The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 30: It Turns Out To Be Acquaintances…

“Hello…”

After the battle was over, Lin Yiyi saw that Jiu Er seemed to calm down. She walked forward, wanting to say hello to her.

Although in the beginning, Lin Yiyi came with the idea of rescuing someone.

But, this petite girl was unlike her appearance. She did not need Lin Yiyi to be a hero to save the damsel in distress.

On the contrary, there was a pile of minced meat that had just been hammered at her feet. It appeared the victim needed more help.

“Eh?”

As Jiu Er saw Lin Yiyi, she suddenly widened her eyes in surprise, “Sister Hyphen?”

“It’s not a hyphen. It’s Yiyi [1].”

Lin Yiyi retorted subconsciously.

But she quickly reacted, “Do you know me?”

“I’m Fermented Rice Ball! We met at the last party!”

Jiu Er suddenly became excited.

It seemed that seeing acquaintances made her happy. While she was talking, she easily held her sword in the air and waved it indiscriminately, making Lin Yiyi retreat in fright.

But when Jiu Er mentioned this, Lin Yiyi seemed to recall it.

“Ah, Little Jiu [2] Er.”

She suddenly realized it and remembered.

After all, with Jiu Er’s height, it was hard for people to forget her.

Different from Yiyi’s approach in face beautifying, Jiu Er dropped that function. She only slimmed down her face a little and slimmed down her legs again. She made herself look like a harmless and soft dumpling.

Jiu Er did not focus on dancing or singing. This 16-year-old girl with only 149cm height was a high school content creator. But unlike her seemingly delicate figure, she was a video game streamer.

Lin Yiyi focused on single-player games and was good at making strategy guide videos. On the contrary, Jiu Er was best at competitive games, albeit her status as a new player. In the steamer circle, Jiu Er was not popular. Last time, her brother, who was a professional e-sports player, raised her popularity. It was fair to say she had someone backing her up…

Jiu Er was most famous for screaming for help when encountering a gank while swiftly operating her character to kill the opponent.

In a daze, Lin Yiyi glanced at the mutilated gentleman at Jiu Er’s feet again. She shuddered upon the sight.

It turned out that it was not a stage play for the show.

While the two of them were talking, other players soon gathered around them. They all greeted Lin Yiyi unexpectedly,

“Sister Dash? You are here too…”

“Hyphen, are you here too?”

“I’m Yiyi, not a hyphen nor a dash.”

Lin Yiyi retorted subconsciously and walked around the crowd.

Then, she was amazed to discover almost all of them were her acquaintances!

Those who were not acquainted were all celebrities!

There were retired e-sports players, well-known entertainment streamers, high-ranking competitive players, and many video game producers.

What everyone had in common was that they had a considerable fan base with good game mechanical skills. Although there were some poorly skilled game streamers, they were still proficient in a certain way.

However, they were good at different types of games.

These people were not stupid. They glanced around and quickly realized this.

“We are not chosen by aliens, right? Are we?”

Someone in the group did not feel nervous at all. They said with joy, “Does this mean that our skills are recognized?”

“The chosen child prodigy…”

“You’re almost 30 years old. Are you a child?!”

“Why not? I’m a ‘Wandering Child’!”

The “Wandering Child” who deliberately adjusted himself back to his eighteen-year-old appearance said, “I am the chosen child!”

The other party suddenly choked with words.

“Let’s not talk about this for now,” Lin Yiyi interrupted hastily, “Are your missions completed?”

“No. Twenty-three remaining.”

The self-proclaimed child glanced at the mission list and replied casually.

“I have not completed it either.”

“I’m still short of twenty-three eliminations.”

Jiu Er answered obediently. She walked two steps away from the corpse without anyone noticing.

“But the question is, where did those 23 creeps go?”

“I think they found a place to hide because of the bad situation. It’s too dark here. We can’t see anything.”

Lin Yiyi frowned and replied, “We can’t see anything…”

As she spoke, she suddenly saw the barrels lying scattered.

These should be the “Black Fire” mentioned explicitly in the main mission.

Her words stopped abruptly.

Seeing Lin Yiyi looking at these barrels thoughtfully, the others quickly reacted.

How about we blow up these barrels?

As soon as the fire ignites, this place will be bright as day.

If someone hid on the ground, the group could see them. If they refuse to get up, they would be burned to death when the fire grew bigger.

It’s also an excellent opportunity to investigate the physics of this game. Are we allowed to set fire freely on a mountain?

