Chapter 23: Birthplace
“Why?” Su Qiong asked softly. “Is it because my level is too low? Do you think the red-name NPC will kill me?”
A denied it. “I just think you shouldn’t go.”
Su Qiong could not understand.
Why was he suddenly forbidden from following them to Rebirth at the End?
As the guide NPC of the beginner zone, there was an unexplored location hidden within it.
Out of professional responsibility, Su Qiong naturally had to accompany the players and trigger any hidden conditions for them.
“My mission isn’t complete. I have to guide them out of the beginner zone.” Su Qiong hesitated for several seconds before telling A, “If you—”
“I’ll go with you,” A interrupted. “I still owe you three favors.”
Su Qiong: ?
Why was A bringing up favors again for no reason?
Besides, he had already told Su Qiong his name.
“In any case, I’m going with you,” A said.
“Oh. All right.”
Thirty minutes later, most of the surviving players in the beginner zone had assembled and prepared to depart for Rebirth at the End.
There was a reason they chose to believe Qiyi.
Before Yu Qimiao allowed her to reveal the clue, he had used an item to make a deal with the major guilds.
Although his system item forced people into transactions, it still followed IF’s overall principle of fairness.
The system’s acknowledgment of Yu Qimiao’s trade proved that Qiyi’s clue possessed genuine value worth exchanging for.
Only twenty hours remained before the beginner zone disintegrated.
Anyone who had played similar games could more or less guess that it was probably time for a group boss battle.
They still did not know what kind of boss ruled the beginner zone, nor did they understand the “sacrifice” Qiyi had mentioned.
However, according to the experience of veteran gamers, boss fights always followed more or less the same formula:
Tactics and teamwork.
Among the known bosses inside beginner-zone instances, the highest level had exceeded Level 30.
By ordinary logic, the main boss should be stronger than an instance NPC—meaning far above Level 30.
Among the beginner-zone players, the highest-level player, ERROR, was only in his twenties. Furthermore, he had not yet left his instance and could not participate in the battle.
Within the world of IF, a difference of even one level represented an enormous gap in actual combat strength.
Individually, the players might be vastly weaker than the boss. However, they possessed an advantage in numbers, so they remained optimistic about the upcoming group battle.
—Their optimism did not last long.
The surviving players from the base followed Qiyi for an extremely long time, and the surrounding environment gradually became increasingly desolate.
At first, they could still hear the wind.
Later, even the wind disappeared. Everything within sight became an expanse of nothingness. It felt as though anyone who fell behind would be swallowed entirely by the boundless void.
The oppressive, suffocating atmosphere surrounding them made it impossible even to chat and relax.
They followed the direction indicated by the red thread for what felt like half a century before finally hearing something.
The sound drifting from the distance was faint and ethereal, yet it offered them no comfort whatsoever.
The players realized that it was not a human sound.
It did not even belong in the human world.
“Maybe we should go back.”
“Yeah. Who knows what’s ahead? What if the Circle Lord isn’t even there?”
“Even if the Circle Lord is there, there are already so many people. They won’t miss a few of us, right?”
Yu Qimiao, who was leading the group, turned and glanced sideways at them.
“You may leave if you want.”
“Tsk.” Shi Yuntian made a sound of disdain.
Even in such an eerie environment, Lu Shufan maintained his smile and “kindly” reminded everyone, “Provided you’re capable of turning back.”
The players who wanted to retreat looked behind them and saw only a gray, misty void.
Without Qiyi’s guidance, they could not continue through the emptiness at all.
They had no choice but to follow the other players and force themselves onward toward the source of the strange sound.
The crowd walked like corpses for another long stretch of time.
The noise grew steadily louder. It sounded like something being gnawed apart, making their scalps tingle.
Suddenly, a sharp-eyed player in the crowd raised his head and pointed upward.
“Look! What’s that?”
The others heard him and looked up, vaguely making out three towering silhouettes that seemed to pierce the clouds.
“Trees?” Yu Qimiao focused his vision and faintly distinguished the three tall, massive pillars. Their tops blocked out the sky and resembled tree canopies.
“Guild Leader Yu has excellent eyesight. They look like trees to me too.”
“Why would trees grow in a godforsaken place like this? And why are there three?”
Su Qiong floated upward. Seeing the three enormous trees from a distance, scattered fragments flashed through his mind.
—Three trees.
Why did they feel strangely familiar?
“Don’t tell me the boss we have to fight is a group of trees.”
“No,” Qiyi denied.
She offered no further explanation and said only, “My sister told me that once you reach them, you’ll understand what ‘it’ is.”
One player became annoyed. “We’ve already come this far. Why are you still keeping us in suspense?”
The young girl looked at him and slowly replied, “My sister said that if she told you in advance, none of you would come.”
The half-dead girl’s gaze carried an eerie quality from another world, sending chills down the other players’ spines.
“Hiss…”
Sharp breaths sounded throughout the crowd.
“You tricked us?”
