WTYTIAAN Chapter 162

Chapter 162

That’s not bad, their guess is actually pretty close.

The village was indeed wiped out by Isabel and her people, and strictly speaking, they were also part of the Newbie Village group.

Yan Yunqing heard the players’ conversations clearly and secretly complained a few times in his heart.

But it doesn’t matter, Yan Yunqing had already anticipated that players would speculate about this matter. After all, normal players wouldn’t think that the reason they arrived late at the Newbie Village was: the NPC chose the wrong spawn point and built the Newbie Village in the wrong location.

It sounds too outrageous, but that’s just how outrageous the Homecoming Game Studio is.

The game is already in closed beta, but there’s no Newbie Village or guiding NPC. What are they trying to do?

To put it bluntly, both the Newbie Village and the guiding NPC are the game company’s way of informing players of the game’s basic rules through these simple gameplay elements when they log in, while also providing a subtle form of restraint and regulation.

It might be okay in other games; players could understand the basic rules of the game after playing for a while. But Homecoming is different. The other side of this game is a real world that can’t withstand the wanton destruction of unrestrained players who can’t truly die.

Otherwise, this world might turn into another Gotham.

Every player could become a Joker and play Homecoming like GTA.

That’s not acceptable.

He, Yan Yunqing, is the only Joker allowed in this world.

He thought to himself.

He watched the players gathering together to discuss the hidden quest from afar, without sweating like the other NPCs. He had already figured out what to do next on the way here.

Play along.

Since the players think there’s a hidden quest in this Newbie Village, then he’ll really create one for them. He can even use the players to find the remaining spawn points and those players who were captured by unknown forces.

Yan Yunqing opened his NPC panel and looked at the newly appeared sections for [Publish Quest] and [Establish NPC Identity]. “Might as well try out this new feature.”

He turned around and found a mirror, starting to create his new persona.

The new identity is a mysterious mage, who needs to look inconspicuous but be easily noticed by players at a glance.

A black magic robe with complex magic Pattern, mysterious and dangerous.

Yan Yunqing thought for a bit and simply created the mage’s appearance from his memories.

Long black hair fell behind his back, and dangerous information was hidden in his dark red eyes. The combination of not-so-stunning features was surprisingly comfortable… and faintly carried an indescribable feeling.

Divinity? Evil?

It’s hard to define, but this face exuded an undeniable sense of authority just from its appearance.

Yan Yunqing himself was stunned when he looked at it.

He reached out and tapped the reflection in the mirror, sincerely marveling, “No wonder everyone calls him the Demon King. It’s really hard to see someone who looks like this as a righteous person.”

Especially the inadvertently revealed bloodthirsty side, which gave Yan Yunqing goosebumps all over, like some super villain in a film or television drama who smiles while sending people to their deaths.

I woke up too early, the yandere is actually me.

Yan Yunqing pressed his brow, softening the features of the face a little, then put on the magic robe and pulled up the hood.

When all the features were covered, leaving only the black hair scattered under the hood, Yan Yunqing’s special aura was completely concealed, becoming low-key.

Yan Yunqing observed from several angles, confirming that no matter which angle you looked at it from, you couldn’t see the face under the magic robe’s hood, while he could see everything in front of him clearly, like there was a layer of one-way glass. He nodded in satisfaction.

[Cloak of Concealment (Purple)]

Description: A black magic robe, when you want to conceal your identity and pretend to be a big shot to go to the auction house and show off, it will be your unique choice. When you put on the hood, any unit with a level lower than (73+20) cannot use the [Appraisal] skill on you, and cannot see through your appearance under the hood. 『Now you can show off freely.』

Yan Yunqing glanced at the description and coldly closed it.

This magic robe was a prop he got from cleaning out his backpack a while ago and drawing all the accumulated boxes.

He didn’t know if it was because of a quantitative change leading to a qualitative one, but he got a lot of good things this time, and this Cloak of Concealment was one of them. Everyone with a level no more than twenty levels lower than him will have their [Appraisal] skill invalidated, and it can also hide his appearance well. It is indeed a very useful prop.

It’s just that the description is really a bit annoying. What do you mean he can show off freely now? And going to the auction house to show off, does he look like a brainless Mary Sue protagonist from some online novel?

Is he that bored?

He should find some time to blow up the Augreir family’s auction house again.

Yan Yunqing entered the name of his new persona – [Nolan].

[New identity is being generated…]

[The ‘Nolan’ identity card has been created.]

A ‘Nolan’ persona was added to Yan Yunqing’s NPC panel. He conveniently created and saved the ‘Joker’ persona as well, so he wouldn’t have to rely on switching presets every time he wanted to change personas.

