Cheng Tingyu rubbed his temples and sighed in frustration, "This doesn't make sense."
She had just gone out for a walk, not even a hundred meters from the hotel. Who would have thought that just standing there could trigger a side quest?
Cheng Tingyu raised his head but couldn't find an exit above. He had no choice but to shift his attention to the surrounding environment.
She had no experience entering a dungeon. Before crossing over, she had played some games, but with the heavy coursework in her science and engineering program, Cheng Tingyu hadn't been able to spend much time on leisure activities.
Had she known today, she would have made good use of her campus network back then.
Cheng Tingyu looked around. The trees in the "forest" were all disguised wooden planks, but there were so many of them that they created a sense of endless darkness. The area of the "village" ahead was also quite large; at least from Cheng Tingyu's position, he couldn't see its entirety.
Apart from the sentence heard upon entering, there were no further clues around.
Based on Cheng Tingyu's gaming experience before graduation, under normal circumstances, when a novice logs into a game for the first time, a somewhat conscientious designer would provide some hint phrases.
However, since she entered the instance until now, she hadn't seen a single reliable piece of information. It was evident that this instance world didn't pay much attention to the user's gaming experience.
At that moment, Cheng Tingyu's peripheral vision suddenly caught a slight movement—a person dressed in a mascot costume emerged from behind a distant house set, cheerfully waved at her, and then skipped over.
...It wasn't a small run, but a small bounce. The costume bounced off the ground, approaching Cheng Tingyu at a speed and posture that seemed almost impossible for a human. In the span of just five heartbeats, it reached her.
Cheng Tingyu instinctively wanted to dodge, but the other person ran to the village entrance and suddenly stopped.
"The new postman, you have arrived far too late."
Hearing the word "costume," Cheng Tingyu raised his eyebrows slightly.
So she is a mail carrier now?
The puppet costume continued to ramble on: "Grandma Red has been waiting for you. If you don't get the item to her by tonight..."
At this point, the mascot costume suddenly looked at the intruder in front of it and stretched into a narrow smile that didn't quite fit Cheng Tingyu's understanding of a headpiece: "Then you are an unqualified postman."
The mouth of the puppet costume stretched to an exaggerated extent, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. From Cheng Tingyu's position, he could clearly see the blood-colored filaments on the teeth, as if it had just eaten some kind of fresh meat.
Cheng Tingyu stared fixedly at the doll costume for a moment and repeated the key information from the other party's words: "Red Grandma?"
The doll costume said, "Grandma Red is Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. She is the kindest elder in our village. If you follow this road, you'll see Grandma Red's red house."
Cheng Tingyu gazed in the direction of the village. The scenery before and behind her was very simple; whether it was the "forest" or the "village," they consisted only of the most basic elements. The latter, in particular, was merely composed of a few houses and fields, with the only road in the village running between them.
The red house that belonged to Grandma Hong was right at the end of that road.
Cheng Tingyu could clearly make out the outline of the red house.
She noticed the sky and realized that the surroundings seemed a bit dimmer than when she had first come in.
This change was actually very subtle, yet Cheng Tingyu had an inexplicable confidence in the information he had discovered.
——The stinging in her eyes had not completely subsided, and Cheng Tingyu vaguely realized that when her right eye was uncomfortable, her powers of observation seemed to improve.
Time was flying by.
The doll costume stood in front of Cheng Tingyu, grinning as it stared at her. The headpiece seemed to have completely fused with the body, giving the fabric shell the qualities of flesh and blood. The plastic button eyes now glowed with an unnaturally vivid red.
Cheng Tingyu asked, "After delivering the items to Grandma Hong, what's the next step?"
The person in the doll costume said with a grin, "Then you can finish the postman's job. This is a safe instance. If you want to buy a way to enter the instance with money, it would be worth at least a thousand city coins."
Cheng Tingyu raised his eyebrows.
The other party's words revealed another key piece of information: "the method of entering the instance," which means that people of the current era have already conducted very in-depth research on instances and have grasped certain patterns.
While Cheng Tingyu was deep in thought, she stood motionless at the front of the road. The color of her pupils was unusually intense, like the deep sea that never sees the light of day.
She still remembered the words she heard when she first entered the dungeon—"If you're as useless as those before you, don't bother coming back."
The doll costume also said she was the new postman.
Cheng Tingyu thought, it seemed that he was not the first person to take on this job.
The village roads are not complicated; as long as you keep walking, you will inevitably reach Grandma Hong's house.
So why did those people fail their mission before?
The sun, like a painted backdrop on the sky, was sinking. If the onset of nightfall were considered the deadline for completing the level, then Cheng Tingyu didn't have much time left.
She must uncover the traps within the rules before nightfall.
Cheng Tingyu stared at the doll costume and slowly said, "Let me confirm, where is Grandma Red now?"
"Is she really in that red house now?"
Since it could be inferred from the known conditions that there had been many "postmen" before her, none of them had managed to deliver the goods to Grandma Red.
A road without forks, how difficult could it be to walk? Just now, when the person in the costume walked along the road, Cheng Tingyu didn't see anything resembling a trap. She had great confidence in her observational skills at this moment.
The puppet's gaze lingered on Cheng Tingyu for a moment before it slowly widened into an even more exaggerated grin and said sluggishly, "Grandma Hong is a highly respected elder in the village. At this time, she is making evening candies for the village children."
Cheng Tingyu nodded slightly.
The person in the costume had only mentioned the location of the red house, but there was no guarantee that Grandma Hong would be inside.
Cheng Tingyu: "Then who is the person staying in the Red House now?"
