Chapter 1210: Decisive Evidence!
After the words fell, the utility room fell silent. Everyone seemed reluctant to speak first, each one hesitating. It was only when Lin Sanjiu started to get impatient that Red Face cleared his throat and finally said, "Let me go first. It doesn"t matter who speaks first; the important thing is that the truth cannot be faked, and the false cannot be true."
He pondered for a few seconds, and a trace of red, cracked pieces appeared on his hand.
"Look, this is just ordinary red paint, nothing special. I painted my face red, and it doesn"t serve any practical purpose or require any ability. You might have guessed it already, but I painted it just because of the club. This red face is my player name."
"Player name?" Lin Sanjiu asked.
"In our club, we don"t usually call each other by our real names. Everyone has a unique and distinctive symbol. I am red-faced... "Player Red Face" or "Player Blue Hummingbird"—that"s our code name, and everyone knows who you"re referring to," Red Face explained.
"How does Blue Hummingbird represent?" Bohemia asked, squeezed in the corner.
"That guy wears a blue hummingbird headgear, like a real bird, and never takes it off no matter where he goes. If you call him by the wrong name, he"ll correct you and say it"s a hummingbird," Red Face said and gestured with his hand. "The bird"s beak is this long!"
He paused for a moment before continuing, "The club is relatively relaxed, without strict rules. Often, someone will send a notice, like predicting when we"ll enter the Wear the Crown pocket dimension, how many people are needed, the deadline for registration, and whether visas are included. If you"re interested, you can partic.i.p.ate; if not, you can wait for the next one, and no one will bother you."
"What is the Wear the Crown pocket dimension?" Bohemia seemed very interested in the club, forgetting that Red Face might be making things up on the spot. The more details there were, the easier it would be to verify the truth or falsehood of their claims. Lin Sanjiu nodded encouragingly at her but received a glare in return.
"It"s a chess pocket dimension," Red Face recalled with a frown. "It seems to have borrowed the form and some rules of chess, with posthumans acting as chess pieces and forming teams to battle. I"ve never played it because I"m not interested in chess, and this game requires sixteen players to partic.i.p.ate; otherwise, if one or two inexperienced outsiders join, it can easily ruin the entire game. With more people, it"s not easy to form a team, and visas are generally not included."
"Wait a moment," Lin Sanjiu said, raising her hand to stop him, then quickly turned to Gardenia. "Give me a detailed example of a game now, and don"t think about it."
"Whack-a-Mole," Gardenia replied without hesitation. "It"s a game where the Mole Team and the Hammer Team face off, also a group game. Both sides have four players each and compete on a grid array of four rows and four columns. When the signal sounds, the moles must pop their heads out of the circular holes. If a hammer player is standing outside the hole and hits them, it counts as a hit, and the Hammer Team scores a point. If the hammer player misses, the Mole Team scores a point. Each player"s movement speed is limited to one grid at a time."
Lin Sanjiu found it hard to believe that this game was something Gardenia came up with on the spot. Maybe she had experienced a certain game pocket dimension before and decided to use it. She glanced at Gardenia with resistance and then said to Red Face, "Continue."
There was no need to ask the former security guard anything—the time Gardenia took to speak allowed him to think about what to say.
"Whack-a-Mole?" Red Face snorted. "I"ve never heard of it. It seems Lava is ranked around 80th in the "Top 100 Games" list in the club. But there hasn"t been a team from the club partic.i.p.ating in it. I came here on a whim. Besides, this game can also be played solo."
He spread his hands. "Do you have any more questions? Ask away; at the moment, I can"t think of anything else to introduce."
"Too many loopholes," Gardenia said, shaking her head.
Lin Sanjiu held back from responding to her comment. To be honest, she hadn"t heard any loopholes in what Red Face had said. He didn"t say much, but everything he said seemed reasonable.
"Why are you fidgeting like you"ve got ants in your pants?" Bohemia said, glancing at the former security guard. "If you have something to say, spit it out."
It wasn"t until Lin Sanjiu also signaled for him to speak that the soft and hesitant former security guard muttered, "He, he"s telling the truth, but I haven"t heard of that player"s name. I only joined not long ago... maybe I don"t know..."
"You"re vouching for him?" Lin Sanjiu said, a bit surprised.
"Our club is quite famous," the former security guard said in a low voice. "What they both said isn"t surprising."
"How come I haven"t heard of it?" Bohemia asked, displeased.
"Maybe... maybe you weren"t from before the doomsday era," he said, looking a bit embarra.s.sed. "Even within our club, we found that people born after the doomsday almost dislike these game pocket dimensions. As long as they have a bit of autonomy, they prefer to live in peace and quiet, doing nothing. We are different... I"ve loved playing games since before the doomsday... This club also gained fame among gamers."
Red Face and Gardenia both nodded, indicating that they were also from the pre-doomsday era.
