Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Pierce, Proofreader-adjective
A life-threatening game had come to an end, and they had survived.
The soul of every chess piece had lost their sustenance, like a small animal that had returned home after an exciting adventure, and scattered again into the forest of words.
The winner was set free, and the loser had to continue to play against the door.
Nan Zhou stood beside the dried corpse and asked the one-legged NPC tin soldier that was leaning on his bayonet, “How long does it take to win chess?”
The one-legged tin soldier said, “Play until someone comes to take over it.”
Nan Zhou, “What kind of people play?”
The one-legged tin soldier replied, “People like you.”
With that, the tin soldier turned his head and looked at the other soldiers, who had ended their patrol and lined up against the wall, firmly wrapped in tin skin. The one-legged tin soldier, who was only as tall as a human calf, said, “… They are ‘people’ like you.”
Hearing this, Nan Zhou was not surprised.
The tin soldiers standing against the wall were all players trapped in here.
They either violated the rules or had their memories eaten away, turning them into numb tin soldiers. Or they have collected all the pieces, but due to a lapse in judgment, the players allowed the original corpse player to make the final move, allowing it to win the game and free itself. As a result, the players failed and were forced to choose from one of them to take over the corpse’s place and be seated as another withered corpse.
Nan Zhou couldn’t help but think of the tin soldiers who used the terrain to their advantage. They utilized it by climbing up the bookshelves, determining where he and Li Yinhang were going.
The captains of these tin soldiers seemed to have more intelligence than the small soldiers behind them.
But even after these walking corpses were extricated from the years of playing this lackluster chess game, they could probably no longer leave the library.
They were molded into small tin soldiers and led the other tin soldiers, who had neither soul nor story, to mechanically carry out patrols every half an hour.
Their stories, together with their mind, were forever sealed under a layer of polished silver tin.
Nan Zhou was also thinking about another thing.
When they concluded the [Fear of the Full Moon] instance and entered [Homeland Island] to rest, Nan Zhou continued to practice his lock picking skills, and he was able to rustle a bad lock that was removed from the [Homeland Island]’s blacksmith’s door for free while he skimmed through the information in the World Channel.
After a series of updates, the functions of the World Channel were further developed and advanced.
In the game, [Forces of Temptation], the number of players who tried to survive through various side jobs and the number of players who tried to survive by playing an instance was about 3 to 2.
Only a few players were willing to share any information about their instances, and all kinds of information were mixed up, making it difficult to distinguish the real information from the fake.
But everyone still came to a fairly unanimous conclusion.
——Until now, no player has entered a duplicate instance.
And there was not a single instance that the [Forces of Temptation] game originally had.
It was as if the players had fallen into a kaleidoscope of endless machinations and could only barely struggle to survive under the grotesque and variegated halo.
Then, these players trapped in the library were likely to have been “human-like creatures” like the rest.
Because of this, the stories they left behind were peculiar and undecipherable to read.
——For example…
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
[Forces of Temptation] should be considered as a semi-open world game, so an instance that has a prerequisite to investigate a library, containing a large number of books, that were required to be investigated and read to pass the game needed to be user friendly.
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When Chinese players enter the game, they would select Chinese in the [Language Setting], so the books on the bookshelf would naturally be translated into Chinese.
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At this time, Nan Zhou, who was a player, had equal status and authority as the human-like creatures who used to be players.
The game may translate the book into a language that Nan Zhou and others could understand, but it would not change the original data left by the previous players.
So the story of the previous player was devoured into an unknown text that they couldn’t decipher.
But when a player also becomes one of the instance’s props, the game would naturally manipulate them at will like a stringed puppet and would speak a language that could be understood by players from other dimensions.
The only thing that could prove their existence was the storybook on the shelf that swallowed up all their past.
Unfortunately, they may not be able to understand the story that once belonged to them.
Using the steel-like, webbed hand that was discovered in the [Fear of the Full Moon] instance as concrete evidence, this trip to the library further supported Nan Zhou’s belief of the existence of players from other dimensions with diverse physiques.
——In a corner of this multi-dimensional world, they and other humanoid players are playing the same game with an unknown purpose.
Thinking of this, Nan Zhou asked the one-legged tin soldier, “Were you also a player?”
“Me? I am not.”
The one-legged tin soldier held the slightly tilted gun and stood in a partial comical stance that resembled the Chinese character “eight“.
“I’ve always been here. Waiting for someone to come, waiting for a new friend to take over my old friend’s chess game. At the very least …… new friends can cry, curse, and know how to talk.”
The one-legged tin soldier was the original NPC.
It had been in the game from the moment this instance was created.
On one hand, it had abided by the rules given by the instance, while on the other hand, it was distressed by the loneliness inevitably brought by the personality given by the instance.
So, out of a selfish desire to have more vibrant, talking friends, it didn’t give the player too many hints.
Nan Zhou looked at it with understanding in his gaze.
Just like how he understood Xiao Ming who was trapped in the house and the hikers who were trapped on the snowy mountain.
Nan Zhou asked him, “When can you leave?”
The one-legged tin soldier said, “I will stay here until the end.”
Nan Zhou seemed to understand, “What is ‘the end’?”
One-legged tin soldier, “I don’t know.”
Nan Zhou, “Do you know what kind of world lies outside this door?”
