Chapter 61: NPC: These Refugees Seem to Have a Serious Problem!
The panel finally moved.
Hodell had been watching it for days, and now the date he had been waiting for had quietly arrived.
February 20, Year 688 of the Star Sea Calendar.
The closed beta had begun.
He sat alone on the highest platform of an abandoned signal tower, the wind from Shadow Valley sweeping past the hem of his coat. Above him, Liuli Star's sky was entering that brief, dreamlike transition between day and night. Starlight spilled through the atmosphere in slanting ribbons, turning the heavens into a sheet of shattered colored glaze.
His gaze rested on the new system notifications.
[NPC Template unlocked.]
[Player Forum unlocked.]
So it had finally started.
In his memory, the closed beta opened roughly one hundred and thirty days before the official launch. The duration was short, barely a blink of an eye on the scale of the universe, but it was still enough to stir the first ripple.
Hodell tapped the interface and entered the forum.
A plain, almost austere page unfolded before him.
No hot posts. No noisy threads. No endless arguments between players. Just an empty forum frame and a lonely account status in the corner.
Guest.
He glanced at the registration button and clicked it out of habit.
[Detecting neural link from gaming pod. No player detected.]
[Registration failed.]
Hodell leaned back slightly and let out a quiet breath.
What a shame.
The official rules were simple. Only players connected through a gaming pod could register, speak, or post. Guests could only browse. The restriction had originally been meant to stop outside interference, commercial spam, and all the garbage that came with mass traffic. The result was that the cleanest forum in the universe had also become the cruelest place for him.
He had the guide.
He had the answers.
He even knew where the profit was.
But he had no mouth.
It was like standing behind a glass wall while a crowd of rich fools wandered around outside with money in their hands, all of them begging to be deceived properly.
If he could post even one thread, just one, he could probably fleece the first batch of players until they thanked him for it.
Unfortunately, the system had no interest in helping him commit fraud efficiently.
He rubbed his chin.
"The time ratio is still six to one... twelve days here, only two days out there."
That was one of the reasons Star Sea had exploded in popularity in his previous life. Even if someone ignored the game itself, the time ratio alone was enough to drive people mad. For ordinary people, it was the closest thing to stealing lifespan.
No wonder the peak concurrent count had gone insane.
Of course, this first batch was nothing compared to what was coming later.
Only thirty thousand closed beta players would be scattered across more than a dozen novice planets. On average, there would only be one or two thousand per planet. Spread across the scale of the universe, that amount was less than dust.
The real storm would come with the public launch.
Still, for Hodell, the closed beta was already useful enough.
At the very least, he could use it to confirm how this so called NPC interface actually worked.
He looked one last time at the empty forum, then closed it.
"Since I cannot speak to them directly, then I'll just go meet them in person."
Far away, in another world, countless gaming pods were opening.
And somewhere, in one of them, a streamer named Yen was talking himself hoarse.
On a certain video platform, the bullet comments were rolling so fast that the screen had almost turned white.
Yen sat in front of his pod with a grin on his face, slapping the metal shell like he was introducing a race car.
"Brothers, today I spent a small fortune and finally got a closed beta account. Whether this game is a scam or a revolution, we're about to find out together."
The comments came instantly.
"Stop talking and log in already!"
"Test if the excretion system is real!"
"If the time ratio works, do office workers count as an endangered species now?"
Yen laughed and continued building suspense.
Based on the official teasers, each novice planet only supported certain class systems. Different starting tendencies would affect the spawn location. So when he filled out the pre beta questionnaire, he had done the opposite of what most normal people would do.
He had deliberately leaned into danger.
He wanted something chaotic, rare, and good for content.
If he was going to buy a closed beta slot at an absurd price, then he was going to squeeze every last drop of entertainment out of it.
"High risk means high reward," he announced confidently. "This is venture capital, brothers."
Then he lay down, the pod lid lowered with a hiss, and the world went dark.
When the stream perspective switched over, the bullet comments froze for half a second.
Then they exploded.
Deep space.
A planet like colored glass rapidly enlarged in the center of the view.
The system voice rang out.
"Nickname: Yen."
"Based on your preferences, assigned novice planet: Liuli Star."
"Unconventional start selected."
"Character creation complete."
"Race: Carbon based Human, Yellow."
"Randomizing initial location."
"Initial spawn point: Shadow Valley."
Yen almost laughed out loud.
Unconventional start.
Good.
Very good.
Even if the opening difficulty was hell level, that just meant the content would be better.
The next moment, his vision blurred.
When it cleared, the first thing that hit him was smell.
Cheap alcohol. Smoke. Mold. Wet wood. Sweat. Something vaguely rotten in the corners.
Then came the cold of the floorboards beneath his boots. The sticky resistance of spilled liquor. The faint ache in his throat when he inhaled too sharply. The heat from nearby bodies. The roughness of cloth rubbing against his wrist.
His scalp exploded.
This was not immersion.
This was possession.
He was inside it.
Yen snapped his eyes open and found himself standing beside a greasy table in a dim tavern. The walls were lined with cracked glowing crystals that cast a murky blue light across the room. There were scars carved into the bar, knives stuck into beams, and men who looked like they solved problems by burying them.
And all of them were staring at him.
Every last one.
The tavern went silent.
An iron cup slipped from someone's hand and hit the floor with a clang.
Yen blinked.
He had not even opened his status screen yet.
For a moment, he wondered if he had accidentally skipped the beginner protection phase and spawned directly into some kind of boss room.
Then he noticed something strange.
The people around him were not angry.
They were frightened.
Utterly, unmistakably frightened.
