Twenty-seven players, some standing, some sitting, occupied an empty room of roughly one hundred square meters.
As time wore on, they drifted apart, some intentionally, some not, before gradually coalescing into smaller cliques based on gender, age, disposition, and guild affiliation.
A murmur of conversation filled the room as they began to share their thoughts on the instance.
"An hour and a half has passed, and still no main quest? Not only that, we haven't seen so much as a shadow of a ghost..."
"You think this instance is bugged? Nothing significant has happened since Ms. Medina's first appearance. This place is completely empty—no clues, no traps. Are we expected to rough it out here like we're in the wild?"
"Maybe we should have followed those two down the corridor? But that doesn't feel right. It obviously leads to the confinement room, a place you're only supposed to go if you've broken the rules..."
"Let's just wait for them to get back from scouting. Besides, we're all here together. They can't possibly kill all twenty-seven of us at once."
Had there been fewer than ten players, with the instance at a standstill and a long corridor beckoning toward the unknown, a proposal from someone like Chen Lidong, especially with Zhou Datong joining him, would likely have swayed the others. No matter how timid, the herd mentality would have compelled them to follow and explore the passage together.
With over twenty people, however, the bystander effect took hold.
Chen Lidong and Zhou Datong simply didn't carry enough weight. The timid and hesitant players preferred to wait for the larger group to reach a consensus. And seeing that no one else was making a move, they certainly weren't about to venture out on their own.
Even as official players, the majority of them still defaulted to a passive approach when it came to clearing instances.
They only moved when prodded. With no monsters nipping at their heels, they were perfectly content to hole up in a safe spot and shoot the breeze.
Three members of the Listening Wind Guild had claimed a relatively quiet corner. Two men and a woman formed a small arc, whispering amongst themselves about matters entirely unrelated to the instance.
"I just tried every possible way to reach him. No response from Say Dream. He's either dead or not in this instance." The speaker was a middle-aged man with an artistic, world-weary vibe and shoulder-length hair. His drooping eyelids made him look permanently half-asleep. "Considering his skills, I highly doubt he's dead..."
Any player who spent enough time on the forums would have recognized him instantly: Jiang Junjue, a veteran of the Listening Wind Guild. He was infamous for flooding the message boards with sentimental poetry and prose, always accompanied by a shameless number of selfies from every conceivable angle.
Jiang Junjue delivered this solemn verdict, then slid a white ring from the middle finger of his right hand. He mumbled, "Well, the three of us are here, so I guess the Teaming Rings developed by Kyushu aren't completely useless... So what the hell is going on here?"
A young, bespectacled man lowered his voice. "Old Jiang, you think maybe there's a party size limit? And Kyushu didn't bother testing it, so they're just using us as guinea pigs?"
"...You know, that's not impossible. I trust Fu Jue's integrity, but you can't always say the same for the people working under him. What if they cut corners?"
"Hey, don't go slandering us," a young female voice piped up from behind, startling the trio.
The speaker was the female player from the Kyushu Guild. She looked no older than twenty, dressed for the heat in a green T-shirt and capri pants.
At this moment, she looked aggrieved, wiggling the ring on her middle finger. "How should I know what's happening? Two of us entered together. The plan was for him to help me acclimate to the difficulty of the official instances, but now I'm all by myself..."
The three exchanged glances. Jiang Junjue narrowed his eyes, swallowing the question on the tip of his tongue—*How do you walk so silently?*—and instead gave the female player from his own guild a meaningful look.
The woman caught his meaning and quickly smiled. "Hey, we lost one of our own too, so we're just a bit on edge. Didn't mean anything by it. Since we're a person short and you're on your own, why don't you join us?"
"Oh, yes, please!" The offer was exactly what she'd been hoping for. She flashed an eager, almost fawning smile. "I'm Zhang Yiyu. Please look after me, you pros!"
...
And so, Zhang Yiyu of the Kyushu Guild joined the trio from Listening Wind. She found a dim corner to settle into, her anxious heart finally starting to calm.
While the two major guilds, Kyushu and Listening Wind, were often competitors, they actually had a very good relationship. They frequently exchanged intel and even had personnel exchange programs—an open secret among the player base.
Ultimately, while players might disagree on the minor details, they all shared the same overarching goal: to clear the legendary Final Instance as soon as possible, shut down the Weird Game, and halt the invasion of supernatural phenomena into their reality.
