Players Always Outnumber Problems

Demon Lord!!!

The Queen of the Weave Shadow Nest was panic-stricken.

She nearly had a stress response and vomited up the male spider she had half-digested.

"Demon Lord?! A new Demon Lord?! How... how is that possible?! I mean... why here?! Damn it!"

She was frantic and furious, stomping her eight legs uneasily. Her enormous body swayed atop the cotton-white web, making the entire palace seem like a giant trampoline.

The fear in Arakdo's heart was no less than that of the Cave Lord.

There was no other reason.

The supreme Demon Lord Reggie Dragon had left far too deep an impression on him! Once upon a time, he had been one among those countless troops.

And with merely a glance, that lord had made tens of thousands of demons, himself included, tremble as they crawled on the ground.

He did not want to return to those days.

But he wanted even less to become Lord Demon Lord's enemy...

"Your Majesty... it seems Hell has not forgotten this place. We must make a choice!"

"A choice?"

Arachinos suddenly stopped swaying.

Her scarlet eyes moved downward one by one, looking down upon the insolent minister with overwhelming pressure.

"A choice?! You want me to surrender? Never! I've had enough of the Demon Lord's rule! My children can only be my nourishment, and the Weave Shadow Nest will never be enslaved! To hell with Hell, and to hell with the Demon God!"

She roared, growing increasingly agitated.

However, when she reached that last sentence, her voluptuous and alluring body still shuddered uncontrollably.

Cave Spiders were different from ratmen, after all. The latter had never believed in the Demon God, and no one cared about their lies, but Cave Spiders still believed in Lord Demon God to some extent!

Of course.

That was entirely different from submitting to Hell.

Those pampered High-level Demons had long since betrayed the Demon God. They did not truly care whether they returned to the surface, yet they still sent the Demon God's children aboveground to die without question!

That was right--

Arachinos had never betrayed Demon God! The ones at fault were those who had twisted Demon God's intentions!

As for that curse just now, she had simply been too emotional and misspoken.

After all, she had only just become pregnant. Emotional instability was normal, and Demon God surely understood her loyalty! Watching the Queen descend into madness, Arakdo trembled even harder, pressing his large head tightly against the ground as if he wanted to dig a hole on the spot.

"No--that is not what I meant!"

Arachinos roared in fury.

"Then what do you mean?! You'd better explain yourself clearly! Otherwise, I'll! Eat you! Right now!"

The instant he heard those words, even the hardest chitinous bones in Arakdo's body went soft, and he nearly flipped onto his back.

But he was Arakdo, after all, the wise and brave general beneath the Cave Lord.

His brain raced, and he quickly came up with a plan.

"We... we can pretend to submit to him first!"

"Pretend to submit?"

Arachinos narrowed her eyes and stared at the tiny spider below her.

Hmm? That sounded somewhat interesting.

"Go on."

Under the suppression of his bloodline, Arakdo made chittering sounds, but he still forced himself to calm down and spoke in a low voice.

"The Demon Lord... I mean, the Demon Lord chose our territory as his entry point into the dungeon. He must have considered it carefully. I suspect that, in his eyes, compared with the other forces in the dungeon, the Weave Shadow Nest is clearly the least threatening... Ah, I mean no disrespect to you."

Arachinos casually waved a forelimb and continued with interest.

"I don't care. Continue!"

Arakdo sighed in relief and continued.

"Since we are not the primary obstacle to the new Demon Lord taking control of the dungeon, he obviously has no reason to target us... as long as we do not provoke him ourselves."

"More importantly, the dungeon is currently divided among many powers. This is precisely when he lacks support the most. If we take the initiative to approach him and express our willingness to submit, then even if he knows it is merely a temporary measure, he will likely turn a blind eye to our pretense."

"That way, we can gain precious breathing room. We can advance or retreat as needed... and we can even subtly pin the blame for the chaos on the first floor of the dungeon on our sworn enemies--those lizards hiding in the sewers!"

Seeing that the Queen was already tempted, Arakdo slowly raised his head and adopted an impassioned tone.

"By the time the new Demon Lord and Reggie Dragon's old subordinates have fought each other to a standstill, we will surely have gathered enough strength!"

"When that time comes, our chance to wipe away our humiliation will arrive!"

In the great hall beneath the Demon Lord Territory, the Cave Spiders with their legs sticking up had already been lined against the wall, while thumb-thick magic crystals had been piled into a small mountain.

