Arknights Online / Lungmen

Reincarnated as an NPC, but in Arknights

Author: Luo Tianyi Catches Ghosts

Synopsis:

Veteran player Bai Ye was kicked back to the eve of the open beta for the fully immersive online game "Arknights Online."

From then on, Terra gained an NPC native carrying a game interface.

"Catastrophes? No one understands the Fourth Catastrophe better than I do!"

Rhodes Island's field operations director, Fourth Catastrophe Messenger, one of the ten NPCs most beloved by Players—Bai Ye said so.

Volume One: Hello World

Arknights Online

Twin moons hung in the night sky, their glow seeming dim beneath the artificial neon lights.

Bai Ye sat on the railing, quietly watching the artificial lake before him.

The broad lake reflected the sleepless city across the shore, its surface rippling in the wind.

Everything felt so real. After experiencing it once, one realized that what had once been called 100% realism still fell short.

After all, it was only a game. It could never be as real as reality itself.

Yet now, the game no longer seemed to be merely a game...

It took Bai Ye quite some time to accept the fact that he had transmigrated into the game.

"Arknights Online," a next-generation fully immersive online game built on cutting-edge technology, had caused a massive sensation the moment it launched. Its outstanding gameplay and compelling worldview drew in countless Players, earning it the joking title of "the first full-dive game for young people."

Before Bai Ye transmigrated, the game had already been operating for six years, yet it remained immensely popular. Merchandise and crossover brands kept appearing, while professional Players and game streamers emerged in droves.

There was also the official professional league—the Kazimierz Four-City Joint Player Arena, the Kazimierz Summer Player Competitive League.

Bai Ye had been there since launch. He was naturally gifted and quite skilled at both PVP and PVE. However, because he valued his freedom, he had never signed with a club or guild.

At twenty years old, he was a solo player.

He recorded videos and streamed. Through gaming, Bai Ye had become a moderately well-known content creator. He usually streamed games, edited guides or entertainment videos, and when he was in a good mood—meaning when he had no food to eat—he would carry clients for a fee. It was enough to keep himself fed.

Before transmigrating, Bai Ye had been grinding monsters on the Demon Battlefield beyond the Saibei Pass of Great Yan. The evil fiends and strange demons there were powerful, but they gave abundant experience, battle merits, and Yanese reputation, making it suitable for lone wolves like Bai Ye.

However, Saibei was a high-level map. Near the demons, one's Sanity continuously dropped, and newbies simply could not endure it.

Bai Ye had been preparing to log off at the time. Unexpectedly, before he could enter Tianji Pavilion with his token, he suddenly fainted in reality, triggering the emergency mechanism of his gaming pod and disconnecting him from the server.

When he woke up, he found himself here.

"There's definitely something wrong with this game..."

Bai Ye could naturally tell that this so-called game world before him was not generated from data, but a real material world. His current body was also flesh and blood, not something fabricated from "01."

"What exactly is this Oceancat? An alien pharaoh who can sing 'dame da ne'?"

Bai Ye could not help complaining about the company that had released the game.

But Bai Ye was an easygoing person. Since he could not figure it out now, he might as well stop thinking about it. For the moment, it was more important to understand his situation.

"System interface... huh?"

Out of habit, he tried to call up the menu, then suddenly realized how foolish he was being—he had transmigrated into the game world. How could he possibly still have a Player interface?

But in the next moment, he was dumbfounded.

A glowing game interface actually appeared before Bai Ye.

Looking at the floating virtual screen before him, Bai Ye could not help sighing in relief.

He had not expected to still be able to summon the game interface. It relaxed him considerably, since this was what Bai Ye, as a veteran player, was most familiar with.

Since the open beta, this game interface composed of virtual light screens had silently accompanied Players through one game version after another. Now that Bai Ye had truly entered this game world alone, the familiar interface had become the only link connecting his present to his past.

"This really... brings back memories."

The system interface before him was quite "ancient." After all, the interface had been updated and adjusted as the versions changed.

The current interface was still the beta version. Neither its UI nor its functions had been fully developed.

The earliest version Bai Ye had encountered was Version 1.0. Even he had never seen the beta version, since he had not obtained open beta access. Still, it probably was not too different from Version 1.0.

Same old thing in a new wrapper.

Name: Bai Ye

Template: NPC (Ordinary)

Race: ██ (Warning: This entry has been corrupted)

Level: 1

Sanity: 15/15

Constitution: 10 (Related to physical strength, endurance, and immunity)

Strength: 10 (Related to muscle strength and physical power)

Agility: 10 (Related to hand-eye coordination, bodily flexibility, reflexes, and balance)

Spirit: 10 (Related to mental power, willpower, Originium Arts, perception, and intuition)

Charm: 96 (Fixed attribute)

Inventory: 0/10

Talent:

Thought Acceleration: Accelerates thinking, judgment, reflexes, and the brain's information-processing speed for a certain period of time

Overall Evaluation:

Other than looks and talent, nothing worth mentioning

That evaluation was a little too real.

Bai Ye shook his head speechlessly.

