Double A In Line Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Meeting Online

When Lin Sheng looked up and saw his roommate, who was staring back at him in utter shock, he was still trying to figure out who this person was. It wasn’t until he noticed the blue and orange color-blocked T-shirt the roommate was wearing that the memory suddenly clicked.

Although his pheromone disorder had been severe during the criminal’s arrest a month ago, he still remembered that the person who had tried to stop him was wearing a shirt of that exact color. Combined with Cheng Yan’s reaction, Lin Sheng spoke up hesitantly.

“Are you the one from District Three back then…”

Perhaps because those words reminded Cheng Yan of a rather unpleasant experience, Lin Sheng saw him frown and ask, “You live in this dorm too?”

“Yes.” Lin Sheng held up his student card, which displayed his dormitory number, for Cheng Yan to see.

“That’s your spot.” After hearing his answer, Cheng Yan pointed to the empty bed on the left. He then turned around, sat back down on his own bed, and began operating the optical computer in his hand.

“Uh, thanks.” Lin Sheng couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination, but he felt his new roommate’s tone was a bit cold. However, considering he had hit the guy a month ago, Lin Sheng felt it was only natural for him to be angry. Perhaps he should apologize?

With that thought in mind, after he finished unpacking his luggage, he said tentatively, “By the way, about what happened a month ago…”

But as soon as he opened his mouth, he was interrupted.

“I’m busy. Can you stop talking?” Cheng Yan, who was currently searching online for how to change dorms, looked up with a tone of obvious impatience.

“Cases involving non-disclosure agreements cannot be discussed in private. Do you not even know that?” At this point, he seemed to think of something and curled his lips in a mocking sneer. “Then again… someone from the privileged class like you naturally doesn’t need to follow the rules.”

The nameless fire that had flared up in his heart finally dissipated slightly. Cheng Yan lowered his head to continue using his optical computer, leaving Lin Sheng standing there in a daze.

Wait, did I provoke him? Lin Sheng glanced at Cheng Yan, who was radiating a “do not disturb” aura, and felt it was all very bizarre. Does this guy have a grudge against the rich?

He admitted that hitting someone was wrong, but weren’t the circumstances special back then? Besides, this guy had blindly rushed in to stop him and almost let the criminal escape.

They were both at fault, so why was he acting so high and mighty?

To think he had actually considered apologizing. Apologize? Like hell he would!

Fuming, Lin Sheng pulled his holographic helmet out of his suitcase. He had just been thinking about whether he could become gaming buddies with his roommate. After all, Dream Realm was a phenomenally popular holographic online game; out of every ten young people on the street, five were likely players.

Thinking about it now, it was a good thing he hadn’t asked yet. With a temperamental lunatic like this, anyone who became his friend would be cursed with bad luck.

Today was the last day of freshman registration, and the opening ceremony for Typhon United University wasn’t until tomorrow. The school had no arrangements for the evening. Generally, this would be the time for roommates to get to know each other and bond, but clearly, there was no need for the two in Room 305 to bother.

He would just continue being a lone wolf. Lin Sheng put on his helmet, closed off his bed space, and began logging into the game.

He didn’t care to talk to this person anyway. Was the game not fun enough?

After a soft click, the pitch-black interface before Lin Sheng’s eyes began to glow. His body felt heavy for a moment before suddenly becoming weightless.

Then, a brilliant white light filled the entire virtual space. The feeling of weightlessness vanished, replaced by the solid sensation of the ground beneath his feet. Lin Sheng successfully entered his personal game space.

He pulled up the selection panel and clicked on the first game without hesitation.

The scenery before him shifted instantly. The high-tech silver space transformed into a street lined with low, ancient buildings.

The clamor of a crowd reached his ears. From Lin Sheng’s position, he could see an orange cat with the ID Seedless Watermelon lazily basking in the sun on the eaves of an ancient building.

Lin Sheng looked down at his hands, which had turned into furry paws, and skillfully retrieved a fishing rod from his inventory. He shouldered it and swaggered toward the direction of Moon-viewing Lake.

Outside, Cheng Yan, who had just found his answer, closed his optical computer in frustration.

If a student wanted to change dorms, they had to bring their identification and apply in person to their department’s counselor. This required the counselor to be on campus. However, the counselor for the Mechanical Engineering department happened to be away on official business and was handling most start-of-term affairs online. Since he was returning the day after tomorrow, the school hadn’t arranged for anyone else to take over his duties.

He would have to wait two more days. Cheng Yan rubbed his brow. He really didn’t want to live with someone who had a military background, especially since this person’s father might be close friends with his own father.

When he looked up, he saw that the bed opposite him had been completely closed off. All that remained before Cheng Yan’s eyes was a pane of opaque glass.

Pretentious. Cheng Yan curled his lip in disdain. He even specifically set the glass to privacy mode, as if Cheng Yan were actually interested in him.

