'You seem to have been discovered...'

'He Sees You'

Yun Zhi froze in place, his hands and feet cold.

A distant gaze locked on Yun Zhi, with malice, greed, and madness.

'You're going to die'

'He's already eyeing you'

[Ding!] Congratulations to the player for unlocking the Hidden Quest: Eliminate the Source of Pollution]

[Eliminate the source of pollution: Happy Community was once a place of joy, until the one came, everything was changed here... ］

[Hidden Mission Reward: ??? ］

…

Yun Zhi suddenly woke up and breathed heavily.

But that line of sight followed me like a shadow—

Sticky, moist, and dark.

Pervasive.

…

Yun Zhi walked out the door, running in the direction of the place outlined on his map—

She figured that she had already touched some truths.

In the background of the story, it was said: "A strange thing happened recently in the happy community, every 12 o'clock at midnight, Building 13 would always disappear inexplicably..."

In the mouth of the property manager, who has gradually become 'alienated', it is: "In recent days, every time at 12 o'clock at midnight, the thirteenth building of the happy community will always appear inexplicably. ”

These two sentences are logically contradictory, but it is known that the happy community has suffered pollution, coupled with the eerie double speed time of day and night, the constant death of players, and the ominous number 13 -

Perhaps, from beginning to end, the words of the game are true, and the words of the property manager are about the same.

The original property manager's words should also be the same as the 'story background', and then what should happen according to its established rules.

This includes, but is not limited to, searching for clues during the day, exploring the main quest of the dungeon, and returning to the safe zone at night, that is, resting at Building 13.

But because of what happened in the middle of her, the game, or the existence behind the game, felt threatened, so the whole direction of the game changed, and the mortality rate of this copy was increased-

No, perhaps, the game doesn't want them to get out alive at all.

As for why he didn't directly kill him, Yun Zhi thought-

The information they get is not precise enough to determine that there is a problem with one player in the quest.

Maybe even the existence of 'them' needs to follow some kind of rules.

Daylight is the real safe zone –

Whether it is real or not, as long as it is 'recognized', even if it is only existing in some kind of lingering memory, fantasy, etc.

[Ding!] Main progression: 44%→51%/100%]

…

Yun Zhi was the first to arrive at the southwest corner.

At the moment when Yun Zhi stepped into the range of here, the sound of the game also followed-

[Ding!] Congratulations to Player 0 for getting: Unknown Memory Fragment ×1]

[Memory Shard Collection Progress: 3/3]

[Ding!] Congratulations to players for completing the side quests! ］

[Reward: Points ×50]

[All rewards will be summarized after the end of the dungeon, so please be patient.]

Please note, however, that once a player cannot leave this quest, all rewards will be re-attributed to the game. ］

Yun Zhi's eyes went dark, and he fell down uncontrollably, thinking before he disappeared from consciousness-

This game, damn it.

…

It's seventeen years later.

It's night, and it's the hour.

It was silent, and all I could hear was the chirping of cicadas around me, and occasionally a few dogs and chickens were calling wildly.

But the people in the town seem to have entered some kind of time and space, and the silence is incredible.

The woman walked to the middle of the town, took the iron pestle in her hand, and struck the bell that the villagers had enshrined as a treasure—

A loud echo echoed around for a long time, and the woman gradually became a little weird.

- I saw her standing in the moonlight, and the shadows on the ground were constantly bending and wriggling, like some kind of pollution, a virus.

In the silent night, only the sound of chewing could be heard, but when she heard the familiar voice, the crying sentence by sentence, and the constant shouting of 'Mother, I'm afraid', her dead eyes did not bear it at all.

Eventually, the chewing sound died down, and she took the oil canister and sprinkled it on the houses, and finally, picked up a torch and lit it.

And the child who kept shouting 'Mother, I'm afraid' didn't die completely-

Instead, they became one of them.

She looked at the place filled with smoke and fire, with relief in her eyes, and she was visibly aging.

She thought back to her days all these years—

After giving birth to this child, although they were a little disappointed, they did not treat her as much as before, but let her integrate into them.

They thought that her thoughts had been assimilated by them, but they didn't know that the hatred hidden deep in their hearts had never disappeared.

The days passed, and the child grew up step by step - but unfortunately, his brain did not grow with it.

At that time, she thought: that is the retribution of the beasts.

But the brutes were very tolerant of this child, and they would always think of him first when they ate and drank.

- Maybe it's because the women who 'came' here after her gave birth to normal children, so they treated her child as a lucky star.

But just a few days ago, she heard 'his' murmur in the middle of one night—

'Want revenge?' Let's make a deal. ’

You only have to pay a little bit of the price. ’

At first, she thought it was just a hallucination, until that day she 'saw' him.

- indescribable, invisible, maddening.

From there, the transaction begins.

…

When I opened my eyes again, a figure appeared in front of me.

This figure is exactly what she saw before-

Four eyes, two horns, the legendary demon Satan, is also the son of a woman in the fragments of memory.

In the tragedy of destroying the town at that time, Yun Zhi compared the old man who was alive with the memory fragment he had just read, and found that the two of them were the same person.

Back then, after taking revenge, the woman explained what happened in the town on the grounds of the arrival of the demon Satan, and then soon after the body was completely 'alienated', and it lurked for many years, becoming the current source of pollution.

And her son followed because of the familiar atmosphere.

It just so happened that at that time, she had just seized one of the abilities of the black shadow and was contaminated with the breath of the black shadow, so there was a scene where she looked at 'him' and she empathized with 'him'.

As for why there are so many deformed people in that town, it is probably because at that time, people attached too much importance to blood, and the town in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of years ago, was the place where the family took root, and it was naturally very concerned about the 'pure bloodline'.

The marriage of close relatives from generation to generation has completely pushed their clan, and even the place that develops in the direction of the town in the future, into the abyss.

is also the same, the woman back then was brought in, and people were treated like this, just to improve their current irreparable situation.