Chapter 52 They are saving our world...

Including Song Rushuang, the students have always regarded the various dungeons in the simulated combat pod as game dungeons.

They assumed it was fictional and unreal, so although rationally they treated it as the real world for the sake of practice, diligently completing each world and saving every inhabitant, emotionally they always regarded it as a false story, a series of special practice scenarios deliberately created by the school to help them adapt to the post-apocalyptic environment in advance.

In these instances, they always maintained a superior perspective, observing and judging the NPCs' painful struggles.

In game after game, they watched the characters repeat the same story over and over again, only to have different endings each time due to their choices.

This inevitably gives people the feeling that God controls fate.

They would discuss on the forum which adventure was more exciting, which NPC was unforgettable, and also complain about some troublesome NPCs that delayed their completion time.

Cute and kind NPCs will receive gentler treatment, while troublesome and annoying NPCs will be avoided with a hint of apology.

This is perfectly understandable.

Because in the simulated combat pod, they are the players, they are the Fourth Calamity.

This is a game, their practice ground.

But what if that's not the case?

...

Song Rushuang was still in a daze when she entered the instance.

The people in the lobby were so shocked by the news that they forgot to form a team and just randomly picked a familiar dungeon to enter by herself.

This was Song Rushuang's fourth time playing this dungeon. Because the background setting was similar to the neighborhood where she lived, she felt that she would need it someday and had been practicing it intentionally.

The instance scene is somewhat similar to instance 004, only the timeline is different. The zombie horde has broken out here, causing a serious chain-reaction car accident on the highway. The "protagonist's" vehicle is stuck in the middle, and she needs to get rid of the rioting crowd, escape the congested road, and safely return to the neighborhood a street away.

Having played the same instance so many times, Song Rushuang had already developed muscle memory for it.

She instinctively navigated two potentially dangerous "plot points" in a daze, escaped from the crushed and deformed car, and ran a long distance forward.

Not far away, zombies climbed onto the roof of a car, using their hands and feet to scramble between the vehicles that had collided in a chain reaction. They pressed their cheeks against the sunroof and looked down at the people trapped inside, creating a bizarre and eerie scene.

Screams filled the air, flames soared into the sky, and billowing black smoke rose everywhere. Those who fell behind ran forward like madmen, and people were constantly being tackled and devoured. In the chaotic scene, only Song Rushuang, the player, stood out from the crowd, staring at the hellish world with an unreal, detached gaze.

Did all of this actually happen?

Is this a real world that is no different from the world she lives in?

Song Ru's hands and feet were stiff, her mind and senses overloaded, turning into a blurry cacophony.

She was awakened by a loud cry.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Song Rushuang looked in the direction of the sound as if waking from a dream.

A car was stopped in the middle of the road, blocked by vehicles in front, behind, and to the sides. Inside the car was a little girl, about four or five years old, her face streaked with tears, desperately pounding on the glass with her little hands: "Mommy!"

Her mother sat motionless in the driver's seat, her body secured by the seatbelt, her head tilted to the side, blood flowing from her mouth and nose. She had already lost her life in the car accident, while the little girl in the car seat was lucky enough to escape unharmed.

However, if left unchecked, she would be overwhelmed by a horde of zombies within minutes. The ultimate fate would be either infection or starvation.

This is a "fixed plot": the protagonist must pass by the car where the little girl is to get home.

The first time Song Rushuang played this dungeon, she tried to save the little girl, but the car doors were all deformed and twisted, and she had to break the window to rescue the little girl. When the protagonist woke up, she did not have any suitable tools. She tried several times, but gave up because the zombies were approaching too fast.

Each time after that, she would try to pass through this place as quickly as possible, as if covering her ears would allow her to pretend she couldn't hear the girl's desperate cries.

But this time, Song Rushuang stopped in her tracks by a twist of fate.

The little girl's cries, carried by the wind, entered the ears more clearly than ever before.

Song Rushuang's heart pounded violently, and she turned her head away.

Forty meters behind, there was a bus that had stopped and was turned off. There must have been tools for breaking windows on the bus.

The car windows were covered in bloody handprints, and there were figures moving inside—they might be zombies. Even if the car was safe, retreating forty meters meant actively approaching the horde of zombies. Add to that the time spent searching for tools and breaking windows to rescue people, and her chances of escape would be greatly reduced.

but……

"To hell with it!" Song Rushuang cursed.

Without hesitation, she turned and ran toward the bus.

Two minutes later, Song Ru ran back, her face covered in blood, clutching a red safety hammer in both hands.

She broke the window, reached into the car, opened the door, unbuckled the little girl's seatbelt, and hoisted her still struggling and crying onto her shoulder. Looking at the horde of corpses so close at hand, Song Rushuang gritted her teeth and ran towards the residential area as fast as she could.

When she finally cleared the level, her clothes were soaked with sweat, and she looked utterly disheveled.

Song Rushuang looked at the settlement panel that popped up in front of her, panting heavily.

Because of the addition of a little girl, the completion time was delayed by a full eleven minutes. The additional task of collecting supplies along the way was also not completed, resulting in a lower rating and only a B-, which was even worse than her score on her first playthrough.

All the data looked terrible, except that when the details list was expanded, the number in the "Number of people rescued" column quietly jumped from zero to one.

It is not included in the evaluation criteria for this copy, does not affect the rating, and will not give extra points. In the past, Song Rushuang would have considered this data as insignificant as other omitted data.

But now, she doesn't think that way anymore.

That extra person is very important.

The aching heaviness in her shoulders from the little girl's weight was quickly fading as the dungeon ended. Song Rushuang stretched, then suddenly stopped, lowered her head, and involuntarily murmured, "I wonder if, in the real world, someone like 'me' who passed by stopped to save her..."

