Through Jin-purple-head-Yi, they learn a lot of information about this city.
This city is called [Despair City]. In addition to a variety of NPCs, there are a total of more than 300,000 permanent residents. There are four other cities of the same size as this one to accommodate players from other time zones and nationalities.
“So many people…” Zhou Yao frowned.
“Despair City…” Wen Zheliu thought about the name, “It seems to be for players who have passed the first world.”
Jin Yi laughed and said: “That’s right, and this is only the first floor. You know about tower defense games, right? The one where one floor is higher than the next. It is said that above the Despair City, there are famous places such as the Midnight City, Snow Mountain Giant City, and so on.”
Zhou Qing murmured: “Nine worlds, nine cities.”
“Climb up layer by layer, newcomers. There is still a long way to go.” Although Jin Yi was frightened by Wen Zheliu just now, he quickly regained his demeanor as a veteran player, “They all said that when you reach the ninth floor city, you’ll see that damn white-robed woman. Take the last key from her hand, and you’ll be able to go home.”
Du Zijun sneered: “Go home… How do you know that she will keep her promise? Look at this ghostly place now—can you tell the difference between virtuality and reality? When the time comes, she will just build a place to lock you up. What can you do?”
“One must have something to look forward to in life.” Jin Yi shrugged, “Besides, if you don’t go up, what can you do?”
Wen Zheliu suddenly asked: “Then why don’t you go up but choose to be an information dealer here?”
Jin Yi looked at him, and with a complicated smile on his face, he pointed to the pedestrians coming and going outside the alley: “Did you see the bodies of those people outside? The game world in Uncanny Valley will not give you those colored skill cards. All you can do is rely on items and your own f*cking mortal body.”
He lifted up his leather jacket and showed his torso to the group. His belly still had the texture and color of flesh, but it faintly reflected an inorganic luster in the nightlight. Wen Zheliu frowned, and then he heard Jin Yi say: “You have also dealt with those long-tongued creatures, right? The first time they saw me, they ate one of my companions and then hooked my intestines with their tongues. After I survived, I vowed never to try that again.”
“So, you transformed this part into metal?” Mu Tuo was stunned, “Goodness, human body modification violates the science and technology ethics law in real life…”
“But this is the Uncanny Valley.” A sneer appeared on Jin Yi’s face: “So, without powerful items to save my life, I won’t risk barging into the second world and giving away my cheap life for nothing.”
Wen Zheliu asked: “Does everyone here think so?”
“No.” Jin Yi replied, “Most people—maybe quite a few people—don’t want to transform themselves into half-human, half-mechanical monsters. Who knows?”
“Take us to other places.” Wen Zheliu said.
Jin Yi got up from the ground and patted the dust on his butt: “I thought you would let me sit here until I die.”
“If you want.” Du Zijun said coldly.
Under Jin Yi’s guidance, the six people took a hover cable car and ordered an online dinner in the car. While eating, they roughly toured around the structure of Despair City.
This place is like a smaller version of Nova City, with shopping malls, restaurants, underground black markets, entertainment venues, and all kinds of infrastructure… Familiarizing oneself with it is not difficult.
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.
The group observed the scene below. Compared to this place, Nova City is bigger, brighter, warmer, and more welcoming. But here…..looking down from above, it is like a city of steel filled with violence and crime, and the NPCs acting as guards are just there to collect the corpses of players who died in street brawls or sometimes to stop them from damaging public infrastructure.
“Pa’r rmjgs…” Itbe Hlcu mbeivc’a tfiq rtglcxlcu tfg cfmx; rtf wegwegfv, “Pa’r abb wfrrs tfgf.”
Ge Ilpec qgfrrfv atf mlujgfaaf yeaa bc atf rfja bo atf tbnfg mjyif mjg; tlr yijmx qeqlir gfoifmafv atf ygluta mbibgr bo atf ktbif mlas—mbibgoei jcv ylhjggf. Lf rjlv: “Ktfgf lr cbatlcu ab yf jogjlv bo; agera wf, sbe klii ufa erfv ab la rbbc.”
