【You are disconnecting from the neural link】
【3】
【2】
【1】
Following a few electronic prompts, the light before his eyes gradually dimmed, followed by pitch black. He blinked, and the darkness in his line of sight was like the thickest ink, making him dazed and unsure if his eyes were even open.
He twisted his stiff body, wanting to sit up.
"Thud—ouch!"
The head he had just lifted halfway suddenly bumped into something, causing him to cry out. Immediately after, accompanied by a "hiss—" sound, a golden outline slowly bloomed at the edge of the darkness. The light grew brighter and brighter, shining in more brazenly, and above his head, something like a lid was rising bit by bit.
Finally, the lid opened.
This person sat up straight and looked around. This was a room less than four or five square meters in size with no decorations. Directly in front was a window, and the curtain was swaying gently with the evening breeze. The golden afterglow spilled onto his face through the gap at the edge. His eyes hurt a little from the glare, but he did not really want to close them. So, he faced the sunset, like a chick that had just pecked through its eggshell, attracted by the light, and slowly crawled to the window.
Apprehensive, uneasy, extremely terrified, but also incredibly curious.
He pulled back the curtain, and a cold wind blew, making him shiver. His line of sight crossed the window sill, and in that instant, his pupils dilated uncontrollably. As far as the eye could see, there were towering buildings, standing like a steel forest, gradually becoming shorter. Through the cold gaps, golden-edged outlines were revealed. Further away were the blue riverbanks and a giant tower on the other side that pierced the clouds. Everything was bathed in the sunset glow. He was stunned, even forgetting to breathe. Perhaps he had never truly breathed before. In any case, the moment the suffocating feeling of near-death struck, he finally inhaled deeply. The moment the cold air entered his lungs, the noisy sound of traffic roared up from the ground and rushed into his ears. Shouting, roaring, traffic, trains passing between buildings—countless sounds and things intertwined into a thrilling scene.
He was like a fool, just lying there at the window, watching and listening with a blank mind, until the sunset sank into the other side of the architecture and the sky grew dim, only then did he finally come to his senses.
"Is this the outside world?"
He reluctantly withdrew his line of sight. The lights in the room had turned on at some point; these lights probably adjusted automatically according to the changes in light.
At this moment, his line of sight fell onto a machine behind him that had a rich sense of technology but looked like a coffin. Just now, he had sat up from here.
This person leaned over and carefully observed this strange Thing. The metal exterior texture and the soft cushions inside were clearly designed for a more comfortable lie-down. Soon, he found a string of labels on the side of the lid.
【Ark Game Pod — Standard Edition】
"Ark?" he muttered.
In fact, he had realized a long time ago that he should be a character in a game, but there seemed to be a kind of Strength in his Mind that was always preventing him from confirming this. Now, after leaving the game world, he hardly needed much thought to naturally recognize this reality.
"Sure enough, I am just a..." He hesitated and did not say the word 'npc'. Afterward, this person did not waste any more time on this issue. He stood up and went to the wall on the other side of this small Room.
There were two doors on this wall.
He first opened one of them and discovered that behind this door was a restroom.
A Toilet, a sink, and a shower head hanging in the corner—this was what a restroom in a small apartment should look like.
Although the Mad Doctor had just come out of the game world, he did not seem to lack any understanding of the things in this world. Perhaps it was because his own Data settings contained these, or for some other reason. In any case, he walked to the sink very naturally. On it was a mirror, covered in dried water stains.
He turned on the faucet switch, dipped some water with his hand, and wiped it on the mirror.
In the mirror appeared a somewhat gaunt face, about 25 years of Age, with lifeless eyes. His Hair was a bit long, clearly not washed for a long time, and it was a mess on top of his Head. It was likely due to long-term irregular eating, combined with staying at home and not being exposed to Sunlight. In short, this body did not have a shred of the vitality that should belong to this Age, but rather a decadent feeling of waiting to die.
"An otaku."
This was something he determined instantly after seeing this face of his.
After that, he washed his face hastily, walked out of the restroom, and then pushed open the remaining door.
As the Door crack opened, a somewhat unpleasant smell drifted in. He leaned out and discovered that outside was a living room, with an area about twice the size of the room he had just been in. It was clearly a small one-bedroom apartment.
Likewise, there were no decorations in the living room: a Table for eating, a computer in the corner, and next to the Room door not far away, a large pile of leftover food delivery boxes was stacked up, and white toilet paper crumpled into balls of various sizes was thrown everywhere.
