And humans are the crops?"

"Precisely," the Doctor said with a nod.

As he spoke, he finished refining the Pseudo-men the players had brought back. The diluted liquid was poured into twenty thumb-sized test tubes, which he then handed to Junko.

"Every drop of this liquid is Pseudo-human Extract. You can take a look at its quality."

Duan Fei and Bystander A eagerly picked up the liquid and used a joint Skill to inspect its Attributes.

"Pseudo-human Extract: Lightly Contaminated, Purple, Can be taken out of the instance.

Description: An extract from the mysterious Pseudo-men. Every drop can slowly improve one’s Constitution and randomly increase Attributes. The effect diminishes with repeated use.

As this liquid is contaminated, a period of time is required to remove the contamination after each use before it can be consumed again."

Contamination is a special status effect for items.

Some items can be contaminated by unknown substances. Consuming them can cause illness, the growth of strange organs, and other effects.

Most contamination also causes hallucinations, temporary Attribute reduction, and other such things. It’s safe to say it’s something no player ever wants to deal with.

The Pseudo-human Extract was also contaminated, but according to the description, the contamination was only slight and would wear off after a period of time.

Dozens of Pseudo-men had yielded twenty vials of the liquid, which represented a huge boost in Attributes.

After excitedly agreeing on how to distribute the vials, the players charged out the door once more, heading off to slay more Pseudo-men.

But the moment they stepped outside, Duan Fei and Bystander A sensed that something was wrong.

Under the pitch-black night sky, a massive number of character profiles appeared.

The dark green info panels didn’t glow, but they were strikingly obvious in the darkness.

Especially with over a hundred of them appearing at once, each panel bearing the same label: "Pseudo-man."

"It’s a jackpot!" Duan Fei shouted excitedly. "How much Pseudo-human Extract do you think we can get?"

Beside them, Frankenstein stared wide-eyed at Junko. "We’re surrounded! And that’s what you’re thinking about?!"

"What else?"

"Whatever, I’m going to go write my will..."

Looking around, Duan Fei saw they were surrounded by all sorts of Pseudo-men.

As Duan Fei and the other players watched, the creatures slowly dropped their disguises, revealing their true forms.

The body of one Pseudo-man slowly split down the middle, its two halves resembling a giant spider as it began to ascend on a thin thread toward the sky.

Another Pseudo-man’s body began to stretch, its box-cutter-like structure slowly extending as it grew abnormally tall.

The Pseudo-men’s counterattack had begun.