Cooperation was, undeniably, the way forward.
*No matter what, people can't be scarier than ghosts, can they?*
Zhang Yiyu repeated the thought to herself, but the image of Ms. Medina resurfaced in her mind, leaving a bitter taste.
After achieving a Normal End in the "Dialectic Game" instance, she had been detained by the Weird Investigation Bureau for four years. During that period, because she herself had become an anomaly, the Weird Game never pulled her into another instance.
Being sent into an instance after only a few days of training was the last thing she wanted, but for the sake of her own freedom, she had no choice but to agree.
Ning Xu had told her that, as an anomaly, she was now essentially undead and could sense the presence of more dangerous entities, so survival shouldn't be an issue. But that was little comfort. A fear of ghosts was simply in her nature.
After being reluctantly loaded into the "Red Maple Boarding School" instance, Zhang Yiyu was horrified to discover that the "pro" she had entered with was gone.
Before she even had a moment to process this, Ms. Medina appeared in their midst, wreathed in tendrils of black smoke.
As a Pseudo-human, Zhang Yiyu could perceive the danger level of other anomalies. One look was all it took for her to see the churning, writhing flesh and pus-weeping burns concealed within the black smoke.
In an instant, her shock morphed into pure terror.
It was the primal instinct of an animal facing its natural predator. She was struck by the profound realization that even though she was an anomaly herself, she couldn't just run wild in another's territory.
Ghosts ate other ghosts, she whimpered to herself.
It was out of the frying pan and into the fire. Zhang Yiyu felt her world go dark.
But what was done was done. Her only option was to find a way to survive. Ideally, she could prove her worth, atone for her past, and convince the Weird Investigation Bureau to finally let her go.
A soft, shuffling footstep echoed from deep within the corridor. It wasn't loud, but Zhang Yiyu's senses caught it immediately. An inexplicable chill shot through her limbs.
A suffocating sensation washed over her, as if an invisible pressure were bearing down, crushing her soul inch by inch until it was prostrate on the floor.
The footsteps drew nearer. Zhang Yiyu glanced at the Listening Wind members beside her; the trio was still lamenting Say Dream's disappearance, utterly oblivious to the encroaching presence.
She scanned the other players. They were all lost in their own conversations, completely unaware of the approaching danger.
Was it... just her imagination?
Puzzled, Zhang Yiyu peered down the corridor outside. Wisps of black mist swirled like phantoms, weaving themselves into a shifting, uneven curtain that slowly drifted into the room.
Woven into the black mist were strands of golden vines, rising and falling like flotsam on an unseen tide, refracting faint glimmers of scarlet at certain angles. Glistening, golden beads of blood oozed from the tendrils, hovering around them like stars orbiting a moon. Each droplet reflected a grotesque, tightly shut eye, as though trapped in the deepest nightmare.
An anomaly! A new one!
Her internal danger sense screamed. Zhang Yiyu froze, the blood in her veins turning to ice.
She stared, transfixed, as two figures entered the room one after the other. It was none other than Chen Lidong and Zhou Datong, the two who had left earlier.
They trod upon the massive black shadow cast by the anomaly, utterly oblivious to the danger that followed them. They strode brazenly to the center of the room and gestured for silence.
"We just took a trip to the end of the corridor," Chen Lidong announced concisely. "There's a confinement room, but we didn't find the guy who got locked up earlier. We did find an NPC, though." He turned and called out, "47!"
The players blinked, momentarily confused by the number.
A moment later, a slender, light-brown-skinned youth stepped through the doorway.
He was tall and lanky, dressed in a drab, gray short-sleeved shirt and trousers. The ill-fitting style was clearly a school uniform, making his identity obvious.
—He was a student at Red Maple Boarding School, the NPC Chen Lidong had mentioned.
The youth seemed unused to so many eyes on him. He shyly lowered his gaze and spoke softly. "My designation is 47. That's my name here. I angered Ms. Medina, so she locked me in the confinement room... I nearly starved, but thankfully, two kind people arrived just in time with food and water."
As he spoke, he shot a grateful smile at Chen Lidong and Zhou Datong, the very picture of a well-mannered, thankful child.
The players exchanged subtle glances, most arriving at the same conclusion.
Ms. Medina was clearly the main boss of this instance—capricious, fond of corporal punishment, and responsible for meting out brutal penalties for breaking the rules.