He switched to Nolan’s persona, and everything was ready.

He just needed to wait a few more days for the players to level up before he could trick them.

*

[Lin]: Do you guys have any clues on your end?

[Destin]: Nothing found. What about Mianmian and Anan?

[Nan Su]: I’m in a house in the northwest of the village. I haven’t found any useful clues either. At most, I can see that there was indeed a fierce battle here. Several houses in this village have been destroyed, and there are a lot of bloodstains…

[Diannaomianmianmao]: I’m in the south. Several houses here have been smashed through, as if something huge hit the roofs and collapsed the houses. It seems to be consistent with what the villagers said, like there really was some kind of beast attack.

[Diannaomianmianmao]: Hmm, but I haven’t found any corpses or residual limbs. Were they censored by the game?

[Destin]: Mianmian, I’m also in the south. I saw the house you mentioned. I’ll come find you!

[Lin]: Do you guys think this village really has a hidden plot? We’ve been searching for so long and haven’t found any useful clues…

[Nan Su]: According to conventional logic, all the previous plots have hinted that there’s something strange about the village being destroyed by The monster, so there should be a related quest. Maybe the clues are more hidden. Should we look more carefully?

If other Romunike players were present, they would discover that the four players searching for clues in the village were the more famous female players from their Newbie Village.

These four players were roommates from the same university. The four of them had a very good relationship, and since they were all interested in games, they often made appointments to play together. On the day Homecoming opened its closed beta slots, the four of them stayed up all night working on a final project. Nan Su, who was the first to notice the closed beta slot opening, immediately called her other three roommates to register together.

The four of them were lucky enough to get closed beta slots, and they were also lucky enough to be assigned to the same Newbie Village.

Their luck didn’t end there. Because they had stayed up all night to finish their project the day before, none of the four of them were able to log into the game on time. When they entered the game, the problems of the Romunike Newbie Village had already been resolved, and they followed the main force to play.

Because they logged in late, the other players’ playtime ran out and they were kicked offline, but they remained in the game and were very lucky to pick up a chain quest.

In this way, they fortunately leveled up to level 10. The four of them became the first in the Romunike Newbie Village to reach level 10 and have the temporary authority to leave the Newbie Village.

This is why they were able to search for clues in this village.

However, none of the four of them were veteran game players. Only Nan Su had experience with large-scale online games. The other three all found the so-called search for clues difficult.

Even Nan Su felt strained. Homecoming was different from the online games she had played in the past. There were no game text prompts, and any item in this game world could be interacted with, making the search for clues extremely difficult.

Faintly discovering that her other three roommates and friends were considering giving up, Nan Su was also a little hesitant about whether to continue searching for the so-called hidden quest clues.

What if they searched for a long time and discovered that it was all for naught and there was no hidden quest at all? They would have wasted too much time. After all, other than her, the other three were playing Homecoming to relax.

They couldn’t put the cart before the horse, right?

Just as the four of them were preparing to return empty-handed, Lin suddenly grabbed Nan Su’s wrist, pointed in a direction, and lowered her voice, “Is there someone standing over there?”

Nan Su: “Huh? It should be another player, right? Although we accepted a chain quest and leveled up faster, so we were the first to leave the Newbie Village, those professional players basically play the full eight hours of game time every day. Their leveling speed won’t be much slower than ours…”

As she spoke, Nan Su looked in the direction Lin pointed and discovered a black figure standing in the distance, with most of its figure blocked by the dilapidated house. It was faint and hard to find the other person’s figure without looking carefully.

That could never be a player’s figure!

Lin shrunk behind Nan Su, “That doesn’t look like a player… It’s all black. Could it be a ghost?”

Nan Su: “…The game doesn’t seem to have ghosts as a species. Only undead.”

Lin shook Nan Su’s sleeve, “Isn’t that even more terrifying?!”

Undeads who died unjustly appeared in a village that was suspected of being massacred? That sounded like an upgraded version of some island country horror movie.

Lin was willing to call it “Ghost Village.” Of course, it would be better if she wasn’t the headstrong reporter who came to explore or investigate the truth in this “Ghost Village.”

She felt that this identity would definitely end badly.

Nan Su hesitated, “It’s not necessarily an undead. It could also be an NPC or something… Undeads are generally monster units, right? We haven’t even encountered The monsterat our level. We shouldn’t encounter undeads, right?”

But she wasn’t very sure when she said this. After all, the Homecoming game was really different from those games with text and plot lines in the past.

“Want to go take a look?” Nan Su suggested.

