"Ah?"
Moon Slash Blade rubbed his excited face under the wolf-like gazes of his three teammates, "Are you guys really planning to do this? Hey, can you tone down the sleazy looks a bit?"
"Brother Qing," Dragon Scale Sword cleared his throat, "how many years have we been dorm mates in college?"
"Speak properly, don't play the sentiment card, meow!"
Black Tortoise Shield chimed in, "I think, as brothers, if I also had a female character, I would definitely let the bros have some fun first."
Dragon Scale Sword raised his hand for a high five with Black Tortoise Shield.
"Good brother!" "Good brother!"
Consensus reached: If I had ten million, I'd donate it all.
The two looked at Moon Slash Blade with a perfectly synchronized gaze.
"Forget it!" Moon Slash Blade declined firmly, "Playing a female character is like having a daughter, you feeling me? I'm going to buy skins, change equipment, and dress her up for all kinds of videos. You think I'd let you LSPs touch her?"
Reason for rejection: I really have a cow.
"I need to emphasize one point, I'm not old!"
Seeing the trio having a laugh, Loves White Silk, who had been recording the whole time, had no choice but to interrupt, "What do you guys think about the suggestion?"
The three fell silent.
Just now, the four players had come together to discuss their moves. The recent sweep of the Wanderer's Camp didn't yield much profit; their weapons were damaged, their armor was worn out, and if it weren't for the final rewards, they would have been working for free.
Of course, slaughtering to their heart's content was also true.
Unable to sit still, the four discussed going out to explore, mainly because a player "stuck on the map" had spawned nearby, and that place seemed to be a dungeon.
A dungeon, oh!
Since the game launched, nobody had actually seen a dungeon.
Moon Slash Blade shook his head, "It's a bit risky. We only have four people, and without skills or equipment, facing the Wanderers we can muster some ferocity out of desperation, but against those who do not fear death, the Rotters, we're just asking to be slaughtered."
Dragon Scale Sword also nodded in agreement, "Exactly, I've heard of that @Long Live Sister Li, her bad spawn is surrounded by at least a dozen Rotters, reportedly with a BOSS too. Wouldn't we be heading straight to our doom?"
Loves White Silk persisted, "Should we ask the Lord to lead his soldiers with us?"
Moon Slash Blade shook his head again, "I don't think it's likely."
Loves White Silk asked, "Why?"
This time the other two also turned to Moon Slash Blade, curious to hear his insights.
Moon Slash Blade crossed his arms over his chest and flicked his hair back, "Would the Mayor of Newbie Village leave to hunt monsters?"
"Hey, you've actually got a damn good point."
"He's so big, the logic is definitely on his side, huh!"
"Bullshit, so you're also driving your brother's car, huh."
"What about our mission to investigate the Rotters?"
"Right, we got the tip from the official forum, what reason should we use to tell the NPC, and even if we do, the NPC has to believe us."
Gamers have a common understanding that tasks require certain steps: the visuals are just for show, the code is the core.
In most games, there's a scenario where you take on a rescue mission requiring you to defeat a dungeon's BOSS, but before taking action, you need to talk to a certain NPC. If the player skips the conversation and goes directly to the dungeon, even if they clear it, it's like fighting in vain; the task isn't considered complete.
"We'll have to catch one then. That way, we can rightfully tell the Lord we've got detailed intelligence... I actually really want to take down that Rotter dungeon too, it's bound to drop some juicy loot, maybe even equipment."
"Is that even possible?"
"Let's not go into that just now. Where can we catch a lone Rotter?"
The four deliberated amidst the biting cold wind.
Rotters in groups are easy to find, but lone ones? Not so much.
Come nightfall, the borderlands of Rand Kingdom grew more sinister than during the day.
The pallid moonlight frosted the land with white.
The constant vistas of desolation, jagged dead trees, overgrown weeds, and chaotic rocks remained unchanged.
