"Welcome to Thriller Paradise."
[Loading completed. You are playing Multiplayer Survival Mode (Normal).]
[This mode offers an explanation of the plot. There are chances of Side/[Hidden Quests], together with special Worldview.]
[Rewards for completing the scenario: A random Skill Card that player is able to learn.]
[Plot's introduction is about to play. After the introduction, the game will start immediately.]
Feng Bujue had entered the state where he was watching the opening CG from the first-person point of view one more time. What appeared in front of his eyes was a panoramic view of an ordinary man's small hometown, which leaned against the mountains and faced the river. The suburb had paddy fields and forest. Also, modern facilities and infrastructures like schools, shops, houses, office buildings, etc. were adequate. This small town had reminded Feng Bujue of Hirata's hometown, and a bad premonition started to grow in his heart.
[Sakura Town is a small town that stays away from the noisy, bustling cities.]
[In this quiet town, a strange story is flying around.]
[30 years ago, on the early days of November, the police department of the town continuously received numerous missing cases. Some young men and women had gone missing. No one knows where they went to, but the very last time that they saw them was on the same day—October 31st.]
[No one has ever seen those missing people again or even seen their dead bodies. At first, people assumed that those young men and women had gone away from their houses, leaving the town. However, years went by, and there's still nothing about their whereabouts. Moreover, every year after that, at the same time, similar cases would happen…]
[There were many signs showing that the missing persons didn't leave the small town… Thus, police started to conduct a thorough investigation of the cases.]
[Although police had met a lot of residents of the town, and the records were piled up like a mountain, they didn't have any particular progress, and the only thing that they called 'clue' was the superstition from some elders…]
[The legend of 'the Curse of the Aggrieved Well' started to spread out because of this investigation.]
[They said that… in the abandoned shrine on the mountain, there's a cursed well. Every year, on the last night of October, a song from the country of the dead would be played in the well. At that night, whoever heard that song would come to the shrine and jump into the well…]
"They can't come back because they've entered 'Another World'," said firmly by the elders.
[The investigation eventually came into an impasse. The police encountered a deadlock. Then, they just hoped to try their luck for once. They visited the the mountain and searched for the abandoned shrine. No one expected that they would find some belongings of the missing persons.]
[On the night of October 31st, same year, a team of police watched over the well in order to find out the truth about the 'Spirited Away' event. It happened all the same as they never came back…]
[The investigation was then held indefinitely. The local government prohibited people from entering the mountain at night. At the same time, they used cement to seal the well in the shrine.]
[However, every year, on the last day of October, the missing cases still happen…]
Along with the narration, the screen zoomed in from the panoramic view. Facing the big mountain was a worn out path, leading all the way to deep inside the mountain.
[Time flies. Many years have passed by. The Sakura Town's area expanded as its population tripled. Those missing cases were gradually neglected, and the legend was also forgotten.]
[One night in autumn, six young people from the town visited the mountain, as they wanted to visit the shrine deep inside the mountain for a dare game. And, coincidentally—today is October 31st. ]
"This is a dare game, eh…" Feng Bujue joked while listening to the plot's short introduction. "It's clearly finding the way to death!"
He used to think that the brief introduction would end here, unexpectedly, a scenario settings that were the same with what he had experienced in the 'Campus Seven Inconceivable Things' scenario showed up again.
[From the beginning of the scenario, the system will randomly choose one of the players in your party to receive the 'Protagonist's Halo'.]
[Player with the 'Protagonist's Halo', unless his/her Fear Value surges up too high and he/she has to disconnect, or proactively disconnect and leave the scenario, he/she will not be judged as dead. In addition, no matter what caused his/her death, for example, monster's attack or falling from a high place, Survival Value declining to zero, etc. they all 'luckily' terminate at the moment before the occurrence. Even though the termination can approach zero and be against logic, it can possibly happen.]
[The Protagonist's Halo will be shifted among players in accordance with some special Death FLAGs. Players are advised to figure them out in order to make good use of it.]
[When the number of the party is less than two, the Protagonist's Halo will disappear.]
