Player Reload
Chapter 146 - 132 Water Ghost

Chapter 146: Chapter 132 Water Ghost

Compared to the last meeting, Stack Soldier’s hair seemed to have thinned out a bit, and his dark circles had deepened. It seemed like there was a trend of evolving from a ten-year-experienced programmer to a twenty-year-experienced one.

For a Transcendent who is physically far superior to ordinary people, this is quite rare.

Li Cheng controlled the drone, gave a slight nod to Stack Soldier by swaying it up and down, then continued to circle around the resort to make sure there were no abnormalities before entering hover mode.

He himself walked through the dense forest and greeted Stack Soldier, "Yo."

"Is it you?"

Since Li Cheng used his worm gene ability to revert to the face he used during the Death Curse mission, Stack Soldier recognized him at a glance, his expression a mix of surprise and annoyance, "Wait, why are you still wearing that Daoist robe?"

Li Cheng, dressed in a Daoist robe, casually joked, "People who have only one outfit all year round can be anime protagonists, isn’t that common knowledge? Like One Piece, Hunter, Conan, Gin Tama.

Um... speaking of which, if other anime characters wear the same outfit to shape their image, in Conan it’s mainly to avoid confusing the audience, right? After all, Shinichi, Jide, and Heiji look alike. Ran and Qingzi look alike too."

"Everyone has an Aoyama face, right?"

Stack Soldier annoyedly said, "The guys in FGO and Kyoto Animation must be laughing."

"You’ve been surfing the internet quite a bit in your free time? Your roasting is quite accurate," Li Cheng glanced at him.

"Of course, I’m essentially an old monkey," said Stack Soldier with a vacant look in his eyes. "Aren’t you the same?"

Li Cheng exclaimed in shock, "How could that be, using old monkey, you’d get AIDS!"

"? Okay, okay, so you parse it that way."

Under a mutual understanding among players, Stack Soldier did not ask Li Cheng whether he was a local resident of Yin City, a taboo question, and while complaining, he continued to work and poured diesel into the generator.

Rumble-rumble—

The generator started operating on its own, emitting a humming sound, and electricity was transmitted along the cables to the surrounding area, lighting up the nearby street lamps.

"Very good."

Stack Soldier pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. He arrived earlier than Li Cheng, successfully restoring partial power to the park and placing surveillance cameras with remote data transfer capabilities around the amusement park.

He tapped a few times on his laptop, connecting to all the surveillance networks, and immediately detected two other figures, "Looks like we have company."

These two noticed the drone that Li Cheng had earlier sent out hovering in the air and entered the park from the entrances on the east and west sides of the abandoned amusement park, waving to Li Cheng and Stack Soldier from a distance.

The first person was a white man with brown hair, dressed in a suit and carrying a heavy leather bag, his left hand holding a luxurious wristwatch.

The second was entirely cloaked in a black robe, and from the eyebrows and eyes that showed, he seemed to be a middle-aged man of Middle Eastern descent.

"Good evening, gentlemen. Are you here to participate in the mission as well? My name is Elliot, I work for the Yin City branch of Prometheus, and here is my business card. Also, this is the printout of the mission log I prepared."

The man in a suit took out his business card and a sheet of A4 paper with [Mission Objective: Arrive at West Suburb’s abandoned Disney amusement park by tonight at midnight] printed on it, voluntarily showing his Summoner ID.

[Company Dog·Elliot][Lv9]

By voluntarily revealing his identity in the situation where they didn’t know each other, Elliot was both extending goodwill and exercising a potential deterrent—being an employee of a large corporation, one had to consider whether this area might already be under surveillance by Prometheus’s near-earth orbit military satellites before making a move against him.

Seeing Elliot’s friendly gesture, the robed Middle Eastern man also revealed his own player ID.

[Mediator·Bai Lang][Lv10]

"In a desolate and remote place like this, you wouldn’t come unless it’s for a mission, right?"

Bai Lang spoke slowly, his voice hoarse and harsh, like metal grating against metal.

