The Game Begins / Stories and Death

"..."

After that, Lin stopped talking. He seemed to have made up his mind, grabbed the takeout box and chopsticks, and started eating heartily.

From time to time, chaotic and indistinct specks of light appeared in the pupils of the eyes that were obscured by hair.

Kevin walked into the room with a gloomy expression.

"Mei, what exactly happened to Lin?"

May has been busy with official duties lately, and Kevin has also needed to go out frequently to prevent the Honkai of Svatogor 51, so they have spent the least amount of time together recently. He really didn't expect that such a big thing would happen when he was away for a short period of time.

Lin not only betrayed the Fire Moth, but also killed the Fire Moth's soldiers.

Any one of these examples would seem like a fantasy to Kevin, let alone all of them happening at the same time.

"Stealing intelligence, attacks, betrayal, murder." Mei tied her long hair back with a rubber band, then picked up her glasses and put them on. She looked at the report on the table and said, "Just like the wanted notice you received."

"I don't believe it."

"..." Mei sighed, turning to face Kevin's resolute gaze. "So? Do you want those who issued the warrants to give you evidence?"

"Shouldn't they provide evidence?"

"The evidence exists, and even if it doesn't, they can create it."

"..."

Kevin understood what Mei meant. He closed his eyes and pondered for a moment before turning and walking outside.

"Kevin, what are you going to do?"

"May, are you going to believe those people? Or are you choosing to remain silent?" Kevin gritted his teeth; he rarely got this agitated. "He's willing to die for humanity, but why must humanity kill him?"

"He said that he could be whatever humanity needed him to be."

"But humans don't need that," Kevin said, emphasizing each word. "If humans need to nail someone to a cross to survive... then the meaning of human existence no longer exists."

Mei looked at the light above her head, then let out a heavy sigh—

"Kevin, there's something I need to tell you."

Chapter 207 The Game Begins

Lin placed the paper and pen on the table, his gaze unwavering and completely calm as he pondered.

Anger, sorrow, self-blame... he had already swept away these emotions on the way here.

He can become whatever humanity requires him to be.

If humanity needs him to be a traitor and a murderer, he is perfectly capable of doing so.

Yes, as long as it's for the greater good of humanity, even the dirtiest path can be traversed. That's how he's always walked this path.

He picked up a pen and quickly sketched lines on the paper. He coldly wrote KY-00 on it, and then used it as the center to analyze the location of the headquarters and several branches, and quickly formulated several combat plans.

KY-00 and related projects must be terminated. Lin will find them and eradicate them personally. If they have a base, he will destroy it. If there are monsters created to target humanity, he will kill them.

So what about those High Council? They control resources, and resources mean power. Simply killing them will only make the situation worse.

Lin pondered for a moment and then got the answer.

Let Aponia control their minds, then let May sideline them, ideally by creating Artificial Intelligence that mimics their image, at which point they might not even need to live anymore.

To prevent this from happening again, the "High Council" must be rendered meaningless, and he must be a traitor and murderer who can use extreme methods in his actions, and then bear all the blame.

Lin quickly wrote down his plan, thinking about how to end it all as quickly as possible, preferably before deceived soldiers like Delta realized what was going on, and to continue the lie.

"Clatter."

With a forceful pull of his fingers, the pen in his hand broke in two. He looked down at the paper in front of him.

The paper was filled with chaotic, disorganized writing, resembling the ramblings of a mentally ill person. Mania, anxiety, rage, and other negative emotions were clearly visible in the frantic strokes.

Lin covered his forehead and leaned back on the sofa.

What on earth is he doing...?

He could become anyone for humanity, he didn't care, but what about Delta? What about Soul? What about Anna? What about Himiko? What about the Chairman? What about all the nameless victims he carried on his shoulders?

And the people around him...

When he begins to compromise, the meaning that others once gave him disappears.

He even wanted to exploit Aponia.

He had loudly proclaimed before Yan Luo of Hell, that he would no longer solve the Trolley Problem, and that he would not give up as long as there was a glimmer of hope...

So what is he thinking and doing right now?

"The situation has changed."