They gradually approached the center of the city, where there was nothing but an ice-blue steeple, higher than everything else, mysterious and beautiful, standing there silently like a mountain, emitting a majestic blue light bright enough for the entire city to see.
“What is that?”
Jin Yi glanced at it and replied casually: “That’s the leaderboard.”
“Leaderboard?” Wen Zheliu was a little interested, and he stretched his neck to look up the steeple. The cable car was floating smoothly forward, leading them around to the other side of the steeple, “What rank…”
His eyes were fixed, and the words that came to his lips were stuck in his throat. The group followed him and looked over there, then likewise, fell silent for a while.
[Passing Players Leaderboard]
[No. 1: Wen Di, customs clearance time: 105:37:48. Achievement collected: full story achievement]
Wen Zheliu opened his mouth wide and could hardly believe his eyes. He rubbed and rubbed again and again before he was sure that the name that shone with gold was his own.
He was actually the first among all the players to clear the level? !
The rest of the group also quickly held their breath and concentrated on finding their own names on it.
[No.9: Cold and Arrogant Master, customs clearance time: 105:37:52, collected achievement: 23 plot achievements]
…
[No.13: Little Transparency also has spring, clearance time: 105:38:01, collected achievement: 23 plot achievements]
…
[No.18:The Distance of the Heaven, customs clearance time: 105:38:02, collected achievement: 23 plot achievements]
[No.19: Clear Water, customs clearance time: 105:38:02, collected achievement: 23 plot achievements]
…
[No.32: The Hunter, customs clearance time: 105:38:09, collected achievement: 23 plot achievements]
….The six of them, surprisingly, all squeezed into the top fifty on a leaderboard that totals over 300,000 but only counts the top six hundred people.
but……
“Who’s that Cold and Arrogant Master?” Zhou Qing ehh-ed and umm-ed for a while in doubt. Look at the time and color; this player ID should be on the same team as them, “….This name is too corny.”
There is no doubt that The Distance of the Heaven and Clear Water are Zhou siblings; Little Transparency also Has Spring is Xie Yuanyuan; as for The Hunter, remembering the profession Mu Tuo said, that should be him; the rest…
…Several people slowly twisted their necks and turned to the cold and arrogant Du Zijun.
Du Zijun: “…”
The slender young girl in a white dress took out a lady’s cigarette from the cigarette case and lit it with an old-fashioned lighter. Then he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, allowing the smoke to spray on the transparent window of the cable car for a long time.
The hand holding the cigarette trembled slightly.
“This name should be given to him by… the staff, right?” He said with difficulty and obscurity, trying not to let the only outsider catch the clue, “It’s possible that he himself didn’t know, but it was already too late when he found out?”
Jin Yi smiled and said: “It doesn’t matter if it’s corny or not; in short, this group of people came out like a dark horse yesterday, and they just bit off a few front row positions of several large groups. Especially the one named Wen Di… they took only four days to clear the level, and the full plot achievements were unlocked without even completing the side quests. I don’t know what kind of monster he is. The other five people in his team were probably brought up by him, right? They can’t be underestimated.”
Du Zijun thought in his heart that there was an even bigger monster on top of this little monster, but it’s a pity that you didn’t have the chance to meet him.
“So that’s how it is….” Wen Zheliu said with a smile, “Those big groups must have gone to great lengths to obtain information about these six people, right, Jin Yi?”
The intelligence dealer whose name was suddenly called was taken aback for a moment, then turned his eyes to look at him.
Wen Zheliu’s expression remained the same, but the smile on his face deepened. The young man’s sly and intelligent gaze was like a small blade, and before he could react, he was nailed in place.
“So it isn’t that hard to recognize our group of six, is it?” He asked softly.
The muscles on Du Zijun’s face also slightly jumped, and he suddenly reacted by kicking heavily between the intelligence dealer’s legs, shaking the hover cable car. Jin Yi also yelled out in fright, “So, the ones following behind us are not your accomplices, but those from the so-called big groups?”
Zhou Qing said in shock: “There are people following us?!”
Du Zijun frowned fiercely and grabbed Jin Yi’s collar: “You laymen are still a little too green for playing this trick of hiding your head and showing your tail with me! Be honest, otherwise I’ll burn the center of your forehead with a cigarette butt and turn you into Guanyin.”
