Chapter 34: Crazy Undead
It's 3:30 pm Earth time, 6 am game time.
Hal "Razor" Maxwell, the former leader of the Holy Crow Thieves, walked out of the tent and looked around expressionlessly.
The planned construction site of the Travelers' Guild was transformed from a deserted neighborhood into a real large construction site. The guild hall under construction was surrounded by iron pipes and large fishing nets of unknown material (actually scaffolding), and the living area provided for the mentors also had a half-meter-deep foundation.
With the strange enthusiasm of these undead for "work", Hal felt that if he waited for half a month at most, he might be able to move out of the cramped tent...
But he wouldn't be happy about it at all.
On the contrary, as the construction progressed, Hal's heart became colder and colder... He was only in his thirties and didn't want to bury his life in this fucking wasteland with a bunch of skeletons, zombies, and an evil black magician!
Several skeletons with strange green square letters on their heads passed by, and one of them turned his gaze to Hal who was standing in front of the tent.
Hal remained motionless, his hand hanging naturally and slowly approaching the long sword that he always carried with him.
The player lowered his head to glance at the game time displayed on the system. Instead of coming over to disturb Hal, who had not yet started work, he walked away while chatting with his companions.
Hal dropped his hand from the hilt in disappointment...
These strange undead spirits are indeed very smart, and they are given fewer and fewer opportunities to be "legally" killed.
Sighing, Hal picked up the ingredients for breakfast and walked towards Tuttle's residence.
Tuttle Joe, who was born in a good family, is the one among them who pays the most attention to the details of life. With the same ingredients, Tuttle can always make food that is more delicious than others. Hal and Pansy, the treasure expert who also works on this construction site, have become accustomed to having dinner at Tuttle's house in the morning and evening.
"Good morning, Hal."
Pansy, who lived closer to Tuttle, had already arrived, holding a carton of milk in her hand, and greeted Hal casually.
"Good morning, Pansy. Tuttle, here's one for you."
Hal put the paper bag in his hand next to Tuttle who was busy preparing the ingredients, and then pulled a stool next to Pansy and sat down: "You haven't finished your carton of milk yet?"
"There are some left. Do you want one?" Pansy casually took out a box.
"Thank you." Hal took it without hesitation...
"Our black magician is really powerful. He can find all kinds of supplies even in such a desolate place." Pansy said meaningfully, "Although the things he finds are always a little strange, such as this carton of milk, which seems to have a lot of sugar in it."
"That's right. On the contrary, it doesn't have much milk flavor." Hal narrowed his eyes. "The cookies that were distributed earlier were directly sprinkled with a layer of icing sugar... Even in the capital of the Rhine Kingdom, those famous cookie shops are not so generous."
"So..." Tuttle brought a stew pot full of ingredients over and placed it on the campfire where the two of them were sitting. He wiped his hands and sat down while saying, "You all think that there are forces from the outer continent supporting this black magician?"
"The largest sugar-producing area is in the Outer Continent." Pansy said succinctly, "As far as I know, the Rhine Kingdom was unable to take advantage of the opportunity to colonize the Outer Continent because of a feud with the Kenyan Empire."
Tuttle spread his hands and said, "Well, it seems reasonable that the evil black magician backed by the evil Kenya Empire has infiltrated the eastern part of the Nabaron Continent with ill intentions... But we have taken turns to arrange people to guard at night these days, and we have never seen any strangers enter this place to deliver supplies to this black magician."
"If we want to provide the necessities of life for the eighteen of us and Rex, we only need to have a powerful concealment expert carry a space ring—" Tuttle pointed to the piles of blue bricks and cement on the construction site not far away, "These things will require at least two medium-sized airships. An airship is so conspicuous that the night watchman must be blind to not see it."
Hal & Pansy remained silent...
The appearance of a large number of building materials overnight is not too strange for players. After all, it is a game and the planner can "refresh" whatever he wants.
It was very fucked up for these natives - they simply could not understand how the black magician Yang, who was squatting with them in this barren wasteland full of monsters and demons, could do it!
Well, transporting such a heavy object is indeed a very troublesome task. Yang Qiu emptied his space ring and ran more than ten times before he was able to do it...
As for the source, just like the daily necessities, he did not explain it to his subordinates at all, because there was really no way to explain it...
"Tuttle, what do you think?" Hal sighed and asked with all his strength.
Tuttle was silent for a moment, then said, "...Perhaps it is not a bad idea for us to accept reality for the time being."
Hal's face changed drastically and he stood up suddenly.
"Hal." Pansy quickly stood up and hugged Hal's arm, looking at Tuttle worriedly.
