A Pitch-Black Work

The first shortlisted entry gave them tremendous confidence, but what followed was another long process of panning for gold in a pile of shit.

They had thought there would be no more shortlisted works today when a colleague suddenly let out a furious roar. "I refuse to accept this! I absolutely refuse! I've already survived an entire season and was smoothly heading toward automation, and you're telling me some monster passing by suddenly ate me?"

Turning to look in confusion, Deputy Liu discovered that the speaker was the colleague nicknamed "Mute."

The man was not actually mute. He simply did not like talking much.

Mute's emotions were as steady as stone. When communicating with others, he usually only said things like "Mm," "Yes," or "Okay." Never had more than three words come out of his mouth at once.

Who would have thought that today, he would break his rule?

Looking at Mute, Deputy Liu asked in surprise, "Mute, what Dreamscape are you playing?"

"Hunger!" Mute said bitterly. "This Dreamscape is truly horrible, and whoever made it is brimming with malice. If I catch them, I'll kill them as quickly as possible!"

"Is it really that exaggerated?"

"It is! But the Dreamscape is genuinely well-made, and all its different elements are fun. I'm nominating it!"

Deputy Liu leaned closer and stood behind Mute to watch for a while, only to find that the Dreamscape really was quite interesting.

Its style was extremely unconventional. The cartoonish Dreamscape meant its structure was not very stable, and players could easily wake up after coming into contact with it, making it less immersive.

However, this Dreamscape had seven times the capacity of an ordinary Dreamscape. A large number of Ancient Dreamscapes had been incorporated into it, making its core exceptionally stable.

From that alone, it