Gamers of the Underworld

The gamers noticed Evelynn walking towards the Dungeon Lord Main Hall and thought that there was a new Plot, so they followed closely behind her.

Evelynn felt even more nervous as she was doing a bad thing.

The gamers had learned not to harass NPCs, so Evelynn arrived at the Dungeon Lord Main Hall without any incident.

Sherlock opened the door for her.

“Miss Evelynn, what’s the matter?” Sherlock asked Evelynn curiously.

“Lord Sherlock, I’m Polio,” Evelynn blushed as she said nervously.

She thought that her blatant lie would be discovered by Lord Sherlock!

Evelynn was nervous, so her tail was raised.

Sherlock frowned and walked towards Evelynn as he said, “How did you do that? It looks identical.”

“I spent a lot of time studying Evelynn’s behavior. This is a perfect disguise. I’m confident!”

Evelynn thought that her voice was rather stiff.

She thought that she was going to be discovered!

“Wah, it looks like her, even when you’re nervous,” Eggface said in astonishment.

“I thought you were trash. I didn’t expect you to be so capable,” the parrot on Sherlock’s shoulder said.

“I’m surprised too. You’ve done well, Polio. I have to call you Evelynn. Winterfell Dungeon Lord Nicholas knows Evelynn. Don’t be caught,” Sherlock said to Evelynn.

“Lord Sherlock, don’t worry. I won’t be caught,” Evelynn said loudly.

“Let’s go. We can’t let Nicholas wait for us. He has been sending letters for me to make haste,” Sherlock said as he brought everyone out of the room.

...

In a medium-sized room, a youth was sitting in a chair while looking at a computer in a daze. The computer screen was showing a post on the “Dungeon” discussion forum:

[I fell down a cliff and was knocked unconscious. I tried to login a few times, but I was unable to control my character. The screen is black. What should I do?]

The post was created by Dragonborn, and the gamers replied enthusiastically.

[Half_Roundfaced_Fat_Chicken: In this situation, you have to delete your previous character to create a new one?]

[SealHeadLingChong: Don’t listen to the previous gamer. He’s lying! Dragonborn, it’s okay to have a black screen. You’ve been through this before. Stare at the screen for another ten or so hours!]

[Great Centenarian: SealHeadLingChong is correct.]

[Hoodlum: Bro, you are fortunate to have encountered a young Wyvern.]

[SilverWind: You didn’t die after falling from the cliff? You’re awesome!]

[卍Heihei卍: Perhaps there were too many crows, and you landed on them! (Joke)]

Dragonborn read the enthusiastic replies, but none of them were useful. He wanted to ask customer service, but it was unavailable after office hours.

Besides customer service and the discussion forum, he had no other ways of communicating with the game officials.

This was a characteristic of this game. The game officials weren’t earning the gamers’ money and didn’t care much about them either.

Other companies would have folded, but this game wasn’t a normal game. It was the only such game in the world, and many gamers were waiting to participate in the game.

The youth decided to heed his friend SealHeadLingChong’s advice.

He walked towards the gaming capsule that was placed by his bed. The large gaming capsule occupied the rest of the empty space in the room.

The youth opened the gaming capsule and went inside. When it was closed, a special liquid flooded the entire capsule, and the youth’s awareness slipped into the gaming world.

It was still as dark as before.

As the pain threshold was set to zero, Dragonborn didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

He didn’t know where he was, but he felt his awareness. He didn’t have any vision, hearing, or a sense of touch.

It was like floating in darkness without any physical body or other objects.

It was like the pill-taking scene in the movie “The Matrix”.

Dragonborn wondered whether he should activate his sense of pain.

He had this sudden idea.

He was given a fright by his own thought. However, he was in a strange situation. If he continued to be in a coma, would he have a chance to play the game? Did he have to delete his character and create a new one? He didn’t want to lose his rare Strange Encounter Mission.

If he was left with no choice, he would activate his sense of pain!

That was what he thought.

“Dungeon” had a pain system that could be adjusted by the gamers. All gamers deactivated the sense of pain. Occasionally, a few gamers wanted to torture themselves and test out the pain system, but they didn’t last for long. No Human wanted to feel pain.

If he endured the pain, he could die from it. It wasn’t a joking matter.

The gamers only wanted to play the game. They had no suicidal intent, and they weren’t insane either.

Dragonborn didn’t want to activate his sense of pain. He tried adjusting the pain setting when he first played the game.

He didn’t believe that the simulated pain was the same as the pain in reality, so he tried it out.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Dragonborn was in pain even after he went offline.

Dragonborn decided to adjust his pain setting a level up.

When he adjusted it to 50%, he didn’t feel anything, but when he continued adjusting it upwards, he felt very strange.

It felt as though something was scratching his itch, and it wasn’t comfortable.

When he continued adjusting his pain setting, the feeling became painful. His entire body was in pain.

He could still endure the pain.

Until the pain elevated to another dimension that felt like an explosion. Dragonborn then felt his brain overwhelmed by pain.

The intense pain made him lose awareness. He felt he had fallen into an endless void.

He wanted to shout, but he couldn’t.

The feeling was like being knocked down by 10,000 cars. That wasn’t frightening. The frightening thing was that he wasn’t dead, and he felt the pain vividly.

The pain was useful. At least Dragonborn knew he was alive.

Dragonborn set his pain setting to zero.

It was only a game. He had no intention to play with his life. The pain could have killed him.

The pain didn’t dissipate, continuing to plague his mind.

It wasn’t a physical feeling, it was a mental pain that couldn’t be described.

It was very uncomfortable.

After suffering from the intense pain, he discovered his perception had improved. He felt something stepping on him.

He heard a faint calling.

“Chirp... chirp...”

The feeling became closer. A creature was at a distance calling him.

It was the newly hatched young Wyvern.

Dragonborn wanted to respond to the young Wyvern, but he couldn’t do so.

His condition continued for some time. He heard some noises occasionally, but he was unable to respond.

Dragonborn faced the darkness and occasional voices for three hours. In the end, he couldn’t stand the loneliness in the darkness and went offline.

...

“Hoo...”

The youth opened the gaming capsule and sat up. Then, he inhaled deeply and examined his body to ensure that he was alright. The pain was too real, to the point that he thought he was physically injured.

He stood up and sighed. He could only wait for half an hour before entering the game again.

...

A hunter wearing animal skin walked in dense woods while holding a Bow. On his back was a Shield.

Before him were two huge wolf-like creatures that were traveling through the woods.

He followed behind the two creatures.

He thought he had discovered his prey. After following the two creatures and arriving at a messy clearing, he found many crows.

Most of the crows were roasted, though a small portion had fallen to their deaths.

It was hard to imagine what the crows had gone through.

The two huge wolf-like creatures weren’t there for the crows. They went behind the clearing and howled at a tall tree.

The hunter lifted his head and looked at the tree.

His pupils contracted.

A Human was hanging from a tree branch, but that wasn’t important.

The important thing was that besides the Human, a strange naked creature shouted at the Human, “Neema!”

That was... a Wyvern!