ocean-life Chapter 1 - The Real World!
Chapter 1 - The Real World!
"No! Where on earth am I? Am I still in my homeland?"
"Damn it! Where is my 300-square-meter bungalow?"
"My child is still at home! This is not funny!"
...
Awakened by the clamor of voices, Zuo Chengan found himself lying in an empty room.
Strangely, there were two keys in his pocket. The room was barren, save for a shield, an axe, and a door—there wasn't even a bed.
What is this place?
Before he could make sense of what had happened, the commotion outside the room drew his attention.
He opened the door and stepped into a broad corridor.
The hallway stretched out in both directions, each ending abruptly in a solid wall, resembling a sealed chamber.
Seven people huddled in the three-meter-wide corridor. They seemed disconcerted and unsettled. Their frantic clamoring had awoken Zuo Chengan.
There were eight rooms in the corridor, clearly corresponding to the seven people plus Zuo Chengan—each of them occupying one of the rooms.
Zuo Chengan realized they were in the same predicament as him after overhearing their conversation.
He understood the feeling: one moment, they were going about their lives, and the next, they had been thrust into this strange situation without warning.
As he pieced things together, he recalled the recent surge in missing people cases. It dawned on him that they were now part of the growing list of disappearances.
Initially, people dismissed the disappearances as isolated incidents. However, as the number of cases grew and the circumstances surrounding them became increasingly bizarre, fear began to spread.
One case involved a college dormitory where a student heard his roommate get up at midnight to use the bathroom but never heard him return.
Thinking it was a prank, he jokingly grabbed a toilet roll and shouted, "Let me bring the toilet paper for you!"
But when he reached the bathroom, his roommate was nowhere to be found.
He returned to the bedroom to check on his other roommates, who should have been asleep in their beds, but found none of them there. They, too, had mysteriously vanished all at once.
Two other strange cases stood out: several cars involved in a multi-vehicle crash were found empty, with no drivers or passengers, and a man who took a shortcut through an alley was never seen again.
Countless other inexplicable cases were unfolding around the world.
Those who remained lived in constant fear. Some even wished misfortune upon themselves, hoping it would end their anxiety and horror, while others clung desperately to the hope of survival.
Zuo Chengan inferred that the missing people weren't dead—they had been dragged into a survival game.
[We regret to inform you that you have been registered in the World Survival Game. Please clear the stages and stay alive!]
[Player: Zuo Chengan]
[Level: Unranked]
[Mind: 97/100]
[Constitution: 6 (Degraded by modern living)]
[Strength: 5]
[Speed: 7]
[Inventory: Beginner's Survival Gift Pack x1]
...
These eerie eyeballs were surveillance tools, designed to monitor the players!
...
[Eye of Truth]
Type: Passive Skill
Effect: To see the world as it truly is.
Limitations: None
Description: Someone has to break the shackles.
...
The Eye of Truth... The real world?
Is this what the real world truly is? Are humans nothing more than clowns performing for the amusement of some higher existence?
As Zuo Chengan stared at his player interface, the others in the corridor began to inspect their own panels.
The grim reality set in—there was no turning back.
They were now permanently labeled as "missing people" in the eyes of the world they had left behind.
A woman dressed like a housewife broke down, covering her face as she wept. Before being dragged into this game, she had been cooking in her kitchen.
She couldn't stop thinking about her child—had they cried upon discovering her disappearance? Had they remembered to turn off the gas stove?
Nearby, a plainly dressed man, humble and unassuming, clutched his backpack tightly in silence.
Moments before being transported here, he had been standing at an ATM, withdrawing money for his mother's surgery.
But the World Survival Game allowed no time for grief or reflection. The wheels of fate were already turning, and the next trial loomed ever closer.
[Instant Dungeon: Night of Screams]
[ID: 1-2441]
[Objective: Survive.]
[Duration: Seven days (Game time)]
[Hint: Hunters will appear in the corridor after nightfall. Room doors can offer protection to a certain extent.]
[Time until nightfall: Five minutes.]
Eight of them in the corridor noticed that one side of the brick wall had vanished, replaced by a massive, ornately carved window.
Strangely, instead of decorative patterns, the carvings depicted eerie, monkey-like creatures, each uglier than the last. Whoever designed this had truly questionable taste.
Beyond the window, however, there was no street or natural landscape as they might have hoped. Instead, a vast expanse of pure white light stretched out—a stark emptiness that conveyed nothing except the vague reassurance that it was still "daytime."
At that moment, a man clad in a sharp suit stepped forward. He had an air of maturity and composure.
"I'm guessing everyone heard the game's announcement," he said, his voice steady.
"We're all in the same instant dungeon, which makes us teammates. Since it's still 'daytime,' why don't we take the chance to introduce ourselves and share what we know about our items? That way, we can support each other and have a better chance of clearing this stage."
The man's honest, trustworthy face and composed presence made his suggestion hard to refuse.
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