The Uncanny Valley Traveling Guide - Ch 11

Song of Despair (11)

[Your HP has dropped to 82%… 75%… 64%…]

[Your stamina has dropped to 86%… 72%… 61%…]

The monster’s body slanted sideways and bounced back to the ground like a recoiled bullet, blasting a patch of sand and gravel. Wen Zheliu and He Qin used the crossed steel knives as a barrier to block it. Their stomachs and whole bodies were tense. Their military boots plowed several meters deep into the ground, causing the soil on both sides to churn up. It was hard to defend a group of players!

This inhuman creature’s huge body was close at hand; even every trace of the sticky muscle texture was clearly visible, bringing the rotten stench to their faces. Wen Zheliu’s eyes darkened. A strong, bloody taste was rolling at the back of his throat. At this moment, his health and stamina were dropping rapidly, and the back of his knife was also continuously issuing a shaky and trembling sound. The monster roared furiously. Its bloody tongue, like a steel whip, shattered the harpoon thrown by Mu Tuo into several pieces.

“Withdraw the knife!” He Qin roared. His finger that clamped onto the handle of the knife had been grazed, and blood spilled all over his palm.

Wen Zheliu heard a chilling sound of wind in his ears. He didn’t have enough time to retract his knife, and was whipped by the bloody long tongue into a tree trunk on one side, causing him to spurt a mouthful of blood. At this time, the players at the rear had also been evacuated. He Qin quickly pulled away, changed his edge just before the knife was broken, and cut open the tendons on the monster’s huge arm, causing it to roar and rush to the open space in front.

“Run, run!” Wen Zheliu suppressed his pain and shouted. The blow just now was too severe; it was too difficult for the current him, who’s still at low-level, to withstand. Now his HP is only 7% left, and his stamina has bottomed out. He was staring at the monster’s every move, his mind racing, trying to come up with a solution.

What’s the purpose of the system, or perhaps the plot, to arrange for such a powerful boss to attack them before the main quest begins? At present, the players’ level is low and the equipment is bad. How can they beat this powerful monster? Is it trying to end them here?

It’s useless to do anything now. The eleven players were running in the opposite direction of He Qin. At the end of the path, the monster also howled and turned around again, rushing towards the couple, who fled with their heads in their arms. He Qin’s eyes were cold, like stars shining on a chilly night. The long sword already had a faint crack. Very soon, he leaped up, stomped on the tree, and spun around. The knife was as cold and precise as electricity, aiming at the back of the monster’s neck!

“Ge!” Wen Zheliu was startled and tried to get up from the ground. His blood bar flickered, emitting a dangerous red light, “Be careful!”

The rushing monster didn’t have time to stop, and was shocked by the huge killing intent that suddenly erupted from He Qin. At that moment, its knotted muscles were firmly bent like a solid wall and actually shattered He Qin’s slashing knife!

He Qin’s brows twitched. He decisively threw the knife away and tried to escape. However, the monster that had been irritated by him over and over again would not let him go like this. The huge deformed and twisted claw grabbed down at his chest and fiercely slammed him on the ground, causing a burst of flying dust.

He Qin grunted as warm blood uncontrollably gushed out of his lips and teeth. Wen Zheliu’s eyes turned red. At this moment, his anger overcame the fear of facing death, and he roared abruptly: “You fucking seek death! Let him go!“

The bloody tongue ejected by the monster and Wen Zheliu’s furious blade flashed almost at the same time. The front half of the knife was suddenly smashed into two pieces by the tongue and flew backward, grazing his cheek. Wen Zheliu didn’t dodge it. He continued to hold the remaining half of the knife and stabbed it straight into the forearm that was holding He Qin. Black blood splattered, and the monster also loosened its claws and roared in pain.

In an instant, Wen Zheliu’s palm seemed to feel a strange touch. In addition to the sound of broken muscles, he seemed to have cut something metallic.

However, at the same time when the monster was restrained by them, another monster howled, and Lin Fangfei’s frantic scream came from afar.

Wen Zheliu coughed up a mouthful of blood. At present, he and He Qin were like these broken knives, completely powerless.

…will they die here?

Mu Tuo’s anguished roar, Zhou Qing’s frightened shout, and the crowd’s cries and clamor seemed to have left him. Only the woman’s dying scream and the man’s miserable cries for mercy gradually became clear enough to make one’s teeth and legs tremble. After forcing the monster to loosen its claw, his last stamina was completely drained. Wen Zheliu’s eyes became bloodshot and his body felt like it weighed more than 1,000 kilograms. He could no longer support himself and fell heavily beside He Qin.

He Qin tried his best to hold onto his wrist. Wen Zheliu could hear the sound of inhalation blocked by blood in his throat and felt the irregular ups and downs of his chest, but he couldn’t lift a finger or move. In the chaotic darkness, another heavy body was pressed down on him.

—It was He Qin. He turned over with his last strength to block Wen Zheliu.

However, at this critical moment, the monster was slow to attack.

Its distant companion howled like a summons. Even though it really wanted to kill these two daring and powerful humans, it lingered a few steps unwillingly and gave a sullen roar. Its sticky, fishy saliva landed on He Qin’s back, and then it turned and rushed into the dense forest.

