This Game Is Really Fun (Part 1)

"Killer"?

He had never heard of this game before. Was it some small game made by a foreign developer?

Seeing that it was almost noon, Ren Suo ordered takeout, then went to pee, brush his teeth, and wash his face. Once he was done, he lay down on the living room sofa and started playing the Little World Game Console.

The apartment his uncle rented to him was fully furnished, complete with speakers, a 4K TV, a sofa, and other furniture. Living alone was definitely awesome—though it would be even better with a girlfriend.

So Ren Suo bought his best girlfriend—the Fourth Princess, officially known as the Hell 4 PRO console.

After washing his face, Ren Suo was completely awake. Only then did he remember that he had bought his console and games separately.

His phone order showed that Warriors of the Fallen 8 and Evil Curse 2 were still on the way. They would probably take another day or two to arrive, so buying the console had been pointless for now.

Warriors of the Fallen 8 was a newly released hack-and-slash action game, while Evil Curse 2 was a hardcore action RPG. Ren Suo had spent a long time choosing before settling on these two, planning to play them for months, get the platinum trophies, and keep playing until he started work.

Buying those two blockbusters had nearly drained Ren Suo's gaming budget, so he had no intention of purchasing digital games through the Hell Games platform. Digital editions were usually more expensive than physical copies. Unless there was a sale, Ren Suo would never consider them—not to mention the "collectibility" and "resale value" of physical copies.

If he became rich in the future, Ren Suo would collect game discs as a record of his glorious history;

If he became poor, he could sell the game discs to recoup some money. That way, a game would not actually cost him much.

For those two reasons, Ren Suo had chosen physical games with absurdly long shipping times.

Now that he had no games, the Hell 4 PRO could only sit idle. Ren Suo could only play Little World's "Bald Killer."

After selecting "This Month's Free Game," Killer's description appeared: an action RPG, an immersive assassination game. Players would become a modern assassin with Bullet Time and roam the world freely. The killer was proficient in all firearms and all martial arts, and players could even choose other assassin characters. It looked pretty good.

After he chose to download it, a prompt popped up on the screen:

"Player has selected the free chapter. This month's free chapter of Killer is 'Bloodstained Banquet.' Game difficulty: 1 star."

"This free chapter is rated 1 star, so exclusive rewards have been removed."

"Remaining time for this game chapter: 14 hours, 23 minutes, 51 seconds. The game will be automatically deleted when time expires."

"What? The free game only lets me play one chapter, and there are less than fifteen hours left?" Ren Suo complained, but he had seen too many free things in the Xuan Kingdom to be particularly surprised.

However, the download speed was incredibly fast. In less than five seconds, it informed Ren Suo that the download was complete. His expectations for the game fell even lower—although the apartment had a 200M Xuan Country Telecom fiber connection, a game that could be downloaded over Wi-Fi in five seconds probably could not be larger than 100 MB, right?

Even if it was only one chapter, the music, system, visuals, and all that still needed to be downloaded. A game with such a tiny size was either heavily stripped down, or its Main Body was simply very small. While file size did not represent game quality, it did limit a game's expressive power.

"Looks like it really is just a small game... wait?"

Ren Suo suddenly remembered that he did not seem to have connected the Little World Game Console to the apartment Wi-Fi.

Still, the Little World Game Console had been utterly domineering from the moment it appeared, directly connecting itself to the Hell 4 controller and the Rice TV. Automatically connecting to the apartment Wi-Fi was not that strange.

However, the moment he entered the game, his previously low expectations abruptly rose!

On the screen, rain dripped from the eaves of the buildings on both sides, pattering onto the muddy ground of a narrow alley. The lights from distant high-rises and the streetlamps outside the alley were the only light sources within it.

In the dim alley that seemed like an abyss, a figure holding a black umbrella stepped through the rain and slowly appeared in the center of the screen. He wore a suit and stood straight, like an aristocrat in the rainy night.

At that moment, the camera moved closer, shifting beneath the umbrella and allowing the player to clearly see the man's appearance—

"Please set the killer's appearance."

"Holy shit? This isn't a CG? It's actual gameplay footage?" Ren Suo was stunned. Behind the game character was still that rain-soaked alley, but the lighting, shadows, rain, buildings, textures, rendering, and character models—even Record Horizon, that game supposedly at the peak of graphical performance, might not compare!

"This definitely isn't a small game. It's a AAA title." Ren Suo became interested. He discovered that the character's default appearance was a fierce-looking bald man. After choosing to change his appearance, a long list of appearance adjustment options appeared, making Ren Suo a little afraid.

He liked controlling cool-looking characters, but Ren Suo had no interest in character creation. Especially now, when appearance settings had become so detailed that creating a face required adjusting dozens of values, Ren Suo, a terminally lazy person, had no intention of wasting much time on it.

Generally speaking, someone like Ren Suo, who liked attractive characters but did not want to spend time on them, would search online for other people's character presets. He would shamelessly copy their settings, use their facial data to create a character he liked, adjust the eye color, hairstyle, and hair color at most, and that would become Ren Suo's game character!

But when Ren Suo searched for Killer, there were indeed games with similar themes and similar names online. Yet none had graphics on the level of the game in front of him, and none allowed character creation. So his plan to copy someone else's preset was impossible.

Fortunately, the appearance menu included "Recommended Appearances" and "Recommended Characters."

Besides the initial "Bald Killer," the "Recommended Characters" included "Clown Assassin" and "Demon Hunter Killer," followed by "For more options, please purchase character DLC"...

Ren Suo examined them carefully and discovered that aside from their appearances and voices, these assassin characters actually affected their skills.