Initially, Lin Yiyi was still a little hesitant.

After all, no one knew how powerful this barrel was or how long the fuze lasted before it exploded.

What if the fuse was lit and the barrel exploded immediately before throwing it out or running away?

But at this time, Lin Yiyi suddenly caught a glimpse of his mission list.

[Special requirement 3 (+40 evaluation ratings): Kill at least three enemies by yourself (0/3)]

Tsk, damn it.

Lin Yiyi gritted her teeth.

She was considered a skilled player. For the starting mission, the higher the score, the better the starting reward, and the smoother the start.

It was a pity the players could not farm at the starting part of the game. Otherwise, based on her personality, she would keep restarting until all three special requirements were completed before submitting the mission.

She should have been able to single out two enemies.

Unfortunately, that opponent was a coward. Seeing that the situation turned bad, he ran without turning around. As a result, she had only completed one-third of this mission.

The two opponents did not even draw out their weapons; they had no way to retaliate at all. If she knew that they were so easy to kill, Lin Yiyi would have run over and slashed their throats. There was no need to activate [Charge] at all.

She still felt a bit sore in her legs.

“We can give it a try.”

A player named “Phoenix” suggested, “I have just died once. After my character creation is done, five people have surrounded me. After my death, I was respawned in three minutes. Though, I was transferred to another place, which the game allowed me to start normally.

“It took me two minutes.”

“It took me five minutes to resurrect because my head was chopped off. Will an incomplete corpse increase the resurrection time?”

The other players discussed with each other, and it was quickly settled.

After confirming that they could respawn, the players were not afraid anymore. It was nothing more than failing the first and second special requirements after one death.

But fortunately, almost all of them knew each other. They quickly made arrangements based on the feelings of the past and the respect of everyone else.

If the test went well, those who had died once would send over the “Black Fire” to complete the triple kill mission requirement.

The player group strived for a smooth start for everyone. Their goal was to earn extra scores in their starting rounds so that no one would drag the group down because of a bad start. At the same time, several experienced streamers were also responsible for sorting out the four mission completion scoring rewards: 20/40/60/100. They would research how different scores affect the rewards.

Annan, who looked at them from afar through the creator’s perspective, was flabbergasted.

“Aren’t these people too professional?”

He was going to fool around while getting the job done. He planned to give out rewards based on the prettiness of the character. Whoever looked pleasing to the eye would earn more experience or something. Anyway, the players should not share their research among themselves. There should be no trust, let alone the idle time to do so.

Such an awesome full-virtual game. It was almost like traveling to another world (isekai). Would there still be hardcore players? The players should act impulsively to have fun in the game!

However, the reality told another story. The players were indeed having fun, but this did not stop them from playing the game competitively.

They all seemed to know each other. Although they were not familiar with each other, they were at least to the extent that they knew who each other was.

“The player selection seems too brilliant. Are they all high-ranking players in their world?”

Annan was deeply annoyed.

He had to rush his work again. At least, he had to compile a set of rules to govern the rewards.

In the beginning, Annan still thought whether the players recruited from another world were from his original world. But from their conversations, he quickly understood that these people were all popular streamers, well-known content creators, and even professional players.

But Annan did not know any of them.

This was utterly impossible because he was from the same industry. So, there was only one possibility. They were not from Annan’s world.

“There will be more players from the other worlds in the future, right?”

This thought suddenly popped up in Annan’s mind for a moment, but he quickly dispelled it.

The question before him now was how to fool these proficient players.

Wait, in this case, I have to finish up the forum first. I have to put more thoughts into forum announcements as well.

Annan pulled a long face as he opened up the forum administrator page. He quickly opened up a draft document to write various planning drafts on it.

I got to douse these players’ fire down a little bit.

Annan quickly came up with a solution after recalling that he had just learned [Frost Nova]:

I should just let them mess with the Black Fire. These players don’t know how dangerous the Black Fire is, but I do.

After the players use the Black Fire to eliminate those people, they will realize that these hard-to-extinguish flames are troublesome. They will undoubtedly get into trouble.

At this time, I will go over and play an incredible act! While connecting the main mission with the plot, I also get to teach them a lesson!

Annan cheered up and jumped off the chair.

That’s the plan!

[1] The raw text of Yiyi (11) is ‘一一,’ which looks like a hyphen.

[2] Having her nickname as ‘Fermented Rice Ball,’ the Jiu in her name meant alcohol.