The movement in the forest gradually faded away, and there was silence in Wen Zheliu’s ears except for the sound of clothes being corroded, He Qin’s low breathing, and the sound of him coughing from the blood stasis.

“…Ge.” He whispered with his eyes half closed.

“What’s wrong?” He Qin’s voice was tinged with laughter. After gradually getting away from the dangerous situation of the battle, he restrained the icy sharpness and changed back to the carefree and slovenly He Qin, whose Wen Zheliu was familiar with.

“You…” Wen Zheliu couldn’t bear it any longer, “Get up quickly… You are so heavy, you are going to crush me…“

He Qin was stunned for a moment, then laughed out loud. Halfway through his laugh, he was choked by the blood in his throat, so he fell on Wen Zheliu and coughed violently.

Mu Tuo, Zhou Qing, Du Zijun, and the others who rushed over from behind hesitated for a moment. Zhou Yao pushed aside his bloodied lens and asked tentatively, “Um, sorry, are we…disturbing you guys?”

Wen Zhe Liu: “…..“

Wen Zheliu became irritated and used the 1% of his newly restored stamina to push He Qin: “Get up quickly! I’m going to be angry!“

He Qin rolled off of him with a smile, and the corner of his eye suddenly caught something. He stood up slowly and calmly, picked up the broken knife on the ground and threw it into the grass, then turned to lift up Wen Zheliu’s arm and wrap it around his own shoulders.

“Can you still walk? If you can’t, your ge will carry you.” His tone was serious, with thin lips whispering next to Wen Zheliu’s ear.

Wen Zheliu’s face heated up. He Qin’s voice was gentle and low, and even the tip of his ear was flushed. He was about to speak when he felt a heavy load in his pocket. He Qin’s given him something.

He was stunned, but he pretended to be relaxed and said, “No, I’ll just walk slowly.”

Right now, the two of them can be said to be the great heroes in repelling the monster, and the rest of the players naturally have no objection to Wen Zheliu’s request. Mu Tuo walked beside He Qin and said in a tone of unconcealed surprise: “Little brother Wen Di, I thought you were just a novice player before, but I never thought you and your brother were such powerful figures!”

He Qin smiled slightly and said, “It’s true that we are both newcomers, but for family reasons, we just randomly learned how to use cold weapons.”

Wen Zheliu couldn’t help but complain in his heart. What are the others learning if the third-in-line heir to N-Star Company learned only “random skills”?

“It’s just…” He suddenly thought of something and said, “We don’t know why the monster suddenly left.”

Mu Tuo was silent for a moment. Du Zijun no longer looked at them with vigilance in her eyes, but a hint of respect. She didn’t get to finish her cigarette when she was knocked out in the battle just now. At this moment, she was holding a straw in her mouth and skillfully twisting it between her lips.

“I can more or less guess why.” She said lightly, and the straw swayed with the movements of her words but didn’t fall down. “When you get there, you’ll know.”

Wen Zheliu and He Qin both smelled an increasingly rich, bloody stench. The players walking in front also slowly stopped. Xiong Lin turned to look at them, his eyes showing some hesitation: “You guys… take a look.”

Wen Zheliu’s pupils instantly shrink. He Qin stretched out his palm and gently covered his nose to block the disgusting smell that came to his face.

He previously thought that although he didn’t know why Lu Hai and Lin Fangfei would become targets, when the second monster suddenly appeared and blocked in front of the remaining players, they might have faced a dead end, but he could not imagine how they would actually die….. so miserably.

There was only half of the body remaining on the ground in front of him. Lu Hai’s body was crooked on the ground in a twisted posture, as if he had been roughly thrown to death by a huge force. His eye sockets were completely empty, and his broken eyeballs hung stiffly on his tragic white face, like tears composed of two balls of flesh and blood. His scarlet eye sockets were pitch-black and empty as he stared ahead. The top of his skull had been cut off, like a half-empty ladle with nothing left inside.

“At that time, everyone was in a hurry to escape, but I didn’t expect that another monster would suddenly jump out…” This player is named Ke Wenyan. His former full-time occupation was as a musician. He turned his eyes to the side, his expression distorted due to excessive fear, “His girlfriend was caught first. He rushed to save her, and then he was…”

He took a deep breath and said nothing more.

“Then the monster snapped his skull and scraped away his brain with its tongue.” Du Zijun spat out the straw. Her tone was calm to the point of coldness, “The monster’s target should only be them. As for his girlfriend, she’s over there. “

She raised her chin and directed Wen Zheliu and He Qin to look at the half corpse on the other side. It could be seen that Lin Fangfei was killed by some kind of huge force that ripped her in half at once. The ground was full of spilled blood and smashed internal organs. The monster only took away the upper half of her body, and the lower half was generously left here to accompany her boyfriend.

Wen Zheliu only took a cursory glance, and his mental value plummeted by 8%. He couldn’t take it any longer. Like the rest, he couldn’t bear to turn his head to the side.

In the silence, He Qin suddenly said, “It’s coming.”

