Chapter 51: Resentment of the Death Curse (Part 2)

Page (1/3)

When carrying out a scenario mission, players are assigned identities by the system and take on the roles of specific characters.

In the eyes of ordinary people within the scenario, a player’s appearance, mannerisms, and expressions will conform to the character’s past behavior. Even if the player is carrying things like firearms or wands, the Killing Ground system will conceal them, so long as they are not too outrageous.

When carrying out a mission as a team, however, the players appear to one another exactly as they looked at the moment of teleportation.

Just like now.

Li Sheng studied his three companions inside the van. The man in the driver’s seat was a bespectacled young man with short hair, a white jacket, and jeans. He was rather thin and had heavy dark circles beneath his eyes.

Seated on the left side of the back row was a long-haired girl in a long skirt. Her appearance was unremarkable, she wore thick glasses, and a few freckles dotted her face.

On the right side of the back row sat another girl. She was young, with a ponytail, and wore a black suit. She was quite beautiful, but her expression was timid, and her eyes held a panic that none of the other three possessed.

As Li Sheng observed the others, the other three were also watching him with strange looks.

There was only one reason: Li Sheng’s outfit was truly astonishing.

He was dressed in a yellow robe belonging to a Mount Mao Daoist, with a bulletproof vest underneath. A cross necklace hung around his neck. In his left hand, he held an Islamic scripture; in his right, an assault rifle. Night-vision goggles rested atop his head, while several strings of consecrated Buddhist prayer beads dangled from his wrist.

The entire ensemble was so wildly mismatched, so seemingly deranged, that even those inclined to make fun of it had no idea where to begin.

[Phase One Mission Time Limit: Two Hours]

[Phase One Mission Failure Penalty: None]

[Mission Briefing Delivered]

[In the eyes of its people, Water-Cleansed City had always been a quiet and peaceful place—until that tranquility was shattered by a series of bizarre deaths.]

[A production crew from a late-night television program went to visit Kenichi Ishikawa, a renowned local folklorist, hoping to invite him onto the show as a guest. Instead, they learned that he had already been missing for three days.]

[The four-person team had no choice but to return to the television station. On the way back, they saw something that caused their vehicle to crash and plunge into the water...]

Splash, splash—

The mission briefing finished playing. River water continued pouring through the van’s windows and door seams as the entire vehicle slowly sank toward the riverbed.

Page (2/3)

“The mission is called ‘The Grudge of the Death Curse.’ The briefing mentions ‘bizarre deaths,’ yet there’s still no penalty for failure.”

The dark-circled young man in the driver’s seat sighed. “In supernatural scenario missions, having no failure penalty is actually the greatest penalty of all. Forget it. Let’s get out of the vehicle first.”

With that, his body became translucent, transforming into strings of green zeroes and ones. He floated through the roof of the van and arrived on the riverbank.

The long-haired girl on the left side of the back row rolled down the window, nimbly climbed onto the roof, and jumped ashore.

Li Sheng pushed open the door and entered the icy river. When he saw that the ponytailed girl on the right side of the back row could not undo her seat belt and was sweating profusely with panic, he opened the door and unfastened it for her, then swam with her to the riverbank.

Once all four had escaped, the dark-circled young man quickly said, “In case there’s a newcomer among us, let me explain something. Team missions in the Killing Ground game have no ‘friendly-fire immunity.’ Players can attack one another, though the effects of such attacks will be weakened to a certain degree.

“Furthermore, repeatedly attempting to harm a teammate will be judged by the system as malicious behavior toward the game. This can lead to serious consequences, such as a reduction in the player’s level or having their next mission changed into a punishment mission.

“So, to a certain extent, the safety of team members is guaranteed. You don’t need to worry too much about being stabbed in the back by your teammates.

“Now we’re all grasshoppers tied to the same cord. We have no choice but to cooperate. To show my sincerity, I’ll reveal my player ID first.”

He snapped his fingers, and a line of text appeared above his head.

[Overworked Coder · Stack Raider] [Lv7]

Li Sheng raised an eyebrow slightly. The Lv7 at the end indicated the young man’s current level. Stack Raider in the middle was his ID, while Overworked Coder at the front was his title.

Once a player reached Level 5, the title system was unlocked.

The Killing Ground granted players titles based on specific evaluations of their performance during missions. These titles also bestowed unique abilities, equivalent to special skills that did not occupy skill slots.

A player could acquire multiple titles, but could equip only one at a time. Changing titles came with a forty-eight-hour cooldown period.

“Since you’ve put it that way...”

The long-haired girl snapped her fingers and revealed her ID: [Awakening of Insects, Summer Solstice] [Lv2]

The ponytailed girl in the suit timidly raised her hand. [Little Red Riding Hood] [Lv2]

Finally, there was Li Sheng. [Mayfly] [Lv2]

Page (3/3)

“Three Level Twos, and I’m the only Level Seven. What is the Killing Ground playing at? Did it take me for a nanny...?”

Stack Raider rubbed his temples. His gaze passed over the golden badge on the chest of Little Red Riding Hood’s black suit.

“Oh? You’re from the Japan Agency for the Investigation of Anomalous Affairs?”

“Y-yes,” Little Red Riding Hood stammered.

Like the Special Affairs Bureau of the Eastern superpower and the Division of Anomalous Incidents under the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, Japan had also established its own official agency, known as the Agency for the Investigation of Anomalous Affairs. The golden badge was its insignia.

“Don’t be so nervous. The average level of the four of us in this mission is only 3.25. The difficulty shouldn’t be too high.”

Stack Raider smiled amiably, while calmly turning the matter over in his mind.

In the team missions issued by the Killing Ground, the strength of the members generally did not differ too greatly, and their abilities tended to complement one another.

For example, the system would not send four players specializing in medical skills to carry out a purely combat-oriented mission.

Stack Raider himself had already completed several solo and team missions. He had also accompanied veterans from the Whale Song Guild, which he had joined, on expeditions into the physical Killing Ground. His experience was therefore quite substantial.

Among all Level Seven players, his strength should rank somewhere in the upper middle tier.

With his abilities, the system was highly unlikely to assign him three complete novices simply to drag him down. That meant that among Awakening of Insects, Summer Solstice, Little Red Riding Hood, and Mayfly, at least one of them was concealing their true level of strength.

That person might have encountered supernatural phenomena and become an extraordinary individual even before becoming a player. That would explain how they could be rated by the system as comparable to Stack Raider despite being only Level Two.

Considering that Little Red Riding Hood belonged to Japan’s Agency for the Investigation of Anomalous Affairs, she was most likely the one...

“Bzzzz—”

A noisy sound interrupted Stack Raider’s thoughts. He turned toward its source and exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing, man?”

The player known as Mayfly had somehow produced a diesel generator, a power strip, an ironing table, and an electric iron. He was now using the iron to press the Daoist robe he had taken off, behaving like a housewife doing laundry.