The disasters brought on by the endless siege drove people together to survive, but they also broke apart many small groups. When lonely survivors happened to cross paths, they often overlooked their differences and chose to weather the war together.
Man had once been a frontline soldier, but after witnessing a mass execution, he deserted. Emilia was a lawyer. Before the war began, she had lived in a luxurious villa with her father and younger sister.
She was the only survivor in her family.
For now, at least, they were reasonably satisfied with their new companions. They decided to find a house that wasn't too badly damaged and hide there.
Silver stared at the scene, completely blindsided.
The upper-left corner of the game screen displayed the time, temperature, and day.
This house wasn't too badly damaged?
There were only two people in the building: a frontline soldier named Man and a lawyer named Emilia.
The enormous hole in the building was two stories high. The house couldn't even keep out the wind, and holes of all sizes were scattered throughout the rooms.
There wasn't a single piece of furniture worth anything. Even the chairs were nothing but planks nailed together.
And they called this not too badly damaged?
He had never imagined a game could begin like this.
After the opening tutorial, he realized that this time, we weren't playing as heroes who wielded weapons and descended like divine justice to rescue everyone from danger.
Here, we played as ordinary people, unarmed and without even any food.
And this game had only one goal: survive.
Survive until the war was over!
"It's a survival game, right? I've played tons of wilderness survival games. This'll be a piece of cake." Yinzi didn't think much of it.
It wasn't as if he'd never played games of this sort. He just hadn't expected Black Star to make a game like this.
As the person in charge of the Yogame platform, Teng Feng was keeping a close eye on the release of both games.
He already knew his own game inside and out. The only one he couldn't figure out was the game made by Sprout Studio.
He'd heard it was a war-themed game, which meant it had ended up competing with the game his company was preparing.
What a coincidence. He'd deliberately picked the same release date, but he definitely hadn't intended to make a game with the same theme.
The moment it was released, he bought the game called This War of Mine.
Anyone who started the game would be surprised, and Teng Feng was no exception.
When he saw the characters searching for food in the ruins of a run-down building, he felt a little lost.
This... seemed like the same theme...
But then again... maybe it wasn't...
Who had said this was an FPS? They called this an FPS?
Unlike the previous two games, which required more hands-on control, this one had extremely simple controls. It only needed a few basic keys, and didn't even require quick reflexes.
Silver remembered coming across this line in a book once:
"I asked a military chaplain whether it was acceptable to kill in war. He said it was, as long as you didn't enjoy killing."
He'd only ever seen war in books and on television.
Later, he'd played a few war games, but their protagonists were always soldiers with guns, brave warriors breaking through enemy lines.
He'd never been a civilian.
During the first few days in the game, he went out every night to gather food, scavenging through abandoned, run-down buildings.
Meanwhile, the two people in his shelter had become three.
He'd taken in another survivor from outside.
On the night of the fifth day, Yinzi went out as usual to look for food and other supplies. There was no longer any trace of a smile on his face, and the livestream had grown quiet, too.
The livestream had a hundred thousand viewers, but now there were only a few scattered comments.
On the fifth night, Silver chose to go to the supermarket.
A supermarket usually had a little food left behind. Even a few cans or other supplies could make a big difference.
The moment he walked in, he heard someone speaking on the other side of a wall.
Silver crouched and crept closer. The speaker was a man in uniform, standing near the entrance with his back to Silver. A young woman was crouched in front of him, searching through the rubble for anything useful.
"That's a lovely name. It suits a pretty face like yours," the soldier said with a mocking grin.
"Thank you." The young woman kept looking for supplies, though she seemed a little flustered.
"Looking for something?"
"I just want some food."
"Food? Poor girl. I could spare you a little." The soldier puffed out his chest and swaggered toward her.
Watching through the crack in the door, Silver couldn't take it anymore. He never expected to come to the supermarket looking for supplies and find a young woman being molested.
He saw the soldier step forward and kick the woman to the ground.
Without a moment's hesitation, Silver rushed into the room, switched weapons, charged forward, and stabbed him in the back!
The terrified young woman fled. Silver didn't chase after her. Silently, he searched the soldier for supplies, finding twenty AK rounds and a bottle of liquor.
He clutched the supplies in his hand and said nothing.
Since the game began, he hadn't killed anyone. But someone had attacked his rundown shelter while he was out searching for supplies at night, stolen most of their belongings, and injured the person left behind.
He had never played a war game that felt so real.
Soldiers were responsible for killing the enemy in war. When soldiers on opposing sides fought, it wasn't simply a matter of good versus evil. It was a morally murky aspect of the modern world, where there might not even be a right or wrong from an ethical standpoint.
Would someone feel guilty about crimes they committed in a dream after waking up?
The same questions applied to what players did in the game world—perhaps even more sharply.
Because the player was conscious, capable of rational thought, and in complete control of their actions. No one was forcing them or putting them under pressure. In other words, they were making a voluntary choice while fully awake.
And yet, when he saw that the young woman was about to be molested, he still couldn't hold back.
The world of this game felt far too real—so real that the characters' moods were affected.
And so was he.
At first, he hadn't wanted to kill anyone.
He'd dutifully scavenged for supplies. When someone pointed a gun at him and shouted, he'd run straight home. Even the occasional nerve-racking theft made the people in the shelter grow gloomy and miserable.
They went hungry, got sick, and complained about everything. They cried, threw tantrums, and ran away from home. Their lives were poor, bitter, noisy, and chaotic.
But after what he'd done today, killing someone for the first time, it was as if he'd broken a taboo.
He picked up an axe and started chopping people down. Somehow, life seemed to get easier.
Yet Yinzi felt utterly suffocated.
A lot of readers have probably known the two of us for quite a while now. Arigato, onii-chan! Make sure to read both books! (>﹏<)
Before you continue