For example, Bald Killer's skill was Bullet Time, which affected the flow of time around himself;

Clown Assassin, with tear makeup painted on his face, had the skill Myriad Transformations, which required 30 Merit Points to unlock;

Demon Hunter Killer, with white hair and a weathered face, had the skill Abyssal Wolf Sword Art, which required 30 Merit Points to unlock;

Even their starting specialties differed. Bald Killer seemed to begin with Martial Arts Mastery and Gun Mastery; Clown Assassin had Firearms Novice and Throwing Expert; Demon Hunter Killer only had Sword Arts Grandmaster.

Among the three "Recommended Characters," Bald Killer was recommended for new players and was also the only free one.

Ren Suo had not even found out how to spend money yet. Besides, he would not spend money on a game that would automatically delete itself in fourteen hours, so he could only choose Bald Killer.

Naturally, he was not going to use that appearance. Instead, he selected a Xuan Country Person appearance with sharp brows and bright eyes from "Recommended Appearances," then added a droplet-shaped red mark between the brows. It made him look wickedly charming and unrestrained.

"Please name the killer." Once the character was confirmed, the game displayed another prompt.

Ren Suo directly named him "Killer." Then the screen shifted, the controller vibrated, and the umbrella-holding killer smiled faintly. Ren Suo could now control the character.

At that moment, a drunk vagrant appeared in front of Killer. Trudging through the muddy rainwater toward him, the man raised a bottle as though he wanted to hit him.

By walking out of the alley and subduing the vagrant, Ren Suo basically learned how to control the game. After he knocked out the vagrant with martial arts, a prompt appeared: "Before 20:00, find a way to enter the Lampeluki Banquet on the eighth floor of the Black Briar Building under a legitimate identity."

The camera angle rose. Outside the alley, a green inverted-pyramid marker appeared over a magnificent, brightly lit building. That was apparently the destination the player needed to reach.

Ren Suo controlled Killer out of the alley and saw that the road outside the building was packed with sports cars and luxury vehicles. Waiters held umbrellas as they welcomed arriving guests.

When he moved closer, he found that every upper-class guest who looked elegant and wealthy took out an invitation before entering. Only after the waiters verified the invitations could they enter. The waiters' service was extremely attentive, watching the guests closely all the way until they entered the elevators.

For instance, Ren Suo saw a young man who had parked far away and gotten sewage splashed onto his clothes. When he reached the entrance and presented his invitation, a waiter immediately said, "Mr. Ricard, there are spare formal clothes and drying equipment upstairs. I'll take you there right away."

"Thank you."

The waiters' service was truly meticulous. One escorted the young man all the way to the elevator, informed the waiter inside of the young man's needs, and throughout the entire process, at least three pairs of waiter eyes were watching. It seemed completely impossible to sneak in.

Ren Suo directly controlled Killer and tried to enter the building, only to be stopped by a waiter. The waiter spoke a few sentences in English, while a dialogue box appeared over his portrait: "Sir, please show your invitation."

At that moment, four options appeared at the bottom of the screen. They could be selected with the directional buttons, but there were only ten seconds to choose. If he did not choose, the first option would be selected by default.

① "I forgot my invitation at home."

② "I'm the person in charge of one of the companies upstairs. I need to take the elevator up to retrieve some documents."

③ (Attack him.) "Since when do I need your permission to do anything?"

④ (Take out 5 pounds.) "Younger Male Cousin, long time no see..."

There were even free-form choices? Ren Suo was not unfamiliar with this sort of system. Options like these basically determined how the player would clear the level. Based on his years of spiritually playing games by watching videos, Ren Suo believed that option ① was probably a useless filler option; ② might be the persuasion route; ③ was definitely the forceful route; and ④ was the bribery route.

He tentatively chose option ②, which seemed to cost nothing: "I'm the person in charge of one of the companies upstairs. I need to take the elevator up to retrieve some documents."

Waiter: "Oh? But access has been prohibited before 18:00 today. Please come back tomorrow."

Ren Suo: "Why?"

Waiter: "Because this building belongs to the Lamperouge Family."

Ren Suo: "..."

His first attempt to get in failed, so Ren Suo tried to enter again to test the other options.

However, the waiter frowned. "What are you doing here again? Security, take him next door to cool off."

Two burly security guards nearly two meters tall and dressed in blue uniforms walked over and seized Killer from both sides. Ren Suo thought this meant the mission had failed, but the screen continued until Killer was taken into an alley.

"Don't cause trouble, kid." A guard patted Killer on the head, turned around, and left. Ren Suo instinctively pressed a button on the controller, and Killer automatically wrapped his arm around the guard's neck and snapped it with a crack.

Ren Suo froze, but the other guard did not. He immediately pressed a hand to his ear and shouted, "A hostile individual has appeared! Location: Paran Alley! Terry has been killed! Requesting reinforcements! Requesting reinforcements!"

He pulled out a baton and pointed it at Killer, backing step by step out of the alley while loudly reporting Killer's crime to his superiors.

Ren Suo could only watch as the guard left the alley. The dead guard's corpse began to glow faintly yellow. He controlled Killer to take a look and found three options on the body: Loot, Drag, and Dispose.

Loot allowed him to strip all the guard's clothes and equipment for his own use; Drag allowed him to move the corpse around; but when Ren Suo selected "Dispose," the game prompted, "You do not have any tools to dispose of the body."

At that moment, more than a dozen men in black suddenly appeared outside, guns in hand, and opened fire at Killer with a barrage of shots. When blood splattered across Killer's body, the game screen turned black and white.

"You died."