Coming? What’s coming?

Before everyone could react, they suddenly heard the system’s prompt.

Hearing this illusory female voice after a thrilling and fierce battle made everyone feel as if they were from another world.

[Congratulations, player! You have met the requirements to begin the game mode!]

[There are currently only two modes:

(1) Escape Mode: If all players complete the first round of the main quest without any causalities, the escape mode will be activated. In this mode, for each player lost, the total number of rewards will be reduced by a certain percentage, and the game difficulty will be increased by a certain percentage.

Note: There is no upper limit on the increased ratio of game difficulty.

(2) Survival Mode: If any player is lost before all players complete the first round of the main quest, the survival mode will be activated. In this mode, each time a player is lost, the total number of rewards will be increased by a certain percentage, and the game difficulty will be reduced by a certain percentage.

Note: The difficulty reduction ratio of the game cannot exceed 60% of the original difficulty.]

[Dear players, please consciously check the situation]

[I wish you a pleasant journey]

Everyone could not hide their shock as they digested this prompt. After a while, Mu Tuo said, “…So, we have now started the second survival mode?“

Wen Zheliu frowned, always feeling that something was wrong. He whispered to He Qin, “This is a bit like how we play in Survival World.”

“Yes.” He Qin nodded, “It’s a bit similar, but that one is an active choice, this one is a passive trigger.”

“Then have they…” Zhou Qing’s voice trembled slightly, “already become vegetative in the real world, and will never be able to wake up for the rest of their lives?”

Zhou Yao sighed, took her by the shoulders and said, “Let’s go. Go to the cottage to find a place to rest first. Let’s talk about other things after we finish the first round of the main quest.“

Several players pushed the bodies of Lu Hai and Lin Fangfei into the jungle, lest the smell of blood and the remains of their bodies attract more troublesome things. Mu Tuo handed a wooden stick and a crowbar to the two of them, saying, “Your knives are gone, so if you don’t mind, use this for now.”

Although these are the items left by the dead, what’s there to mind now? Wen Zheliu brought them over and thanked Mu Tuo. Zhou Qing turned to the side and said, with her lips curled, “Lin Fangfei didn’t think it was good enough and threw it away. Now well, even her life is lost.“

Wen Zheliu’s heart jolted, and he had a vague guess. He smiled and said, “Then everyone, hold onto your weapons a little tighter, and don’t let them slip out of your hands.”

He took another look at the crowbar in his hand and couldn’t help but sigh: “This is the holy sword of physics. It can be used to pierce Darkseid’s eyes1. Why don’t you know how to cherish it…“

He Qin glanced at him: “You still remember this ancient comic plot.“

“…Didn’t you remember that too! Hey! What right do you have to say about me!“

The thick fog gradually dissipated. The group of eleven wounded and limping people finally reached the “Marianne’s Cottage” mentioned on the station sign.

To the surprise of the players, the “cottage” in front of them wasn’t small at all, and even had the imposing manner of a mansion in the forest.

The three-story building occupies a large area, and the typical European style gives it an elegant, romantic feeling, but the gray windows, the sharp gothic arch, as well as the mottled wall paint eroded by wind and rain, cast a layer of subtle depression on this romance. The sky was overcast, the forest was deep, the shadow of death still lingered in the hearts of everyone, and the crows in the mountains screeched, sending the continuous echoes farther away…

Zhou Qing shook her shoulders and took a step back towards Zhou Yao in fear.

He Qin leaned toward Wen Zheliu’s ear and whispered in a voice that only the two of them could hear: “Do you like it?”

“What?” Wen Zheliu was unsure of what he meant.

He Qin smiled and said: “What do you think of this house? A Folk Victorian style building, a masterpiece born in the Victorian era. A skilled carpenter can create the most complicated and rich decoration on it with drawings, but in order to avoid the limitation of such humbleness, the game artists mixed in the unique Gothic arch and colored windows, which change the structure of the porch. Doesn’t it look amazing?“

His tone was like a child showing off candy. When he said this, how could the scene in front of him still have a mysterious and thrilling atmosphere? Wen Zheliu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but he still answered honestly: “It’s pretty good. You know a lot of things. Have you seen the follow-up plot?“

“No.” He Qin shook his head, “Unfortunately, I can only learn about such insignificant side stories. As far as I know, only my uncle is capable of giving spoilers. Others should not even think about it. “

The two people over there were whispering intimately. Everyone looked at each other and unanimously elected Mu Tuo to negotiate. Mu Tuo didn’t refuse either. He walked up the steps and politely knocked on the door.

After a while, the door opened with a small crack. A thin, pale blond woman held a candlestick and observed them vigilantly through the crack.

In this regard, the system must have been adjusted, otherwise Mu Tuo would have had to communicate with this woman in English. He said respectfully: “Excuse me, are you Miss Marianne? We are tourists who got lost by accident. We just saw the address of your house on the station sign saying we could come to stay overnight, so we took the liberty to bother you. If you could take us in for a while, I would really appreciate it.“

Hua: So the couple became the target because they throw away their weapon….

Justice League reference….i think