At first, the players were not very skilled at digging them out. They had to cut around with little knives for ages before finding the right spot, only to get sprayed in the face with spider juice and forcibly afflicted with the Stinking Plague aura.

Fortunately, players had no sense of smell. Otherwise, the stench alone would have caused massive casualties.

However, that situation did not last long.

As they kept digging, the players mastered the trick. Soon, they went from one spider every three minutes to three spiders a minute. The fastest could even manage one every three seconds.

Unfortunately, there were no longer enough Cave Spider corpses.

Otherwise, given these hyper-competitive players a little more time, they might have figured out assembly-line dissection techniques.

In a corner of the great hall.

A Skeleton Soldier stood before a spider corpse, rubbing his jaw with an index finger. After a long while, he muttered thoughtfully.

"Interesting."

Seeing Tables and Stools mysteriously crouching in a corner again, Gou Shi, who had been wandering around with nothing to do, could not help approaching curiously.

"What's up, buddy? Mushrooms growing here too?"

"No." Tables and Stools shook his head. "I just discovered something interesting."

"What is it? Tell me." Thinking this guy had discovered some kind of bug, Gou Shi's eyes lit up as he urged him to say more.

Tables and Stools did not hide it and explained his unexpected discovery.

"These things called magic crystals seem to be mainly distributed in areas where neurons are densely concentrated."

The air fell into an awkward silence for a moment.

At first, Gou Shi thought his buddy had not finished speaking. Only after waiting for a while did he realize that was all there was, and a baffled expression appeared on his face.

"Uh... is that a problem?"

Tables and Stools touched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and spoke with a trace of excitement.

"It's not a problem... but don't you think it's interesting?"

Gou Shi: "..."

He did not get it! Wasn't that just part of the game setting? He had no idea what was interesting about it! Yet Tables and Stools clearly did not see it that way, and continued rambling.

"Crystals that only form after living creatures die, and every single one of them is concentrated near the nervous system! I dissected ratman corpses, even that ratman boss's corpse, and found the same thing! Even players... there are similar things on player corpses too, right at the back of the neck!"

But what did that mean?

Gou Shi really wanted to ask that, but felt it would be too unromantic, so he sighed helplessly.

"You and One Leaf Knows Autumn would definitely get along."

"Maybe."

This oddball did not seem to care who he got along with. He merely muttered to himself.

"If only I could get a human corpse that had died recently..."

Gou Shi: "..."

Elsewhere, Xiao Wan Can't Get Enough had just finished cleaning up and dragged her exhausted body back from the dungeon to the Demon Lord Territory.

This game was addictive, but playing it for too long was still tiring. It was practically like going to work.

Still.

Being able to move was already enough to satisfy her.

Perhaps that was the true value of a fully immersive virtual reality online game! Thinking about this game's enormous potential after its open beta, all the exhaustion in her body suddenly vanished, and the hardship before her no longer seemed so hard? Wait--

Had she just been brainwashed into working?

Just as Xiao Wan was considering logging off somewhere out of the way, she suddenly noticed that everyone was looking at her.

Not only the players.

Even the NPCs crouching inside Stone Prison were staring at her without blinking, as though she were some kind of monster.

Just as Xiao Wan wondered what was happening, she heard several Skeleton Soldiers teasing her.

"Well, damn..."

"We're all still bare-chested. How come you're wearing clothes?!"

Xiao Wan froze slightly and looked down along their gazes. Her ribs, humerus bones... were wrapped layer after layer in spider silk, making her look like an exploded spinning machine.

The moment she thought about how this stuff had come from a spider's mouth or butt, her face immediately darkened.

Though her face had been pitch-black to begin with.

"Go die!"

Flushed with embarrassment and anger, she picked up a stone and threw it, only for it to hit absolutely nothing.

The grinning skeletons immediately scattered, vanishing in the blink of an eye. She could not catch them even if she tried, so she could only sit dejectedly in the corner.

At that moment, two friendly-looking skeletons walked over and crouched beside her, one on each side.

"Need help?" The skeleton on the right smiled gently at her, with a poetic ID floating beside her head.

Whale Fall North and South

Xiao Wan was deeply moved.

Sure enough--

There were still kind players in this world!

