Although there were many people, Shi Sheng didn’t have to worry about friendly fire since they were all enemies, so she was able to use her abilities to the fullest.
‘Gotta kill these fuckers even if I have to chug meds!’
At some point, someone had shouted a call to arms on the world chat, so more and more people unhesitatingly rushed over and joined the chaotic battle.
Shi Sheng’s fingers flew across the keyboard. The flashes of light from the skills were too clustered and had nearly managed to drown out her avatar. It was now useless to look at the screen, since she wouldn’t be able to make out who was who with all those flashy animations.
The background music caused one’s blood to boil.
On the map, people fell in droves. Some corpses disappeared to revive at their respawn point, while others simply revived on the spot to re-join the battle. These people were beginning to wonder if there was a bug somewhere that kept them from killing these two despite having so many people.
Shi Sheng didn’t know how Ink Seeker was staying alive. All she knew was that she was exhausting many items to keep herself up.
When facing a human wave, no matter how awesome your skills were, you’d still have a hard time dealing with it.
It was at this moment that the volume of the background music suddenly lowered. The screen blacked out, and the music disappeared altogether, causing silence to fall.
Shi Sheng blinked and took a moment to process this before clicking her mouse. There was no reaction from the computer.
‘The fuck! Why’d my game crash?’
Shi Sheng was about to call for the manager when a string of text suddenly popped up.
I once thought he was my world. In the end, I learned it was nothing but my wishful thinking.
Shi Sheng thought, ‘Have I triggered some hidden storyline?’
The words on the screen remained for around 10 or so seconds before the fog-like darkness slowly receded. She could now see that she was standing in a valley, Ink Seeker by her side.
Shi Sheng pulled up the map and pored over it carefully. The scenery of the valley was very beautiful, but the sky above was overcast and gave one a heavy, uncomfortable feeling when looking at it.
She was quite certain she’d never seen this map before. ‘Is it a hidden map?’
A lot of the game’s functions had been greyed out. When a function was greyed out, that meant she wouldn’t be able to use them in this map. Of the available chat channels, only private messages would work.
‘Well fuck me… what kind of quest is this?! So cruel to players…’
She looked at the borders of her screen and discovered the button to close the window was gone. In other words, unless she rebooted the computer, she’d have no way of backing out. And even if she did reboot the computer, there was no guarantee she’d be able to leave…
‘So brutal!!!’
Shi Sheng opened her quests list and discovered that other than that hidden quest, all the other quests were greyed out, and she was unable to click on them…
‘Hidden quest…’
Ink Seeker has sent you a friend request. Do you accept?
Shi Sheng’s hand didn’t slip up this time and pressed on “Yes”.
What? She couldn’t use any other chats to communicate, and she wasn’t at home, so she couldn’t just hack the system willy-nilly to chat. If she didn’t accept his friend request now, the only way they could communicate was telepathically…
[PM] Ink Seeker : [A Hidden Quest appeared on my quests list.]
He got straight to the point.
[PM] Music For Miles : [is it called “Dream of A Thousand Years”? and you just received it?]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [En.]
[PM] Music For Miles : [if i told you, that i got this hidden quest from the time you killed me 99 times…]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [……]
[PM] Music For Miles : [dashen, did you actually kill me so many times because you knew this would happen?]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [No.]
[PM] Music For Miles : […My objective is to find Xi Li, what’s yours?]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [There’s no objective.]
[PM] Music For Miles : [……]
‘The hell you mean, “I don’t have an objective”?!’
Over at Ink Seeker’s side, he really hadn’t received an objective, only a hidden quest called “Dream of A Thousand Years” had appeared in his quests list. Nothing else had appeared.
Shi Sheng fell silent. The quest had only appeared because she had been killed 99 times consecutively… And Ink Seeker was the one to kill her…
But since she received the quest earlier than Ink Seeker, she must be the leader.
[PM] Music For Miles : [let’s look around a bit. my quest is to find an npc named Xi Li]
‘It’s already come to this! So I’ll just have to do it!!!’
The valley wasn’t very big. The two explored around for a bit, but they couldn’t even find a single living thing, let alone an NPC.
The area outside the valley was covered in darkness. Shi Sheng attempted to walk out of the valley but discovered she was unable to take a step outside.
[PM] Ink Seeker : [467, 120]
[PM] Music For Miles : [you found her?]
Ink Seeker didn’t reply, so she could only run towards the co-ordinates. The co-ordinates were in the higher reaches of the valley. She had only searched near the lower parts, so she hadn’t come up here before.
She found a cave, its entrance hidden behind a tree.
The co-ordinates led her inside the cave. Shi Sheng made her character crawl in, after which she was greeted by the sight of Ink Seeker facing a beautiful lady. There was a question hovering above her head:
He sent you?
[PM] Music For Miles : [what’s wrong?]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [There aren’t any options I can pick, but I can choose to converse with her. I tried responding with “Yes” and “No” but she didn’t give any response. You try.]
Shi Sheng clicked on the pretty lady, whereupon a dialogue screen popped up.
[PM] Xi Li : [He sent you?]
‘The hell? The NPC ran all the way here to sit in this cave?’
Shi Sheng first entered “Yes” but only got that question back in response. She had the same result when she entered “No”.
‘The only two answers aren’t correct… Oi devs, you fuckin with me here?!’
[PM] Music For Miles : [doesn’t work]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [……]
The two stared speechlessly at the beautiful Xi Li.
‘This is the NPC I was supposed to find but why is there no response to the only two answers???’
[PM] Music For Miles : [have you read the background story of the game before?]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [It’s available on their official website.]
‘Fuck, so this means he hasn’t read it before? Your grandpa!’
[PM] Music For Miles : [this quest might take a while… i’ll go extend the rent, you go check out the background of the game’s setting]
[PM] Ink Seeker : [……]
Shi Sheng went to the front counter to extend the duration on the fee, and she rented out the other computer in the room too. Fortunately, she had asked for a room with two computers to begin with.
Wooden Bellz had given Shi Sheng her account details before leaving, so Shi Sheng used her account. Her friends list was pretty much the same as Shi Sheng’s, the only difference being three names Shi Sheng didn’t recognise.
When she checked her status on the friends list, she found that she was actually displayed as offline…
And the world chat was pretty much flooded with discussion by now.
Since Ink Seeker and her had suddenly went offline while they were being attacked, there were quite a few people saying they were scared.
‘Scared your great grandpa! Just you wait, you little bitches! I’ll(bbb) be back!!!’
Shi Sheng turned off world chat and went to poke Godly Tycoon, the only one online.
[PM] Wooden Bellz : [how come the undermoons aren’t on?]
[PM] Godly Tycoon : [?]
[PM] Wooden Bellz : [i’m music]
[PM] Godly Tycoon : […Everyone is saying you were blasted offline by their combined assault.]
[PM] Wooden Bellz : [don’t listen to that group of ret@rds. how could i have been blasted out of the game by them?]
[PM] Godly Tycoon : [Then how come you’re using someone else’s account?]
He looked at his friends list. The player Music For Miles was displayed as offline.
[PM] Wooden Bellz : [i got transferred to a hidden map… you know, the one related to that hidden quest i asked you guys abt the last time… can you help me contact the undermoons? the quest’s a bit troublesome]