If there was no one in the house, the "postman" would easily notice something was wrong. At that time, the sun should not have set yet, and they would have time to correct their previous mistake and find a new target. Only if there was someone in the red house who could be mistaken for the Red Grandma would the "postman" hand over the item and mess up the entire mission.
The doll costume maintained a radiant smile, its pitch-black eyes full of malice: "Of course, the one staying in the red house is the Red Granddaughter. Just like her grandmother, she loves wearing a red cloak."
Cheng Tingyu looked at the puppet costume, rubbed his temples, and sighed softly, "So where is Grandma Hong now?"
The puppet did not answer immediately but instead chose to ask in return, "Is this your final question?"
Since entering the instance, the doll costume had always answered every question, until just now when it finally deviated from its initial character.
This is also quite normal.
Conditional questions create a sense of urgency among participants, making them treat their inquiries more carefully.
Cheng Tingyu stared at the other person for a moment and smiled, "You didn't mention before that there was a limit to the number of questions." Without waiting for the person in the costume to respond, she slowly shook her head, "If I really have to choose one question to end this conversation, then I want to ask—
"I'm very curious, how many players have you deceived with this spiel?"
As soon as the words fell, the gaze and smile of the person in the costume suddenly froze. At the same time, Cheng Tingyu, already prepared, opened the package that appeared after entering the instance. She fumbled around and found a box inside.
The box wasn't locked and opened easily. Inside was a water gun with the words "High-Efficiency Heretic Remover" written on its casing.
Cheng Tingyu's expression twitched slightly when he saw the design and description of the weapon.
——She felt that the prop design in the current copy was a bit too lazy.
It might have been because Cheng Tingyu's gaze lingered on the surface of the weapon for too long, that another line of semi-transparent text appeared on the water gun.
[Stage Play Water Gun: A prop specifically used to eliminate heretics in the [village], while also possessing a strong attraction to heretics.
Note: This water gun can wash away the disguise on the surface.
The line of text was not clear, and it also had a slight flicker like an old television set.
Cheng Tingyu felt the pain in his eyes growing stronger, as if something had pierced through his flesh, or as if something was about to grow out.
The physical discomfort did not affect Cheng Tingyu's movements. She calmly raised the gun, pulled the trigger, and a clear stream of water, seemingly harmless, hit the costume in front of her.
"Plop."
Cheng Tingyu: "..."
She hoped this thing would actually work; otherwise, she doubted her fate would be particularly pleasant.
Cheng Tingyu's inner anticipation was quickly met with a positive response—the body of that puppet costume began to slowly dissolve from the parts stained with water, then collapsed into a heap of sludge.
The skirmish at the village entrance caught the attention of the creatures within. After the [stage play water gun] was removed from the box, one puppet after another emerged from behind the set-like houses, including one wearing a red cloak.
Those people in costumes slowly approached Cheng Tingyu, pausing with each step as if struggling against their own subconscious.
Cheng Tingyu slowly exhaled and picked up the water gun.
Her previous guess was not wrong; the so-called "postman" identity was merely a misdirection.
Cheng Tingyu didn't believe in the costume, but through the conversation with the other party, he confirmed one fact, which was—
The NPC in this instance can lie.
She wasn't sure if the information from the doll costume was reliable, but even if it was true that the person living in the red house was the Red Granddaughter, the postman would still follow the normal procedure of confirming the recipient's identity before delivering the item. For instance, he might ask, "Are you the Red Grandmother?" and only after receiving a positive response would he hand over the package.
In this plot, the postman fails because the Red Granddaughter deceived them.
If the puppet costume didn't tell the truth, then the player was deceived as soon as they entered the instance.
Both of the above assumptions share a commonality, which is that the NPCs in the village might lie to the players.
Cheng Tingyu curved his lips slightly at the person across from him wearing a red cape costume, his eyes brimming with laughter: "I'm really sorry, I was born with a heavy dose of curiosity."
Since it was confirmed that the NPC could lie, Cheng Tingyu needed to re-examine the conversation with the mascot costume.
She gleaned two pieces of information from the voices she heard upon entering the instance: first, she had a specific mission to accomplish in the village; second, all those who had come before her to complete the mission had already failed.
Since so many people have failed, it proves that the way to leave the instance is far from being as simple as it appears on the surface.
Cheng Tingyu immediately dismissed the idea of following the road to the red house and handing the items to a specific person as a way to clear the level. Instead, he initiated a conversation and made a plausible hypothesis about why going to the red house would result in failure.
The puppet costume catered to all her assumptions, urging Cheng Tingyu to enter the village, find the Red Granny, and hand over the items in the bundle.
Cheng Tingyu closed his eyes: "…So this really is a safe copy."
As long as the [stage play water gun] was in her hand and not handed over under any pretense, the heretics in the village would line up to meet their end. Conversely, if she lost the prop, she might remain in the scenario, joining the ranks of those in the puppet costumes.
The true task of the participants was to use the water guns already placed in their packages to wash away the fake mannequins entrenched in the village. As for the "postman," that was just a lie fabricated by the mannequins.
In order to increase the likelihood of participants being deceived, the mascot costumes also designed multiple layers for their lies.
The clear stream of water fell on a tall figure dressed in a red cloak. Suddenly, a red light flickered in its eyes, and it opened its mouth: "So... you... are a... 'Secret Eye'... What... is... your... name..."
Cheng Tingyu was slightly taken aback. Before she could inquire about the specifics of the "Secret Eye," the tall mascot costume in front of her, like countless others of its kind, melted and collapsed as if it were heated wax, turning into a thick red liquid.
The sun set, and on the dim sky appeared two crooked characters: "The End."