Chapter 16: One Bite
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Qiu Ren’s suggestion was approved. Giving it a try wouldn’t cause any loss to Fengdu Prison anyway.
There were many reasons for Fengdu Prison not to open the entrance of the Nightmare Dungeon to the public. Firstly, they were afraid that Tapir would go to other Dream Dungeons to make trouble with this entrance as a medium.
Secondly, the death tower before was truly not “interesting” at all for the Dream Explorers. Even if they opened it to the public, n.o.body would risk their life and bet they would be able to come out of the Level S Nightmare Dungeon alive.
The original purpose of the design of the death tower was to make it durable. The longer Tapir could be fed on it, the better.
Things like gameplay and fun for the Dream Explorers were a bit difficult to design in front of Tapir’s tricky taste.
This was also one of the common problems most Nightmare Dungeons faced when they wanted to operate publicly. However, the biggest problem was still the harm caused by the Level S Nightmare Dungeon to the human body. It was very likely to be fatal as well.
“Will there really be fools who are willing to come in and die?”
A prison guard said to his colleagues while he was adjusting and testing the equipment used to connect the Level S Nightmare Seed to the “World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library.”
“How is that possible? People out there aren’t dumb. Let alone the degree of danger of a Level S dungeon, they would immediately be frightened when they see that their match is a Nightmare Dungeon.”
Another prison guard also thought the decision made by the superiors was insane.
When the prison guards sent those death row prisoners into the Nightmare Dungeon to fight, they usually had to force them to get in with their batons. There were even death row prisoners who cried out of fear and had a mental breakdown along the way.
It was already so difficult to send these death row prisoners into that Nightmare Dungeon for exploration. How would ordinary people outside be willing to go in and wander around?
Even old sows in their family farm would “oink” until their throats broke while thinking of a way to escape when they were sent into the slaughterhouse!
A wild boar wouldn’t buy a flight ticket or take the taxi to go all the way to the slaughterhouse and say, “I’m here for you to slaughter. My meat is much tastier than that of the old domestic sows!”
So, the two prison guards thought their superiors were just wasting their energy and had gone too far from reality. n.o.body would be willing to volunteer to go into a Nightmare Dungeon—a Level S Nightmare Dungeon.
While they were thinking about this, someone patted their shoulders.
“The official name for the dungeon is Battle Royale.” Qiu Ren said to them, “I’ve already got the authority to watch the battle from Tapir. Please note that down as well. Also, the death row prisoners and Dream Explorers behind you are players who have signed up for the next round of Battle Royale.”
The two prison guards replied with an “okay,” but they soon noticed the most abnormal phrase Qiu Ren had said: “signed up!”
Signed up to partic.i.p.ate in the game? Normally, when the Nightmare Dungeon was open, those death row prisoners couldn’t wait to find a hole in the prison to hide inside. They didn’t want to be a.s.signed to go into the Nightmare Dungeon and suffer.
Why were there still people signing up for it right now?
The two prison guards turned around and found quite a lot of death row prisoners who had signed up. More than thirty death row prisoners had already gathered in the preparation square behind them.
The most common sight on this preparation square was usually prison guards. .h.i.tting these death row prisoners with their batons as they forced them to get close to the Nightmare Seed. Now… these death row prisoners were warming up!
They were doing warm-up exercises!
In the eyes of the two old prison guards, this scene was like King Louis XVI doing two sets of gymnastics broadcasts on the execution stage, then laying down on the guillotine after warming himself up, and saying to the executioner, “Go ahead!”
Was it the death row prisoners, or was it them, who had gone mad?
Most staff members in Fengdu Prison were thinking the same thing as these two prison guards. It was difficult for Nightmare Dungeon with Level S danger to become popular overseas.
The facts quickly verified their thoughts.
The two prison guards soon finished adjusting and testing the equipment. Battle Royale was successfully connected to the World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library. It was publicly opened to the Dream Explorers and players in five areas, including the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, j.a.pan, and Korea.
Qiu Ren didn’t wait for a long time. He directly started a new round of the battle royale game. The equipment soon showed that the number of people being matched was 57/100.
These fifty-seven people were all death row prisoners and Dream Explorers from Fengdu Prison. They had volunteered to partic.i.p.ate. The remaining spots were all reserved for overseas players.
But… no, in the last three minutes, Dream Explorers and players from those areas were being matched to the game in Battle Royale one after another.
However, when they saw that it was a Level S Nightmare Dungeon, they immediately clicked “X” and left the matching queue almost in one second.
f.u.c.k! Which wicked guy put a G.o.dzilla in a bunch of bunnies?
Qiu Ren could already hear the sounds of them swearing. Finally, when it was four minutes in the matching queue, a Dream Explorer from North America was matched to the battle royale game.
This Dream Explorer didn’t turn around and run like the others but chose to stay for a while instead.
He or she was considering whether to click “YES” and join the match in Battle Royale or not.
Click “YES” quickly!
Qiu Ren kept yelling in his heart. Tapir couldn’t hang in for any longer right now. If no overseas players were willing to join this round of Battle Royale, Qiu Ren could only make up the numbers with the death row prisoners in Fengdu Prison for one round first!
Tapir was now using the low-power mode. She had to absorb some emotional energy from the first round of Battle Royale. Afterward, she could host two games at once, then four and eight.
Is she rolling some s...o...b..a.l.l.s first?
Qiu Ren looked at the user from North America, who was matched to the game but still wasn’t sure if she wanted to partic.i.p.ate, with a bit of a headache.
Why are you hesitating? Just click “YES!” The chicken is very delicious! You’ll never be able to forget about it your entire life after having one bite! If you don’t click “YES” now, you’ll not know when you can have the next chance to eat it again!
