Chapter 28: Under the Ground
The tentacle spider being chased by the players is a low-level monster called "Dream Weaver".
That's right... Although it looks like it's very weak and was forced to retreat hastily by players using things like rotten sticks and broken shovels, this thing is indeed a real monster.
The reason why it seems to be a "counterfeit" is that the biggest threat of this "Dream Weaver" is not physical attack, but the densely packed fleshy poisonous needles on its thirteen tentacles - as long as a living creature is lightly touched by the tentacles, even if only a little bit of skin is touched, it will be instantly injected with neurotoxins by the "Dream Weaver".
Once injected with this evil spider venom, even Hal who was as strong as a bull would not be able to hold on for a few seconds before his body began to become paralyzed, and at most half a minute or so before his consciousness began to blur. He would enter the dream state while awake and unknowingly become the delicious meal of the "Dream Weaver".
It is good at lurking and can move on any terrain. Its thirteen two-meter-long tentacles can form a no-dead-angle attack range, making it the predator king among low-level monsters. If a normal close-combat professional strongman, such as Hal Maxwell, Charlie Rex, or Pansy and other normal people were to challenge this "Dream Weaver", they might end up in a tough battle.
However... Although the players move like crazy, chatter loudly, and jump around, they are not really living creatures. No matter how much neurotoxin the Dreamweaver injects into the players, it will only flow through the bones...
The players were immune to the most powerful poisonous killer move, weighed only 40% of a normal person, and were fast enough. In addition, the Weaver was only good at stealth attacks and was not known for his flexibility and mobility, so he was soon caught up by the players.
Next, this untimely dream weaver was beaten by players with stones, mud balls, and rotten sticks holding the tentacles to stab the spider's trunk. The abdomen, which was originally a weak point, was penetrated alive, and it fell to the ground in frustration...
"This damn thing made me dirty." Yang Ying, one of the main output players, didn't seem very happy. He kept shaking off the green stuff that got stuck on his novice suit.
"I got a lot of it on me, and it's a bit smelly. I have to wash it when I get home." Another main output player, Tang Jia, also had a look of disgust on his face. "This is the only bad thing about this game. The crappy planners are just like those who have eaten too much. They are crazy about simulation. They even have to wash their own clothes while playing the game. I've never seen anything like this in my life."
In the town hall, Yang Qiu, who heard the female player scolding the planner with his own ears, looked calm.
She was scolding the planner, what does it have to do with me as the game producer?
"Where are we going? Why is this tunnel so long?"
The players who killed the tentacle spider finally realized that something was wrong.
"We should be out of the town now." En Bu Zeng, who fell behind in the pursuit, came up to join the others. "Since we encountered this monster just now, the appearance of the tunnel has changed. It has changed from being fixed with wooden frames to being unfixed with wooden frames. The space is more spacious, and the walls of the tunnel seem to have been reinforced by some special means. It is stronger than the tunnels we walked through before, which looked like they were dug by the townspeople themselves."
"Eh? What does that mean?" Tang Jia was confused. Yang Ying, who was obsessed with studying, also had a lot of question marks in his mind.
En Bu Zeng slightly missed the brief cooperation with Miao Bi Sheng Hua, and patiently explained: "What I mean is that since we encountered this tentacle spider monster, we have entered the underground passage opened by 'non-human' means. Considering the body that looks like Anna seen at the entrance of the cellar, I think that many townspeople who dug the tunnel may have accidentally dug through the underground space leading to the monster's nest or the monster's territory. This is likely to have led to the annihilation of the townspeople, or at least the loss of a large number of townspeople."
The three of them were startled.
Brother Lahong did not participate in their discussion. His attention was always on the monster's corpse. At this moment, not only was he not frightened at all, he turned his head excitedly and said excitedly: "Hey, hey, great discovery... This thing can be identified by identification!"
The four girls were stunned, and quickly used their identification skills...
"Dream Weaver"
"LV1"
"A low-level monster that is good at mental attacks. It can inject neurotoxins into its prey, causing it to fall into paralysis, trance, or daydream state."
