Chapter 134: Ms. Lin Chen Approaches the Core of the Curse World [VIP]

The player followed the quest instructions and [teleported] to Asahi-cho, Fuchu City, Tokyo.

The scene before me was completely different from the bustling streets before. It was surrounded by layers of yellow police tape, creating a tense and oppressive atmosphere. Personnel in various uniforms—some from the professional-looking official response team, while others, including young men in police cadet uniforms, were stationed outside to maintain order and disperse the scattered onlookers.

The player scanned the crowd, accurately spotting a familiar-looking NPC. Was it the guy who had tearfully handed over his paycheck during the first quest? The player wasn't sure, but didn't care, simply walking over.

The moment the NPC saw the player, he immediately trotted over, his expression tense and respectful, his words stuttering a bit: "Player, Master Player! You, you're here! The situation is like this..."

He reported quickly and nervously: Every afternoon at 3:00 PM, people or sentient beings are randomly selected in this area and their speech is disrupted, their minds filled with uncontrollable anxiety and empty thoughts. Only writing can provide some relief, but what comes out is a meaningless gibberish.

Initially, they isolated the infected, but discovered that those who left the area would carry the disease with them, even affecting officials. Later, they discovered that only by returning infected individuals to the area would the disease prevent its indefinite spread. Instead, at 3 p.m. each day, the disease would only infect a limited number of new targets within the area (excluding those already infected).

There was no other option but to cordon off the area and evacuate most of the residents, leaving only the patients inside. Because the Metropolitan Police Academy was nearby and they were seriously short-staffed recently, after negotiation, they decided to have the academy's students, who hadn't yet graduated, take on some of the evacuation patrols.

The NPC finished speaking and bowed deeply: "Everything is up to you, Master Player!"

The player gave an OK sign and said casually, "Oh! Leave it to me then!"

She turned around and jumped up, ready to jump straight over the cordon and go in.

Just now, she and the NPC were talking in a relatively secluded corner, and the other staff around them did not hear clearly what they said.

At this moment, a little girl with white hair and red eyes was about to rush into the dangerous area. An official nearby immediately stopped her sternly: "Little sister! You can't go in here! It's very dangerous! Get out of here quickly and find your parents!"

The player stopped, tilted his head to look at him, then pulled out the [Special Advisor] badge from his pocket and thrust it directly in front of him: "I'm here to resolve this matter."

The surroundings fell silent for a moment. Several NPCs who had heard this were stunned, their faces filled with shock and disbelief, their minds clearly swirling with information.

"Won't you move out of the way?" Player 7 asked when he saw that the other party didn't respond, then he walked around him and continued walking forward.

"Are you kidding me..." A low exclamation came from behind, "That's still a child, right?!"

At this moment, a blond, dark-skinned, and extremely serious-looking police academy student quickly stepped forward and stopped the player again. His tone was serious but still polite: "Sorry, please wait a moment. We need to confirm your ID."

He pointed to the document in the player's hand.

The player patiently handed over his ID. The police academy students immediately gathered around to examine it carefully, nervously calling their superiors to verify. Soon, they received the order to pass, and their expressions became even more confused and uncertain.

But even so, looking at the player's small figure, they still couldn't feel at ease.

A police academy student with black curly hair and a somewhat sloppy look stroked his chin and analyzed in a calm and unfocused tone, "It seems that there have been various disasters all over the country recently. They're short on manpower, so even police academy students like us have been transferred here to help. According to the guys in the professional department, this area only gets infected a few times every day at 3 pm. The rest of the time is safe."

He paused, his eyes fixed on the player. "No matter what, I can't bear to see a seven or eight-year-old girl go into a place like that alone. So..."

"Hmm...that's true." Another unusually tall and calm man nodded. "Then I'll accompany her in. Everyone, continue patrolling in the meantime, and make sure no one else strays in."

"No, squad leader, you still have to stay and handle the handover work with other teams." Someone objected immediately.

While these police academy students were arguing with each other about who should accompany them, the player was already getting impatient.

