Running the Map

The bloody moonlight gave Zhao Cheng an intensely unpleasant feeling—ominous and eerie, enough to make his skin crawl.

The negative emotions it stirred in people were even stronger than those caused by darkness.

As Zhao Cheng looked toward the Blood Moon hanging on the horizon, a term popped up over the moon in his field of vision.

Blood Moon: A moon illuminated by a strange force. Its effects are currently unknown. (Note: The Hyper-Dimensional Body knows the essence of all things. Its effects are determined by the Hyper-Dimensional Body's upper limit and the strength of the Self's thoughts as the lower limit.)

Zhao Cheng immediately understood. This ability, similar to an inspection skill in a game, was a passive trait of the Hyper-Dimensional Body. The stronger his thoughts, the more powerful the ability became.

Although his current body was humanoid, in essence, it wasn't human at all. It was a hyper-dimensional projection wearing a human shape.

A human body could only perceive the world's most superficial information. But the Hyper-Dimensional Body was born able to perceive the essence of all things. It was something akin to instinct. In a sense, in the "eyes" of the Hyper-Dimensional Body, everything in the world was nothing more than streams of information.

It was only Zhao Cheng's limited mental strength that held this instinct back.

"Strange force!"

Zhao Cheng murmured to himself. He didn't believe this force was anything benevolent, doing good deeds by burning itself up to light the world.

With the Blood Moon's appearance, Zhao Cheng could say with absolute certainty that the dungeon introduction the Panel had given him earlier was missing the most crucial information.

The bloody moonlight was the only source of light in the world. It was like a thin veil, evenly draped over everything and staining all things red.

The world was quiet, with only the faint sound of the wind. Even though Zhao Cheng was constantly using his breathing technique to steady his mind, this scene still sent shivers through him.

If a person's sanity could be quantified, his would be ticking down one point at a time: sanity -1, sanity -1.

In the dim moonlight, Zhao Cheng looked around and realized he was standing at the corner of a vast plaza.

The plaza was gray, but not because it had been built from gray materials. Rather, no one had come here for who knew how long, and a thick layer of ash had accumulated on the ground.

At the very center of the plaza stood a massive sculpture. But the ravages of time had long since blurred its shape. Zhao Cheng could just make out that it depicted a man towering between heaven and earth.

Though its face had blurred and its lines had rotted away, the remaining contours still conveyed a sense of towering strength.

"Great... fuck... hand"

On the statue's pedestal was a vast, flat surface. In the faint moonlight, Zhao Cheng could just make out the writing on it.

The characters were strange, and Zhao Cheng had never seen them before, yet he could read them without difficulty.

"A great figure from this world?"

Zhao Cheng wondered.

"What kind of achievement would earn someone a statue like this?"

"If they had great figures capable of building such an enormous plaza and such a massive sculpture, then this world's civilization couldn't have been primitive."

"But what on earth happened for the people of this world to abandon an entire city?"

Zhao Cheng looked around. Numerous tall buildings stood around the plaza, but the light was so dim that even his keen eyesight could make out little.

From afar, the high-rises looked like demons and monsters with claws bared.

"'A nuclear war at the end of the twentieth century'? Yeah, that's the first thing to rule out."

Thinking of the dungeon description, Zhao Cheng had no words.

From the layers of dust in the plaza, Zhao Cheng could tell that the city had been abandoned for a long time—at least several years.

As he thought, Zhao Cheng squatted down, scooped up a handful of dirt, and rubbed it between his fingers.

"The dust has clumped into soil. The moisture level isn't low, yet not a single plant has grown across this huge stretch of land."

An idea crossed Zhao Cheng's mind.

Plants had incredibly tenacious vitality. They could grow not only in the "fertile soil" before him, but even in cracks in cement walls. Given even a little moisture and a speck of dirt, weeds and saplings could survive.

"Does nothing grow wherever the Blood Moon shines?"

"Don't tell me that nuclear war at the end of the twentieth century involved them blowing up the sun with nukes, and then the sun's radiation mutated the moon..."

If Zhao Cheng hadn't known how the sun's reactions worked, he might have almost believed that joke.

Telling himself a joke eased his mood a little. Then he started exploring the map.

The world had changed, so Zhao Cheng wasn't going to judge it by the common sense of the real world.

He simply designated the place where the moon had risen as the east. With a direction set, it was easier to plan his route.

As a "newbie" who had only just started playing, the ultimate goal of saving the world was far too distant.

He knew his limits. First, he'd set a small goal: get a clear picture of the city, and while he was at it, find out what had happened to this world.

According to the Panel's settings, the world's inner workings would tend to favor him.

If so, then the place he'd descended into during the simulation must be good for his development. This city was probably something like a game's "starting village."

Based on Zhao Cheng's years of experience with single-player RPGs, when you didn't know what to do, you explored. Then you'd find clues, characters, companions—everything.

Exploring a game world only took a few taps of your fingers. In reality, it wasn't so easy.

Especially when this real-life RPG had a rather "hellish" atmosphere.

It wasn't anything else he feared. It was turning a corner and running into "love."

It wasn't that he was afraid to die. It was just that compared with losing a "life," emotional scars were harder to heal.

However, Zhao Cheng had covered a long distance without incident. He had no timer, but by his estimate, at least an hour had passed.

He hadn't been running, only walking briskly. That made it easier to conserve his strength and handle any sudden danger.

At his pace, an hour of brisk walking would cover roughly seven kilometers.

Yet after traveling such a long distance, nothing unexpected had happened—not the ambush around a corner, nor some damsel in distress being surrounded by goblins. Nothing at all.

Of course, Zhao Cheng hadn't come away empty-handed. From what he'd observed, he realized the city had been abandoned far longer than he'd first imagined.

So long that much of the steel had rusted away. The city's streetlights, road signs, and shop signboards had either been reduced to faint traces or had vanished without a trace.