The voice grew softer and softer until it was almost silent.

Because she realized that, regardless of whether the girl was saved or not, within five years, she would become a walking corpse or a handful of ashes in the vast yellow earth, just like all the people screaming, crying and struggling to survive on that highway.

*

When Song Rushuang left the combat pod, she hadn't yet sorted out her feelings.

On her way back to the dormitory, she remembered to turn on her student watch and take a look at the forum.

The forum has indeed exploded.

The homepage kept changing, with new posts popping up one after another, all revolving around topics such as the simulated combat pod dungeon and Teacher Lu's identity.

[I'm confused, how could a dungeon be based on something that actually happened?]

No, if both Teacher Lu and the copy are real, then this is not something that "actually happened," but something that is about to happen.

The instances depict a future that has not yet occurred.

[So...the principal and teachers all traveled back from the future?]

The students were shocked to learn of this devastating news and found it hard to accept.

Actually, the idea of ​​a "time traveler" is not uncommon.

Even after the opening speech, some people questioned why Fu Qing was able to accurately predict future events.

The high-tech features like full-scale simulation and holographic watches clearly surpassed the technological level of their era. Coupled with the mysterious restriction of "not being able to reveal doomsday information to outsiders," they inexplicably chose Fangzhou University when filling out their college application... All these unbelievable things can only be explained as a dream if they are not a time traveler or a novel protagonist with a system.

However, the principal never gave an answer, and these speculations remained at the hypothetical stage, becoming increasingly shrouded in a magical aura in each private discussion.

Of course, some people think that time travel and prophecy are too much like fictional plots. They try to find a scientific and reasonable explanation for all of this, such as the principal being a secret agent sent by the government to secretly prepare for the apocalypse, which is why he was able to obtain those high-tech technologies that had not yet entered the market.

As for why they were chosen as a group of students, it may be because the principal is not the only one with a similar mission, and schools similar to Fangzhou may have already appeared all over China.

Students were chosen because they have simple social relationships and are less likely to leak information to foreign forces.

—The apocalypse is very likely the work of countries A, B, and C. The entire speculation about the apocalypse timeline is not a prophecy, but rather a prediction derived from accurate information obtained by intelligence personnel and analyzed by technical personnel.

As for restrictions on not being able to disclose information, that may be influenced by subconscious factors, and that's up to individual interpretation.

Human instinct rejects anything absurd or illogical, and this conjecture, being closer to reality, gained a following. Until now, the younger version of Teacher Lu appearing in Xiao Juan's story has completely shattered this conjecture.

Guessing that someone has traveled through time is completely different from confirming that there are actually time travelers around you.

Knowing that the end of the world will happen and discovering that someone around you has already experienced the end of the world are two different things.

The students are going crazy.

Amid the chaos, many people tried to analyze and sort through the amount of information surrounding the explosion.

[Calm down, everyone. From the dialogue between the main characters' teammates in Xiao Juan's instance, we know that the instance takes place about six months after the virus outbreak, near the end of winter. And Teacher Lu in the instance looks much younger than he does now—I don't think anyone would disagree with that, right?]

In terms of appearance alone, apart from his hairstyle, Lu Yan's looks haven't changed much.

The change is more in temperament.

[Let's assume for now that there's at least a three-year time gap between Teacher Lu and Lu Yan in the alternate universe. However, in reality, the alternate universe's storyline takes place a little over a year into the future, around February 2031.]

[Could we speculate that after the storyline of the alternate universe ended, "Lu Yan" survived in the apocalypse for about three more years before dying and returning to our timeline, becoming "Teacher Lu" at Fangzhou University?]

The post's analysis was immediately met with agreement.

[Indeed, everything makes sense now... including what the principal said about all humanity dying five years after the apocalypse. Teacher Lu didn't survive more than five years...]

[Damn, I'm getting goosebumps!]

[Can the teachers see this forum? Is it inappropriate to make such random guesses?]

[In response to the comment above, the principal has never stopped us from speculating, and he is certainly aware of the contents of the replica in the simulation pod. I think there's no need to worry about this issue for now.]

Soon, someone else raised objections.

I don't think this is time travel for two reasons. First, Teacher Lu's appearance has changed, which means that if it is time travel, it is "body travel" rather than "soul travel". It means that Teacher Lu, who survived the apocalypse a few years later, has returned to the present timeline. So, where did the young Teacher Lu in the present timeline go?

Secondly, the content of the instance is not exactly the same as our world. I don't know if anyone has played instance 036, but although the location of XX City is censored, it almost overlaps with the map of City B, which I visited during my summer vacation this year. The street names are also exactly the same, so I'll assume it's the same city for now.

However, the famous century-old shop in XX city mentioned by a random character in the instance does not exist in City B, which I visited during my trip this year.

Two minutes later, the original poster reappeared, replied to their own post, and reiterated:

To prevent any memory lapses, I checked the map again. Sure enough, I had hidden in that shop with those other people in the instance for a while. Someone had said it was a famous shop to visit, but unfortunately, the owners had turned into zombies and their skills were about to be lost. However, when I searched for the shop on the B City map, I couldn't find any information about it.

If someone has booked a simulated combat pod soon, they can also choose instance 036 to verify it.

In short, time travel is a jump within the same timeline, but I believe that the world the teachers once lived in may just be a parallel world to our world, an extremely similar parallel world.

Even in terms of time, it is connected to our world.

The apocalypse has come to that world, and humanity is heading towards extinction, but our world is not yet. Everything the principal and teachers are doing is saving our world.