Hen walked into the room, put down the equipment in his hand, and said to Einstein, who was covering his messy curly hair.

"Yes, I know. I didn't expect Lin to be like that..." Einstein shook his head. "I think there's something fishy about this. Lin couldn't have betrayed us. He must have been framed."

"I have already started contacting those traitors, and they told me that Lin is indeed not a traitor and that Lin's affairs have nothing to do with them."

"Unrelated?" Einstein's brow furrowed even deeper. "This is troublesome. It seems the internal chaos is beyond our imagination... I think I need to contact May."

Why plum blossoms?

"Mebius has a certain say in the Firefly, but she doesn't participate in High Council decision-making, so she most likely doesn't have a direct superior-subordinate relationship with the High Council. There's no need to worry about the High Council involved in the rebellion getting wind of it, and her opinions are quite constructive." Einstein was now only feeling troubled; the uncertainty about the identities of the High Council involved in the rebellion was making things very difficult. "The same goes for Mobius, except that Mobius has always been uninvolved in these matters, and she might not help us."

"Let me finish speaking first."

Hen sighed and said to the anxious Einstein, "Because I am a former member of the Fire Chaser and the Fire Moth, they don't believe I intend to join them. They just want me to find a way to prove myself. It's unlikely that I'll know their plans until I gain their trust."

"It was somewhat expected." Einstein calmed down and thought for a moment. "I hope you can help me get in touch with May. It's too risky to contact her directly, but you don't have to tell her everything at the beginning. Test her attitude."

"Didn't you say there was no need to doubt Mei?"

"I didn't say that, but the possibility that she was involved is the least, but it cannot be ruled out that she herself has similar thoughts, after all... her position is very delicate."

"Understood." Hen nodded. "There's one more thing to keep in mind: Dr. Vill-V has also gone missing."

"She?"

Einstein never expected that the most troublesome person would simply disappear.

To be honest, compared to May and Mobius, Vill-V is far more unpredictable. She sees everything clearly, so she always gives people a sense of playful whimsy. Such a person is fine on your side, but if you stand on the opposite side, the consequences are unimaginable.

"... You really are quite patient."

Delta walked into the room and saw that Lin was still sitting in the same spot, not even moving an inch. She felt a little conflicted.

The current Lin is not frivolous or wicked at all; a cold and stern demeanor surrounds him, giving him the air of a very reliable senior.

But she always felt that something lingered in his eyes, ready to burst forth and tear everything apart at any moment.

Delta sighed, then took a deep breath. "Want to play games?"

"...What?"

Delta didn't say anything. She pushed open the door and ran out again. After a while, Lin heard heavy footsteps. He turned around and saw Delta carrying an arcade machine that was taller than her into the room. She casually tossed it into a corner.

After plugging in the power, she pursed her lips and made a gesture of invitation.

"..." Lin gave her a cold look, then sat down in front of the arcade machine.

This game was the one he used to train Delta. Nearly half a month has passed, and the number one spot remains unchanged, but Delta has already surpassed the rankings on the rest of the leaderboard.

Delta's highest score is... 600,000.

"Let's make a bet. If you can surpass my highest score, you can ask me to do one thing." Delta turned her head away, a faint blush rising on her cute face. "Anything... but it's best not to go too far. Similarly, if you can't surpass my score, I can ask you to do one thing. How about it?"

"..."

"H-So? You're going to say yes or no?"

"Call..."

Lin pressed the start button.

Chapter 208 Stories and Death

In the darkened room, Delta's palms were sweaty as she watched Lin's fingers fly rapidly across the joystick and buttons. She didn't know whether she hoped Lin would surpass her score or not.

On the one hand, she hoped that Lin's disappointment was only temporary and that he was still maintaining a calm mind. On the other hand, if Lin's mind was calm and the problem lay elsewhere... that would be terrifying.

A madman is not scary; what is scary is a madman who can soberly put his crazy ideas into practice.

"Da, da, da."

Lin was like a robot, mechanically and precisely shooting down all his targets; only instinct remained in his unfocused pupils.

