In the institute's investigation room on Orange Planet, two young girls looked rather nervous. They were dressed in pink short-sleeved tops and breezy shorts while their fair legs were stiff with anxiety.
"I didn't know that something happened to the three of them when we logged out of the game." Player 'White Milk' said and shook her head.
Another girl also shook her head and said, "I joined the team at the last minute, so I don't know them in real life."
The investigator nodded and asked something else. He was mainly asking if they felt anything off throughout the duration they had been imprisoned.
That was because the investigator found out that the player mentioned setting his bodily sensation to zero in the game when he was recording the video. In the end, the player still seemed like he was very cold as if he was in an environment that was -30 degrees Celsius.
What troubled the investigator was that there was no snowstorm recorded in the video. There was also no environmental change that involved a drop in temperature. Meanwhile, their stats bar did not show any negative buff such as 'cold'.
The investigator only saw two buffs on the negative gain stats, which were 'imprisonment' and 'poisoned'.
When the players lifted their heads to look at the dark sky in the strange Dog-headed People Mountain Village, there had been nothing in the sky in the video.
At the moment, the gaming company's people suspected that the three players were mentally ill. They must have some illusions on their five senses, triggering the warning of irregular brainwave activity coming from the gaming pod.
People were prohibited from entering a gaming pod to play when they were mentally unstable.
The gaming pod could not scan the player's brain. Its function was for players to play games using their brainwaves whereby no electrodes were required to be attached to the players' heads.
Therefore, a warning mechanism would be triggered as soon as something odd went on with the players' brainwaves.
"There weren't any odd bodily sensations. I didn't notice that back then," the lady player denied as she shook her head.
"But the imprisonment duration was really long. Wasn't that the opening of the hidden plot?"
The investigator shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm not responsible for the game's plot development. I can only share that what the dog-headed non-player characters did wasn't within our gaming company's plan. They were doing things based on their personal intelligence and thoughts. The computing resources they used at that time didn't exceed the presupposition limit."
To put it simply, the dog-headed non-player characters had the intelligence of an artificial intelligence equivalent to a normal home AI. They had independent thoughts.
After questioning the two players, the investigator written 'No abnormality at the moment' in their files.
The three players woke up that night.
The institute had sent brain expert researchers to investigate their mental state, so the three players were shocked to see a bunch of people in lab coats surrounding their beds when they woke up.
"Don't worry. We're from the Omnic City Institute. We're here to investigate what happened to you guys in the game." The brain expert researcher was monitoring the trio's brainwaves closely as he asked them questions.
The leather-armored assassin player, Wang Qing, recollected something faint and blurry after hearing what the researcher said. However, he could not recall anything.
"I-I seem to have forgotten what happened," he said while scratching his head.
"Memory loss? Hmm, the great mental trigger in the brain must've caused memory loss…" the brain expert researcher analyzed calmly.
It was similar for the other two players whereby they could not remember what happened in the game. They could not recollect that part of the memory.
An intense pain throbbed in their heads if they were to think hard. The pain was devastating, so they gave up thinking.
The brain expert researchers secretly panicked a little upon noticing their condition.
If they did nothing, the incident would only be closed with the comment "Players' irregular mental state caused the gaming pods to release warnings" on the report.
Soon, someone got the latest instruction. "The director said that in order to treat the patients, we'll have to learn about the patients during their mental trauma treatment."
The brain expert researchers nodded since that was the only thing that they could do now.
To treat trauma, they could use gentle hypnosis to draw the patients' subconscience. Their subconscious mind would then be used to treat the patients' mental state.
After the doctors confirmed the treatment, they told the three patients why they were doing that and provided them with an outlook of their conditions.
The three of them understood that they had suffered partial memory loss and that they might have encountered some unknown trauma. At the moment, the institute had a safe, high success rate therapy to treat memory loss that they could try.
The three patients trusted the institute's ability. After all, not only did the institute do research work in industrial technology, but they also did deep studies on other technologies too.
After signing the consent to the treatment, the three of them arrived at the Omnic City Institute in the middle of the night.
Previously, it had been mentioned that the players were very healthy. Bed rest was not required while there was nothing wrong with their mental state. As their brains sealed the part of the memory automatically, the trio could not recall what they had done in the game last night as if nothing had happened.
The leather-armored assassin player, Wang Qing, entered a closed chamber. There were some beautiful scenic pictures in the chamber with endless countryside beauty. He smelled the fragrance of flowers and grass. There was a cute and gentle female doctor sitting in there. She looked at him gently, indicating to him to take a seat.
Wang Qing's tensed nerves relaxed without him even realizing it.
He sat on the soft chair and chatted with the female doctor. Neither did they talk about memory loss, nor did they talk about games. The duo was communicating at peace and naturally as if they were friends.
Wang Qing felt his consciousness grow heavy as they chatted. The voice in his ears became blurry while his thought process slowed down.
The female doctor began leading the subject. She took out a light drawing board and placed it on the table before Wang Qing in order for him to draw something on the paper.
He could not recall what exactly he was going to draw. He was simply sketching following the doctor's request and his own instinct.
Meanwhile, the board changed from a blank piece of paper to a simple doodle in the eyes of the female doctor and the surveillance camera.
Drawing rather slowly, his fingers moved following his subconscious mind. He was gradually outlining the background of countless black, tiny people kneeling in a mountain village.
Among them were five matchstick people that were different from the black, tiny people. The black, tiny people had no faces in hoodies while the matchstick people had heads, eyes, mouths, noses, and ears. They represented the five players.
The drawing style was not very clear. It was like a kid's doodles instead of an art master's drawing. However, everyone could tell what the doodles were depicting.
It was the image of the player's lost memory, which was what his brain remembered deeply, as well as what impacted him heavily.
After drawing the black, tiny people and the mountain village, Wang Qing began sketching a well. There was also a circle that was suspected to be a magic formation.
Suddenly, he held his palm tightly. The pen was shaking maniacally on the blank space above the well. The messy and crazy lines were like lightning. He tore the paper from the maniacal scribbling!
At that moment, the monitor was beeping.
"Warning! The patient's heart rate has risen to 150 beats per minute!
"Warning! The changes in the brainwaves are too strong! The patient's emotions are overly stirred and anxious!"
The female doctor's forehead began sweating profusely. She clenched her teeth while glancing at the patient's unfinished doodle. Finally, she had no choice but to stop the treatment.
Snap!
She snapped her fingers.
The snapping of her fingers was like the switch to bring back his consciousness. Wang Qing, who had gone mad, woke up as if there was an explosion in his head.
The doodling in his hand stopped immediately. He blinked and said without realizing what had happened earlier at all, "Ah, I'm sorry. Where were we?"
He sensed that the atmosphere was rather off after saying that. Holding his head down, he saw the drawing of the mountain village sacrificial ceremony that looked like a kid's doodle.
"What's this? Why am I holding a pen?"
Wang Qing looked at the ugly drawing in confusion. He had a strange yet familiar feeling about it despite not knowing why.
When he blinked, the matchstick people that were in the drawing seemed to have come alive. They moved their heads and glanced at him.
However, the matchstick people were not looking at him when he stared at the drawing in his hands. Instead, they were looking at the messy, irregular lines above the well with their heads lifted.
He must have mistaken it.