She thought the NPCs were really slow, so she simply ignored them, stepped over the cordon, and walked into the eerily silent area.

As a result, the five police academy students looked at each other when they saw this.

He said, "It seems the people who are taking over the shift are coming soon..." "Stop arguing, let's go in together so we can take care of each other..."

The player glanced back at them, feeling confused:...huh?

——

The five police academy students who had just stepped into the dangerous area looked at each other and tacitly decided that the most socially gifted Kenji Hagiwara would communicate with the little girl who looked so weird.

Hagiwara gave a friendly smile and asked, "Follow me? Why are you here alone?"

He really couldn't connect the word "boss" with the little girl in front of him.

At first, the little girl just walked forward on her own, showing little interest in their questions, and her red eyes looked around as if she was looking for something.

But after Hagiwara asked the question, a few seconds later, she suddenly blinked and muttered softly, "There's a mission...?"

Then, as if he had just heard the question, he turned around and answered in a calm tone, "Because I'm strong, they begged me to come."

The little girl showed a proud expression.

"Oh, I see..." Although they said this, the five of them couldn't help but start to wonder if the little girl had some special abilities and was being tricked?

This made their expressions become solemn.

They were only urgently summoned three days ago and learned that there were various supernatural events and people with special abilities in this world.

Although they had vaguely heard rumors of "special abilities" in Yokohama before, the existence of sorcerers and other types of special abilities was a gateway to a new world for them. Officials had simply informed them of this without further explanation.

They just said that all the above information is confidential, and only if they join this department after graduation will they be allowed to know more details.

But they soon discovered that the little girl was unusually "easy to talk to".

She seemed to have no idea what confidentiality regulations were. She answered whatever was asked without any hesitation or concealment.

When Hagiwara asked tentatively: "Then...what exactly happened here? Do you know?"

The little girl shook her head very calmly: "I don't know. That's why I came to see."

Just as they finished speaking, they met a patient.

The man's eyes were numb and empty, his face full of fatigue and pain. His fingers were stained with blood and dirt, and he was frantically scratching meaningless characters on the wall and the ground with his nails, and he was mumbling intermittent, disturbing words.

Seeing that miserable appearance and hearing those frantic whispers, the five people couldn't help but feel a palpitation in their hearts. An inexplicable sense of nothingness and insignificance gripped them, as if they heard some indescribable call from the abyss...

Just as their minds were wavering, the little white-haired girl seemed completely unaffected. Without a word, she pulled out a few small bottles from somewhere and quickly poured a very strange-tasting potion into each of their mouths.

"Ahem! What is this? It tastes so bad!" Matsuda Jinpei was the first to complain, but the strange feeling of palpitations did quickly subside as he drank the potion.

The little girl picked up the empty bottle, looked at the label, and said uncertainly, "Angelica... Calamus water...?"

"You just let us drink it without even knowing what kind of medicine it is? That's too casual!" Although Matsuda Jinpei was still complaining, the five of them felt much better and thanked the little girl one after another.

Although the other party seemed to not care at all.

——

The player ignored the thanks and complaints from the NPCs; her attention was completely drawn to the system prompts.

[Insight] shows that this area is filled with energy fluctuations of strange objects, but this energy is very strange. It is dispersed into many, many tiny parts, as if it has cloned itself countless times and is parasitic in the depths of each patient's mind.

Players are starting to find this a bit tricky.

Things inside the head cannot be taken out directly by simple and crude means (such as craniotomy? Although players think it may be more efficient, the NPCs nearby will probably scream and make a lot of noise).

It seems we can only come one by one.

The player walks up to the nearest patient who is still scratching on the wall, opens his panel, and selects [Conquer].

Because it was a purely therapeutic act (so the player thought), and the patient was in a state of unconscious resistance, [Conquering] went smoothly.

After becoming the player's property, the patient's status bar will immediately appear on the player's system panel.

[Abnormal status: Speech disorder (caused by the strange item "Invalid Thought" code machine (self-clone))].