Tuttle stood up with his hands on his knees, looked into Hal's angry eyes, and said frankly: "Believe me, Hal, I have never forgotten our original oath. We are always on the same path."
Hal exhaled heavily several times, suppressed his anger, and said through gritted teeth: "Then what do you mean?"
Although there were no noisy undead wandering around them, Tuttle still leaned close to Hal's ear cautiously and lowered his voice very low: "I was thinking, maybe we can consider using these weird undead... and Yang."
Hal looked at him in shock...
"Yang proclaimed himself the Lord of Tarantan. We all thought this black magician was crazy and dreaming... But it is clear that Yang is serious. He really intends to turn this wasteland into his own territory. He may have spent many years hoarding supplies in preparation. These undead who cannot die no matter how hard they are killed are his subjects."
Tattle said softly, "For a black magician, it's not surprising to summon as many undead subjects as possible. If he can really gain a foothold in Tarantan, then there's nothing wrong with us following him, as long as there are enough benefits. If he can't..."
Tuttle lowered his voice so low that even Pansy, who was very close to them, could barely hear it: "The bounty for the Nightmare Butcher is as high as 90,000 gold coins."
Pansy and Hal's eyes suddenly lit up...
"-Wait, what if he finds out he can't accomplish his goal and chooses to escape? When a black magician wants to escape, it's not easy for others to stop him." Hal grabbed Tattle's hand and said hurriedly.
Tuttle pulled Hal and Pansy to sit down, and approached the two friends who were looking at him eagerly, and said coldly: "So we have to prepare as soon as possible. First of all, we need to win over as many undead as possible... I think you have also discovered that these undead are crazy and arrogant. Even when Yang passed by them, no one was polite to Yang. I have reason to believe that these undead may... not think that Yang is their master."
Hal slapped his thigh and said in sudden realization, "You're right. Yang will guard against us, but he may not guard against those undead."
"But when we were in contact with those undead, Yang was also monitoring us in the matrix." Pansy frowned.
Tuttle nodded to Pansy. His companions all knew that although Pansy had a bad temper, he was actually a smart and intelligent person. "That's right. We need to use the matrix to communicate with these undead. Our every word and action is monitored by Yang, but this monitoring only ensures that we must abide by his rules and order these undead to work. It does not prevent us from having other contacts with those undead... For example, when we kill some annoying undead, Yang will not notice us as long as our behavior is not out of line."
Pansy's eyes lit up: "You mean... we can find an opportunity to give these crazy undead some hints?"
"Yes." Tuttle nodded affirmatively, his eyes sparkling with wisdom. "I think you have also noticed that in the past few days, almost all the undead have been talking about 'hidden missions'... They seem to be looking forward to taking on special secret missions that are not publicly announced. Although we cannot issue missions outside of the regulations, we can make them believe that we can give them what they want."
Pansy and Hal nodded vigorously. Hal said excitedly, "That's right. These noisy bastards have been even more excited these days. Some of them were dissatisfied with my missions and kept asking if there were other missions. I killed several of them!"
"..." Tuttle wiped his sweat, "Next time we don't have to kill them all. We can consider choosing some less crazy ones... No, choose some undead that we can identify, selectively let some of them go, and then observe the subsequent reactions of these undead to see if they will be more friendly to us..."
"We can't rush this kind of thing. We have to take our time and patiently select the undead who are willing to get close to us. We slowly give these undead the benefits we can give, and try to keep the connection close enough to not be noticed by Yang. When the time is right, we will give them some hints..."
After the food was cooked, Tuttle served the food to the two friends and said, "A secret is no longer a secret if too many people know it. I suggest that this should be done by only the three of us. What do you think?"
"That's right. It's not that we don't trust others, but the fewer people who know the secret, the better." Pansy agreed immediately.
Hal had no objection... He believed that there would be no traitors among the seventeen people from the former thieves' group who stayed with him until the end, but there were indeed some idiots among them who had no brains and were more likely to cause trouble than to accomplish anything.
After discussing the big plan, during the daytime working hours, Hal, who was usually annoyed to death by the players, showed a professionalism that was different from his usual idleness. He observed the undead doing tasks for him with sharp eyes and full concentration.
"When will this fucking brick-carrying life end?"
"Damn it! The last bit of potential won't increase at all!"
"Who mixed this batch of cement? It's so thin that it can't even be applied as a paste. Did they not rework it enough?"
"I used the money I earned from moving bricks to buy my wife lipstick. She said she would never force me to take off my helmet next time..."
"Are you going to the spider cave at night?"
"Oh my god, you still want to go? Haven't you dropped enough equipment?"
"I think if you go to the spider cave, don't even think about killing monsters. You can get rich just by picking up equipment..."