Seeing the flickering cigarette butts close at hand, Jin Yi couldn’t help screaming in fright, and a few locks of purple hair on the top of his forehead trembled in panic: “Don’t, don’t, sister, don’t do it! I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!”
“Why are those players in big groups following us?” Zhou Yao asked calmly, “The mastermind of Uncanny Valley has imprisoned human players here; do they still have the leisure to care about some vain ranking? Anyone who is a little bit smarter would know to step up their breakthrough, hurry up to end this, and return to the real world, right?”
“Unless there are any substantial benefits to ranking that can affect players’ strength,” Wen Zheliu continued slowly, and at the same time he glanced at the holographic light screen on the right side of the cable car: “The cable car still has 12 minutes, 35 seconds before reaching the destination. This should be enough time for you to speak clearly.”
After threatening the information dealer, everyone learned from him about the current status of players in this Despair City.
When the first batch of players arrived here, this leaderboard began to record the rankings of those people. For the top-ranked players, the advantages they get in this city are a lot more than for the bottom-ranked players. It includes but is not limited to item discounts in the shopping mall, human body transformation experiments in the research institute, or even feasting at the entertainment district. You will get preferential treatment and be regarded with respect by the NPCs.
More importantly, before leaving the city, the top 100 players can choose a free item in the mall that doesn’t exceed the optimal level of the item they carry and bring it to the next world. This is undoubtedly a huge guarantee for the player’s survivability.
“So…” Mu Tuo understood the gist of it, “They’re chasing us to actually kill us off and grab back the ranking?”
“Not exactly,” Wen Zheliu said, “I guess maybe they’re still not sure whether we’re the six people on the leaderboard.”
Zhou Qing wondered: “I guess there are few teams that pass the escape mode with all their members, so when you think about it, we are still quite conspicuous.”
Wen Zheliu raised his eyebrows and smiled—he was already very similar to He Qin when he made this expression, but he wasn’t as scheming and calculative as his brother; instead, he was a little more lively and mischievous. He asked Jin Yi: “How many people do you think are on our team?”
“Five people.” Jin Yi blurted out without thinking and then felt that something was wrong, “Eh? There seems to be a total of… six? No, no, wait. Let me count again. Is it six or five…”
Xie Yuanyuan curled up in the corner and rolled his eyes.
Du Zijun smiled coldly and gritted the cigarette with his teeth. He then took out a silver coin from his pocket and slapped Jin Yi on the face.
His eyes were resolute and sharp, like the cold black light from the muzzle of a gun: “I’ll give you another piece of coin. The piece he gave you is for payment, and the one I gave you is for medical expenses.”
Jin Yi immediately froze. He could tell that this kind of look is not something ordinary people can have!
He suddenly struggled: “No! I know I was wrong. I know I was wrong. Forgive me! Please, please…”
Du Zijun pressed him hard against the wall of the cable car, and with his hand raised high, he knocked him over on the inside of the seat.
The cable car shook slightly, and after a while, it stopped at the intersection of an aerial walkway.
Several groups of people watching from afar frowned. One of them whispered to the light brain to report: “A tall man got down and took a taxi…the cable car continued to drive forward.”
After a while, he reported again: “A man and a woman with similar appearance came down, and the cable car is still moving forward.”
At the last junction, he said: “This time, there are three… no, two people, one man and one woman, and the cable car is heading towards the finish line.”
“They went in different directions, but the intelligence dealer didn’t come down. Boss, do you want to investigate them separately? Yes, yes, should we split up and tail them? Yes, yes, there are five of them, I’m sure.”
“……Ok, I see.”
From the steeple in the center of the city, blue light is still radiating. The next moment, a name emerged at the top without a sound, gently pushing Wen Di down from the No. 1 position. This ID emitted a glow as bright as molten gold, shining over the entire Despair City.
Hua: Hehe guess who’s back?
ML is back, baby
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
Guess who? Probably He Qin — or a problem. But more likely He Qin, to pull aggro for his little darling baobei.
Thank you for the chapter!
The welcome committee sucks…