Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

As a popular content creator with a million followers, Qin Guan might not be the flashiest gamer, but he was adept at managing relationships, maintaining balance within his blood alliance, handling disputes, and gathering a significant following, especially among female gamers.

For example, the batch of new players that participated in [Fire of the Night] (mining zone plotline quest) had all joined Qin Guan's blood alliance.

Thus, Night Watchman Belter saw a series of bizarre names on the registration forms, including "Super Nice," "Flipped Fish," "Greetings Emperor," "Drama Thirteen," "July Snow," "August Melon," "String Bean,"…

And the majority of these undead with bizarre names spoke in the crisp, pleasant voices of young women…

With a poker face, Belter completed the registration for these undead and then laid out several black leather dossiers for them to select their assignment. The undead were eager, crowding around the counter to choose.

"Hey, this one's not bad. Investigate a haunted house, sounds exciting!" a healer player with ID "Super Nice" exclaimed as she flipped through the folder she snagged. "Look, Snow, a family of six in a big house, four missing, one dead, only one escaped—doesn't it just scream 'man-eating haunted house'?"

July Snow shook her head like a rattle. "No thanks, that sounds too scary."

"Pure investigative quests might be tough without Blossom online. Let's pick something with combat to earn more rewards," suggested Give Me Medicine.

"Let's do this one, [Misty Woods]. A reward of 2,000 copper and equipment of our choosing seems lucrative," Qin Guan suggested, finally holding onto one of the folders after flipping through several. "This one's in an outdoor setting, and I feel like outdoor quests are more likely to involve combat. What do you guys think?"

"Alright," Super Nice said regretfully, setting aside her folder. "We'll take on the haunted house quest next time."

"We'll take this quest, then," Qin Guan waved the leather dossier at the NPC.

Belter silently collected the other folders and handed a Church of Lady Gold Coin's Night Watchman badge to the team leader, Qin Guan.

[Night Watchman Badge]

[Obtained when taking on a team exorcist quest, held by the team leader.]

[Allows entry into restricted areas within the territory of Indahl for investigation purposes. The badge must be returned promptly after completing the exorcist quest. If lost, a penalty of 20 times the badge's value in copper coins will be deducted from the holder.]

Qin Guan checked the badge's details, then glanced down at his still completely silent interface, somewhat puzzled. "Is that it? Is the quest accepted? Why is there no pop up in the quest log?"

Belter, unfamiliar with the term "quest log," simply adhered to the "service standards" requested by Yang, stating methodically, "Please return the dossier and badge upon completing the quest. Our personnel will verify its completion, and then the reward can be settled."

Qin Guan glanced at the NPC dubiously and looked down again at his quest log which still had nothing. The absence of a pop-up or a tab on the quest log felt oddly inconclusive.

With no other choice, Qin Guan could only mutter about how "exorcist quests are strange" while leading his merry troop away.

Once the undead left, Belter exhaled sharply.

Usually, a slow and steady approach was used when hiring exorcists to avoid rapid depletion of these expendable assets. However, when dealing with these undead, the Church of Lady Gold Coin didn't hold back, as all unresolved incidents from the archives were dredged up.

For instance, the [Misty Woods] case taken on by the undead detailed a bizarre incident from half a year ago on the private lands of Baron Kolv. The Kolv family had already been in decline, and their only remaining business was a lumberyard at Misty Woods. After the incident, the baron was desperate and sought the church's help.

After several days of meticulous investigation, the church's investigators identified an unknown danger in the forest. Since the financially declining baron couldn't afford the hefty fee for on-site resolution (as it was a chargeable service), the investigators recommended sealing off the Misty Woods and prohibiting entry.

Dissatisfied with the church's passive approach, Baron Kolv hired external help to address the forest's perils. Unfortunately, the hired spellcaster fled shortly after stepping into the forest, even returning the 10-gold-coin advance back to the baron.

Misty Woods became notoriously dangerous, and naturally, the Kolv family's lumberyard couldn't continue its operations, exacerbating their financial woes. In desperation, he left a case with the Night's Watch and posted a reward of 20 gold coins, hoping for a bold young adventurer to step forward…

The Night's Watch didn't expect to make much profit handing this case to the undead; just converting to undead currency for their reward would already cost 10 gold coins, plus they prepared a selection of mercenary gear worth around 10 gold coins.

