Blood streamed through the gaps between his fingers, but the young man sitting on the ground, clutching his ear with terror written all over his face, bit down hard on his lip and no longer dared make a sound.
The others who had been planning to say something also shut their mouths in fear.
Only Cheng Tian stared at Green Skin's gun barrel with narrowed eyes, but he was thinking about something else—
Was this gun exempt from the Medieval Fantasy modifier's restrictions on the power of technological weapons, or was it actually a Magic Weapon disguised as a firearm?
"Buddy? You don't deserve it. Make noise again, and I'll shoot you in the head."
Green Skin said this seriously to One-Ear. Then he stood up from the tombstone and, after a suffocating stretch of silence, spoke again.
"This is a Chosen Space dungeon. You are all players chosen by the Space. If you survive and complete the main quest, you can return to reality. Only then will you qualify to meet Veteran Players like me in the plaza.
"As for dying... then you're dead. In reality, you'll die in all sorts of plausible ways too.
"But honestly, you Rookies have truly terrible luck. Demon World Village-related dungeons are extremely likely to wipe out even players with two or three dungeon runs under their belts. Our player community unanimously believes that even the lowest difficulty Demon World Village template should be rated D-class.
"As a Novice Guidance instructor, I'm only responsible for making you quickly accept reality and understand your situation. Once I'm done guiding you, I'm out.
"Actually, I was going to offer you some paid assistance that you could pay for later. But considering the odds of all of you getting wiped out are extremely high... how about this? If you're willing to fully show me the effects of your Innate Skills, I can lend you some things for self-defense. But I'll only help the five people with the most valuable Innate Skills."
Green Skin paused after speaking and glanced at his watch.
"Three minutes left. Miss it, and you're out of luck."
Green Skin looked up, only to see a group of Rookies still staring at him without even daring to breathe.
"Oh, you can talk now."
The instant he finished speaking, Green Skin was surrounded. No one dared question their situation any further; they all asked how to display their Innate Skills and similar questions.
Clearly, Green Skin had frightened them. Even if they still had no idea what was going on, that didn't stop them from fighting for assistance.
Only Cheng Tian, clutching his lower abdomen in an attempt to keep from catching cold, had somewhat different thoughts.
He personally felt that Green Skin might be far kinder than he looked or acted, because although what he said was harsh, it was genuinely fair.
As one of the games famed as "one of the hardest side-scrolling action platformers in history," if Demon World Village truly faithfully reproduced its Original Setting, a total party wipe was guaranteed.
Thinking this, Cheng Tian unconsciously edged back toward the edge of the low hill and looked over at where Arthur's body lay. But to his surprise, Arthur, who should have been lying there dead, was struggling to prop up half his body and met Cheng Tian's gaze.
There was a final trace of inexplicable light in Arthur's eyes, but Cheng Tian clearly couldn't read anything from them. Then Arthur collapsed completely, while the flesh all over his body rapidly dissolved, exposing an entire intact skeleton.
It was exactly like the Special Effect when Arthur was killed in the game!
Having witnessed Arthur's gruesome separation of flesh and bone, straight out of a low-budget horror movie, Cheng Tian was not frightened at all. Instead, he deeply inhaled through his nose, drawing in the cemetery air tinged with the faint stench of rotting corpses—
At that moment, Cheng Tian felt the thrill of personally discovering a rare game Easter egg!
That intense excitement was enough to completely overwhelm the terror of watching a living person's skin, muscles, and organs dissolve on the spot, leaving behind nothing but a skeleton.
Cheng Tian liked video games. He liked them very much, and his tastes were extremely retro. He especially loved old games from decades ago, from ancient console platforms that had long since been phased out.
How should he put it? Sometimes, the delicate textures of Unreal Engine 5 simply didn't have the same flavor as the stacked pixel blocks of an 8-bit machine.
And now, what should have been pixel-made images on a screen had appeared before Cheng Tian in real form. That alone was enough for him to cast everything aside and spend the rest of his life exploring this Chosen Space based on video games.