“I wanted to know before,” the one-legged tin soldier said before patting its leg.
“After burning off a leg, I no longer want to know.”
Nan Zhou was silent.
A former NPC reached out and gently patted the shoulder of the NPC in front of him.
The tin soldier did not seem to anticipate such comfort.
It held its gun, tried to stand up straight, and aimed at Nan Zhou. After watching him quietly for a while, it gave a standard European-style military salute.
Nan Zhou’s exploration of this mini-game, as part of this instance, had completely ended.
When Nan Zhou stepped outside the door, he glanced back.
There was no actual figure sitting on the other side of the door.
It was simply just a door.
The opponent of the corpse seemed to be the door itself.
And the one-legged tin soldier, the patrolling tin soldiers, and the withered dry corpse were all imprisoned within by this door that appeared to have a life of its own. It prevented them from interacting with the light from the outside world.
Nan Zhou didn’t make any more unnecessary stops.
Together with Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang, he stepped into the bright, blooming light outside.
Suddenly, the light in front of him disappeared as if swallowed by a black hole.
When they stepped through the open doorway of the library, the light around them suddenly dimmed.
They re-entered the long corridor of the brain marrow.
After an hour or so, the maddening sound of even chewing continued.
There was a continuous crunching sound, and even the soft marrow blanket under their feet trembled slightly.
The flashlight could only illuminate two and a half steps away from the immediate area, making the already cramped corridor look even more suffocating.
Nan Zhou held up the flashlight and looked back.
The door they came out of had completely disappeared.
As if chewed up and swallowed by the writhing walls.
This time, the three of them were not in a hurry to enter the next room.
As they ventured deep into the brain, the inside became even more complex, and the uneven corridors extended in all directions.
The texture was a bit sticky and strange.
There was a faint “gurgle” sound when stepping on the “carpet”.
The muffled sound of teeth crunching its food in the skull echoed around them.
In addition to these, there was also the keyword of this instance [Brain Invasion] as a hint…
Nan Zhou was convinced that this was a human brain.
But he didn’t know why this architectural design with the most complex and exquisite structure in the world was specially opened to them.
They spent nearly an hour going around this mimetic brain apartment.
They carried a small flashlight and walked around every obscure and gloomy little fork in the road, figuring out the location of every door.
With the library they had just visited included, there were six doors inside the skull.
It was conceivable that behind each door, there would be a small world with its own special functional area, full of infinite possibilities.
Even this mysterious brain area, under normal circumstances, may be less than the size of a pine cone.
Nan Zhou asked, “Shall we go to the next door?”
Jiang Fang smiled and asked, “You guessed that the library was the frontal lobe of the brain. So which door are we going to open next?”
Nan Zhou shook his head and seriously answered each of Jiang Fang’s questions, “It’s hard to tell since I have no clear inclination as to what scale would this area evolve into. Moreover, the function of the brain has been roughly partitioned. It would be difficult to judge the nature of the door, and could only slowly be guess according to the characteristics it reveals.”
Jiang Fang smiled.
It was because of this notion of Nan Zhou that he especially liked to tease him to make him talk a little more.
Li Yinhang had long been overwhelmed by the sound of chewing and plugged her hands into her ears, concentrating on reading their lips.
She asked, “Do you want to go?”
Naturally, they had to go. There were no other options.
They chose to walk into the second door which was relatively close to the first door, which had disappeared long ago.
Twisting the doorknob, an endless stream of light greeted them.
He shielded his eyes from the light with his hand and waited for his eyes to adjust. Nan Zhou put down his hand and quietly observed the location he was in.
It was a grassland. The color scheme and scene here was more like a dream.
Heaven met earth. The vast planes were arched, intersecting at the fringes like a large almond, which also resembled a gigantic eye. In this colossal, eye-shaped world, everything appeared at peace.
Green, grass-like cushion that reached up to their wrists.
Velvety, white clouds like silk adorned the blue sky.
A light pink and fluffy lamb was rolling on the grass with its hooves clutching, cooing.
All the colors associated with happiness blended together.
All the beautiful memories seemed to converge here.
And in such a beautiful panorama, a young girl with brilliant, golden, silk hair appeared in front of them with her hands behind her back, smiling.
A new connection to the door appeared.
Her expression appeared gentle, and the little freckles dotted on her cheeks did not diminish her cuteness in the slightest.
When she smiled, her small nose wrinkled slightly.
She raised her hand, pulled up her skirt, and gave them a gentle curtsy. She smiled and said, “Hello. Please allow me to invite you to play a game.”
Nan Zhou didn’t let his guard down.
None of them relaxed.
Because they all noticed that the girl’s hands were covered with white bandages and gauze.
Moreover, there was a thick layer of blood smeared on the edge.
These scarred hands inevitably reminded Li Yinhang of a childhood story.
“For this game, only one real player is needed.”
Then she raised her bloody palm and said in a fairly gentle tone, “Now, please choose two people from among you to become beautiful wild swans.”
Swans are beautiful outside, but inside….
Thank you for new chapter
Thank you for the chapter!
Ooh, she knows there’s only two real players?
!!! Curious about this n ew mini-instance!
Thanks for the translation!
Thanks for the chapter. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of swans is Swan lake.