Li Cheng shook his head, "You don’t know the half of it. Even the most remote and dangerous places might spawn fishermen and unlucky folks duped by online rumors about water ghosts."

Fishing folks are easy to understand, Han Letian’s dad is one. When a colleague’s wife gave birth, posting "Six pounds two ounces, thankful for the surprise and happiness life brings" on social media,

he would comment without reading the preamble, "Brother, where did you catch such a fatty."

Going out fishing at night and catching dead pigs or floating human corpses in some remote river bend is quite normal.

As for the Water Ghost of Little Red Book... They refer to those unscrupulous bloggers who persuade people to enter undeveloped "attractions" for traffic generation.

Sites liable to flood anytime, are touted as "treasure water play areas!" and "the river is clean and shallow, super safe!"

Poorly ventilated, oxygen-deficient abandoned mining tunnels, are described as "nuclear engineering relics" and "summer retreat sanctuaries".

These marketers, who only care about traffic and disregard others’ safety, are very much like the vengeful spirits in weird novels that seek substitutes, thus they are also called Cyber Water Ghosts.

Just by accidentally clicking on one, the platform will, based on algorithms, crazily push a slew of similar content. It’s practically a Night of Billijovot.

Bai Lang, bearing a Middle Eastern face, probably doesn’t understand the slang about the Water Ghost of Little Red Book, hence he did not respond, "It’s now eleven twenty, forty minutes to midnight..."

"Sorry, I am late."

From within the shadows of the trees, a deep and magnetic voice of a middle-aged man was heard.

A priest, nearly two meters tall with a robust physique, stepped forward gently, parting the branches above.

He had black curly hair, a prominent nose, a broad chin, displaying distinct Mediterranean features. Dressed in a priest’s long robe, a brass cross hanging at the chest, and white gloves on both hands, with two standard long swords dangling at his waist.

"Andre?"

Stack Soldier greeted with a hint of surprise, and introduced, "This is one of the representatives of the Templar Knights in Yin City. I’ve worked with him before."

The Templar Knights is a large guild with a Vatican Church background, relatively low-profile in the real world, only recruiting members with fervent religious beliefs.

[Cross·Andre][Lv11]

This priest seems to be using his real name online, as Stack Soldier, being compliant, also displayed his ID. His title still reads [Overworked programmer], having reached Lv11.

Lastly, Li Cheng, [Life-Sacrificing Gambler·Ant][Lv9]

Others didn’t notice anything unusual, but Stack Soldier was shocked after glancing at Li Cheng.

During the Death Curse script task, he was Lv7, Ant Lv2.

Now he’s Lv11, and Ant has reached Lv9? Did this kid take some experience potion, leveling up so fast? It couldn’t be that he achieved S+ in every scenario, right?

"An average Level 10 five-person difficulty team task. It looks like the reward should be very substantial."

Elliot smiled slightly, "Let’s reconfirm, no one wants to back out, right?"

The higher the average level, the richer the rewards, and the greater the difficulty and potential dangers. Considering this is a regular task without penalties for failure, opting out is also possible.

"Good, no one backed out, then let me analyze..."

As Elliot was speaking, suddenly, an anomaly occurred.

The ground beneath everyone’s feet began to tremble violently, trees swayed, roads fractured, and soil liquefied. Just like the bizarre earthquake that happened in Yin City recently.

Seeing the danger, Li Cheng pulled out his Bat Hook Claw Gun and shot towards the top of a street lamp. With the help of special effects, he gracefully lifted off and flew mid-air.

However, as an unidentifiable air raid siren abruptly sounded, the surrounding scenery changed drastically.

The previously ruined facilities vanished without a trace, replaced by a brand new, brightly lit Disney amusement park.

An illusion? No, more like... Teleportation.

The ground stopped trembling, Li Cheng landed smoothly, and turned to see that the others were also transported here.

And the trees, roads, buildings, etc., had all changed, significantly different from the Disney amusement park of Yin City in his memory.

Most crucially... it was still eleven o’clock at night, yet the sunset lingered on the horizon.

[Task Log Updated]

[Task Objective: Read the park guide and escape the amusement park before sunset]

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