With that thought, he grabbed his holographic helmet, raised his own glass partition, and set it to the same mode.

“Going online?” Before logging in, Cheng Yan didn’t forget to message his friends to see if they wanted to play together. However, he soon learned that his friend’s department had assigned homework early, and they were currently pulling their hair out over it.

“…Fine, I’ll play by myself.”

Dream Realm was a holographic game released a year ago, marketed as humanity’s “Second World.” Initially, this slogan had drawn widespread ridicule. After all, many previous games using the same slogan had turned out to be garbage, and netizens’ expectations had long been exhausted. But as gameplay demonstrations continued to appear, the mocking voices gradually faded. Finally, on the day of the game’s release, a simultaneous report by the Alliance’s official media sent the already explosive discussion to new heights.

A massive map with a one-to-one scale with the real world, a level of freedom almost equal to reality, and various non-existent fantasy creatures and unique gameplay mechanics drew a massive influx of users.

At the same time, the high degree of freedom in character creation added a lot of fun to the game.

Cheng Yan’s avatar in the game was a bipedal snow leopard. He had designed the appearance himself, piece by piece. In any other game, such a detailed beastman avatar would be considered a major innovation worth heavy promotion, but in Dream Realm, it was merely average.

After all, you could even see an orange cat sunbathing on a roof with a player ID. However, the developers had placed some restrictions on body size; otherwise, the game might have been filled with hundred-meter-tall monsters and insect players only a few centimeters long.

“How many more flies was it?” Cheng Yan opened his panel to check his current quest.

Moon-viewing Lake has recently been infested with a large number of flying gnats. They breed rapidly, not only polluting the water source but also carrying numerous pathogens, causing great distress to the local residents. The Mayor of Moon-viewing Town is plagued by this issue. If you can resolve these gnats, the Mayor will reward you handsomely.

Quest Progress (33/100)

“Only 33?” Cheng Yan was a bit surprised, but thinking about it, those mosquitoes were indeed a nuisance. Not only would they accidentally aggro other mosquitoes due to proximity while a player was fighting one, but they were also poisonous. After being bitten, a player’s health would drain faster and faster over time. Therefore, players usually brought a large supply of antidotes for this quest.

Last time, Cheng Yan had failed because he didn’t bring enough antidotes and health potions. Due to a positioning error, he was swarmed by a large number of flies and sent straight back to Moon-viewing Town. That had happened just this morning.

After that, he had quit the game in a huff, packed his bags, and come straight to school.

Now that he had calmed down, Cheng Yan went back online to seek more punishment. Only this time, he went to the shop first and bought a large quantity of potions—one stack of each (99 per stack). He was determined to grind those damn bugs to death.

Having solved the potion problem, he set out with confidence.

Moon-viewing Lake was located atop Moon-viewing Cliff outside of town. As Cheng Yan climbed up, he saw a player in the form of a wolf beastman holding a fishing rod, sitting leisurely by the lake. Any mosquitoes that tried to harass him were killed by a glow surrounding his body the moment they got close.

A high-level item. Cheng Yan looked at the light with envy.

He had only started playing this game six months ago. Because Dream Realm had so much content, it was still in a state of exploration even after a year. However, most people had already reached level seventy. Cheng Yan, having started six months late and having to spend time preparing for exams during those months, was only at level fifty despite his efforts to catch up.

Actually, with people leading the way, it wasn’t hard for those behind to catch up. Cheng Yan could have leveled up quickly if he had his friends carry him.

Unfortunately, when he was in the novice village, the level gap between him and his friends was too large for them to play together. Later, when he finally leveled up, it was time for them to prepare for the Higher Education Public Examination—an exam that determined which university they could attend based on their scores and preferences. For that, they had to temporarily set the game aside or drastically reduce their playtime.

And now that they had finally gotten into university, after carrying him for two months, his dear friend had abandoned him again because of early major assignments.

Today, Cheng Yan was back to solo mode.

Because the aggro range of the flies at Moon-viewing Lake was extremely strange—if an attacked fly flew into the range of another, the second fly would also lock onto the attacker—Cheng Yan’s previous failure had been a spectacular swarming.

I was too reckless last time. I have to be careful this time and pull them one by one. Cheng Yan began to cautiously test the aggro range of the flies.

Lin Sheng had been fishing by Moon-viewing Lake, intending to fill out his fish encyclopedia. However, not long after he started, a snow leopard beastman arrived at the lakeshore.

The snow leopard had no teammates. He was just a lone leopard sneaking around not far from Lin Sheng. After luring one fly, he would quickly pull the monster far away to deal with it, then sneak back again.

Because Lin Sheng kept watching this new player, he didn’t notice his fishing rod tightening several times. By the time he snapped out of it to pull the rod, the fish had already escaped the hook.

Finally, as the snow leopard passed by him for the eleventh time, Lin Sheng couldn’t help but ask.

“Do you need help?”