Lin shook her head repeatedly, “In horror movies, characters who are too curious are the first to die!”

Nan Su: “…We’re in the game right now. We can be resurrected even if we die.”

Lin froze, “That’s right!”

She scratched her cheek, “It’s all the game’s fault for being so realistic. I forgot it was a game for a moment.”

Nan Su: “So, are we going? It might be related to a hidden quest?”

Lin was a little hesitant, “But game death resurrection requires a two-day CD, right…”

She looked at Nan Su, then at the direction of the black figure, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth, “Okay, okay, I’ll go with you to take a look. If we really encounter an undead, I’ll just treat it as if I’m accompanying you to commit suicide!”

She acted as if she was about to bravely die, almost making Nan Su laugh. “It’s not that exaggerated. It’s not dangerous here.”

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

The two girls walked stealthily towards the black figure’s location. Anyone who didn’t know what was going on would have thought they were going somewhere to steal something.

Yan Yunqing, who was tired of standing in place and posing, yawned. The hood blocked his entire face, so you couldn’t tell from the outside that he was bored enough to yawn. You could only feel that this faceless person was very mysterious.

Even his back looked somewhat sad, as if he was mourning for the lives that died in this dilapidated village.

This is what the two sneaky players saw when they approached.

Lin lowered her voice, “That seems to be a person?”

Nan Su also lowered her voice: “Can’t see the face, but that outfit should be a magic robe.”

Although there were no mages in the Newbie Village, the magic robes of Western fantasy games were very similar, and the faintly flowing runes on the other person’s robe made it easy to recognize them as magic runes.

Nan Su quietly threw a [Detect] skill at the black figure wearing the magic robe. This was a skill that every player received when they reached level 1. It could be used on any unit, had a CD of 3s, and consumed almost no mana, so it could basically be considered free.

This skill was very useful. For some ordinary NPCs, it could directly detect the other person’s identity and level. However, since this NPC appeared here, it looked very mysterious. Nan Su didn’t have hope that the [Detect] skill would succeed.

Sure enough, the skill panel gave the feedback [Detection Failed] in the next second. A sign [???] appeared above the mysterious person’s head. Both the level and name identity were displayed as question marks.

The mysterious person seemed to have noticed something and tilted his head slightly. “Aren’t you coming out yet?”

The voice was slightly low, but sounded a little neutral. It was impossible to tell the gender from the voice!

Lin and Nan Su looked at each other. Nan Su had just used [Detect] on them, but the other person wasn’t angry. Most importantly, although the name was all question marks, the color displayed was green, indicating that this mysterious NPC would not pose a danger to them for the time being and belonged to the friendly camp.

The two of them squeezed out of the bushes, their heads still covered with a few leaves.

Yan Yunqing turned around, looking at the two players through the hood, and was slightly surprised. He didn’t expect that the first players to reach level 10 in this Newbie Village were two female players.

Perhaps limited by the time for opening the game’s closed beta slots and various objective factors, the gender ratio among the three thousand closed beta players was clearly unbalanced, basically 8:1. That is, out of the three thousand players, the number of female players was only a little over three hundred, less than four hundred.

When distributed among several Newbie Villages, the number of female players in each Newbie Village was even smaller.

According to the proportion, the probability of female players being the first to reach level 10 and leave the Newbie Village was not high. He didn’t expect Yan Yunqing to actually encounter such a small probability event.

But it didn’t matter. The players Yan Yunqing needed were not limited to gender. He even wanted a player who was more meticulous and paid more attention to the plot than a seasoned male player.

This would make it easier for him to perfectly convey the information he wanted to reveal.

Lin saw the mysterious person turn sideways, with one side of the hood facing their direction. A voice without much emotional fluctuation sounded, “Secretly investigating me as soon as we met. What? Are you very curious about me?”

Nan Su was shocked. She never expected that the NPCs in the game could detect the players’ Detect skills and even ask questions to the players. The NPCs in this game were a little too intelligent. Could there be a real person playing them behind the scenes?

“That, sorry, we just saw you standing here alone and thought it was a little strange…” Lin explained for Nan Su, “We didn’t deliberately investigate you. We didn’t mean any harm.”

The mysterious person snorted lightly, “If you had malicious intentions, you wouldn’t be standing here now.”

Lin shrank her neck, feeling that this NPC was a bit fierce. Did that mean he would kill people if they didn’t agree with him?

The two of them felt a cool gaze fall on them, scanning them lightly. The mysterious person’s indifferent voice continued, “If you don’t have anything to do, then leave quickly. It’s very dangerous here. Little kids at level ten shouldn’t run around outside.”

