Meanwhile, Lin Yuan also felt that this manager was being far too nice to him.
He tried to recruit me right off the bat, didn't get angry when I refused, and even shared so much information. This guy with glasses looks shrewd, but he's actually a warmhearted, genuinely good guy!
If possible, Lin Yuan really would have liked to join his team.
If nothing else, he could have fished out more information about the organizations and the game.
Unfortunately, he couldn't possibly join any team. He couldn't even stay logged in for long.
He would end up stranded.
So he still planned to use his old method: commandeer Lilia's coffin and have her drag it around to explore the island.
Naturally, he couldn't enter the dungeon alongside the players like that, which was why he had said goodbye before the dungeon opened.
He had just reached a deserted corner when the system's voice rang out in everyone's ears.
[Attention! The "Mist Island" dungeon is about to open. All players who wish to enter the dungeon, please wait at the entrance. The dungeon entrance will close five minutes after opening.] [This is a boss-hunt dungeon. Players may only leave after defeating the dungeon boss.] [The dungeon entrance will open in 10 seconds.] [9...8...7...]
As the system spoke, the invisible barrier surrounding the island began to glow, forming a massive gateway in front of the crowd-the dungeon entrance.
The moment the entrance appeared, all the players filed inside.
The first to enter was the Consortium's team of newcomers led by the "manager." None of the other large teams expressed any displeasure, either. It seemed that the "Consortium" held considerable standing even among the various organizations.
Next came the Black Blood Society's team. Each of them carried several weapons, and the whole team radiated killing intent.
The Adventurer Group's team was the most unusual. They had somehow acquired a small boat about ten meters long and driven it out of the water.
Once the boat reached shore, its underside transformed into two caterpillar tracks, and it drove brazenly onto the island.
Everyone from the Adventurer Group then boarded the land-going vessel and headed into the dungeon.
Lin Yuan's eyes lit up at the sight. Wasn't this exactly the boat modification device for traveling on land that he wanted?
It looked like he would have to find a way to contact the Adventurer Group and get his hands on one of those devices. It would make getting around much easier for him afterward.
After the Adventurer Group came the "Diving Club." Everyone in this team wore drab gray, loose-fitting robes with hoods covering their heads, making their faces and expressions impossible to see. They were very mysterious.
Only after all these disciplined teams had entered did the temporary teams formed by unaffiliated players begin entering the dungeon one after another.
By the time the final player entered, the dungeon entrance had begun flashing, indicating that it would close in one minute.
"Now's the time. Go, Lilia!"
Seeing that no one remained nearby, Lin Yuan immediately called Lilia up from underwater, then lay down inside the coffin.
"Find somewhere to hide as soon as we enter the dungeon. Don't let anyone spot us."
He and Lilia made a truly strange pair, and her combat strength was limited. If someone really cornered them and dug him out of the coffin, things would get very awkward.
"Don't worry, cautious Captain. Leave it to me!"
Lilia grabbed the coffin and jogged straight through the dungeon entrance.
She ran right into the last team to enter the dungeon.
The team was standing in front of the dense jungle, surveying their surroundings. A thin, frail woman at the very back seemed a little nervous and kept looking over her shoulder, catching sight of Lilia charging in with the coffin in tow.
The woman's eyes instantly went as wide as saucers.
"Oops, I've been spotted! Wise Captain, quick, use that clever head of yours to think of something!" Completely unflustered, Lilia asked her captain for help directly in her mind.
"I told you to be careful! You... huh? What's wrong with her?" Lin Yuan suddenly noticed that instead of calling out to her teammates as he had expected, the woman stood frozen in place, as though in a trance.
"You... you're..." The woman stammered for a long time without managing to get a single complete word out.
"She's losing Sanity. Go!" Only then did Lin Yuan remember that Lilia did count as an eldritch creature, after all. Ordinary people would lose Sanity the first time they saw her.
Just then, a breeze blew past, carrying thick fog out of the jungle and shrouding the area around the dungeon entrance.
Taking the opportunity, Lilia grabbed the coffin and charged into the fog-filled jungle.
Only then did the others in the team notice the woman's unusual state.
"Bai Ling, what's wrong? Don't space out. Be careful you don't get lost in the fog!" A young man beside her gave her a pat, snapping her out of it.
"I saw... a girl in Gothic clothes charging in, dragging a coffin! No, she wasn't a girl. She was a doll! She wasn't human!"
"...Were your eyes playing tricks on you?" Her teammate glanced around. "The dungeon entrance is right behind us! Don't tell me you're saying you saw an eldritch creature run in from outside to clear the dungeon?"
"But I really..."
"All right, Bai Ling, didn't you say before that you have high Inspiration and lose Sanity easily? Something on the island probably affected you and made you hallucinate, right?" The team leader at the front walked over as well. "If an eldritch creature really came in, why didn't it attack you?"
"I, I..."
Seeing that Bai Ling still looked frightened, the leader sighed and said:
"Bai Ling, I know you can see strange things that we can't, but here, we're players. Those monsters are nothing more than NPCs. You need to be confident."
"Exactly, it's just a game!" The young man beside Bai Ling seized the chance to show his manliness. "If you're scared, just stick with me later. If there really is some doll, I'll smash it to pieces!"
"O-okay. Thank you..." Knowing that saying anything more would be pointless, Bai Ling stopped insisting.
But she knew perfectly well that her eyes hadn't been playing tricks on her.
What she hadn't said was that when she saw the doll girl just now, it wasn't the girl who had sent her Sanity plummeting the most, but the pitch-black coffin she was dragging, brimming with ominousness.
"Those people in gray robes earlier, and now that coffin... this dungeon is far too dangerous..."
Bai Ling sighed softly and followed her newly acquainted teammates into the jungle.
Meanwhile, Lilia sprinted through the fog-filled jungle, only stopping once she was certain there was no one anywhere nearby.
"Wow, that person was really perceptive. She spotted me right away!"
"I told you to be careful. You charged in too fast!" Lin Yuan first scolded Lilia, but then found himself somewhat agreeing with what the doll girl had said.
That team had actually been twenty or thirty meters from the entrance. With Lilia's speed, she could easily have rushed into the jungle and hidden before they reacted.
But that woman had been rather strange, constantly looking back as though she had foreseen that he and Lilia would enter!
"A player with particularly high Inspiration?" Remembering how Lilia had shocked her into speechlessness, Lin Yuan formed a guess.
Previously, while lurking in the regional channel and listening to everyone's conversations, he had learned that some players were particularly sensitive to eldritch beings and lost Sanity exceptionally quickly.
These were players with high Inspiration.
They spent every day at sea on edge, often suffering plunging Sanity at the slightest lapse in attention.
But that same sensitivity also made it easy for them to avoid danger and find treasure.
"I Quit Farming" had fairly high Inspiration, which was how he had managed to bypass the boss in the beginner dungeon and obtain the grow room blueprint.
"In that case, I could keep an eye on that female player from just now. Following her might lead me to some treasure."
Lin Yuan immediately had an idea.
Before you continue