“Everything I told you was true.” Qiyi looked ahead and repeated, “Once you go there, you’ll understand.”
As long as she brought them to that place.
A voice within Qiyi’s heart became increasingly clear.
—Sister, I’m coming to save you.
By this point, the more intelligent players had already realized they had been manipulated by the girl.
However, they had drawn close to the outlines of the towering trees and could no longer turn back. They could only grit their teeth and continue.
A powerful attraction emanated from ahead, seemingly summoning the players.
The remaining path became extraordinarily smooth, and their progress accelerated considerably.
Before long, they entered the area surrounding the colossal trees and saw their enormous canopies covering the entire beginner zone, their bare branches hanging downward, and—
The white fruits growing from their trunks!
Compared with the towering trees, the white fruits could barely be considered small.
Individually, however, each was as large as a human heart.
Countless white fruits clung densely to the trunks, too numerous to count. Upon closer observation, the players discovered that the fruits breathed and writhed.
Some even contained a mass of bright red matter.
The objects struggled desperately, attempting to escape the white fruits.
No matter how hard they fought, their efforts remained futile.
Yu Qimiao had excellent eyesight. He stared at one of the nearer fruits for a long time and suddenly discovered—
There was a person inside!
The person swallowed by the white fruit had a head and limbs, but like an undeveloped fetus, they were tightly imprisoned within the skin.
Some players were still struggling.
Others had already abandoned resistance and sat quietly inside.
“I suspect they’re the players who failed their instances,” Yu Qimiao said.
“That’s right,” Qiyi answered. “My sister told me that players who fail or die inside an instance are transported here and swallowed by these white fruits. Even if they possess abilities or weapons, they can’t break through the skin from within.”
“If they can’t break it from inside, we’ll cut it open from outside!” A nearby player confidently drew his weapon and charged forward.
He ran beneath one of the trees and stabbed forcefully into a white fruit.
Squelch.
A gash opened across its surface.
“It works! Hurry over here! Cut open all the fruits and stop—”
Before the player could finish speaking, severe pain surged through him.
Under the horrified gazes of those behind him, his weapon was swallowed, along with most of one hand.
The player hurriedly pulled his arm back, but only half of the white bones remained.
The white fruit that had devoured him writhed twice around its wound, smacking its surface like lips.
“Ahhh—!” The player raised the remains of his hand and screamed in agony.
“We can’t deal with it. Where’s Su Qiong?” Yu Qimiao searched the crowd, intending to ask whether the marshmallow had discovered any clues.
Su Qiong remained silently at the very back.
He had been hovering there for quite some time.
The white fruits, the enormous trees, and their drooping branches were all painfully familiar.
He even knew that a coffin rested between the trees.
That was where he had been born.
Why had it become like this?
Before leaving, Su Qiong had asked the system avatar what purpose this place served.
The question had exceeded the system avatar’s authority to answer.
Therefore, Su Qiong had been certain that this place served some special function—perhaps creating system NPCs or generating bugs.
But Su Qiong had never imagined it was used to imprison players who failed the game, forcing every one of them into white fruits where they would endure prolonged despair, unable to live or die.
“Su Qiong.” Yu Qimiao called to him from a distance. “Did you find any clues?”
“…No,” Su Qiong answered in a soft, quiet voice.
“All right. When we go inside, stay farther away,” Yu Qimiao said. “You’re a white-name NPC. If you encounter the red-name NPC in there, you’ll be in serious danger.”
“Don’t be afraid, Little Pastry,” Lu Shufan said. “Boss Shi will protect you.”
Shi Yuntian immediately protested, “Wait. Why is it me again?”
“Are you unwilling to protect Little Pastry?” Lu Shufan asked.
Shi Yuntian: “…Whatever you say.”
Su Qiong remained silent, his CPU nearly overheating.
A came to his side and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Why?” Su Qiong’s voice was filled with confusion. “A, do you know something?”
A slowly said, “…When I left Instance Two, I received a hidden clue related to the Circle Realm.”
The clue had come from Mr. S and contained only half a sentence:
Keep Su Qiong inside the instance…
The latter half had been blurred, and A had failed to hear it clearly.
However, the first half alone had allowed him to form a general deduction.
Su Qiong was connected to the Circle Realm. Most likely, he was related to the beginner zone’s Circle Lord.
Or rather—
That was why A had not wanted Su Qiong to accompany the other players while they investigated the Circle Realm.
“Everyone, come over here! There seems to be something hidden between these three trees!”
“Is it the beginner zone’s Circle Lord? Hurry, attack together!”
“If we kill the Circle Lord, we’ll clear the zone!”
“Wait. There’s nothing inside except a coffin.”
“Strange. Did the Circle Lord realize we were coming to kill him and leave in advance?”
Shi Yuntian drew his heavy blade. “I’ll hunt him down!”
“Don’t act impulsively,” Yu Qimiao said. “The Circle Lord is extremely powerful. We move together.”
“I’ll finish him off,” Lu Shufan added. “I won’t give him a chance to play dead.”
