Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

"Secondary Quest Updated."

———

[Unheard Cries]

You have found five letters left by a man named Morris. Through the aged sheepskin parchments, you catch a glimpse of the tragic prologue that once unfolded in this small town.

Find Morris' remains: 0/1

Morris' Left Arm: 1/1

———

Give Me Medicine shared the updated quest text with his teammates and couldn't help but comment, "This is only the beginning of the tragedy. The damned developers are clearly not human."

"Regardless of whether they are inhumane or not, the quest still needs completing," said Unceasing Entropy. "The town has been repeatedly cleaned by players, so it's highly unlikely that Morris' remains would be on the surface. The zombie NPCs in town are mostly intact and I haven't seen any one-armed ones. What do you guys think?"

"It can only be underground, I guess," Brother Lahong casually remarked.

"Hey, that's too broad of a scope. Underground can mean anything from underground caves to simply burying something anywhere," Qin Guan interjected.

Blossoming Strokes pondered for a bit before sharing her speculation. "I have this guess that if the developers intended to reveal the background storyline of Exile Town through hidden quests, then each stage of this quest should be related to the new game content that becomes available after completion. The unlocking of 'Exploration Mode,' which is the first phase, is clearly connected to the primary quest, 'Letters to Home.' Morris' wife took the wrong tunnel, which was the monster spawn point for us players."

"Hmm?!" Unceasing Entropy's body shuddered. "Wait. If that's the case, then 'Unheard Cries' is related to the second phase of unlocking the territory reputation, and completing this quest will unlock the Territory Prestige system?! Wait, wait, wait. If we consider it like this, then the process of finding Morris' remains is the process of unraveling a greater tragic mystery. In that case—"

"Yes, it's possible that the remains aren't underground but in an unexpected yet logical place." Blossoming Strokes nodded solemnly.

"Can you two speak in plain language?" Qin Guan muttered stoically.

Blossoming Strokes explained, "The quest's name is 'Unheard Cries,' and Morris' letters mentioned how 'they turned a deaf ear to the desperate cries that were close by.' For the characters in the storyline, the 'tragedy' of this town is actually displayed openly, but everyone turns a blind eye to it. If this is a subtle hint from the developers to the players, we can interpret it as Morris' remains being placed somewhere that everyone can see but yet to discover."

Qin Guan, Give Me Medicine, Brother Lahong, and others: "… (▔︹▔)"

"Please, get to the point. I just want to play the game without racking my brains out," Give Me Medicine grumbled.

"I sort of understand now. You are suggesting that Morris is actually in the most prominent place, right?" Jiang Wei, who hadn't participated in the discussion, suddenly spoke up. "And the most prominent place here is, without a doubt, the town hall, isn't it?"

Blossoming Strokes snapped her fingers. "Bingo."

Give Me Medicine stared in astonishment at Jiang Wei who had just spoken. Come on, brother. I didn't hold a grudge against you for trying to compete with me for the Orb of Deception. Why do you have to pop up at this moment to embarrass me?!

With that, this group of players hurriedly made their way to the town hall.

The town hall where the Lord NPC stayed wasn't particularly a building that could be called impressive. It was just a plain square-shaped earthen hut that was only slightly better than a rural house. Due to the NPC inside barely acknowledging anyone and a level requirement of 1 needed for players to interact with him, very few players bothered to come here. Most of them would buy what they needed from the neighboring tailor NPC and leave.

When the group of players arrived, they didn't need to search specifically. Everyone's gaze immediately fell on the sign above the entrance.

The wooden sign hanging on the town hall bore a few large characters: "Exile Town Municipal Office." And above the large words was an ornamental skull.

Players who passed by here regularly, or even those who were farming the Lord's reputation, like Win By Grinding, Blossoming Strokes, and Unceasing Entropy, hadn't paid attention to this skull before. The NPC residing inside was a black mage officially titled the "Undead Race Resurrection Master," and it wasn't any surprise there that a black mage's dwelling would have a skull as decoration.

But now, the players who had spent the past two hours (in-game time) following the plot of the hidden quest had completely different sentiments when they saw this skull…

Even Unceasing Entropy, the rational intellectual, couldn't help but ridicule, "Although I know very well that our Undead Race Resurrection Master isn't a good person, he's actually using an actual human skull as decoration. I've underestimated you, Lord Yang!"

"Whoa, f*ck. Is this confirmation that the undead race is an evil faction? Are we really minions of the antagonist?" Qin Guan exclaimed.

Despite their complaints, the players used "Identify" on the skull above the signboard:

"Upon arriving at Exile Town, Black Mage Yang encountered an extremely aggressive zombie. After defeating it, he used some of its limbs as fertilizer, discarded another part in the river, and kept the relatively intact skull as an ornament."

Players: "…"

Give Me Medicine stiffly went forward and took the skull down.

"Secondary Quest Updated."

———

[Unheard Cries]

You have found five letters left by a man named Morris. Through the aged sheepskin parchments, you catch a glimpse of the tragic prologue that once unfolded in this small town.

Find Morris' remains: 0/1

Morris' Left Arm: 1/1

Morris' Skull: 1/1———

"The Undead Race Master's antagonist traits have been revealed. It was this guy who dismembered Morris!" Give Me Medicine exclaimed.

"Extremely aggressive… Does that mean Morris is indeed different from other zombie NPCs? In this context, the 'dream' he had becomes even more terrifying…" Blossoming Strokes gestured for everyone to follow her to the underground herb field while she said that.

Once inside the underground herb field, players started to ridicule the antagonist attributes of the player camp's NPC leader when they encountered the peculiar organism known as the Great Leaf Vine.

Give Me Medicine especially stated rather certainly, "Yang will eventually be a big boss."

Using "Identify" to scan the herb field, the players managed to successfully find "Morris' Torso" and "Morris' Right Arm."

As they carried the four "pieces" and rushed toward the river, some players that just logged in stared weirdly at the three individuals who were holding parts other than the skull… Besides the skull, the other parts of Morris seemed invisible to players without the quest.

Then, in the riverbed that had a considerable amount of debris and gravel cleared by players over the past few days, the team searched twice before finding Morris' legs.

"Secondary Quest Updated."

———

[Unheard Cries] 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒏𝒆𝒕

You have found five letters left by a man named Morris. Through the aged sheepskin parchments, you catch a glimpse of the tragic prologue that once unfolded in this small town.

Find Morris' remains: 1/1

———

Morris' remains bore many aged battle scars. Perhaps the zombie general, Lancelot Edgar, might know something.

Upon seeing the newly generated quest text, Give Me Medicine felt the urge to flip a table. "Why didn't they just say to find the zombie general? Why go through all this trouble! This game isn't a pay-to-play model. Must they force players to grind this much?!"

"Calm down, bro. That's how quests work," said Brother Lahong, not treating himself as an outsider as he put his arm around Give Me Medicine. "At least this quest only requires us to run errands within the town. Back when I played World of Warcraft, I had to travel across continents for a single quest."