However, she was originally socially anxious, and she truly felt too embarrassed to trouble others so much even in a game, so she waved her hands politely.

"No, no. I'll get it off myself in a bit."

"Don't be so polite!" The skeleton on the left threw an arm around her shoulders and said with a lively, cheerful grin, "My boss is figuring out ways to make money! Since you look like you're alone, we decided to start with you--"

"Hey! If you say it out loud, how am I supposed to make money?!"

Whale Fall North and South glared fiercely at her, then turned to the bewildered Xiao Wan and gave a light cough. Her skeletal face returned to its gentle, refined smile.

"Don't mind her. My best friend is not right in the head and sometimes says things without thinking... Could you forgive her this once, considering she's a corpse?"

"What the hell! What do you mean I'm not right in the head? And you're a corpse too!"

While the skeleton on the left protested indignantly, Xiao Wan finally got a clear look at her ID--

Shark Drop Things

"Pfft..."

What kind of ridiculous name was that?! Seeing their prospective customer laugh, the two skeletons immediately stopped arguing and squeezed businesslike smiles onto their faces.

Whale Fall North and South: "Um... allow me to introduce ourselves. We are running a skeleton dry-cleaning shop!"

Shark Drop Things: "You can think of it as a startup!!!"

Whale Fall North and South: "That's right, because--"

Shark Drop Things: "Lord Demon Lord's rewards are too low! Those little quest earnings can't even buy equipment! And those hyper-competitive players are absurd. They reached Black Iron in two days! Can you believe that?! Are they even human?! They must be skeletons in real life too!!"

Whale Fall North and South: "Anyway--"

Shark Drop Things: "We decided to strike out on our own! You hyper-competitive players are so busy working that you have no time to take care of your hygiene, so we thought we might as well open a bathhouse where people can get scrubbed down!"

Whale Fall North and South: "Mm-hmm. There's no water, but scrubbing is still possible! I heard there are bathhouses in the north that don't use water!"

"N-no, there aren't..."

Xiao Wan had just wanted to weakly point out that she lived pretty far north herself, but before she could speak, she was cut off by someone with the force of a great white shark.

"Let me finish first!"

Xiao Wan: "Y-yes...?"

Who exactly was the customer here?! Shark Drop Things: "And then, and then! Those people are way too rough! They don't care about the smell on their bodies at all. They even insist that since they can't smell it anyway, it counts as a win if they stink out the enemy! Such cheapskates. Is no one thinking about Lord Demon Lord?!"

"That's the situation." Whale Fall North and South smiled and nodded, patting Shark Drop Things on the head before looking at Xiao Wan. "Would you like to give it a try? You don't have to do anything. Just leave your body to us... It only costs 1,000 Hell Money."

1,000 Hell Money?

That was...

1,000 pounds of coal?! Xiao Wan had just wanted to support their business, but she almost reflexively hunched her shoulders and backed away from the two black-hearted Skeleton Soldiers.

"So it won't work after all..."

Shark Drop Things sighed disappointedly. She did not force the issue and merely grumbled under her breath.

"I told you... who would accept that?!"

Whale Fall North and South was also somewhat regretful, but she still comforted her best friend.

"Starting a business is always full of setbacks. Let's treat it as gaining experience with failure."

Watching the two of them play off each other, Xiao Wan envied their friendship but could not help making a small jab.

"You two... could actually perform crosstalk. I feel like you'd make more money than with a dry-cleaning shop."

"Really?!" Shark Drop Things, who had been dejected a second earlier, pounced in front of her in delight and grabbed her hand. "Tickets! How much would you pay!"

The ghostly fire burning in her skeletal eyes seemed to take the shape of Hell Money.

"Ten... Hell Money?"

"That's so little!"

Shark Drop Things looked deeply wounded, pressing her right hand against her empty chest.

Whale Fall North and South pondered seriously for a moment, intelligence glimmering in her eyes.

"Hmm... crosstalk? But I still think a beautiful women's bathhouse would be more marketable."

Xiao Wan: "Skeletons... can't do that, can they?"

Whale Fall North and South: "Not even with a microphone?"

Xiao Wan: "Uh... huh? Are we talking about the same thing?"

Their understanding of "scrubbing" seemed to differ somewhat.

Fortunately, Whale Fall North and South had already realized the problem. She finally abandoned the idea and sighed.

