Orange Star.
The institute's interview room.
The two young women looked slightly nervous. Dressed in pink short-sleeved tops and cool shorts, they pressed their pale legs together uneasily.
"When we logged out of the game, we didn't know anything had happened to the three of them," the player "White Milk" said, shaking her head.
The other young woman shook her head as well. "I only joined their party temporarily. I don't know them in real life."
The investigator nodded and asked a few questions, mostly about whether they had experienced any unusual physical sensations while immobilized.
The investigator had noticed that, while recording the video, one player had said he had set the game's physical sensations to zero. Yet he still appeared terribly cold, as though he were standing in temperatures of minus thirty degrees.
What puzzled the investigator was that the system-recorded footage showed no blizzard or environmental changes that would indicate a drop in temperature. Their status bars hadn't displayed any negative buffs such as "Chilled," either.
The investigator had seen only two debuffs: "Immobilized" and "Poisoned."
At the time, the players had looked up into the night sky in the eerie Kobold Mountain Village, but there was nothing in the night sky shown in the recording.
The game company currently suspected that the three players had suffered a mental disturbance and experienced sensory hallucinations, triggering the Game Pod's abnormal Brain Waves alarms.
People in an abnormal mental state were not permitted to use the Game Pod.
The Game Pod could not scan users' brains. It essentially used Brain Waves to run the game, without requiring electrodes to be inserted into the brain. Thus, any abnormality in a player's Brain Waves would trigger the alarm mechanism.
"I didn't feel anything unusual. I wasn't paying attention to that sort of thing at the time," the female player said, shaking her head.
"But we really were immobilized for a very long time. Wasn't that the beginning of a hidden storyline?"
The investigator shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not responsible for developing the game's storyline. All I can say is that the Kobold NPCs' actions weren't part of the game company's plans. They acted on their own intelligent reasoning, and the computing resources they used at the time didn't exceed the preset limit."
Put simply, the Kobold NPCs were each as intelligent as an ordinary household AI and could think independently.
After questioning the two female players, the investigator updated their files with the note "No abnormalities detected so far."
That evening, the three players woke up.
The institute sent researchers specializing in the brain to investigate their mental states.
When the three players woke up, they were startled to find a group of people in research uniforms gathered around their hospital beds.
"Don't worry. We're from the Mech City Research Institute. We're here specifically to investigate what happened to you in the game." As the brain specialist questioned them, he also closely monitored their Brain Waves.
Upon hearing this, Wang Qing, the player who played a leather-armored assassin, vaguely sensed something stirring in his muddled mind, but he couldn't remember it.
"I... don't think I remember," Wang Qing said, rubbing his head.
"Amnesia? Hmm. It was probably induced by a severe psychological shock to the brain..." the brain specialist analyzed calmly.
The other two players were much the same. Neither remembered what they had done in the game. They simply couldn't recall that stretch of memories.
If they forced themselves to remember, violent spasms of pain would tear through their heads, so unbearable that they gave up trying.
Seeing their condition, the brain specialist grew a little anxious.
Unless they did something, this incident could only be closed under the heading "Player mental abnormalities triggered Game Pod alarms."
Soon, someone received the latest instructions. "The director said that treating them should be our goal. We can learn a little about what happened in the course of treating their psychological trauma."
The brain specialist nodded. That was their only option.
Psychological trauma could be treated by using gentle hypnosis to draw out a patient's subconscious, then using that subconscious to help restore their mental state.
Once the doctors settled on a treatment, they explained the reasons to the three patients so they would understand their own conditions.
The three learned that they had gaps in their memories and might have suffered psychological trauma of an unknown nature. The institute currently had a safe treatment for amnesia with a high success rate, which they could try.
The three patients trusted the institute's capabilities. It didn't just research industrial technology; it conducted extensive research in other fields as well.
After signing the treatment consent forms, the three arrived at the Mech City Research Institute in the early hours of that night.
As mentioned before, the players were physically healthy and didn't need bed rest. Their mental states showed no abnormalities, either. Their brains had sealed off those memories on their own, so the three behaved as though nothing had happened, unable to remember what they had done in the game the day before.
Wang Qing, the leather-armored assassin player, entered an enclosed room. Beautiful landscape photographs decorated the room, showing idyllic countryside bathed in spring's splendor. He could also smell the fragrance of flowers and greenery. A lovely, gentle-looking female doctor sat there, watching him warmly as she invited him to take a seat.
Wang Qing's taut nerves relaxed without him realizing it.
He sat in a soft chair and chatted with the doctor about all sorts of things. They didn't discuss his amnesia or the game. They talked as naturally and comfortably as friends.
As they talked, Wang Qing felt his consciousness begin to sink. The voice beside him gradually blurred, and his thoughts slowed.
The doctor began guiding the conversation. She took out a lightweight drawing board, placed it on the table in front of Wang Qing, and asked him to draw a few things on the paper.
He couldn't remember what exactly he was supposed to draw. He simply followed her instructions subconsciously, letting his hand sketch at random.
Before the doctor's eyes, and under the surveillance camera, the blank sheet gradually became a simple scribbled drawing.
He drew somewhat slowly, his hand moving according to his subconscious, gradually outlining countless little black figures kneeling and prostrating themselves in a mountain village.
Among them were five stick figures drawn in a different style from the little black figures. The black figures wore hats and had no faces, while the stick figures had eyes, mouths, noses, and ears. They represented the five players.
The drawing was vague and indistinct, like a child's scribbles rather than the work of a master artist, but everyone could tell what it depicted.
It was the scene from when the player had lost his memory, the one that had left the deepest impression on his brain and delivered the greatest shock.
After drawing the mountain village and the little black figures, Wang Qing began drawing a well and curved rings that resembled a magic circle.
Suddenly, his hand pressed down hard and began jerking wildly across the blank space above the well. Chaotic, frenzied lines slashed across the paper like lightning, tearing through it!
The monitor began beeping.
"Warning! Patient's heart rate has risen to 150 beats per minute!"
"Warning! Excessive Brain Waves fluctuations! Patient is excessively agitated and tense!"
Sweat began to bead on the doctor's forehead. She glanced at his unfinished drawing and gritted her teeth. She had no choice but to stop the treatment.
Snap!
She snapped her fingers.
The snap was like a switch restoring his consciousness. The frenzied Wang Qing heard it, and a thunderous blast seemed to erupt in his mind. He woke immediately.
His drawing hand stopped at once. He blinked, completely unaware of what had just happened. "Ah, sorry. Where were we?"
After speaking, he sensed that something was wrong with the atmosphere. He instinctively looked down and saw a childlike drawing of a ritual in a mountain village.
"What is this?"
"Why am I holding a pen?"
Wang Qing, the leather-armored assassin player, was utterly bewildered. As he stared at the ugly drawing, he somehow felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
He blinked. The stick figures in the drawing seemed to come alive, moving their heads to glance at him.
But when he looked at the drawing again, the stick figures weren't looking at him. Their heads were tilted up toward the tangled mass of lines above the well.
His eyes must have been playing tricks on him.