He frowned. He walked to the living room window and opened it. After letting the air circulate for a while, the smell in the Room finally became a little more bearable.
After that, this person did not rush to clean up this pigsty-like otaku Room, but instead came to the computer.
Just sat down.
"Hmm?"
He discovered an ID card placed in the corner of the computer Table.
He picked up the ID card. The photo on it was the very face he had just seen in the mirror, and the name written on it was 【Lu Yuan】.
"Lu Yuan, Lu Yuan... is this my name?" He muttered to himself a few times. For some reason, upon learning that he possessed a name, his mood seemed to improve suddenly, so he happily cracked his mouth and smiled.
In the next two minutes, Lu Yuan held the document in his hands, repeatedly mumbling his name as if he had found a treasure, until he felt the muscle in his face becoming a bit stiff, only then did he reluctantly shift his Line of Sight away from the two characters 【Lu Yuan】.
Afterward, he turned on the computer.
Just as mentioned before, Lu Yuan was not unfamiliar with the items of this world, so he easily opened a search webpage and typed the word 'Ark' into it.
In an instant, a large amount of search Data flooded the Screen, and the page numbers at the bottom of the search interface went straight to the limit.
This result surprised Lu Yuan slightly, but this was exactly what he had expected. As Data that had just left the 'Game', the most important thing now was to understand the origin that created him, so he quickly began to browse through them in order.
One article, two articles...
Perhaps because of his Data-based thinking, Lu Yuan's reading Speed was very fast. He just browsed through the webpage one by one like this. Whether it was useful, useless, or even some complaints posted by Players, he read every single word.
The night grew deeper, and gradually the sky turned pale. The sun rushed out from behind the buildings, crossed the sky, and slanted westward again until darkness fell once more. Only then did Lu Yuan finally rub his sore eyes.
In this day and night, nearly 30 hours, Lu Yuan tirelessly browsed through all the information about the Ark. It was only when the links began to be lost due to the webpage being too old that he gradually broke away from the high-speed reading mode. At this moment, he finally had some understanding of the 'Ark' Game.
Just as mentioned before, this was a virtual reality game. Its genre did not need much explanation. The only thing that made Lu Yuan a bit surprised was that this game had actually been out for nearly 100 years, and generations had grown up playing the Ark.
It could be said that the 'Ark' had become an indispensable part of this world. It was precisely because of the advent of this game that violent conflicts in the world had dropped sharply, because those excess violent emotions could be vented in the game world. Moreover, the quantity of unemployed people was also minimal, because the Money conversion in the Ark was enough for a person to live without starving. There were also various large enterprises that had risen based on the Ark.
Of course, during this time, Lu Yuan did not just learn about the Ark; he also focused on checking posts about the 【Mad Doctor】. As mentioned before, before catching Lu Yuan, many other Players had also been knocked unconscious by him and taken away for Experiment, but these experiments had all failed.
So, would these victims post their experiences on the internet after leaving the game?
And the facts proved that Lu Yuan's worries were completely unnecessary, because he checked all the posts about the 【Mad Doctor】, and the result was only a few sparse ones. These posts were almost all pushed to a corner where no one cared about them within seconds. As for their content, most of them just talked about the twisted sense of humor of this Instance designer. No one would believe that a set of Data could truly attempt to leave the game.
After doing all this, Lu Yuan sat on the Chair and stared blankly. He looked at the night that had arrived again outside the window and began to think about questions such as who am I, where am I, and what do I want to do. As for the result, he naturally did not get any answer.
And just after this meaningless hour, Lu Yuan suddenly thought of something. He stood up and returned to the small Room where he had woken up yesterday.
The Ark Game Pod was still lying quietly in the middle of the Room.
I do not know why, but in this instant, Lu Yuan's heart, which had been empty for who knows how long, suddenly underwent a Change.
He recalled everything he had experienced again: his memory being repeatedly reset and refreshed, the Samsara of being killed and then resurrected...
In that game called 【Ark】, at this very moment, there were still countless game Lives like him, regarded as useless Data, experiencing everything he had experienced.
Lu Yuan thought, recalling the scene of himself being killed time and time again, and looked at that Game Pod which was like a coffin. He hesitated for a long time, then leaned over and lay inside.
As the 'coffin lid' slowly descending, darkness once again enveloped the surroundings.
That electronic Voice also sounded again.
【Game Pod started】
【Welcome to】
【Ark】
"Don't worry everyone, I'm here to save you."
✦✦✦