There were only a dozen or so undead, but they managed to create the clamor of a vegetable market. Add to that the background sound of Tuttle and Pansy singing in the same construction site not far away. Hal felt the veins on his forehead throbbing, and he had the urge to pull out his long sword and chop them wildly...
Just as Hal was using the greatest self-control in his life to suppress his annoyance, an undead ghost came running over with a ghostly roar: "Hey, hey, have you heard? Boss Beluga is already changing his job, and the first wizard in the whole game is about to appear!"
"Fuck, is this true?"
"That guy is already level one when he comes online, and he can change his job once he gains enough reputation. He is faster than others."
"This is so unfair! My account only has 32 potential points!"
"Who told you to be a dog planner and do random things? Just accept your bad luck."
"Why don't we go and chop down Lord Yang? It'll be fair to everyone that we can't do a job change!"
Hal, his body trembled...
The players who don’t feel tired from working hard and don’t waste their breath on talking don’t think there is anything wrong with their comments at all, and they continue to talk:
"You're overthinking it. A level one spider has killed Vanilla's wife and the others so badly. A level three rat has achieved the achievement of slaughtering all players. Lord Yang, whose level cannot even be determined by the identification technique, still wants to be killed? A brother with yellow urine, please wake him up!" A player who was trying hard to stir up trouble shouted and taunted.
"That's right. It's more practical to kill the high-level NPC who is using his reputation to exploit us." Another player pointed at Hal. "This NPC is level 5. It's easier to kill than Lord Yang. How about practicing with this?"
The string called rationality in Hal's mind snapped. He drew out his long knife and rushed towards the undead with a dark face who was pointing his dirty bone claws at him rudely.
"Damn, an NPC can actually hack people just by talking a few words?!" Fortunately, the player was quite far away and he immediately ran away.
“Hahahahaha!”
"Hahahaha, I'm dying of laughter!"
"Run, this NPC won't chase you if you're out of range! This Hal has shorter legs than the Tattle next door... why the hell is he coming at me!" The next player Hal targeted jumped up and ran, turning back and shouting, "Don't get excited, Halsan, I'm just kidding, I'm your undead friend~"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"That's enough, can you please stop teasing the NPCs, hahahaha!"
"I'll be laughed to death by you idiots sooner or later!"
"Hurry up and return the NPC. He needs to accept the mission!"
Tuttle, who was next door, heard Hal's laughter and was surprised that Hal had changed so quickly and could immediately get along with these annoying undeads that he had been complaining about...
When I turned around, I found that Hal was chasing and hacking a jumping skeleton like crazy amid the laughter of a group of undead.
Tuttle: “…”
The player who was interacting with Tuttle noticed that the NPC was ignoring him, so he moved sideways to block Tuttle's sight and shoved the muddy quest item in his face: "Tuttle Joe, I want to settle the quest, do you hear me? Hello? Hello?"
After a day's work, the three-person team had dinner together after get off work.
"I don't think so." Hal said gloomily, "It's too difficult to find the less crazy ones among these crazy undead."
Tuttle & Pansy: "..."
How should I put it… Although they all felt that Hal’s lack of patience was the problem, the undead were indeed problematic; no matter how many times they witnessed and experienced it, it was hard for them to get used to the undead’s laughter and gloating when their companions were chopped…
"well!"
The three of them sighed in unison.
"Don't give up too soon. It's only the first day." Tuttle cheered up and said, "These undead are very...personal. And from what they say, I firmly believe that we can communicate with them...at least with some of them. As long as we have enough patience, we can definitely find undead who are willing to help us assassinate Yang at the critical moment."
Hal was silent for a moment, then said in a dark voice, "You don't understand what I mean, Tuttle. It's not difficult to let a certain undead assassinate Yang. These illogical lunatics have no respect for Yang who summoned them, let alone treating Yang as a master to whom they are loyal. The difficulty lies in how to communicate normally with these undead."
Tuttle & Pansy: "..."
"The worst thing is that in the eyes of these undead, the only difference between us and Lord Yang is that we are easier to assassinate or harder to assassinate." Hal said with a fucked-up look on his face, "At least I can't guarantee that these undead will not target us. Don't forget, Yang said at the beginning that these unruly undead...will kill any target they can, regardless of the cost."
Tuttle's face suddenly became stiff.
To be honest, because it was so easy to kill these undead, he had already forgotten Yang's warning...
Thinking about the spirit of these undead who had been rushing towards the spider's nest where Yang had dug a tunnel in the past few days, and remained undeterred despite repeated defeats, Tattle could not help but shudder.
Pansy's expression was even uglier than Tuttle's.