[Currently, the player who received the Protagonist's Halo is—Invincible Hero]
When the narration was over, it was when the scenario had officially started.
There were five people standing together with Feng Bujue, one of which Feng Bujue had met. It was the old bro Invincible Hero, whom he had fooled once. Invincible Hero was a player from Order Studio in charge of studying and collecting information about 'Fist' in Fighting Specialty during Closed Beta. Currently, his tasks remained, but his level was now 23, and his title had changed from [Imprudent Pugilist Master] to [Thinking Pugilist Master].
Among the other four, there were also two players from Order; one was called [Zen In Scary Dream], also level 23, whose title was [Stern-faced Killer]. The moment he appeared, this man took out a cigarette box from his pocket, put one in his mouth, and lit it up while stroking his hair, which looked like a straightened steamed twisted bread roll, then blew out smoke rings.
The third player who came from the Order was a female player. Needless to say, she appeared as a beauty with red lips and white teeth on a dedicate face outlined by long black hair. She was wearing a white vest—the standard uniform of Order—over a blue suit. Her ID was [Ye Zhi], a little bit confusing. Feng Bujue guessed that her ID had the same pronunciation with her real name. Ye Zhi's level was 20; from her title [Emergency Doctor], she should be a player specialized in Curing.
The other two players were both male at level 18. One was called [Copernicus], and the other was named [Galileo]. And, their titles were even more amazing. The first one's title was [The Discoverer], and the other one's was [The Investigator]. It was obvious that they came from the same team. However, they had no Union badge on their body, and their appearance was nothing special with only a T-shirt and a pair of cheap trousers, whose colors and style were slightly different from the newbie costumes.
In others' eyes, these two were just normal amateur players, and their titles seemed to be related to Investigating Specialty. Their capacity in playing the game surely wouldn't be good. If they didn't join any Union, they would either be too weak that no one would want them, or too deprived that they couldn't establish their own Union. Anyway, looking at their clothing, it was poor but adequate. Weak or strong, it had to be observed later to make sure.
However, according to Feng Bujue's assumption, these two's capacities would fall into two possibilities, and both were kind of extreme.
The first extreme possibility, he doubted that these two fellas were GMs…
From his experience playing the scenario, which had a Derivative, at least, Feng Bujue knew one thing. The Derivative would only appear in Multiplayer Survival Mode's scenarios for six people. According to Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, the possibility to meet them was rare, and the possibility where a player met them twice was itsy-bitsy. Anyway, Feng Bujue was so confident with his harsh karma.
If this scenario had a Derivative… it could be said that from top to toe, nothing on these two fellas' bodies wasn't appropriate to GM's standards. Medium level, common IDs, low-key clothing. They paired up to work without wearing Union badges, and their titles somehow had a sense of hidden meaning. Perhaps they had deliberately adjusted it that way…
As they appeared not to be so strong, it hardly left deep impressions to others. Such players would be neglected after clearing the scenario. Even though someone would send them friend request as an act of politeness , if they denied them, the others wouldn't think too much.
And the second extreme possibility Feng Bujue had assumed was highly possible. These two weren't GMs, and it was just him who was thinking too much. And thus… the competences of these two fellas were possibly awfully dreggy.
Quite the contrary, the combination of the three from Order did not look bad at all. Feng Bujue couldn't confirm whether they were the superstar players or not, but according to their levels and titles, they obviously had a clear division of labor and their fighting capacity was extraordinary for sure. And, as their Union had topped both of the ranking lists, the two buffs they received from Union ranking should be tough though. This was also accounted to players' competences.
When the system was generating scenarios, the difficulty level had a certain relevant degree with the rewards they would receive if they could complete the scenario. If a party of six super strong players gathered in a scenario, they would surely play a scenario whose difficulty level was extremely high. Well, this, they had sought for themselves. Anyway, the current party they had consisted of three-two-one compositions of players, and the possibility of creating a party with relatively strong and weak different combinations was also high since there couldn't be all hotshots gathering in one game. By the way, amateur players always took a big majority part in the game; moreover, it was the absolutely big majority.
The scenario where Feng Bujue had first met Long-Ge was the best example: a high-competency player brought along two low-level players with certain competences, plus two medium-level bunglers.
