"Huh?!"
Lightning Cutlass, under the wolfish gazes of his three teammates, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Are you guys seriously planning on doing this? Hey, I'm telling you, can you guys cut it out with the creepy looks?"
"Big Bro Qi Na," Dragon Scale Sword said, clearing his throat, "How many years have we been in the same dorm in college?"
"Hey now, play fair, don't try to guilt trip me!"
Xuan Wu Shield added, "I think, we're all brothers here. If I were playing a female character, I'd definitely let the brothers have some fun first."
Dragon Scale Sword raised his hand and high-fived Xuan Wu Shield.
"Good bro!" "Good bro!"
Reaching a consensus: If I had ten million, I'd donate it all. (This is a common saying, implying something will never happen)
The two turned to look at Lightning Cutlass in perfect synchronicity.
"Don't even think about it!" Lightning Cutlass said very decisively. "I'm playing a female character in this game. That's like my daughter, you get it? My precious girl! I'm going to buy her skins, get her gear, dress her up nicely, film all sorts of videos. You pervs aren't getting anywhere near her!"
Lightning Cutlass's reason for refusal: I actually have a cow. (Meaning, I have something valuable that I'm not sharing.)
"I think I need to emphasize, I'm not old!"
Seeing the three goofing off, White Stockings Enthusiast, who had been recording the screen all along, had to speak up. "What do you guys think of the proposal?"
The three fell silent.
Just now, the four players had been discussing their next course of action. This time, clearing out the wanderer camp wasn't very profitable. The weapons were damaged, and the armor was badly worn. If they hadn't earned the reward at the end, they would have been working for free.
Of course, it was also true that they had a blast killing things.
Not ones to be idle, the four of them began discussing going on an expedition. The main reason was that there was a player who got stuck inside the map, and his spawn point was nearby. And that place seemed to be a dungeon.
A dungeon!
No one had ever seen a dungeon since the game launched.
Lightning Cutlass shook his head. "It's a bit dangerous. There are only four of us, and we have no skills or gear. We can rely on ruthlessness and fighting like madmen to create momentum against the wanderers, but we're not going to cut it against the ghoul eaters who aren't afraid of death. We'd just be sending ourselves to slaughter."
Dragon Scale Sword also nodded. "Yeah, I know that guy, @UnderstandingIsEverything. There are at least a dozen ghoul eaters where his character is stuck. They say there's even a boss. We'd just be going there to die, wouldn't we?"
White Stockings Enthusiast didn't want to give up. "How about we get the Lord to bring troops with us?"
Lightning Cutlass shook his head again. "I doubt it."
White Stockings Enthusiast asked, "Why?"
This time, the other two also looked at Lightning Cutlass, wanting to hear his opinion.
Lightning Cutlass crossed his arms, tossed his hair, "Does the village chief of the starting village go out to fight monsters?"
"Hey, you know, that actually makes a lot of sense."
"He's so big, all the sense must be his!" (Referring to his physical size)
"Damn, bro, you're driving that car too, huh?" (Meaning, you're making that joke too)
"What about our mission to investigate the ghoul eaters?"
"Yeah, we got the news from the official forum. What reason should we tell the NPCs? Even if we tell them, the NPCs have to believe us."
People who play games have a consensus, completing the task is about the procedure, the graphics are just the appearance, the code is the core.
It's a scene that appears in most games: you accept a quest to rescue someone, which requires you to take down a boss in a certain dungeon, but before you act, you need to say a few words with a specific NPC. If the player skips the conversation and goes straight to the dungeon, even if they clear it, it's equivalent to doing it for nothing; the quest doesn't count as completed.
"Then we have to grab one of them. That way, we can justifiably tell the Lord that we obtained detailed intel... Actually, I really want to take that ghoul eater dungeon. It's bound to drop materials, maybe even gear."
"Think it'll work?"
"Don't get ahead of ourselves. Where do we find a lone ghoul eater?"
The four were torn between options in the chilling cold wind.
Groups of ghoul eaters are easy to find, but a lone one is hard to come by.
The border of the Lande Kingdom was even more sinister after nightfall than during the day.
Pale moonlight cast a layer of frost over the land.