This treasure expert was the most reliable think tank besides Tuttle during the Holy Crow era. When Hal and Tuttle were frustrated by the plan they had discussed in the morning, he had already thought of something more in-depth: "Hey, guys, I have a not-so-good guess... Could it be that these crazy evil-like skeletons summoned by Yang... are not ordinary undead?"
Tuttle hurriedly asked, "Pansy, what do you think?"
"Although Yang claims he has never admitted it, the nickname he is listed on the Navalny International Convention's wanted list is indeed 'Nightmare Butcher'."
Pansy took a deep breath and said grimly, "These skeletons he summoned for his subjects are indeed different from the undead armies of ordinary black magicians... They are not dull at all, but very sensitive. While they are crazy, they also have very high intelligence. This kind of intelligence is not something that ordinary summoned creatures can possess-"
When Tuttle and Hall heard this, they felt the hairs on their bodies stand up...
Pansy's tone became more and more excited: "Could it be that these undead are not the undead we thought they were, but creatures from a higher dimension of the demon world?!"
"The reason why they appear in the form of fragile skeletons is either that the real bodies of these undead cannot enter the material plane, or that Yang temporarily restricted their power in order to 'tame' these undead, making them appear as weak as we see?!"
"The evidence is what Hal said. These undead spirits are not bound by the summoning contract. They can actually kill Yang! I can't even imagine what level of terrifying creatures these undead spirits are!"
Hal was dumbfounded, Tuttle was stunned.
It was as if the fog that had been covering his eyes was blown away by the wind. Hal suddenly remembered countless doubts and his voice began to tremble: "Yes, yes... Yang himself said that these undead will become stronger and stronger. But if they are just ordinary skeletons, how can they become stronger and stronger? Damn it, we shouldn't have come here. We were all fooled by the evil bastard's pretended friendliness. We were all fooled by this guy's generous donations!"
"This kind of thing - the 'Nightmare Butcher' can really do it! Damn it! Is this guy trying to create a natural disaster?!" Tattle also growled with cold sweat on his forehead.
"It's time to make up our minds, guys." Pansy exhaled heavily, "Let's take a gamble and escape at night. This guy won't chase us who know his secret... Or, kill him! Before these dangerous and terrifying creatures are successfully "tamed" and their true strength can be revealed!"
The atmosphere between the three of them became extremely solemn.
None of them believed the naive idea that the evil black magician would let them go - that guy had traveled thousands of miles to the Sorenson Mountains to trick them here!
"Let's do it!" Hal gritted his teeth. "No matter what this crazy black magician is doing, there's no need for us to go crazy with him!"
After all, they had been highwaymen for several years, so when they got angry, they were really brave. They immediately buried their heads in food to fill their stomachs, then dispersed and contacted other people...
Tang Jia, Zheng Qingyue, Yang Ying, Jia Luo, and Ji Tang gathered at the birth point and formed a team, then headed towards the northeast corner of the town.
"One hour in the game is equal to half an hour in real life. The NPCs that require reputation brushing for job changes only give quests between 4:30am and 10am, and 4:30pm and 10pm every day. As for quests from zombie NPCs, you can accept them at any time."
While on the road, Zheng Qingyue enthusiastically introduced the game to the new friends she met: "You can only log in for twelve hours a day, which means you have twenty-four hours of game time. Your initial potential is so high, so you must calculate the time to log in and try to fill up the daily reputation time."
"I understand. I will calculate the time carefully before logging in next time." Ji Tang nodded.
"This is your first day playing, so use up your login time first." Tang Jia threw her hands proudly, "Today I went to kill monsters with their big group, and found a place where a small group can also kill monsters safely. Let's go and verify whether we can kill monsters. If we can, get some materials for Qingyue to exchange for reputation. If she can get the nurse's job transfer, our small team will be powerful!"
Regardless of whether Ji Tang understood or not, he nodded repeatedly...
No matter what game it is, female players are more willing to play with newcomers, and this holographic game is no exception.
Zheng Qingyue glared at Tang Jia helplessly, then turned to her new teammate and added, "Don't listen to all her nonsense. She can be quite unreliable sometimes. We should just go there to watch the fun and be prepared to log off..."
"Ah, it's Entropy No Increase, Boss!"
Two players running towards them saw Entropy No Increase’s ID, stopped with a look of surprise, and waved to greet him.
"Hello." Zheng Qingyue nodded politely to the two players.
"Boss, do you want to do a hidden mission together?" The two players didn't treat themselves as outsiders at all and ran over excitedly, "It seems we have come across a big mission, a mission to assassinate Lord Yang!"
"So exciting?!" Tang Jia exclaimed in surprise.