So, Feng Bujue's second assumption was that… this party had two extremely godawful dudes mingled with them. They were really too weak that no Union wanted them. Also, it was already tough for them to buy cheap costumes and they couldn't even found their own Union.
Of course, no matter what possibility the truth would follow, 'easy' wasn't the suitable word to describe this scenario. From the bottom of his heart, Feng Bujue hoped that these two weren't GMs. Weak was okay as long as they stayed close to the team and listened to the captain, then it wouldn't be a problem to pass this game. But in case they were GMs… the difficulty level of this scenario would be dreadful…
"Ah! It's you, kiddo!" Invincible Hero recognized Feng Bujue and came over to him.
"Invincible-Ge, I believe you have been well since we last met…" said Feng Bujue.
"Go away… Don't try to befriend." Invincible Hero wasn't an idiot. He might be suspicious that the scenario of the Usher's House was completed by Like Rain, Dispirited and Longao Min, but now, as he saw Feng Bujue's title [the Plot Seeker], he understood it right away. "Banging the door? Breaking the knob? You are good at pretending to be a rookie. You completed the scenario after I died, didn't you?"
"Well, your death wasn't in my plan, indeed," Feng Bujue smiled, "anyway, it followed my plan when we had divided to search at the beginning. Later, the fact was that…"
"Cut if off… No need to explain. I don't know what happened after that," intervened Invincible Hero. "I've underestimated you last time. I will call you Da-Ge now, please don't pretend to be a fool but help us to complete the scenario."
"You're flattering me that much; I'm so embarrassed." Although Feng Bujue said polite words, his face was filled with pride.
"Invincible, is he your friend?" Zen In Scary Dream walked over. No one knew since when he had taken out a beer from his bag, which he was drinking now.
"Ah... Not very close. I've met him once in a scenario," answered Invincible Hero. He then promptly turned around and spoke to Feng Bujue. "Oh wow, look at your title! Are you a player purely specialized in solving puzzles?" This appeared to be obvious to him. Even in Order, there weren't many players who could train all of the Specialties averagely, like doing both fighting and reasoning like Feng Bujue.
"I incline on solving puzzles,"said Feng Bujue. "Of course, my fighting is not too weak though."
"Eh? From your tone, aren't you a master of pen and sword now?" Zen In Scary Dream said, but then he ruefully continued without waiting for Feng Bujue to answer. "Ah… youth is good… don't just look at me now… I used to be handsome, cool and wild once…"
"You… Zen-Ge, I thought you are just 20-something, and you do drink, smoke and had curly hair…" The corner of Feng Bujue's mouth convulsed.
Even Invincible Hero felt embarrassed. "This is what he often says, don't mind it…"
The six of them talked for a while to understand each member's specialties. During this time, Feng Bujue had used [Plan Victory From Thousand Mile Away], and the BOSS' data he'd seen were as follows:
[Name: Aggrieved Well]
[Race: ???]
[Level: 30]
[Depth: ???]
[Well's Diameter: 122 cm]
[Fighting Technique: Illusion]
[Weakness: After the energy source is stopped, it will become a normal dried well.]
[Skills: Devouring souls]
[Danger Level: High]
These information and the short plot description were coincidentally similar. Anyway, the 'weakness' information was worth contemplating. After 'stopping the energy supply', this 'Aggrieved Well' would lose its effects, but where did the power of this well came from?
If that energy supply had existed in 'Another World'… should they let the well swallow them to come to that world and stop that source? Let alone whether they would die being swallowed, even if they were alive coming to the other side and successfully broke the power supply, surely players couldn't return since the well then had already become a normal dried well, and the connection between the two worlds was naturally cut off.
Another assumption, which seemed to be more reliable, was that the energy supplied to the Aggrieved Well came from this world, hiding inside the small town or somewhere in the mountain. Players just needed to find the truth and then they could clear the scenario.
Around five minutes after the scenario's short introduction was over, when they were about to depart, the quest reminder from the system arose.
[Main Quest has been triggered.]
[Enter the mountain, seek for the abandoned shrine.]