Inside the stream, the bullet comments were already losing their minds.
"Holy crap, what kind of opening is this?"
"Did the streamer spawn with dragon aura?"
"Bro hasn't moved and the whole tavern is in cardiac arrest."
Inside the tavern, the outlaws were thinking something far less cheerful.
They could not sense any energy from the newcomer.
Not a trace.
On Liuli Star, there were only two kinds of people whose aura could not be read.
The first were ordinary mortals with no power at all.
The second were monsters whose concealment was so perfect that looking at them was like staring into a sealed abyss.
And ordinary mortals did not appear out of thin air.
Someone's voice broke first.
"This... this kind of movement... no spell trace, no energy overflow..."
Another swallowed hard.
"Spatial talent?"
A third man's face turned paper white.
"Ryan."
The name spread through the room like poison.
Only one person in recent memory had become a ghost story in Shadow Valley that quickly.
Only one person had been rumored to possess terrifying spatial abilities, to move without warning, to kill without a trace, and to have died only recently in Oluson under circumstances so suspicious that no one quite believed them.
The dead Imperial rising star.
Ryan.
Yen, who was still adjusting to the sensation of having kneecaps again, looked up in confusion just in time to see one heavily scarred outlaw take two steps backward.
Then somebody screamed.
"He looked at me!"
The tavern detonated.
Chairs overturned. A window shattered. Two men elbowed each other in the face trying to reach the back door first. One lunatic dove straight over the bar. Another chose the highly efficient strategy of kicking through a wall.
In less than ten seconds, the entire tavern emptied itself.
Yen stood alone in the middle of the wreckage, staring at the swinging door.
He slowly looked down at his starter panel.
Level 1.
No equipment beyond the default clothing set.
No combat skills.
No explanation.
His stream chat was now completely feral.
"The NPCs just self evacuated!"
"This game is incredible."
"Bro spawned as a level one and somehow activated international sanctions."
Yen scratched his head and gave the invisible stream camera an awkward grin.
"Brothers... I swear I didn't do anything."
Then his eyes drifted toward the now ownerless tavern.
A thought formed.
His grin changed.
"Since they all ran..."
He looked around meaningfully.
"Does that mean everything here belongs to me now?"
Far away from Shadow Valley, in a remote place called Muai County, the situation was no less absurd.
A vacant lot used for dumping scrap had turned into a field of newly spawned players.
Hundreds of them.
They were appearing in clusters, blinking at the world, flexing their fingers, poking the dirt, rubbing rust off discarded parts, and immediately demonstrating why any sane civilization should fear player populations on instinct.
One player crouched down, grabbed a handful of sand, and let it run through his fingers with tears in his eyes.
"This feedback... this resistance... this texture... this isn't VR, this is a second life!"
Another ran straight toward a five meter watch platform and jumped off it without hesitation.
He hit the ground with a wet thump, rolled twice, and immediately checked the damage notification.
"Only eight fall damage! Nice! And I turned pain down, too. Brothers, this game is real!"
Nearby, a third player was unsuccessfully trying to remove his starter pants.
The surrounding players backed away on pure reflex.
The NPC scavengers watching from a nearby shack were horrified.
A scarred henchman lowered the cards in his hand and whispered, "Boss... where did this bunch come from? Their brains seem... damaged."
The man he called boss narrowed his eyes and watched the crowd carefully.
They had no visible energy.
No discipline.
No fear.
No common sense.
He spat out the cigarette from the corner of his mouth and slowly stood up.
"This kind of madness," he muttered, "would make perfect labor."
He walked out into the lot, slammed his staff onto the ground, and let a ripple of light flare across the dust.
The nearby players immediately noticed.
A name appeared over his head.
Nathan.
Black market merchant.
Danger level: High.
The players instantly became interested.
Nathan drew himself up and barked, "Listen up, drifters! This place doesn't feed idlers. There's a collapsed magic crystal mine in the back hills full of crystal rats and unstable shards. Bring me incomplete crystals, and I will give you food. Maybe even a chance to work for me."
A wave of system prompts appeared over the players' vision.
Quest acquired.
Do Work.
Rewards: 200 EXP, 1 low quality magic crystal, 2 loaves of bread.
The players exploded.
"A quest!"
"Move, move, move!"
"Check if the merchant can be killed later!"
"Shut up and go grind!"
Four hundred players surged toward the mine like a human flood, all screaming with excitement over two pieces of bread and beginner experience.
Nathan watched them go with mounting unease.
After a long silence, he said to his henchman, "Seal the mine entrance once enough of them get inside."
The henchman blinked. "Boss?"
Nathan frowned deeply.
"I've seen desperate men. I've seen starving men. I've seen lunatics." He looked toward the distant dust cloud left by the players. "I've never seen people smile like that while going to die."
Back in Shadow Valley, Hodell sat atop the abandoned signal tower and watched the stars shift.
The beta had begun.
The first batch of players had landed.
And, judging by the forum's initial traffic and the wave of new world fluctuations spreading across Liuli Star, at least some of them had already started causing emotional damage to the local population.
Good.
Very good.
That meant the machine had started turning.
Just then, the small crystal sphere in his coat pocket warmed and began to tremble.
Hodell took it out.
A projection rose from its surface, forming Homan's face.
The merchant bowed slightly from within the light.
"Sir," he said, tone respectful and efficient, "the matter you asked me to investigate three days ago has results."
A small smile touched the corner of Hodell's mouth.
"Understood."
He rose to his feet, brushed the dust from his coat, and looked one last time at the colored sky above Liuli Star.
Then he stepped off the signal tower and dropped into the night below.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]