"Possible drops: Dreamweaver Poison Sac, Dreamweaver Poison Pearl, Magic Residue."
In the identified information, in the "Possible Drop" column, the font of "Dreamweaver Poison Sac" is white, which means ordinary material, and the font of "Dreamweaver Poison Strain" and "Magic Residue" is blue, which means excellent grade material!
"A monster that drops excellent-grade materials?!" Tang Jia, a girl who is addicted to games, suddenly became excited and said excitedly, "Is this where the monsters spawn? Have we found the spawning point?!"
"That's right!" Brother Lahong, who is also a heavy gamer, nodded vigorously. "The only way out of the town is to the south, which is blocked by that giant rat. The cliff we found now is the correct way out of the town to spawn monsters!"
Without saying a word, Tang Jia rushed forward with a broken shovel, and dug up the monster's corpse with Brother La Hong. They actually dug out an organ that looked like a pig's heart from the monster's abdominal cavity:
"Dreamweaver Poison Sac"
" Common monster poison sacs, can be used for poison processing and alchemy. Hand them over to Black Mage Yang for 20 reputation points."
Tang Jia handed the material to En Bu Zeng without thinking: "Great, Qing Yue, if you can get more of this thing, you can get enough reputation to change your job sooner."
"Yes, if you have the chance, kill a few more of these monsters." Yang Ying finally understood why Tang Jia was so excited when he heard that he could kill monsters, and nodded happily.
En Bu Zeng glanced at La Hong Ge and Shen Mi Xue Xue, and seeing that they both had no objections, he unceremoniously put away the poison sac and said, "Let's look further ahead. There is only one road from where we came down. Since monsters have appeared here, the end of the road is likely to be the monster spawning point that will be opened after we complete this mission. There may be important mission information here."
In the town hall, Yang Qiu, who was monitoring the players, nodded with relief.
It seems that as long as players are given numerical rewards, they will not be particularly averse to fighting monsters that can reduce SAN value just by looking at their appearance, will be attacked by disgusting tentacles during the battle, and will also be covered with highly toxic toxins...
The player with the ID "Entropy does not increase" was indeed smart enough to interpret the clues he deliberately left clearly - that's right, the one who added this 800-meter-long tunnel to the passage dug by the townspeople was Yang Qiu.
After taking over this tunnel, all of Yang Qiu’s magic powder was used up… Earth magic does not consume any mana, but it really wastes the magic powder.
But in order to provide players with monster spawning points that are suitable for spawning monsters and allow them to gain benefits, this investment is worth it.
Yang Qiu carefully selected the Dreamweaver for players to play with. Besides the fact that this thing is indeed completely defeated by the "Undead Scourge", its poison sacs and poison beads, as well as the "magic residue" formed by the secretions of the monster's body are all popular and practical materials. You can exchange them from players by giving some of your own reputation. How wonderful!
If the player does not panic when encountering the monster, and takes the time to cast an identification spell, the player can still see the monster's red head name, LV1 level, and health bar...
"It's going well here...how about the other side?"
The team exploring another tunnel found a relatively open underground space about half the size of a basketball court after wandering around in the narrow tunnel fixed with wooden boards and pillars for a long time.
This space is smaller and lower than the cave where Lord Yang planted the big-leaf vine. It is obviously a man-made creation. There are some supplies piled inside. It is obvious at a glance that this place was once used as an underground shelter by the townspeople.
"The supplies stored here are all rotten." Jiang Wei lifted up the tattered board on a wooden box, took a look, and then covered it up. "The last time there were living people here was a long time ago."
Miaobishenghua stroked his chin and looked at the considerable number of wooden boxes and sacks in the corner, and said thoughtfully: "The townspeople here all belong to a pioneer team led by 'General Charlotte'. They are more united and have a stronger sense of collective spirit than the townspeople in ordinary towns. Judging from the materials piled up here, this conclusion is also valid. Then why... when they encountered danger, none of these townspeople fled to this underground shelter?"
"Because the danger came too urgent, the townspeople had no time to evacuate?" Qin Guan thought for a moment and spoke out.
