Out of tune (1)
The combat simulation is very realistic. From the moment Shu Ningmiao put on the helmet until now, she has not felt the reality of being in the "data".
Even if you tell yourself that this place isn't real, the food you eat has a taste, you feel pain when you're injured, and you can feel the temperature when you're touched. So, what's the difference between this place and reality?
She's only now realizing the difference.
After all her strength was depleted, her body felt like it didn't belong to her at all. Not only could she not move her fingers, but even lifting her eyelids was incredibly difficult.
Shu Ningmiao's eyes were half-closed as she watched the man laugh like a child, grabbing her hair and twirling his fingertips around her strands.
"We meet again," he said.
Her image was reflected in his eyes; apart from her slightly open eyes, she was as stiff as a corpse.
She felt as if she had been drawn into another world by his eyes.
The surroundings are changing.
The environment is constantly deteriorating.
The flames were swallowed by the reversal of time, the black soil beneath them turned into a normal brown, and the vast sea was laid out before them, calm and serene.
The salty sea breeze carried the smell of damp sand, and suddenly, densely packed houses appeared all around them, placing them amidst a surging, overwhelming crowd.
Shu Ningmiao tried to catch a glimpse of the people coming and going out of the corner of her eye. Men, women, and children were all wearing clothes that were very common in Pingyi City, and their ordinary conversations reached her ears.
"Do you know what they're building over there? It's been going on for ages, and there's still a protective wall around it."
"It seems to be some kind of research base set up by Pinheit, it has nothing to do with us."
“I heard that Pines only builds these things where there is Pandora. We don’t have any Pandora here for them to study.”
The speaker patted the belly of the fish in his hand heavily: "In this lousy place, they can only study the fish in the sea. They'll be forced to leave in a few days. Want some? It was just caught this morning, ten pounds, and it's plump."
"We can't finish it—it's been a year or two and it's still not finished. It's noisy every day, and they close off the area all the time. I'm even thinking of moving to the island..."
"No, no..." The man frowned, blinked, and said to her lightly, "Sorry, the data was too large, I made a mistake. You high-tech people are such a hassle."
The surroundings suddenly changed, and Shu Ningmiao watched in disbelief as the once calm sky turned into another color, inexplicably red.
She struggled to turn her eyes and discovered that the color was a reddish-purple tinged by the flames burning on the ground.
The once bright and clean buildings are now filled with smoke that rises into the sky. Buildings are collapsing in the fire, and a terrible black slime is spreading across the ground... Everywhere, there is a disgusting liquid like silt. The black liquid meanders along the soil, gradually swallowing up all the land and turning it into a shallow black river.
Just as her body was about to be covered in filth, the man's effeminate face suddenly smiled, and as if he were manipulating a finely crafted doll, he pulled her up.
His hands supported her back like a puppet's frame, and then he placed her hands on his shoulders, striking a beautiful pose.
Shu Ningmiao's hair was black and soft, hanging down, and her skin was even whiter than a doll's. Her eyes looked at him quietly, revealing a hint of angry resistance, but she couldn't utter a sound.
The man chuckled as he took her hand, gently put his arm around her waist, and led her to leap and bound through the black filth, dancing and spinning amidst the swirling flames.
—That madman!
Neuropathy!
Shu Ningmiao really wanted to bite off her own tongue and leave, but she didn't even have the strength to open her mouth.
Calm down, calm down, think carefully about what other ways there are to change the current situation...
His dark red hair flew wildly in the heat of the flames, and he stared intently at him. Even though there was only the booming sound of burning around him, he seemed to be following the rhythm and beat of the drum, his gait graceful and light.
"These are all things that Pandora brought."
The phantoms danced in the flames, embracing each other, with only his whispered voice.
"Disaster, torment, disease, war..."
They were stepping into the black liquid, and the wet, sticky sensation under their feet and the man's scent in front of them made her scalp tingle more.
"The place where you live is nothing but a utopia built upon all of this."
He suddenly moved closer, his eerie face magnified before her eyes: "Pandora is used as fuel for the development of all walks of life, and countless amounts are consumed every year. Aren't you curious about where the waste goes after it's been used up?"
Shu Ningmiao looked at him coldly.
“Pandora is not water, it doesn’t evaporate. Look, all this filth beneath our feet is the very Pandora you worship—the most sacred Pandora.”
"These things will corrupt one's soul."
"If humanity continues to rely on Pandora, it will eventually perish, and those with superpowers will be the biggest accomplices in pushing it to its doom."
He spun her around, his laughter both innocent and cruel. Flames floated on the black liquid, spreading to them. Shu Ningmiao's skin was burning painfully, but he seemed oblivious.
"Aren't you going to say something?" He seemed to find the monologue a bit boring: "Oh, I remember now, you can't speak."
A window popped up in front of Shu Ningmiao.
『Data modified: Stamina recovery (head only)』
It seems this person isn't as mentally unstable as she appears; after regaining her stamina, she even knows the designated location.
Indeed, if he were truly a madman with no sense of order, it would be impossible for him to break through all the barriers and appear out of thin air in Pinheis's safest place.
Although they don't know what's happening outside, the fact that they've been trapped in the system for so long without any movement means that something is wrong outside as well.
She had to save herself, but the system's data had been modified, and she couldn't even move. Was this really a dead end?
No, there are still things that haven't been modified.
Task rewards.
Her eyes flickered, and she brought up a window.
Trigger Quest (Hidden) - Find Items
Event: Alan, the daughter of a snack shop owner, asks you to find her lost toy outside the security wall.
Category: ? ? ?