This NPC, "47," on the other hand, was likely a key character, someone who could provide crucial clues and, if necessary, serve as a convenient scapegoat.
Qi Si, in turn, was observing the players with equal subtlety.
Their formations alone suggested they had already split into several factions. It was even possible some of them knew each other in the real world.
He recognized a few familiar faces, including some active veterans who weren't exactly anonymous on the forums.
One young woman in a pale green T-shirt stood out. Her casual, summery clothes made her look like a tourist who'd wandered in by mistake, but her expression was one of someone who had just seen a ghost.
"I told you from the start, sitting around and doing nothing is pointless," Chen Lidong said with a touch of admonishment. "There's only one corridor. Where else were we supposed to go? Anyway, we've figured out one school rule: you have to wear a uniform. You've all been here this whole time—anyone find anything like that?"
He deftly omitted the part about receiving the "Philanthropist" title. An identity like that practically screamed "survivor," and he knew there were players twisted enough to see that as a reason to target him.
The moment Chen Lidong announced the rule, the other players received a system notification—[RULES UPDATED]—confirming its validity.
One player fretted, "Breaking a rule probably gets you thrown in the confinement room, right? The last player sent there... we still don't know if they're dead or alive..."
Another player just laughed, completely unconcerned. "What's to worry about? None of us are in uniform. There's safety in numbers. Besides, who says we're even students?"
As he spoke, several pairs of eyes drifted toward Qi Si, who stood near the door.
*If it comes to finding a uniform... well, this NPC is wearing one.*
An NPC's life wasn't worth anything. If push came to shove, they could just rip the uniform right off him.
From the moment Qi Si had stepped into the room, Zhang Yiyu hadn't taken her eyes off him.
She had seen it clearly: the terrifying black mist and golden vines were emanating from this very NPC.
In her sight, the youth's shadow twisted and writhed, dissolving and reforming. In the instant her gaze met him, a flood of information poured into her mind—information that was impossible to understand, impossible to even perceive...
This was a higher-dimensional existence, something beyond all comprehension, detached from the world itself. Its gaze was nothing more than the dispassionate glance of a god.
Death and disaster were merely incidental fates tied to its every gesture, just as a person rolling over in their sleep would be utterly unaware of, and indifferent to, the life or death of the microorganisms upon them...
*Could a seemingly ordinary NPC really be the most important entity in this whole instance?*
After the initial wave of terror passed, Zhang Yiyu forced herself to calm down.
The NPC didn't seem hostile. In fact, he might be the key to clearing the instance. She could see there was more to him than met the eye, and that knowledge was her unique advantage.
She was terrified, yes, but to not even try to make contact, to not try and prove her worth... it felt like such a waste.
Qi Si sensed her gaze and turned to meet it, the corner of his mouth twitching into a slight smile.
Within the black mist, Zhang Yiyu saw innumerable crimson eyes slowly blink open. Their gazes, cold and detached, swept in all directions like a silent warning.
A whimper escaped her. *Nope, too scary. What good are brownie points if I'm dead? Better stay far, far away...*
"Hey, you alright?" Jiang Junjue's voice came from behind her, and a hand rested gently on her shoulder.
Zhang Yiyu snapped out of her trance, quickly averting her gaze. Her back was slick with cold sweat.
The moment she lowered her head, a cold, mechanical voice sounded from the system:
[You have witnessed an Evil God. Generating a plausible identity for you...]
[Identity: "Witch" loaded.]
A moment later, a new notification sounded, this time for all players:
[All special identities have been assigned. The instance will now officially commence.]
Thank you to'Block the small building and listen to the night rain' for the total 333 point donation; Si Qi has received the blades and egg pancakes and says he loves them (with a completely-not-threatening smile)~Thank you to'Qi Zhi Ning' for the 300 point donation, and thank you To'xxcW233' for the 123 point donation! Thank you to'Fallen Apostle' for the 100 point donation and for the egg pancake gift for Si Qi! Thank you to'Call me the clown' for the 100 point donation! (I just discovered that Si Qi's exclusive character gift "egg pancake" is online, props to the platform's efficiency).
Thank you to the Taoist Cultivator, Yinyue Yue, the five forms of Bichin, and the fallen apostle for the monthly votes!
(Current donation progress: 5969/10000)
(Current monthly vote progress: 86/100)
(End of this chapter)