As Undead, Faded, Lone Wolves, and Old Hunters, the four had already unanimously concluded after encountering "Godslayer" that...
This was a game of "pure lineage and full of soul."
Walking on a road that clearly has issues, one must be careful of stealth attacks and ambushes.
As for where the "soul" lies, the answer is "you're not qualified, so you don't get to know."
The battle at the Wanderer's Camp they experienced during the day had also made them even more certain that this was a game that didn't "play by the gaming mechanics" much, but was definitely "real" and "full of suffering."
"Want to go try it out?"
"I think it's okay, at worst I die once, just as long as my gear doesn't get looted."
"I've already contacted Long Live Sister Li, she said Star Dragon Ridge is at her six o'clock."
"So, to our north?"
"That's the idea."
The four of them immediately agreed; they had never taken the potential dangers of the night seriously from the beginning, what they wanted was danger and excitement.
The direction was still easy to discern, using Star Dragon Ridge as a landmark, they could find the scavenger's camp by heading north.
As they progressed, they surprisingly didn't encounter anything strange on the road.
However, the wind grew stronger and stronger, occasionally carrying eerie howls that sounded a bit like beasts.
The fractured moonlight guided them, but visibility was getting lower and lower.
"Something's up!"
"It looks like a person!"
"I'll take the shield, I'll go check it out!" said Black Tortoise Shield, taking the lead with his shield.
As the four inched closer, they found a corpse.
The body was torn and ripped apart; half of its head was missing, and the stomach was torn open by claws that were not sharp, the jagged nature of the wounds visible, with the insides long gone.
"Ugh!"
Dragon Scale Sword retched.
"Hold on, I'm turning on the filter; damn, this game is way too realistic! It reminds me of when we killed pigs for the New Year, the guts just spilling out everywhere, ugh!"
"Stop it!" Moon Slash Blade also felt queasy: "We're lying in bed, what's going to happen in reality if we throw up in the game?"
All four came from civilized society where they hardly ever saw death, not even the slaughtering of a chicken.
The shredded corpse beneath the fragmented moonlight gave them an incredibly strong visual shock.
Once the blood was filtered out and the gnawed brain turned into gnawed cabbage, the two were able to stabilize their emotions.
The other two were still holding on; Black Tortoise Shield enjoyed role-playing and naturally seeing a corpse was part of it, while Loves White Silk was different. Firstly, the official website of Doomsday Magic Ring had large censorship margins, so there was no need to worry about overly bloody content being rejected. Secondly, he had to cater to certain players, some of whom wanted to see blood and gore, so he could release two versions, one censored and one uncensored, but he would never release a "cabbage version" unless he wanted to kiss his traffic goodbye.
"Could this be the work of the scavengers?"
"I guess so... I'm definitely not going to look at cabbage the same way again! Ugh, pfft!"
"There are footprints here!"
The four instantly turned into Sherlock Holmes, scouring the ground, and indeed, they found some clues.
Clearly non-human footprints that looked like they belonged to some bipedal creatures.
And there was fresh blood dripping on the ground.
They followed the traces in a circle, only to make a horrifying discovery.
The footprints were heading in the direction they came from and had stopped behind a large rock just beyond the line of sight of the soldiers on the wall.
It seemed as if a pair of crimson eyes were lurking in the dark, staring at Star Dragon Ridge.
"Here, they stopped here!"
"And there are footprints here too! Clearly they've been squatting there for a while."
"Stop it, I'm getting goosebumps, damn it! Encountering this kind of weird thing late at night... Do these Calamity creatures all have human intelligence? Does a monster-slaying game really need to be this creepy, even observing and tailing us? It's not like they're preparing for a siege battle or something."
"Let's hope they don't have any artillery."
"What should we do?"
"Go back and inform the Lord?"
"I think that's a good idea!"
In the end, they chose to inform the Lord first. Now that they had clues and a legitimate reason, hey, if the Lord happened to be pleased and gave them a quest, well, heh heh.