Falling, suddenly falling.
At the same time came pain all over the body. The shifting of scenes took only an instant. The four players’ eyes flew open like they had just woken up from a dream, and they realized they were falling. Of course, it was only several meters. It was not high enough to kill them. The four dropped onto some red carpet.
Groaning was heard everywhere, and eyes lifted to look around. Surrounding them was a sea of books. It looked like a library. There were six extremely high bookshelves joined together, forming a hexagon, trapping them in the middle. The ceiling was about ten meters tall, and there were several large chandeliers. They could look around just fine. Just above the four players hung a rectangular cage. At that moment, the bottom of the cage was open, which would explain the falling.
“So, this is the real ’real world’, huh?” Autumn Zither asked as he reached out to touch his chest. Thankfully, the wound was not there anymore.
“It should be.” Feng Bujue stood up. “How are your Life Points?”
“I’m practically undamaged,” Ambitionist replied.
Weighty Words added, “Me too.”
Autumn Zither concurred. “The loss suffered before has been recovered as well.”
Feng Bujue looked at his own Life Points. They had risen back to ninety-six percent. It seemed like in the ’real world’, their Life Points had always been full, and the small drop was due to the fall minutes ago.
“Hmm… This feels about right,” Feng Bujue commented. “The items we gained in that psychological world have all disappeared.”
He referred to the lighter, notebook, and wallet that had been in his pocket.
“Ha! The consumable that I used in my memory space is still here.” Autumn Zither gasped with surprise. With that reminder, Feng Bujue opened the menu to check his inventory. The one SCP-500 and health potion had returned. Looking at the skill tab, the Flying Dragon Fist that he had learned in the psychological world was still there.
“In terms of items, we should have returned to the status when we first entered the scenario,” Feng Bujue observed. “But… I have retained the skill I learned in my memory space. If I hadn’t learned the skill then but kept it as a skill card, perhaps it would have disappeared…”
“You were quite lucky,” Ambitionist said, “to have gotten a skill.”
“Weren’t you given a chance to learn some skill as well? You chatted so long with the middle-aged Peter Pan, why didn’t you ask him to teach you how to fly?” Feng Bujue replied.
“I really did ask him that,” Ambitionist replied. “He told me, to fly, one needs the fairy dust and the ’belief’ that one can fly. Now that I think about it… that appears to be a hint of the truth. Unfortunately… at the time, I merely thought he was retelling me the setting of his fairytale of origin, so I brushed him off.
“Oh, other than that, I tried to ask him to teach me some swordsmanship. But he told me, two years after he left Neverland, he was arrested for illegally possessing a weapon, and his blades were permanently confiscated by the related department.”
Autumn Zither sighed. “The world of the adults is so scary…”
Weighty Words commented, “Aren’t we all adults? You make it sound like…”
However, his tone was not that different from Autumn Zither.
“Looks like you guys had wonderful childhoods. After you grew old, you gained this lamentation… for the ’bliss that you didn’t know you had back then’,” Feng Bujue said.
Ambitionist looked at Brother Jue and said, “Hmm. Let me guess… Brother Feng, you had a not so normal childhood?”
“It’s fine. My personality when I was about eight was not so different from how I am now,” said Feng Bujue.
“Then, not so normal it is,” Autumn Zither added.
“In any case, at the time, I thought, children, including young adults, are a societal group that is heavily discriminated again,” Feng Bujue said. “So, when I was eleven, I wrote a thesis themed ’the prejudice adults have against children and teens.”
“And that was to prove that in this millions of young flowers, there are a few that have grown mutated like you?” After this scenario, Autumn Zither’s power of mockery had obviously increased.
“What would a Pichu like you understand?” Feng Bujue naturally would not lose in a fight of words.
“But… it is undeniable that you, Brother Feng, are an unusual person,” Weighty Words commented. “When I was eleven, it was hard to even write a five-hundred-word passage.”
Feng Bujue scoffed. “That was nothing. When I was ten, I finished my first novella God of Blades on an exercise book. A societal commentary would require less time than I would need on the toilet.”
The group appeared to be chatting, but they were not idling. The four split up to each corner, and as they chatted, they examined the surrounding bookshelves to find a way out.