Miaobishenghua shook his head and said, "Although we don't know how many people there are in this pioneer team, there are a total of 123 wooden houses in this town, and 68 of them were built with cellars specially dug out for storing supplies. This proves that this town once had at least 68 households with surplus supplies that needed to be stored in cellars."
"It is difficult to threaten the lives of so many people at the same time in a very short period of time and prevent all the townspeople from hiding in the underground shelters in time. Unless..."
"Unless these townspeople abandon their underground shelters themselves." Jiang Wei replied calmly.
"That's right. The underground shelter, or all the underground space, makes the townspeople feel more dangerous and more terrifying, which is why it is possible for this strange phenomenon that the townspeople dare not go underground." Miaobishenghua smiled and nodded at Jiang Wei.
Give me medicine & Qin Guan both looked at Jiang Wei silently.
It’s fine if entropy doesn’t increase...but are you showing off too?
Jiang Wei ignored the men's bored jealousy and continued to discuss with Miaobishenghua: "But for this mission we are going to do, the protagonist 'Maurice' is obviously an exception. The parchment he wrote after losing his mind was thrown on the stairs at the entrance. It can be interpreted that this guy has entered the underground passage again, right?"
While the two men were discussing, they kept searching around the shelter with their hands. However, unlike the others who were rummaging around everywhere, they seemed to be very purposeful and only stayed in some key places.
"I think so too. The protagonist 'Morris' in the mission should be the last town citizen to enter the underground passage. But there is too little key information, so we can't determine the specific reason. We can only... Shit!" Miaobishenghua pushed open two stacked empty boxes and was suddenly frightened by the scene behind the boxes.
My two friends, Give Me Medicine and Qin Guan, hurried over to show concern... and then they also let out a shocked "Oh shit!"
The wall behind the box was hollowed out into a hole the size of a suitcase.
Inside the hole, there was a male corpse curled up awkwardly... barely visible in a shirt, vest, and overalls.
Miaobishenghua could not accept the horror scenes and took several steps back - being a skeleton and not fearing skeletons are two different things!
Qin Guan bravely and cautiously stepped forward and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment from the hands of the male corpse, which seemed to have stuffed itself in.
The handwriting on the parchment was very sloppy, not as neat as the one I found when I took the medicine, but at least not as messy as the one found at the tunnel entrance. The font was barely legible, and most of the content could be translated by the system:
"Dear Anna:"
"I don't remember how many days it has been since I came to Tarantan today. Maybe it's two hundred days, maybe it's three hundred days, I don't know (the handwriting is unclear)"
"(Content missing)"
"They all think I'm crazy, but I know I'm not crazy (words are unclear). The problem is definitely not me, but them!"
"It was Bildad, the farmer's son, who first said he heard a faraway, clear laughter, as if it came from the end of the world, or from under his pillow."
"I suspected Bildad of betraying the goddess of prosperity, but he denied it. I took him back to my house and asked him to stay the night under my nose."
"May the goddess of prosperity bless this traitor who believed in the heresy. When the night came, he laughed like a madman... That laughter did not come from anyone else, but from Bildad himself!"
"Bildad lost control before my eyes, he attacked me with a mad laugh (indistinct)"
"Everyone, including Arlin who lived next door to me, denied hearing Bildad's terrible laughter. They suspected that I had killed Bildad out of personal vendetta."
"I didn't want to embarrass Yarlin, so I surrendered my position as sheriff, but I definitely didn't kill anyone for any shameful reasons. I can't do it alone, and I really hope to get your support."
"Soon after, I heard laughter, too."
Qin Guan shuddered and handed the letter to Miaobishenghua.
After reading the contents of this letter, even though I knew I was playing a game and completing a mission in the game, I couldn't help but feel my scalp tingling and shouted loudly, " Really a mission or a horror game? Those who can't play horror games are not qualified to do missions?!"
In the town hall, Yang Qiu remained calm despite being scolded by a female player again.
She was scolding the production team. What does it have to do with me, Lord Tarantan, the Black Mage Yang?