His personal status panel was pitifully short, and his attributes were low too. It felt just like leveling up a client's newbie account for them before he transmigrated.

Other than his absurdly high Charm stat.

It was only a tiny bit worse than the readers'.

"As expected of me. If I'd shown my face on stream before transmigrating, I definitely could've made easy money."

Strength was only temporary. Bai Ye was an old player, so becoming strong again would be effortless. But being handsome was a lifelong affair.

Bai Ye clenched his fist. Although he had returned to square one, he felt great and did not feel weak in the slightest.

That was because this power was real. After experiencing this feeling, no matter how high his attributes had been before transmigrating, they seemed like Suiyue in a mirror, flowers seen through fog.

But what surprised Bai Ye most was that he had started with a talent.

No matter what racial appearance Players chose, their starting interfaces and attributes were blank slates. Starting with an innate talent was absolutely impossible.

Bai Ye attributed his current situation to the NPC template.

Although he had never encountered one before, it was obvious that this thing was definitely not the same as a Player interface.

At the very least, a Player interface would not have a race entry. When creating their appearance, Players merely chose one racial option from several available appearances. They did not actually become that race or gain attribute bonuses.

"If I got a Wendigo or Dolak race template, wouldn't I take off immediately?"

Bai Ye muttered to himself for a while, then closed the game menu and jumped down from the railing.

Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it.

As a member of the ... ah, no, Cat Nest Orphanage, Bai Ye had no attachments to his previous life.

Since he was already here, he might as well integrate into this familiar yet unfamiliar world.

Survive, grow stronger, and uncover the secrets of this world.

Looking at the artificial lake before him, Bai Ye set his goals for the rest of his life.

Good. He was fired up!

With a goal in mind, Bai Ye felt his blood boil.

"Grrr—"

His coolness lasted less than three seconds.

He was hungry.

Bai Ye sighed.

Right now, he just wanted to get some fries from the pier across the way.

Lungmen

Bai Ye walked down the street.

Although Terra was considered a habitable planet, devastating Catastrophes frequently swept across the world.

To evade Catastrophes, this world's technological civilization had climbed in a rather bizarre direction.

The most dazzling piece of black technology among them was the crystallization of civilization known as the "Mobile City."

Incomparably powerful materials science, obscure Originium Arts, engineering that resembled miracles, and Originium-powered devices of unimaginable efficiency had created these enormous mobile platforms capable of racing across the land.

Each platform carried an entire city on its back.

When a Catastrophe approached and the city needed to relocate, its locks would be released. It would split into individual city sections with independent power systems, then move toward its destination.

Many Players were overwhelmed with shock the first time they witnessed such a scene.

It proved that when a technology tree developed crookedly enough, it could also produce an impact beyond imagination.

In Bai Ye's previous life, there had always been Players who chased after Mobile Cities and filmed every one of their migrations. They called themselves "city hunters," and they loved collecting Mobile Cities of all different styles.

After all, these colossal structures were the epitome of this planet's civilization.

And Bai Ye now stood atop one such Mobile City.

Lungmen.

This was a Mobile City under Great Yan, one of Yan's major economic centers. The currency issued here—the Lungmen Dollar—circulated throughout the world. After the economic crisis, the recession and conflict between political powers made life difficult for trade participants. The circulation of the Lungmen Dollar made a commercial revival possible.

Naturally, Bai Ye was no stranger to this place. Or rather, he was extremely familiar with it.

Quite a few world quests in the game used Lungmen as their main stage, and Bai Ye had spent a long time here in the past.

He had been to the Upper City, Lower City, lower structural districts, harbor, and even the outskirts. Bai Ye himself had forgotten just how many quests he had accepted and how many enemies and wild monsters he had cleared. In the end, he had even maxed out his Great Yan affiliate—Lungmen—reputation.

A true grinding maniac.

He could draw the maps of some areas with his eyes closed.

Because of certain quest requirements, he had even visited many top-secret areas. The maps and deployment plans from those places could fetch a high price in other countries—provided one lived long enough to collect the money.

There was nothing much to see in Lungmen. Bai Ye had already grown tired of it in the game, so after choosing a direction, he began making his way there.

Lungmen was nearing late spring, and the weather had begun to grow hot. Yet Bai Ye wore an utterly out-of-place overcoat, and even he found it too warm.

Before setting out, Bai Ye had checked himself over. Other than this overcoat, he had no belongings at all—not even anything that could prove his identity.

He had to obtain a legal identity as soon as possible. Lungmen's legal identification was recognized by countries all over the world.

Right now, Bai Ye was essentially a disaster refugee who had illegally entered Lungmen. He had no identification whatsoever and was an undocumented resident. If the Lungmen Guard Department caught him, it would be troublesome.

Bai Ye did not want to be hauled away for tea. He could make up a plausible explanation to obtain identification, but it would be annoying and waste time.

To Players, time was the cheapest thing in the world, but also the most precious.

Sometimes, Players could leave their characters idle in the same spot for an entire day for one quest. Other times, they would frantically mash buttons just to skip a short game cutscene.