After quickly calming himself, Cheng Tian turned back toward the crowd. A group of people were opening their Personal Panels under Green Skin's guidance, but Cheng Tian soon noticed something: everyone was using their phones for the relevant operations.
Though he hated to admit it, in the modern society and country Cheng Tian lived in, phones had become indispensable. They were cameras, communication devices, wallets, entertainment, and had even become so essential that they were practically external human organs.
Naturally, Cheng Tian was no exception. He followed suit and lit up the phone he had been gripping all along, only to find a completely unfamiliar new App Icon on the screen.
Inside a circle was the character for "Chosen," rendered in an outrageously bold font. It looked as though it had been ripped straight off Gouki's back after he unleashed One! Instant! Thousand! Strikes!
For some reason, though, despite the APP image clearly being black, Cheng Tian could somehow see a bizarre sense of "dazzling colors" in it.
This was the Chosen Mark shared by all Chosen Players. Or perhaps the Chosen Mark had automatically selected the form best suited to displaying itself for them. Of course, not everyone had the same form.
The older guy who felt his alcohol tolerance had dropped used a Glasses AR Display. The woman wearing a Non-Marriage Ring used a Ring Projection Display. The foul-mouthed college student bandaging One-Ear's wound had a phone too, yet used a Tattoo Display.
It was worth mentioning that the Chosen Mark APP opened as smoothly as an NES cartridge: zero-frame deployment, instantly usable with a tap, with absolutely no loading or waiting.
Then a character panel interface with a heavy ARPG style, visible only to Cheng Tian himself, was projected before his eyes through the Phone Screen.
[Name: Cheng Tian / Player ID DX233180 (1 customization available)] [Race: Earth Human Race] [Attributes: Strength 10, Agility 10, Spirit 12, Charm 9 (the average for normal adult human males is 10; the average for females is 8)] [Innate Skill: Game Master] [Skills: None] [Equipment: None] [Items: None] [Wealth: None]
...So I was the Game Master?
However, before Cheng Tian could tap open the detailed information on his Innate Skill, he heard clapping from the crowd.
It was Green Skin, trying to get everyone's attention.
At the same time, Cheng Tian noticed that five people had already received paid sponsorship from Green Skin: knives, axes, swords, hammers, and clubs, all within the category of Cold Weapons.
Cheng Tian's eyes shifted, and several thoughts instantly came to mind.
First, Green Skin had a Portable Space large enough to store at least five sizable Cold Weapons. Cheng Tian wasn't sure whether it was an innate space or some kind of Space Backpack.
Second, combined with what Green Skin had said earlier, although he hadn't known before entering the dungeon that this was a Demon World Village dungeon, he had most likely known it had the Medieval Fantasy Dungeon Modifiers. That was why everything he had prepared for Dead Loans in advance was a Cold Weapon.
Finally, information on players' Innate Skills had value, but not much. Or rather, low-level Innate Skills weren't worth much, and most players' Innate Skills were probably not that high-level. Green Skin was likely trying his luck with paid loans, whether he found something worthwhile or not, and those loans were overwhelmingly likely to be Dead Loans.
Of course, it was also possible that Green Skin was cold on the outside but warm-hearted underneath, and was simply using checking their Innate Skills as an excuse to offer this group of doomed people a little extra help.
"Time's up. I hope one of you lucky ones makes it back alive. That's it."
Green Skin gave the crowd one final sweep of his eyes, then, amid everyone's gasps, vanished into thin air beneath a beam of light that suddenly descended from the sky, just like a stage transition in the Mega Man series.
At the same time, something strange happened at the tombstone where he had introduced them not long ago. The decayed soil trembled slightly, and then—
A human hand, rotten to the point that only three relatively intact fingers remained, suddenly burst out of the ground!
The raised grave mound, the rotting hand, and the night sky flashing with lightning and rumbling with thunder from time to time formed an utterly horrifying scene.
Just as several Rookies screamed at the sight, Cheng Tian seized the precious opportunity—
He snapped, at top speed, a perfect shot that rivaled the cover of Left 4 Dead!
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