The scenery was desolate, with gnarled, withered trees, weeds, and boulders remaining unchanged.
As Undying, Tainted Ones, Sekiro, Old Hunters, the four reached a unanimous conclusion after encountering the "Three Dogs Godslayer."
This is a game that is "purebred and full of Souls." (referring to "Souls-like" games)
When walking on a road that's obviously problematic, you have to be careful of being ambushed, of being tricked.
As for what makes it "Souls," the answer is "You're not worthy, so you're not worthy." (playing on the elitist and challenging nature of Souls games)
The battle in the wanderer camp during the day also convinced them that this was a game that "doesn't focus much on game mechanics," but is definitely very "realistic" and "punishing."
"Should we give it a try?"
"I think so. The worst that can happen is we die once, as long as I don't lose my gear."
"I've already contacted UnderstandingIsEverything. He said Star Dragon Outpost is at his 6 o'clock."
"So, north of us?"
"That's what he meant."
The four agreed immediately. They never considered the dangers they might encounter at night. What they wanted was danger and excitement.
The direction was easy to distinguish. Using Star Dragon Outpost as a landmark, they could find the ghoul eater camp by heading north.
They continued forward, and surprisingly didn't encounter anything strange along the way.
However, the wind was getting stronger, and occasionally, strange howls, somewhat like those of wild beasts, carried back on the wind.
The fragmented moonlight offered guidance, but visibility was decreasing.
"Something's up!"
"Looks like a person!"
"I'll tank. I'll go take a look!" Xuan Wu Shield, with his shield raised, took the lead.
The four slowly approached and discovered a corpse.
The corpse had been torn apart and mangled. A large part of its head was missing, and its stomach had been ripped open by not-so-sharp claws. The ragged edges of the wound were clearly visible, and the entrails were gone.
"Gag!"
Dragon Scale Sword retched.
"Wait, let me turn on the filter... Damn, this game is way too realistic! It reminds me of when they slaughter pigs back home, and the guts and intestines just spill out like that, blegh!"
"Stop!" Lightning Cutlass also felt his stomach churning. "We're lying in bed here. What'll happen in real life if we throw up in the game?"
All four of them came from civilized backgrounds. Usually, they wouldn't see dead people, let alone the scene of a chicken being slaughtered.
The mangled corpse under the fragmented moonlight provided an extremely strong visual shock.
Their emotions only stabilized after the blood was censored and the gnawed-on brains became gnawed-on cabbage.
The other two were still holding on. Xuan Wu Shield liked role-playing, so naturally seeing the corpse was part of the experience, and the White Stockings Enthusiast was different altogether. First, the review standards on the Apocalypse Law Ring official website were very high, so there was no need to worry about it being too gory to pass review. Secondly, he had to cater to a segment of players. Some players just wanted to see bloody content. He could release two versions, one version with censorship and one uncensored, but he absolutely couldn't release a "cabbage version," unless he didn't want views.
"Could it be the ghoul eaters?"
"I'm guessing so... I don't think I can look at cabbage the same way ever again! Ugh, spit!"
"There are footprints here!"
The four instantly transformed into Sherlock Holmes, crawling on the ground to search, and they actually found clues.
Footprints that clearly didn't belong to humans, looking like the paws of a bipedal beast.
And drops of blood on the ground.
They followed the tracks in a circle, and finally discovered a horrifying problem.
The footprints led back in the direction they had come from, and stopped behind a large rock just outside the line of sight of the soldiers on the city wall.
It seemed as if pairs of scarlet eyes were secretly watching Star Dragon Outpost.
"Here, they stopped here!"
"And there are footprints here too! You can tell they've been lying in wait for a while."
"Don't say any more, it's making my skin crawl! Damn! Running into this kind of weird thing in the middle of the night... Do these disaster monsters have human intelligence? Does a monster-slaying game have to be this spooky? They're observing and tailing us... are they going to launch a siege? "
"Let's hope they don't have artillery." (referencing the common phrase 'Italian Artillery')
"What do we do?"
"Go back and tell the Lord?"
"I think that's the right thing to do!"
The four ultimately decided to tell the Lord first. Now they had leads, a legitimate reason to go. If the Lord was happy and gave them another quest, heh heh.