“If nothing works, how about we try to climb up the shelf?” Weighty Words said after some observation. “We can first leap onto the cage and then use the chain above the cage to climb upward. When we reach the same height as the top of the shelf, it shouldn’t be too hard to make the jump.”
“None of you… considered reading the books around us?” Feng Bujue’s reading habit was triggered, and that caused him to give this startling statement.
Autumn Zither lifted his head to look at the eight-meter-tall bookshelves that were filled with books. He laughed drily. “Even if we split up the sections, I don’t think we can finish half of these books before we are forced offline.”
Ambitionist did not join their banter. His focus was mainly on the hidden world-building. The world-building of this scenario had been written out on the expanded quest tab.
“Hidden World-building: Mental Imprisonment
“A powerful organism who has read a lot pulled the players into its mind. In this world, every virtual character that he knows will be turned into conscious creatures that can influence each other. When X-23 tried to recover SCP-233, she was stopped because… she had difficulty entering the boss’ mental world. If not for this reason, the boss wouldn’t have been able to stop her. For this level twenty-three Anomaly, infiltrating the scenario from the Inner World was nothing. Even the system would not be able to stop her, much less data who is weaker than the four Pillars of Divinity.”
After studying the world-building, he turned to look at his teammates. “It’s not hard to leave this place. The current mission seems to hint at us that the real ’boss’ is very powerful. Is it really safe for us to leave this zone?”
“Indeed, a selectable main quest like defeat the real ’boss’ or escape from the Detective Club will normally have one incredibly difficult option where a group wipe is possible, so the system provides an easier path for the players to clear the scenario,” Autumn Zither agreed.
“But the more difficult path means more exp and skill points,” Feng Bujue said arrogantly.
“But if all of us die, we’ll end up with nothing,” Ambitionist interrupted. “We have to consider the cost and benefit…”
“Before we meet the ’boss’, no one knows how powerful he is,” Feng Bujue said. “Everyone here is smart, and no one is injured and our inventories are unlocked. We shouldn’t underestimate ourselves so soon but try to objectively assess our overall power.
“Furthermore, this is just a normal difficulty Team Survival Mode scenario. Even if it is a hidden boss, how strong can he be?”
“I mean… Brother Feng, from what you said, have you killed a Nightmare difficulty boss before?” Weighty Words asked.
Ambitionist scratched his chin and said, “Brother Feng hasn’t reached thirty, so he couldn’t queue for Nightmare Team Survival Mode. It looks like…he managed to clear a Solo Nightmare Mode.”
“Isn’t that a given?” Feng Bujue replied matter-of-factly. “We’ve been in the open beta for more than a month already. Clearing Nightmare Scenario should be nothing new.”
“I’ve tried Nightmare Scenario thrice and lost all three times,” Autumn Zither admitted.
“I’ve given it five tries and failed all of them,” Weighty Words added. “Twice, I thought I was near the end, but it was all for naught…”
“I am a personal player. I do not have missions to complete like those who are affiliated to gaming studios, so I am free to try anything I want. From the moment I reached level fifteen until now, I’ve tried Solo Nightmare Mode twenty-six times, and I’ve only cleared it once,” Ambitionist shared. He pushed on his glasses. “Honestly, I’ve been through some stuff in life, and I would say that I can suffer quite a lot, but playing Nightmare Mode really ground my confidence down. There were several times when I was forced offline because I overshot the Terror Points…”
“But Brother Feng, from your tone, it sounds like it’s an everyday thing for you to clear Nightmare scenarios,” Autumn Zither said.
“Of course not.” Feng Bujue started to act dumb again. “I’ve only cleared one nightmare scenario before, and the scenario was a puzzle scenario without boss fight. What I mean is, compared to Nightmare scenario where insta-death triggers are everywhere, I’m sure this normal scenario’s boss will be a piece of cake.”
“Hahaha… A piece of cake?” Suddenly, a strange voice echoed and interrupted the players. “If you believe that, a cake I shall be.”
The voice came from all corners, surrounding them. Most surprisingly, this voice was similar to the system notification voice.
The four players quickly exchanged a look as their expressions changed, and they asked in unison, “Boss?”