What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C1.1

Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂

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Chp1. part1. Nian Sheng (Birth of Consciousness)

A steaming cup of oden was pushed across the counter.

“Hello, that’ll be fifteen yuan in total.”

The thin morning mist had just dissipated, and the sunlight was clearer and brighter than usual, streaming through the convenience store’s floor-to-ceiling windows into the store.

The cashier’s eyes crinkled with a smile.

Ning Ge looked at her, then down at her feet.

Someone was lying there.

Just seconds before, a girl about Ning Ge’s age had walked into the convenience store, and for some reason, suddenly stumbled and fell a few steps away from Ning Ge’s feet.

Ning Ge instinctively reached out to help her, but something felt wrong.

Most people would struggle to get up after falling, but the girl didn’t move at all.

The cashier showed no reaction to the fainting girl, her face still smiling as she repeated, like a broken record, “Hello, that’ll be fifteen yuan in total.”

Ning Ge pointed to the ground. “What happened to her?”

The cashier then leaned out from behind the counter and looked at the floor.

Her gaze swept over the unconscious girl, and she gasped in surprise, then quickly pulled back to her feet, her fingers hovering over the keyboard as if preparing to take the money. “Hello, that’ll be fifteen yuan in total.”

Ning Ge ignored her and crouched down to check on the girl.

The girl’s pale face was pressed against the floor, her eyes closed, her chest completely still.

It seemed like she was having a seizure, an ambulance needed to be called immediately.

Ning Ge felt around, there was a slanted pocket on the hem of her dress, containing only two banknotes.

No cell phone.

“I think she had a heart attack. Could I borrow your phone? I didn’t bring mine,” Ning Ge asked the cashier, then added, “Or do you have a landline?”

The cashier looked blank for a moment before replying, “No. That’ll be fifteen yuan in total.”

Ning Ge paused for a moment.

This cashier was very persistent about taking money.

Since the cashier was unreliable, Ning Ge rummaged through the girl’s clothes, searching through her shirt and pants.

Her pockets were as empty as Ning Ge’s, she found neither nitroglycerin nor a phone.

She had no choice but to go outside to look for a phone.

Ning Ge stood up, about to leave, when she suddenly noticed a bracelet on the girl’s right wrist.

The bracelet was all black, with a wide, long screen that curved with her wrist, the rest was a narrow rubber band.

The screen displayed [07:58:02].

The numbers were jumping, in the blink of an eye, the 02 at the end became 01.

The numbers were decreasing. It wasn’t time, Ning Ge thought, it was a countdown, decreasing second by second.

A countdown of nearly eight hours.

The bracelet looked a lot like a smartwatch, maybe it could make calls.

The girl’s arm, with the bracelet on, was pressed against her body. Ning Ge carefully pulled her wrist out a little and awkwardly manipulated it with her hand.

There was indeed a small green icon shaped like a phone.

Making a call like this wasn’t convenient. Ning Ge took off the bracelet, held it in her hand, and dialled 120.

There was a considerable silence on the other end before a cold female voice finally came through, “Hello, the number you dialed is not in service. Please check and dial again.”

An emergency number not in service? How could that be?

Ning Ge was baffled. She redialed the number, but it was still not in service.

Ning Ge then dialled 110, but it was also out of service.

Confused, Ning Ge looked up at the cashier.

The cashier, who had been peering out from behind the counter, immediately put on a professional smile and reverted to her monotonous manner, “Hello, that’ll be fifteen yuan in total.”

Fifteen yuan, fifteen yuan, over and over again.

Ning Ge decided to deal with this persistent cashier first. She reached for her phone to pay, then suddenly realised she didn’t have a phone. She had no choice but to hand the cashier two bills from her pocket.

One five-yuan note and one ten-yuan note, precisely the right amount.

The cash register beeped softly. The cashier, satisfied, pushed the paper cup of oden forward a little further.

Ning Ge’s eyes were still on the bracelet, her hand frantically searching her contacts for the girl’s family’s number. In contrast, her other hand instinctively reached for the cup.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at her feet.

Her hand trembled, nearly spilling the hot soup from the cup.

The floor was empty, the girl who had been lying there was gone.

If it weren’t for the bracelet in Ning Ge’s hand, the girl’s existence would have seemed like a hallucination.

“Where did that person go? How did she suddenly disappear?” Ning Ge asked the cashier.

“She’s gone?” The cashier glanced at her in surprise, then gave Ning Ge a professional smile. “Thank you for your Support, please take care!”

Ning Ge: “…”

The person vanished in the blink of an eye. Did she get up and leave while Ning Ge turned to pay? But her bracelet was in Ning Ge’s hand.

Ning Ge quickly grabbed the oden, clutching the bracelet, and chased after her.

The cashier’s voice came from behind, enthusiastic yet strangely mechanical, “Welcome back next time!”

Outside the convenience store was an old, quiet street, the ground bleached white by the sunlight, utterly deserted.

Even if the girl had gone out, there was no reason for her to disappear so quickly.

Ning Ge was looking around when she suddenly felt a jolt in the bracelet she was clutching.

A strange, electric sensation emanated from the bracelet, a slight tingling piercing through Ning Ge’s palm, like a cluster of flowing needles, running up her arm and into her brain.

Something in her brain, like a thin layer of glass, or a membrane, was struck by the bracelet’s current and—poof—

shattered.

It was as if the long-hidden fog of a dream had finally dissipated, and a clear, distinct sense of presence coursed through her from head to toe.

The bracelet displayed a line of text: [Successfully entered the mission world, loading dungeon data]

Ning Ge looked up. Suddenly, details she’d never noticed before came into view.

This was a small convenience store. In front of it was a narrow, old road, and across the street stood a row of low-rise buildings.

Behind those buildings, the blue of the sky and the grey of the distant buildings blended into a hazy blur.

Like a sheet of frosted glass, everything was patchy and indistinct.

Not only across the street, but also at the ends of the roads on both sides and behind her, leaving only this small area around the convenience store clearly visible, bathed in the bright, almost unreal, white morning sunlight.

This scene was eerie. Ning Ge wondered, “What the hell have I seen today?”

Her bracelet vibrated again.

[Player guide data loaded. Read now?]

Ning Ge glanced at the bracelet’s screen, moved her finger to the “Confirm” button, hesitated for a moment, and then pressed it.

The screen was narrow, and the text was small, but very clear.

Ning Ge read the entire document from beginning to end, standing by the roadside, feeling a little breathless.

According to the information, this was an infinite-loop dungeon world where players had to find a way to survive and progress.

In other words, it said this world was fake.

How could this world be fake?

Ning Ge’s mind was a bit confused.

This was the place she had grown up in, where she had studied and graduated step by step all these years. How could it suddenly become fake?

When Ning Ge looked up at the frosted glass not far away, her bracelet vibrated again.

[Lambda’s exclusive test data has been loaded. Read now?]

Lambda? What’s that?

This time, Ning Ge clicked “confirm” without hesitation.

It said that this dungeon world was a bit special because the player survival rate had been consistently too low, and a test was about to be conducted.

This test would randomly select several players to participate in, lasting eight hours. If the player’s survival rate was still below 50% during the test, the dungeon would be immediately taken back and wiped out.

In other words, if they fail their “test,” this place will be gone in eight hours.

Ning Ge stared blankly at the bracelet. According to it, if this was a dungeon world, then wasn’t she an NPC within it?

If the world disappeared, would she disappear with it?

What kind of nonsense was this?

Ning Ge didn’t move, and the bracelet soon returned to its default interface, the countdown ticking—

[07:45:19]

[07:45:18]