Qiu Ren really wanted to press the head of this Dream Explorer down on the plate and force her to take one bite of the chicken!
…
In fact… someone was indeed forcing her to do so.
Willa was a streamer of a live broadcast platform called Twitch.
A viral trend on Twitch and even around the world right now was “exploring Dream Dungeons.”
It meant that people got themselves randomly matched with some Dream Dungeons that were open to the public through the World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library. They would go inside to explore and pa.s.s through the levels.
Willa had opened a new round of “Dream Dungeon Match” today as usual.
She was looking forward to being matched to some warm and healing Dream Dungeons, like “Rabbit Island” or “Animal Forest.”
However, a few lines of scarlet red words, which represented danger, appeared on the screen of Willa’s computer.
“Matching through the World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library…”
“Matched to Nightmare Dungeon, ‘Battle Royale."”
“Degree of danger: S.”
“Do you want to enter? Yes/No”
A Level S… Level S Nightmare Dungeon? Willa’s heart skipped a beat when she saw the words Nightmare Dungeon. She had played in some low-level Nightmare Dungeons with the rewards of her audience!
If it was a Level E or Level D Nightmare Dungeon, though. It would be fine for her to go inside and wander around.
But a Level S Nightmare Dungeon was a different thing entirely! How could she be matched to something like this on the World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library?
Those Nightmare Dungeon Games operating publicly on the Internet all belonged to the dark web. They were not something ordinary people could touch.
Willa felt like she had met a G.o.dzilla when she got out for a walk… She was 0.01 second away from having a cardiac arrest!
Who! Who exactly threw a G.o.dzilla on the street?
Willa’s first response was to click “No” without hesitation, but she suddenly received a reward.
“User ‘cheems’ rewarded you with 100 USD. You need to enter the Nightmare Dungeon, Battle Royale, to redeem it.”
Huh? Willa was thinking of saying thank you when she saw the reward, but she then read the condition attached.
She must enter the Level S Nightmare Dungeon to get this reward.
“Well, I… I died in a Level D Nightmare Dungeon last week. My head still hurts.”
Willa wanted to look for a reason to reject. She had experienced death once in a Level D Nightmare Dungeon. Even though her body wasn’t harmed, she had already suffered from migraines for almost a week.
Dying in a Level D Nightmare Dungeon also made her head hurt so much. If she died in a Level S Nightmare Dungeon, wouldn’t she lose half of her life?
“User ‘Morty Smith 137’ rewarded you with 250 USD. You need to enter the Nightmare Dungeon, Battle Royale, to redeem it.”
“Thank you for your rewards, but that is… is a Level S Nightmare Dungeon…”
“User ‘Rick Sanchez’ rewarded you with 30,000 USD. You need to enter the Nightmare Dungeon, Battle Royale, to redeem it.”
Thirty thousand U.S. dollars! This was comparable to two hundred thousand yuan.
Willa could only earn such an amount of money after doing live broadcasts for six months! This might be because that big investor really wanted to see her suffer in the Nightmare Dungeon.
Willa’s firm will faltered in front of such a huge temptation. The worst thing was that the number of people watching her live broadcast suddenly surged at this moment.
Having a Level S Nightmare Dungeon in the World’s Dream Dungeon Level Library was already a huge incident that could make it to the headline!
And now, this big news was taking place right before their eyes. Other players, who got the news, flooded into Willa’s live broadcast from everywhere to join in on the fun.
“It’s just a Level S Nightmare Dungeon. Just go inside and check it out. Nothing will happen. (emoji) (emoji) (emoji)”
“Do you see the reward I gave you? It’ll be yours if you enter.”
Under the lead of the big investor, a group from the audience immediately appeared in Willa’s live broadcasts to offer her mission rewards.
These people were instigating her to enter this Level S Nightmare Dungeon. Once she went in, she would be able to get a large amount of money!
However, there was still some conscientious and rational audience who kept commenting.
“You’re convincing the live streamer to kill herself! Stop it!”
“Believe me. Dungeons created with Nightmare Seeds are all boring. Apart from torturing and killing, there may not be anything else in this Level S Nightmare Dungeon.”
This comment was indeed very right. Most Nightmare Dungeons were, in fact, some horror movies with a low quality. Apart from long chases and torturing, there wasn’t any rich content in them.
But that was precisely what the audience who had flooded in wanted to see!
Willa was now like a witch who was about to be sent to the burning post by everyone else!
They didn’t care about the content of the Nightmare Dungeon. They just wanted to see Willa suffer and be tortured in that Level S Nightmare Dungeon! The uglier her death, the better!
“I…”
Willa looked at the reward pool that was piling up higher and higher. It had already broken through 130,000 USD. This was an amount of money she might not even be able to get after doing live broadcasts for two years.
Another notice popped up again in the matching system.
“Your teammate has been matched. Do you want to enter? Yes/No.”
This was a Nightmare Dungeon of team exploration?
If her teammate had been matched, it meant that… the teammate had already entered this Level S Nightmare Dungeon. They had most likely gotten some experience in exploring this Nightmare Dungeon before. If not, no one would risk his or her life to get into a completely unknown dangerous area…
So, what exactly was the Nightmare Dungeon called “Battle Royale” about?
Willa searched the keywords on the Internet, but she found nothing related to this Nightmare Dungeon at all.
And yet… there should be a chance she could survive if she had a teammate? Even if she died, it wouldn’t be too miserable.
Willa, who was pushed onto the burning post, realized that she might have a slim chance of survival. It would depend on the strength of the knight that came to save the witch!
She chose “YES” in the end. After that, her consciousness was directly dragged into that Level S Nightmare Dungeon.