In the blurred vision, the flying targets were no longer just monotonous little dots; their shapes changed from perfect circles to ovals, and then they grew hair.

The elongated tail light, due to its function, changed from black to scarlet, and finally, within that fleshy color, a pair of hideous eyes opened.

"Thump!"

Lin pressed the button, as if pulling a trigger.

Hot blood splattered onto his expressionless face, but he simply continued to shoot down his targets without a care.

How many more need to be killed to reach the finish line?

No matter how much...

"I feel that sometimes the game design is very unfair."

"..."

Lin's pupils shrank from a dilated state back to normal. Delta leaned back on the sofa, listening to the tapping of his fingers, and said with great emotion, "This game, unless the machine malfunctions, will never have an ending. Players can only keep shooting down targets until the player is shot down."

"The designers never leave players with a chance of victory. From the moment they enter the game, they are only moving towards death, and in the process, they will encounter increasingly difficult enemies, which are endless."

"Even if the machine malfunctions, the player doesn't win. It's more like a mockery to me. I just don't have to face it for the time being. But as soon as I enter the game again, I'll be facing another defeat."

"So, it's really unfair. Why is it that only one side is destined to lose?"

Lin licked his lips blankly, his fingertips touching the loose button he had been tapping. "Because that's how the game works. From the moment you become a player, there's no other choice."

"Then this is a terrible game."

Hearing such delicate words, Lin hesitated for a moment, missing a target.

This was followed by a decrease in health and a reset of combos, forcing him to start accumulating points from scratch.

"I prefer the game 'Demon King and Hero' that my sister and I played when we were kids, rather than this game."

Delta saw this and happily raised her finger, her pupils escaping into their sockets as she stared blankly at the sky above. "The hero is about to set off to defeat the Demon King. At the beginning of his journey, he has several companions who are willing to risk their lives with him. They embark on the road to defeat the Demon King with high spirits."

"The game's premise is that players will continuously lose companions on their journey to defeat the Demon King, until they are left alone to face the Demon King. This is an unchangeable fact and is written into the game's pre-game information. The only choice players have in the game is what to do after losing their companions."

"To move forward, or to end it here?"

"If they choose to end it, the hero will go home with the remaining companions. Many years later, another hero will defeat the Demon King, and the hero and the remaining companions will live a life that is neither happy nor unhappy."

"After each companion dies, there is this choice. My sister and I initially thought it was too cruel to watch our companions die, so we ended the game after our first companion died."

"But... what kind of game is it if it ends at the beginning? After we mentally prepared ourselves, we decided to treat our companions as characters destined to die, since they aren't living people anyway. In other words... yes, player mentality."

Her cheerful smile gradually faded, "So when our first companion died, we chose to continue. To our surprise, after deciding to continue, the hero gradually learned what kind of person the sacrificed companion was through the descriptions and memories of the other companions and the keepsakes of the first companion."

"I remember it very clearly. He was a cheerful and generous middle-aged man with a happy family, but he still embarked on the path of defeating the Demon King for the greater good. He loved to eat mushroom stew and had a habit of hiding money. Every month, he would donate the money he had saved to the orphanage."

"A person only gradually comes to life after death. My sister and I understood what was going to happen next at that time, but we still hypnotized ourselves that this was just a game, that we were the players, and that we should just keep playing."

"So we coldly pressed the continue option, watching our companions die one by one, watching their memories as heroes after their deaths, watching the hero clutch more and more tokens, his cheerful smile disappearing from his face, until finally he stood alone and wounded before the Demon King."

Delta waved his hands in the air, as if trying to describe the scene, his eyes holding an indescribable light.

Lin, meanwhile, was quietly playing the game, his score on the screen rising higher and higher, about to break the 300,000 mark.

"We thought it was finally over, and now it was time for the hero to defeat the demon king, but to our utter surprise, the hero... lost."

"He carried the hopes of all his companions, yet he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Demon King, barely lasting ten moves before being pinned to the ground."

"If the game had ended at that point, I might have thought it was an interesting game. It taught me that perseverance doesn't necessarily lead to success, and that giving up early might have resulted in a better outcome."

"But the game only truly begins after the hero dies."