Chapter 1612: Chapter 1612: Another Person Missing
Seeing that Xu Huo seemed particularly interested in the fungi of Zone 013, the Tan-skinned City Dwellers talked at length about fungi. Unlike the books that focused on growth characteristics, they described in detail the state after being parasitized by fungi, such as what symptoms would occur, how the pain felt, or in some cases how some fungi offset the side effects of other fungi in the body.
Hardship seemed so commonplace to them that they would even pick out some interesting fungi to entertain the listening players. For instance, inhaling spores of a certain choking fungus could cause someone to sneeze from morning till night for ten days or half a month, making even a sip of water a race against time. Or there were fungi that caused convulsions at regular intervals or when hearing certain sounds.
"The kid from the Li Family on our street ate the convulsion fungus, and whenever he got excited, he would definitely collapse. After several episodes, he managed to control it, but on his wedding day, right in front of the bride’s family, he cleaned the entire room’s floor and couldn’t be stopped..."
The people from Zone 013 found this amusing and burst into laughter as they told the story.
"What happened later?" Tong Qi asked with interest.
"On the day his child was born, he was too happy and passed out, never waking up again." The Tan-skinned City Dweller who was telling the "joke" said, "Not long after, his child followed him, and the mother couldn’t accept it, dying from starvation."
"In Zone 013, starving to death is considered a relatively peaceful way to die." Chi Xian interjected, "There’s a kind of fungus with anesthetic effects that releases venom after the host stops eating for over ten hours, and no matter what you eat, you won’t wake up unless you eat something. When the host falls unconscious, there’s no way to wake them up by calling out, and if left unattended, a person will be devoured by other fungi in a very short time."
"But the process is not very painful, the painful part is the choice to end one’s life."
"Doesn’t that sound a bit like our own situation?" Liao Xiaorong said.
"After entering Zone 013, players more or less get infected with fungi. Poisoning is also normal, but after being anesthetized and woken up, there are side effects like weakness in the limbs and dizziness, which is not quite the same." Chi Xian replied.
Upon reaching this point, both the listeners and the speakers found it difficult to continue. The Tan-skinned City Dwellers weren’t numb enough to completely give up on life and death, and the players, familiar with slaughter, weren’t cold-blooded enough to be indifferent to tragedy. Both sides were unable to change reality and could only choose to avoid it.
In this instance, staying awake at night was more exhausting than usual. Tong Qi was about to say something to lighten the atmosphere when Xu Huo suddenly moved past him, darted to a support column ten meters away, and reached out as if to grab something, but came up empty-handed.
Tong Qi, Chi Xian, and others followed, noticing a small stool remaining on the ground and their expressions changed slightly.
Liao Xiaorong retrieved the monitor from the corner and replayed the content from a minute ago.
At first, everything seemed normal, but just ten seconds earlier, the screen flickered briefly and then fell into a short darkness. When it lit up again, Zhao Qing, who had been sitting calmly by the column, was gone—she disappeared right before everyone’s eyes, but aside from Xu Huo and Chi Xian who happened to see it, no one else even noticed that someone was missing.
After watching the video, everyone fell into silence.
A moment later, Liao Xiaorong asked, "With so many people here, why was it only Zhao Qing who disappeared? Is it random?"
"I’m done, I’m too scared to sleep now," another player said, "If I fall asleep and get sucked into another space, wouldn’t it be a dead end?"
"Zhao Qing must have been asleep," Xu Huo said at this moment, "So far, who has seen someone disappear while awake?"
At any rate, neither Tong Qi nor the others had.
"An incident in an instance shouldn’t be as simple as random occurrence, especially since this is a spiritual type instance." Chi Xian rubbed his chin, "Maybe there’s something special about the people who disappear."
"What’s so special?" Tong Qi pondered, "About Zhao Qing alone, I think her mental state was a bit off."
Fighting off sleep while keeping mentally alert against other players, many of those present today weren’t in their best state.
"Does it have anything to do with mental strength?" Scarred Glasses looked at Xu Huo.
"It’s hard to determine," Xu Huo said, "From the current situation, there’s no standard consensus."
Under normal circumstances, people with weaker mental strength should be more easily affected, but he and Zhao Qing, both first-time sleepers, dreamed during an extremely short sleep period. Meanwhile, others like Scarred Glasses didn’t dream the first time they fell asleep, though Liao Xiaorong did dream the second time she slept.
This could boil down to two factors: mental strength and sleep duration.
Without a sufficient number of samples, it’s difficult to determine if the disappearance is directly related to these two factors.
"Could it be that only sleepy people get absorbed into other spaces?" Tong Qi speculates, "Or maybe it only happens at night, since you don’t hear of anyone suddenly disappearing during the day."
Besides using props and devices to detect some residual traces of space fluctuations, there are no other valuable clues.
"What kind of instance is this," Tong Qi muttered, "The background doesn’t give any clues, just ambiguously tells a fake story, and the instance itself is the same, with no hints about what to do."
"Hasn’t it already been hinted at clearly?" Liao Xiaorong said, "The game’s background implies you should find the answer within a dream; either endure to near the end of the instance ’Midsummer Night’s Galaxy’ to pass or die, there’s no other path."
Tong Qi rolled his eyes and remained silent.
After the fruitless discussion, everyone went back to rest, assuming Zhao Qing wouldn’t return, whether dead or having cleared the game.
Xu Huo returned to his previous spot, but his mind was on something else.
Among all his props, only the "Door of Idealism" explicitly allows for opening overlapping spaces. Although the prop’s description pertains to the Spiritual World, spaces that can be opened must tangibly exist, and spaces built within the Spiritual World also possess force and objectivity.
Perhaps when the next disappearance occurs, he could try using the "Door of Idealism."
But this comes with a high risk since entering doesn’t guarantee exit. If this overlapping space is unrelated to clearing the game, merely a method to eliminate players, entering could be very dangerous.
"Someone’s coming," Chi Xian suddenly whispered.
Xu Huo turned his head to see two heavily injured players supporting each other as they leaped from the opposite building, heading towards the Clock Tower. Behind them, he could vaguely make out players in pursuit.
But the three who were following stopped when they saw the injured pair enter the hundred-meter range around the Clock Tower and didn’t forcefully approach.