"Don"t you think it"s dangerous?" Lin Sanjiu couldn"t help but ask.
"Dangerous? Well," the former security guard replied, "Previous games didn"t require you to risk your life, but some of these games can be life-threatening... But how should I put it, personally, every time I partic.i.p.ate in a game pocket dimension, it gives me a feeling... um, I can"t really describe it. It"s like because I decided to play it myself, it doesn"t feel much different from the games before the doomsday. It"s like... it"s like going back to the past."
"How can we trust what"s in your head?" Bohemia said, waving her hand dismissively. "Tell us why you"re here."
"If I tell you, you might not believe it," he hurriedly said, looking around at everyone in the utility room. "I came here because it"s relatively safe."
Safe?
A game that devours players" body parts with lava, forcing them to hunt each other for organs, should have nothing to do with safety, right?
"There... there are guides written by seniors," he said, swallowing a gulp of saliva. "If you follow their methods, it"s relatively easy to earn points... I"m not sure if it counts as a hidden way because it seems more like a walkthrough rather than a hidden point-earning method... um, with enough manpower and suitable organs, you have a significant advantage. By the way, it"s different from what this big brother said. I saw a notice in the club looking to form a team of four to five people to clear a stage, so I tried signing up."
The term "clearing a stage" seemed to resonate with Lin Sanjiu somehow. She seemed to understand why there would be such a Gamers Club. Compared to the unpredictable and precarious life they faced, gaming seemed more acceptable.
"How come you"re the only one left? What about the other players?" Lin Sanjiu asked.
"It"s a long story..." he stammered for a while, never really explaining why it was such a "long story." Bohemia prodded him several times, and he slowly began, "We had agreed to meet in the general hospital, but when I arrived, I realized that only three of us came. Breaking the agreement too many times will be recorded, but as this big brother with a red face said, even if the other party doesn"t show up, there"s nothing you can do."
"But you still came in?" Lin Sanjiu pressed.
"No, when I saw there weren"t enough people and the other two were newcomers, I thought it wouldn"t work... so I wanted to leave. But when we were about to leave, we happened to meet another player from a different club. He said he had obtained a visa to this world when he saw the notice and came to take a look, and we happened to be missing one person. So, we came down with him."
"Came down?" Lin Sanjiu echoed, puzzled.
The former security guard pointed to the ground and clarified, "Came down to the bas.e.m.e.nt of this hospital."
"How did you get here?" Lin Sanjiu inquired further.
"I, I can only remember a little," he said, glancing at the half of the fat man still remaining, then quickly averting his eyes. "That senior had an item that allowed us to pa.s.s through walls. He distracted the NPC and we sneaked in quietly... I can"t quite remember what happened after that. The next thing I knew, I found myself killed by you."
"That"s quite convenient," Red Face said, snorting.
"You say you"re a gamer, and you know hidden ways to earn points. So, how many points do you have now?" Lin Sanjiu asked, turning her attention back to him.
Red Face raised his chin slightly and boasted, "23 points. And my body, organs, and combat power are all intact. If you don"t believe me, you can ask the NPC to tell you how many points I have."
This number was already quite high, especially since his 23 points were not even needed—and Lin Sanjiu didn"t even have enough points to redeem her mortgaged items. She furrowed her brow and asked, "If that"s the case, why haven"t you left the hospital?"
"I"m different from her," Red Face said, pointing to Gardenia. "She has already drawn lots, but I haven"t. You must know about the roulette, right?"
Drawing lots? Roulette?
Lin Sanjiu was about to ask for clarification, but the term "roulette" seemed vaguely familiar to her. She seemed to have seen it in the doc.u.ments she had brought—but those freshly printed pages were incomplete, and a lot of information was cut off halfway through.
"25 points to draw lots," Gardenia explained, as if sensing Lin Sanjiu"s ignorance. "It"s a big roulette... When the roulette stops, the content pointed by the pointer is the mission you must accomplish in the Lava world. After mission completion, you can freely leave this world. Some people"s missions have to be completed outside, like sending a certain number of people into the hospital, while my mission is a similar version inside the hospital. I need to gather thirteen people and send them all into the laboratory. To complete this mission, I"ve been here for a very long time... I thought I could finally leave."
Red Face suddenly turned his head and looked her up and down, as if he wanted to say something but ultimately remained silent.
Lin Sanjiu began to understand why Bonnie Bunny kept capturing people continuously in Lava. She crossed her arms, remained silent for a few seconds, and finally said to Gardenia, "What about you? What do you have to say?"
"Their explanations are all problematic, and I can provide evidence that I am the gamer. Think about it, if the NPC knows who the gamer is, it means they must have met, right?" Gardenia said, then turned to the NPC, who had been silent the whole time. "About a week ago, around six in the evening, we met, right? You can answer that, can"t you?"
Lin Sanjiu held her breath—after waiting for two seconds, the NPC finally spoke.
"Yes, we"ve met."