Players directly click the [Clear] button behind the status bar.

A glimmer of light flashed by, and the numbness and pain in the patient's eyes quickly faded away. He looked blankly at his bleeding fingers and the scratches on the wall, and collapsed to the ground.

At the same time, a small, transparent capsule-like object emerged from his forehead, and a pink brain-like substance was vaguely visible inside.

The player reaches out and catches it.

"Wow... this looks really disgusting." The curly-haired NPC following behind couldn't help but comment.

The player nodded silently in agreement. This strange object's design was indeed a bit embarrassing. The pink brain still seemed alive, pulsating slowly. If you stared at it closely, you could almost hear it muttering.

She stuffed the little capsule into the system backpack, and then followed the point on the map to accurately find the next patient.

The player does the same.

[Subdue] → [Clear Status] → [Recover Strange Object Clone].

The whole process is boring and repetitive. Players shuttle through the quiet streets like an assembly line worker, pulling patients out of the empty pain one by one, and collecting the disgusting pink brain capsule by the way.

I don’t know why, but unlike the old orange who was conquered by the director’s office before, the patients who were cured here, after regaining consciousness, looked at the players with eyes full of gratitude and a light that was almost worshipful, and automatically became the players’ [believers].

Huh? This is also a good way to develop believers...

Run through the entire area, treat all patients, and all recovered clones will be fused into a complete ["Invalid Thought" Code Machine] in the hands of the player.

The player threw it into his backpack, then nodded as a farewell to the five police cadets who had followed him all the way and whose expressions had changed from shock and numbness to a little bit of accustomedness.

The next second, the [Teleport] light came on, and she disappeared right in front of them.

The player originally planned to go directly to the technical high school to have a fight with Noise Monster Satoru and the others, and at the same time show off the disgusting gacha he had just collected.

But just as he was teleported to the high-tech entrance, he was stopped by an NPC who was waiting there. He was wearing a traditional kimono and had a respectful but fearful expression on his face.

The NPC handed over a sealed scroll and said humbly, "Player-sama, this is something a few masters have asked me to pass on to you. They've recently discussed sending Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, and Ieiri Shoko to the depths of Mount Yatsugatake to retrieve a special-grade cursed item, the Winter Worm Bane."

The player opened the scroll and took a look. It described the characteristics of the cursed object in detail: that thing was like real Cordyceps sinensis, with its roots buried deep in the spiritual veins of the mountains, making it extremely difficult to completely remove.

The General Directorate speculated: With Guai Liu Hai's cautious and kind character, he would definitely be worried that if he only recovered the cursed object without dealing with the deeply buried roots, it would cause long-term pollution and impact on the land. The nearby residents would definitely suffer, and the subsequent handling would be very troublesome.

The scroll also mentioned that the roots left behind would continue to breed cursed spirits, with any cursed spirits born being at least as dangerous as special-grade ones. They also instructed the three to eliminate the cursed spirits before they could emerge. Coming up with a method that would achieve both goals would undoubtedly take a considerable amount of time and effort, and would at least delay the three for three days.

Finally, the scroll also comes with a small magic tool that looks like a bell, with instructions for use attached: Shaking the bell can temporarily affect the mind of the designated target, making it easier to be angered or controlled.

The NPC delivering the scroll couldn't hide his subtle thoughts; his expression was clearly saying: Take this opportunity to cause trouble for them! Fight! Fight!

The player put away the scroll and the bell charm, his face expressionless, but he felt a little amused. This old fox, his intention to hand over the knife was too obvious.

But... this information was indeed somewhat useful. Three days? It would be convenient for her to do something else. As for the bell? The player casually tossed it into the corner of her backpack. She was too lazy to use such a low-level control item.

She casually waved her hand at the NPC, indicating that she understood. The NPC, as if granted amnesty, immediately bowed and retreated, disappearing into the shadows.

The player stood at the entrance of the high-level specialist, looked at the information in his hand, looked at the quiet high-level specialist, and happily decided to have a good discussion with the three people.