Chapter 145: Chapter 141: There's Something Off About This Newbie!
Chapter 145: Chapter 141: There's Something Off About This Newbie!
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Luo Kai simply informed Xu Shuo about the little girl's death, and for the rest of the journey, neither of them spoke again, even the usually chatty Luo Kai fell silent.
It wasn't until the high-speed train arrived in Yang City that the two disembarked.
"Hey bro, wanna exchange contact information?" Luo Kai asked as he took out his phone after they left the station.
Xu Shuo paused upon hearing this, then typed out his number on his phone. After Luo Kai noted it down and called, he sent his own contact information back.
"Pleasure working with you!" Luo Kai gave a two-finger salute as a gesture of farewell, then turned and left with a swagger.
Xu Shuo watched his figure disappear before walking towards the underground parking lot near the high-speed rail station.
Not long after he drove away from the high-speed rail station, a sneaky figure hurriedly ran out from a corner. Luo Kai turned around and re-entered the high-speed train station.
"Time to slip away..."
He had already purchased a ticket to Gong City. The departure time was seamlessly connected with the previous train, and the broadcast was already announcing the final call for ticket checking and boarding. Naturally, he hastened his pace.
It was only after he sat down on the high-speed train and it started moving that Luo Kai finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He set an alarm for himself and then closed his eyes to enter the Script Space.
Unlike Xu Shuo's clean, blank space or Hong Rao's luxurious mansion, Luo Kai's space contained a plain two-story wooden house.
He trod up the external stairs of the house, clattering to the second floor, then threw himself onto the sofa and let out a long breath.
Indeed, there's no place like home!
After resting for a while, Luo Kai excitedly took out the Script Card he had just obtained and gave it a big kiss.
"Level Three Assessment Script! Awesome!"
It was the first time Luo Kai had ever drawn a Level Three script in this world since his class change, let alone an even higher-level one for assessments!
He wasn't lying earlier. Since his class change, Luo Kai had been traveling all over the world but had never encountered a Mutant Script. Intricate cases were also few and far between, which caused him to hover between Level One and Level Two scripts for a long time.
Until this unexpected turn of events.
The story itself was actually quite simple.
The murderer, carrying a suitcase with a hidden corpse, boarded the train. His fellow passengers included a stray woman he threatened, an accomplice who had pushed the little girl into the Abyss, an intern police officer who recklessly pursued the murderer, a passerby who had met the little girl before her death, and a common thief.
Five players had to play out their roles on the train, aiming to find the murderer within a limited time frame.
Whether the train derailment was indeed caused by the little girl was no longer ascertainable, and in this script, ghosts hardly played a role in influencing the storyline.
The most lethal aspect was that the players were given only about forty minutes to solve the case!
Within forty minutes, the players not only needed to clarify their own identities but also had to complete their main tasks.
If they failed to identify the murderer among them before the train reached the overpass, or if the murderer didn't manage to outwit the pursuing police and disrupt the game, then the little girl would turn into a ghost, and the train would derail towards the Dark Abyss below!
That was the entire flow of the game in this script.
Compared to the Scripted Murder Games in the real world that could last for six or seven hours, the time allowed for solving the case in the "Green-skin Train" script was incredibly short!
More importantly, once the game began, the system wouldn't tell you that you only had forty minutes, nor would it inform you about the potential train derailment.
It all depended on the players' luck!
By then, the issue wasn't about finding the murderer anymore; it was about how to survive in the collapsing Carriage Number Thirteen!
Just like what he and Xu Shuo experienced earlier.
Thinking of someone, Luo Kai shifted his thoughts, sat up straight, lit a cigarette, and brought up the young man's personal information.
"'Rainy Night Villa' is a nanny script, huh... and then he took on 'Green-Faced Fangs'?"
Looking at the only two scripts Xu Shuo had, Luo Kai's expression became blank for a moment, then turned serious again: "So that guy met the upgrade criteria right after the tutorial?"
Although it wasn't impossible, and there were many examples among players.
To level up, a player only needed to accumulate enough performance value to reach one thousand. Many new players with good performance could typically level up in their second entry into an assessment script.
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As for those who performed mediocrely or slightly worse, they could also upgrade after two more scripts.
But...
"Something's not quite right."
Luo Kai stroked his chin, clicking on the first play Xu Shuo had performed to watch it, while recalling the young man's performance on the train, and feeling an overwhelming sense of inconsistency.
Even if a newbie performed well, after only two low-level scripts, at most they wouldn't have more than five thousand in performance value, and everything in the system store is exorbitantly expensive.
What's more, he felt that Xu Shuo's condition at that time seemed somewhat similar to after having used a certain ability.
That kind of ability where everything from one's temperament to their instinctual behaviors changes—Character Card!
Luo Kai was fairly lucky, as he had a Character Card himself.
And after using a Character Card, it was like merging oneself with a character, creating a brand-new individual from the collision of different styles.
For instance, Luo Kai couldn't cook, but if he used a Character Card of someone who could, then he would just naturally be able to as well.
The catch was that he was still in control of his body, and his will and thoughts remained his own; it was just gaining something extra—like the memory and abilities of the Character Card.
Memory, after all, has the greatest influence on a person's way of thinking.
Luo Kai just felt that the aura of that person at the time was very similar.
Otherwise, how could a rookie who just joined the game the day before yesterday fight in a way that subdued all the enemies on the train and cornered that eerie Little Ghost until it trembled in fear? It sounded incredibly far-fetched from the Script Space!
What on earth was so special about him?!
At this moment, "Rainy Night Villa" had already started playing, and Luo Kai glanced at the character introduction at the beginning of the film, feeling even more that something was off.
"His character is a chef?"
An image of the young man in a white coat playing with a fruit knife flashed through Luo Kai's mind; so that blood-stained white coat... was it what the chef wore when chopping people?
Wait, do chefs wear white coats?
It seems like there's something not quite right...
...
...
In Yang City, inside a rental house located in an urban village.
After returning home, Xu Shuo didn't go to the studio but chose to go home instead. After all, it was already past four in the afternoon, and since it was almost time to get off work, there was no need to go.
He changed his clothes after he returned to his room, then casually locked the bedroom door from the inside before lying down on the bed with his eyes closed, peacefully.
Although the Player's Handbook specified one more day of rest, that time had already passed by noon today. It hadn't immediately pulled Xu Shuo into the game, which meant it probably provided some additional self-selection time like last time.
After three o'clock in the afternoon, Xu Shuo had joined the "Director's" team to help extract a script, so the game wouldn't have been so unreliable as to pull him away from the Illusory Realm.
Now that he was completely at leisure, Xu Shuo decided it was best to be proactive.
In a pitch-black space where he couldn't see his hand before his face, a system panel emitting a faint blue light appeared.
[Your mentor "Hong Rao" has selected the script "Song of the Paladin" for this game. Would you like to enter?]
Huh? That woman had actually already arranged a script for him?
Xu Shuo was somewhat surprised, but then remembered something and fell into thought.
Being a Level 1 player, the script Hong Rao prepared for him would surely also be a Level 1 script.
And the rewards for a Level 1 script were just too low...
Even though the two scripts he had entered before were somewhat problematic and had even broken down, the rewards wouldn't be lacking!
Having thought this through, Xu Shuo resolutely clicked the "Random" option in the system menu.