Difficulty: None
Condition: Find the wind-up duck (Current progress: Found)
Time limit: None
Rewards: 6 credits (hidden), Alan's favorability x50, instant exit x1
Failure penalty: None
The unexpected reward she had never paid attention to before, besides academic credits, included an "instant exit" feature.
This reward, which initially seemed utterly useless, has now become her only savior.
The man asked her, "Do you want to save the world?"
Shu Ningmiao opened her mouth and found that she could make a sound. Whether her lips opened and closed or her eyes opened and closed, it was no different from usual. However, she still had no feeling below her neck, as if her whole body was only a head, which felt even stranger.
"What do you want to do?" she tried to get more information out of him.
"Everything we do is for the ultimate goal of 'relieving suffering and eliminating disaster'."
He bowed and reached out, and the flames seemed to recede as he moved, while other phantoms kept appearing around him: "Only by stopping the mining of Pandora will this world return to normal."
Countless unseen faces knelt beside them, writhing in agony, vomiting large spurts of black liquid before slowly collapsing to the ground.
He said, "If one day your family member becomes one of these people, can you still be as calm as you are now?"
“Pinnie must change the current situation of relying on Pandora and on superhumans.” He slowly and sincerely tempted her: “Let natural humans dominate this world.”
"Join us and become our 'prophet'."
His fingers ran through her hair as he lowered his head slightly closer to her, his fingertips carrying a wild, pungent smell: "I can feel it... you can see the future."
Shu Ningmiao's pupils constricted instantly, and she almost forgot to breathe for a moment.
Every nerve in her brain was on edge, signaling her vigilance. Only one thought remained in her mind—this person was dangerous.
What exactly does he mean by "seeing the future"?
Did she know about the game's content?
How did he know?
Is her "death" related to this organization?
After learning about the game's content, a tremendous sense of threat enveloped her once again.
Shu Ningmiao's teeth chattered as she mustered all her strength, but her fingers still wouldn't move an inch. Damn it, if only she had a little more strength... she would pay any price for just a little more.
Beyond anger, what other emotions were surging through her mind? Her ears were ringing with alarming warnings of danger. Never before had she wanted someone to disappear so much.
She wanted to raise her hand.
She wanted power.
'Data error'
Data is linked
The window of the actual combat system in front of me was suddenly replaced by a more familiar window with decorative borders and reliefs.
Pop-up windows kept refreshing in front of her.
Update Status [Jealousy]: Currently stealing the ability 'Light'.
[Update Status [Greed]: Sacrifice a portion of perception, abilities, or status to concentrate them in a designated area]
"What's the difference?" Shu Ningmiao suddenly asked.
"What?" he asked curiously, leaning down.
"I don't know if what you're saying is true or false." Shu Ningmiao leaned back in disgust. "If everything you've done is really as great as you say, then who have you saved now?"
Do you know how many people were on the overpass you blew up?
"Without the deaths of these people, how could the Pieters government be afraid? Only a threat of panic large enough can make people realize the seriousness of the situation, and that sacrifice is inevitable."
The man remained unmoved; instead, his smile grew even wider: "Prometheus has been developing in Pine for over a hundred years, using many gentle methods, but he has failed to change anything. Ugly desires have no history, and those of us beneath them have no trace of existence."
"But today, I will let all of Pines know the name of Prometheus."
Shu Ningmiao interrupted him: "Then what's your name?"
He tilted his head, gave her a flippant kiss, and readily revealed his name: "Achini."
“Okay,” Shu Ningmiao said softly, “Achini.”
A series of pop-up windows appeared before her eyes.
"Visual perception has been sacrificed in exchange for increased strength in the limbs."
"Hearing perception has been sacrificed in exchange for increased strength in the limbs."
"I have sacrificed my sense of smell in exchange for increased strength in my limbs."
...
[Stamina (head)] has been sacrificed, but the strength of the limbs has been increased.
"[Rage] state activated, power doubled!"
Shu Ningmiao clenched her fists at her sides and suddenly slammed them towards the man's face. Achini seemed not to have expected her to move and was grabbed by the neck and pressed down on her.
Startled, he still smiled and nonchalantly tried to continue modifying the data, but the window in front of him clearly displayed—
"Insufficient permissions, data cannot be modified."
Shu Ningmiao completely abandoned her five senses, becoming unable to see or hear. So, before she completely lost sight, she grabbed Achini's neck to help locate him.
She held nothing back, throwing a punch that splattered Achini's blood onto her hand. Shu Ningmiao couldn't hear his suppressed breathing; she could only feel the warm, wet liquid on her hand. Unlike the sticky Pandora waste, she knew it was blood.
Archini's bones were dislocated from the force of her brute force as she pressed him into the filthy black mud. A string of bright red droplets flowed from his nose and mouth. His excited smile looked bizarre and crazy. He didn't care about his crisply broken bones: "Do you think I'm the only one who came in here? Even if you kill me... it won't change anything. It's just data."
He struggled to grasp her hand, blood gushing from his mouth: "We mean no harm, we just want to help you see the truth of this world."
Since she had chosen to sacrifice her hearing, she didn't care at all what Achini would say, but she could probably guess what he would say.
"Whatever you want to do."
Her hand slowly tightened, feeling the man's pulse gradually lose its vitality in her grasp. She spoke softly, "I've remembered your name, Achini."
The future she knows must never be seen by another person; her destiny must never be threatened by a second person.
"We'll see in reality."
Shu Ningmiao released his hand, letting his corpse turn into data and disappear into thin air. Before the next Prometheus member appeared, she spoke up about the only available mission reward.
"I want to use 'Quick Exit'."
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