The Trembling World

Chapter 3: Unable to log out

“Why did you kill off the beauty so fast? You weren’t gentle towards the lady at all…” The green-skinned player grudgingly said those words, but his facial expression suddenly changed to one of alertness.

The bald-player shouted “Gentle my arse! I’m in pain!” complaining to the green-skinned player. Between screaming in pain and cursing, the other players could only stare helplessly towards the bald-player. They couldn’t help but to cast some doubts about whether it was truly painful or just mildly painful, as they weren’t the ones who got hurt.

“Stop creating noise, the crying will attract more attention,” Liu Gan said in a low voice, trying his best to remain calm as he kneeled down beside the bald player. A couple of zombies nearby seemed to have noticed the activity; originally they were wandering aimlessly, but now they slowed down and looked towards the direction of the bald guy.

“Stop screaming!” The green-skinned male also felt that something was wrong. He pointed at baldy and hushed him with one hand, while tightly holding the iron rod in the other hand.

“F*%@! Do you guys have any idea how much pain I’m in? Why don’t you try getting bitten?” The bald player cursed aggressively at Liu Gan and the rest of the players. From the looks of it, his neck wound was quite deep. Blood was no longer gushing out, but his clothes had been dyed dark red with his blood.

Liu Gan glanced at the bald player’s wound and immediately smelled the fresh scent of iron, then turned a full circle while analyzing his surroundings. Unexplainably, he felt a little dizzy, almost falling head first onto the ground. Since Liu Gan’s legs were originally prosthetics, he hadn’t gotten full control of the sensation yet. So, his body was still trying to reconnect with his brain, causing this temporary instability.

“This is so realistic. Is Trembling World still a video game? Why is it that the senses throughout my body feel so real? It’s as if I’ve been immersed into the virtual game!” said the other player, still in disbelief.

Before 2015, virtual reality technology was just a myth. Sitting in front of the computer screen with the induction headgear, keyboard, and mouse combination was the standard way of playing, so how was this so real? The Induction Sensor Headgear merely uses the electric signals of the central nervous system to register brain waves for operation. The functionality of it is the same as using a remote controlled device. So this induction headgear shouldn’t be the rumored full-dive immersion headgear for virtual reality.

Even if this was the full-dive headgear, it should still be possible to take it off, right? But it doesn’t feel like there’s anything on my head! So was it really possible that they were immersed in the game?

For these types of zombie games, it was only suitable to play by sitting in front of a computer. If we were really immersed in the game, then showing things like the bald player being bit by a zombie wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

“Are you serious? You guys can voluntarily go and get bitten to see if it’s real or not!” screamed the bald player. Then he went back to whining loudly about the pain. Prior to entering the game, the bald player had consumed a good amount of alcohol. Lacking good judgement, he stumbled upon the good-looking female zombie. Once he laid eyes on the feminine features of the lady, his male instincts kicked in and fueled his perverted desires, which led to him to grabbing the panties. Thus, all the wrong decisions had led him to getting bitten.

“If you are going to be like this, then log off and stop creating trouble for us!” The green-skinned player replied to the bald player while gripping his iron rod tightly. It seemed like he was an experienced veteran player.

“Trust me, I really want to logout of the game too! You should help me find a way to get out!” The bald-player rushed a reply to the green-skinned player. If he could exit this nightmare, the first thing that he would do was rush to the hospital and find a doctor to patch this up. Then grab some morphine to numb the pain on the shoulders!

Other players overhead the bald player and frantically tried to mutter common phrases like “exit game”, and some even shouted “GM!”. They then started looking for a ‘game menu’ in their own vision field. Unfortunately, it was all in vain.

This is what the real world was like; there were no viable options in front of you where you could just choose to log off.

“Did you guys notice the watches on our wrists?” A player wearing oddly-shaped glasses held out his wrist and showed the other players.

Other players who heard the glasses-player immediately lifted their arms up and pulled on their sleeves to reveal a alloy watch. The model was the same as the latest smart watch. The dial of the watch was rather large, and the display showed some text and numbers displaying the amount of messages.

Liu Gan looked at his wrist and after a few presses here and there, he was able to find [The Trembling World] game menu. It had a total of four lines: at the very top was “Game Already in Progress”, the second line was “Player Properties”, the third line was “Call GM”, and the very last line was “Log Off”.

However, “Call GM” and “Log Off” were grayed out, and even after pressing a few times, there was no reaction, so Liu Gan gave up.

However, “Player Properties” could be opened. Inside this function, Liu Gan could find his name, age, gender, blood type, heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, hunger level, thirst level, fatigue level, contamination degree, health condition, state of infection, and his level. Right now, his level had a value of 1.

Now this was starting to look like a game!

“Why can’t we call the GM? And most importantly, why can’t we exit the game?” The other players were getting riled up.

“I read about something like this before in an internet novel. If I recall correctly, it was about the main character and a few people getting stuck within the game after joining. They were unable to log out,” mumbled a rather skinny and small-statured player.

“We are trapped within this game!” shouted the paranoid, drunk bald player. With a face that was skewed by the pain, there was no one that wanted to exit the game more than him.

The others looked at each other, eyes shifting back and forth. The whole plaza finally seemed to quiet down. Ever since they arrived, everything that happened exceeded their logical understanding. In complete disarray, they were unable to figure out the current situation.

The players calmed down, and that’s when they noticed that the sounds of the plaza had changed from cries and moans to something more terrible. From the bottom of their hearts up to their spines they felt a chill, the type of chill that makes your hair stand up.

“As players trapped within the game, if we die in-game, would we die in real life?“ Another player asked the small-statured player.

“I don’t know but in the internet novel, those that died in-game died in real life as well. Hey, you guys asked me. I just hope that this damn game isn’t the same as that internet novel!” Said the small-statured player. At this point, he was feeling truly scared.

When he first read that internet novel, he thought it felt very exciting. Now that it was really occurring to him and his body, the feeling was no longer the same as before!

“We would die! Dying here would result in us dying in real life! If you get bitten, then you would know!” The bald-player had a face filled with despair. More than anyone else in the plaza, he knew exactly how realistic this game was.