"Forget it... looks like this path won't work after all. I'll think about it again after I reincarnate as a slime."

Hearing that, Xiao Wan breathed a sigh of relief as well.

Although she was curious why reincarnating as a slime would make it workable, her instincts told her not to ask too many questions.

At least the game currently had no way to reincarnate as a slime, so these two living treasures probably wouldn't be able to corrupt the atmosphere.

Still, come to think of it, this was the first time she had chatted with someone in a game for so long.

It felt like the day's exhaustion had all been healed...

Shark Drop Things: "Come to think of it, everyone else only has a little slime stuck to them. Why are you covered in so much spider silk? Did the boss carry you off?"

"Not exactly. It was mainly because of Lord Demon Lord's quest..." Xiao Wan somewhat embarrassedly recounted what had just happened.

Because she was afraid of spiders, the Demon Lord had sent her to clean up. By the time she came back to her senses, this body had already turned out like this.

"Mm... how pitiful." Whale Fall looked at Xiao Wan sympathetically, carefully examining her body wrapped in spider silk. Helplessly, she said, "I'm afraid this stuff can't be pulled off... Why not try roasting it with fire? Or just kill yourself once?"

Xiao Wan made a sighing gesture.

"Sigh, I'll think about it."

Seeing Xiao Wan's dejected look, Shark Drop Things comforted her with a cheeky grin.

"Don't be too sad. It actually looks pretty nice even if you don't take it off. It kind of feels like a wedding dress."

Whale Fall: "Oh? The kind that's been torn to shreds?"

"Hey, hey, you really know your stuff!" Shark Drop Things stood up and nudged her with an elbow, saying with a wicked smile, "Send me a copy of the material so I can appreciate it!"

"It's not impossible... but I suddenly have a new idea I want to try."

Whale Fall stroked her chin, and the look in her eyes as she watched Xiao Wan suddenly grew heated.

"What do you think... about using this stuff to make clothes?"

Clothes?

Xiao Wan froze for a moment, and her eyes lit up too.

That actually seemed like a good idea...

Come to think of it, she hadn't even considered it! Since moving around was inconvenient, she happened to know some handicrafts, like knitting sweaters, weaving scarves, and embroidery.

"But skeletons don't need clothes, do they?" Shark Drop Things rubbed her chin, looking unconvinced. "And these guys don't care about appearances at all. How about we just perform crosstalk instead—"

"Idiot!"

Whale Fall knocked her on the head.

"When I say clothes, clothes are all you can think of? Think broader! Like backpacks—someone will always need those, right? Especially for those hardcore grinders. Carrying more supplies means fewer trips back home! And they can bring back more loot!"

"Not to mention armor, there are bandages too! It'd be a real headache if your bones suddenly broke while exploring a dungeon, right? Tie them up with our bandages, and you can fight again! Don't you think they'd sell out instantly as long as we made them?"

"Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit!" Shark Drop Things looked excitedly at her best friend. The ghostfire flickering inside her skull turned back into the shape of Hell Money. "You're fucking brilliant! Right! Ratman hides! Those might work too!"

"Of course!" Whale Fall wore a confident smile, then turned her gaze toward Xiao Wan and extended her right hand. "After all, this inspiration came from you... So? Want to do it together?"

The answer was obvious.

Looking into those sparkling eyes, Xiao Wan simply couldn't bring herself to refuse.

She wanted to give it a try.

Even in a game, she wanted to try searching for the value of her own existence.

And most importantly...

She really didn't want to mine anymore.

If this kept up, she was going to turn this MMORPG with limitless potential into a coal mine simulator.

Seeing Xiao Wan place her hand over Whale Fall's, Shark Drop Things excitedly piled her hand on top as well.

"Yeah! Great Cemetery's first leather workshop is officially established!"

"Don't celebrate just yet." After completing the hand-stacking ceremony, Whale Fall placed a hand on Shark Drop Things' shoulder and pushed her toward Lord Demon Lord's workshop. "If we've decided to do this, then let's do it properly. Hurry up and make some preparations!"

The equipment needed to weave cloth required many materials, including wood for building spinning wheels and the like.

However, the entrance to North Peak Mine was currently blocked by an invisible wall, so no one could go outside.

But Whale Fall felt that since the NPCs were all so intelligent, there should be room to negotiate.

After all, the shops even sold hardware tools. It would be far too strange if there were no materials to use!