After speaking, the mysterious person turned around and prepared to leave.

Nan Su couldn’t help but take a step forward, “Magister, did you come here for the village attacked by The monster?”

The mysterious person stopped, “Why do you care about this?”

The NPC actually responded!

Nan Su was overjoyed. It seemed that this mysterious NPC really had clues about this village. Perhaps this really was a hidden quest!

Nan Su grabbed Lin beside her, “We passed by this village a few days ago and found that all the people here had disappeared and the village had been abandoned. Someone told us that it was attacked by The monster, but we think the truth may be more than that.”

Nan Su used a versatile statement, attempting to get more information and clues from the mysterious NPC in front of her. Who knew the mysterious NPC would ask, “Oh? Then tell me what you’ve discovered.”

“Ah? Uh…” Nan Su stuttered, unable to speak clearly, “This…”

Yan Yunqing couldn’t help but laugh under the cover of the hood, without letting the two players notice.

Teasing players is really fun.

Fun. I’ll do it more in the future.

“Well, we discovered that although there are traces of beasts attacking everywhere in this village, no corpses were left behind.” Nan Su reviewed the strange points they had discovered while exploring the village in the chat channel, “Also, there’s too little blood.”

“Although there are traces of attacks everywhere, if an entire village died in the attack of The monster, there would be too little blood left here.”

After all, it was a village. Even if the population was small, there would still be at least dozens or hundreds of people. If so many people had all died in the The monster’s attack, at least every household would have a lot of blood. However, when they entered the village, they found that there were only a few places with more blood, only those few houses that had been crushed.

There was no obvious blood in other places, which was very illogical.

Yan Yunqing raised his eyebrows, a hint of surprise appearing between his eyebrows hidden under the hood.

He didn’t expect any players to observe so carefully, even observing the distribution of bloodstains.

There was no other reason. It was simply because the main battlefield was not in this village, but in the altar built under the village. When Isabel led her people, there weren’t many people guarding the village on the ground. They were easily dealt with by the Giant Dragon, followed by rushing into the underground altar, killing all the believers of the Eternal teach to the last one.

As for the corpses, they had already been cleaned up by the aftercare personnel, and the illusion of a The monsterattack was fabricated in the village, deceiving the Takuya City army that came to investigate the situation.

Isabel’s actions against the Eternal teach were not yet publicly displayed and were not suitable for outsiders to know. She was afraid that the black rats of the Eternal teach would lurk even deeper after they found out, so she always made it look like an accident after the extermination.

Of course, if people from the Eternal teach were willing to come and investigate, they would also discover that these accidents were not accidents. However, these people who came to investigate would be targeted by the Dragon Clan guarding here, tracking them down to find the next stronghold, and then repeating the previous method.

In short, this was fishing law enforcement.

This simple and crude method was particularly useful. Most of the strongholds wiped out by Isabel were found in this way.

He just didn’t expect it to be noticed by the players.

Yan Yunqing pondered for a while and said meaningfully, “You are quite clever.”

Nan Su’s eyes lit up. Lin, who was beside her, seemed to have noticed something as well and looked at the mysterious Yan Yunqing, who was covered in a magic robe, with an expectant gaze.

“Then can you tell me what exactly happened here?” Nan Su said, “Or if you have any tasks that need help, you can give them to us!”

The mask fell.

Weren’t they just looking for the hidden quest that might appear after talking to the NPC for so long?

“…Task? Heh, what can you do for me at your current level?” Yan Yunqing was very dedicated, always remembering his character’s design, “I can only tell you that this village didn’t die because of a The monsterattack.”

“They died from the backlash of their own greed.” Yan Yunqing said meaningfully, “If you covet something that doesn’t belong to you, you must be prepared to be backlashed by your own greed.”

Nan Su and Lin were both stunned, feeling that the mysterious person’s words had deep meaning. Then they heard the mysterious person continue to say.

“Just like you, being at level ten and daring to come here to explore secrets you shouldn’t know is also a kind of greed.”

“So, are you prepared to be backlashed by greed?”

This statement?

Nan Su and Lin immediately reacted. This was clearly the pre-quest dialogue.

“Of course!” This time it was Lin who spoke, saying a very cool sentence, “If we don’t even have the courage to explore the truth, why would we run here?”

Yan Yunqing almost choked. Strange, was this some kind of bizarre passionate anime scene?

Yan Yunqing pretended to examine the two players for a long time before opening his mouth, “Whatever, wanting to explore the truth is not an easy thing. When you are strong enough and understand what exactly happened in this village, come find me.”

[Do you want to issue a quest to [Lin] and [Nan Su]?]