Chapter 161: The Shark Goes Mad!
"Abyss Sigh" is an ordinary level two Mutant Script.
The reason it's ordinary is that even though it has mutated, it doesn't pose any significant threat to the players.
There are a total of seven characters in the game, six players, and one script-controlling NPC.
A dancer, a writer, a lawyer, a butler, a pianist, a chef—six players without any memories or identity information wake up in the dining room and need to find the "ghost" among them before dawn.
The side quest is triggered by the blind girl, who knows everything. Her existence in the game is to guide the players to uncover the truth of the story.
This is a somewhat bloody love story.
A month ago, the chef murdered the dancer he was fond of and processed her body, then took a job in the villa.
During this period, the chef fell for the lawyer's niece, who was orphaned after a tragic accident, and he slyly planned to once again have his new infatuation end up in his stomach.
A few days passed, and the female writer, because of a creative block, invited the pianist she met at a concert to her home to play piano, as listening to his music comforted her. She was a writer in pursuit of spiritual art.
The blind girl had an exceptional sense of hearing and could discern the emotions expressed in the pianist's music. Thus, they developed feelings for each other throughout their interactions.
The female writer and the blind girl got along very well, so the observant writer secretly set them up, and for a time, the three lived in harmony.
At this point, the suspicious lawyer started to feel like he was being cuckolded.
He was like the white-collar worker from those urban romance novels, completely oblivious to the damned artistic atmosphere, not receptive to any of the writer's explanations.
The lawyer was convinced that the writer and the pianist were having an affair. The two of them got into an argument on the stairs, and the female writer accidentally fell and hit her head on a pillar, dying instantly.
From that moment, chaos ensued.
The butler, being a crazy fan of his goddess, saw her harmed and, in a rage, took the vase he was cleaning and smashed it over the lawyer's head, then dragged him into the master bedroom and drowned him in the bathtub.
The pianist and the blind girl had no time to save her, as they encountered their own problems while they were chatting on the first floor.
As the pianist approached to check on the female writer's condition, the delicate and powerless blind girl was dragged away by the chef. Before comprehending the situation, the pianist intervened to argue with the chef, but ended up severely wounded by the chef's cleaver and had his throat slit as he attempted to flee to the door.
The dancer who became a ghost and followed the murderer drifted over, leaning against the corridor railing, and watched a good show unfold.
Maybe because there were too many deaths, or because they were too unjust, the resentment became overwhelming. The dancer found she could touch physical objects, and so she rushed down and strangled the chef to death.
After the butler took care of the lawyer, he stormed downstairs clenching the found gun, full of murderous intent, only to find the villa in a mess with everyone already dead.
...
"This is the whole story of this script," Hong Rao sighed sadly.
"..." Xu Shuo remained silent.
"I didn't expect that even when you glitched out, you would get the roles wrong," Hong Rao said with a deep gaze. "No wonder the Abyss Creatures ran out in the end."
"..." Xu Shuo didn't speak.
He probably had already anticipated the outcome of this script.
Hong Rao had known his role was the blind person earlier on, and even if she didn't say it outright, she would probably guess it once the results of "Abyss Sigh" came out.
However, she didn't seem too surprised at the situation of slipping into the wrong role? How many bugs had this Script Space experienced in the past?
"By the way, why did the Abyss Creature appear?" Xu Shuo suddenly asked.
"Because the dancer herself was a ghost and had lost player control; she was bound to turn evil sooner or later," Hong Rao said leisurely as she sipped her tea.
Seeing that Xu Shuo still seemed puzzled, she continued, "The origin of the Abyss is unclear, but it exists in almost every script. Any non-human entity will inevitably be tainted by the darkness of the Abyss, and even us players, if we stay in the script for too long, will start to feel mentally exhausted."
"So, there's no problem for players to enter non-human roles?" Xu Shuo asked again.
"There will still be a slight impact, but it won't go as far as to open the Abyss and release those monsters, because the existence of Script Space suppresses them," Hong Rao explained.
Furthermore, letting players use the dancer's role is seen as a challenge to make the enactment of the script more thrilling.
In the script, the blind girl couldn't see, but she could hear very clearly.
So the only one with memories, although she couldn't provide detailed clues to the players, could still outline a rough sketch, striking a balance.
The dancer loved to dance, even more so to the pianist's music, and the only one who knew there was a seventh person in the villa was the blind girl who heard footsteps in the music.
She was the guide connecting all the stories.
But unexpectedly, this time the blind girl became a player, and even the dancer lost control and released Abyss Creatures to attack.
No wonder a player blurted it out regardless of deducting deduction points... A group of Abyss Creatures appearing in an ordinary decryption script probably dumbfounded everyone.
Hong Rao muttered to herself, and seeing Xu Shuo seemed interested in this presence, she explained to him in detail the information about "Abyss."
This thing actually had no secrets among the players, it's just the Script Space that was playing coy with the newbies, but after playing a few scripts and lingering on the forum for a while, the newbies would also start to stock up on Purification-related items.
Half of the pages in the store that had over 999+ items were various Purification items.
No one knew where those indescribable monsters came from, but in any case, they were the natural predators of players!
It could be said that most players died in the Abyss.
...
After listening for a while, Xu Shuo frowned and said, "I have a question, is there a way to leave the Script Space?"
Hong Rao took a sip of tea, "I'm not sure, but I've heard that a few top-level players know, but none of them have chosen to leave."
She wasn't at all surprised by the question, knowing the existence of Abyss Creatures, newcomers would feel a bit of fear more or less.
Xu Shuo raised his eyebrows slightly.
Hong Rao smiled and continued, "Most newcomers might think the Script Space is torturing us for fun, but in fact, some players whose worlds are already chaotic see this place as their chance.
"After all, just by playing a role-playing game they can gain powerful abilities and items, why not do it, not all scripts are dangerous.
"So, the players who want to leave are mostly those from worlds that are already safe."
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If the survival environment was safe and the only threat was the Script Space, then naturally they would want to leave.
But if the way to leave was to become a high-level player, by the time they reached the top, they'd probably already be addicted to the power and would want to leave even less.
Hong Rao's world wasn't very peaceful, so she didn't have this thought for the time being.
Xu Shuo nodded calmly, he opened his Player's Handbook and saw that the script was still in production, neither completed nor blocked.
He didn't know what fate it would meet when the time came.
Just then, Hong Rao, who was sipping tea in small sips, suddenly said "Huh" and looked into the void.
She must have been looking at the system panel.
If the other party didn't authorize, other people couldn't see each other's system interface. Seeing Xu Shuo's gaze, Hong Rao slid her opened forum over to him.
Her daily routine was unchangeable, drinking tea, sleeping, browsing the forum.
Forum news was constantly refreshing, paying more attention could enrich her information, her interface was always open.
Just now, a shocking red title rocketed to the top of the hot search.
Homepage title: [Shocking! A player went on a rampage!]
Subtitle: [Every player teamed up with him was annihilated! Not a single one left in the script, whoever meets him is unlucky!]
Seeing this title, Xu Shuo's heart skipped a beat.
He almost thought it was talking about "Abyss Sigh," but then he realized the people from the previous script didn't all die, wasn't the pianist stubbornly surviving?
Besides, that guy wouldn't be foolish enough to go out and advertise it, would he?