It was barely manageable with a 20-gold budget, but if the undead could resolve the issue, it would lift a burden on the Night's Watch.

Of course, a more significant reason was Bishop Jene's inability to endure Baron Kolv's incessant complaints any longer…

Barely catching his breath, Belter saw another raucous group of undead entering the hall.

The Bounty Association Hall next door mainly offered trivial quests like finding cats, dogs, lost items, people, collecting specific plants, capturing unique animals, or running errands, which failed to attract the large player groups that were online. Therefore, Brother Lahong's bunch camping in the Taranthan wilderness farming monsters had no choice but to come over to the Night's Watch Hall.

Thus, Belter had the dubious pleasure of witnessing the unique naming conventions of the undead once more—names like "Brother Lahong," "Guileless Gale," "Phantom," "Study Obsessed," "Nine Lives Cat," and so on…

After registration, Brother Lahong flipped through the black leather dossiers laid out by the NPC and picked the highest-reward quest available.

Tang Jia, Unceasing Entropy, and Jia Luo, who were students, only managed to log in during their lunch break. As soon as they were online, Yang Ying immediately added them into the group, briefing them on the new combat sub-classes, and they hurried to New Wind District on Saint Joseph Street in Indahl City.

It was already the dead of night, and Tang Jia stomped her feet angrily in front of the closed doors of the Night's Watch Hall. "This is insane! Are even main city NPCs clocking off after dark now?!"

Fortunately, they were part of the blood alliance, which hadn't forgotten about them. Learning that Unceasing Entropy and the others hadn't managed to pick up any quests, Qin Guan asked them over.

Ten minutes later, Unceasing Entropy and her companions met up with Qin Guan's large group in a mountainous area about 10 kilometers west of Indahl City.

Rex becoming the new territory lord meant that the central quarter's restrictions were lifted, and even the city gates were kept open at night—he only taxed merchants and didn't collect gate taxes, nor was he afraid that people would dare enter the city at night to cause trouble.

Misty Woods was a forested area of about two thousand acres. There were two villages nearby, with the closest one about five or six kilometers away via mountain roads.

Once developed as a lumberyard, there was a dirt road wide enough for a wagon to pass through leading deep into the forest. However, after being abandoned for half a year, numerous weeds have sprouted on the forsaken road.

On entering the forest, Jia Luo remarked in surprise, "Eh? I didn't notice from outside, but why is the mist so thick here?"

"Yes, we noticed that, too," Qin Guan replied, turning back. "It looks normal from the outside, but once you're in, the mist is dense. You can barely see people several meters away."

"It's no wonder you guys had to come out to fetch us. If we had gone in alone, we might have missed each other." Unceasing Entropy nodded in understanding.

Undead had night vision, so darkness didn't hinder players. However, thick mist could affect their visibility.

Tang Jia glanced through the list of members in the group and said, "I felt that we were missing someone. Blossom isn't here?"

"She's busy with her drafts having been too caught up in the weekend instance dungeon event and didn't get any work done," Give Me Medicine casually replied. "Qingyue, do you think the mist here is just part of the setting, or is there some quest hint hidden within?"

The ID Unceasing Entropy was challenging on the tongue, so players closer to her would follow Tang Jia and call her Qingyue.

Unceasing Entropy, who was flipping through the dossier handed to her by Qin Guan, asked, "There's a lumberyard inside, right?"

"Mm, if you follow this path all the way, you'll reach it at the end," Qin Guan replied.

"This place was originally called Misty Woods, so the mist was probably a characteristic feature," Unceasing Entropy said. "But since it was developed into a logging site, the original mist shouldn't have been as thick as it is now. Otherwise, it would be easy for the workers to make mistakes, and the owner wouldn't make enough profit to cover the losses."

The background setting of the game was highly similar to Western European society in the 19th to the 20th century. Players had already seen electric lights in Weisshem, and after the Indahl City map was unlocked, they could also see NPCs using landline phones, telegraph poles on certain streets, gas pipelines on some buildings, and on occasion, "cars" in the upscale residential areas of the central quarter.

Besides these symbols of industrial civilization, players had personally captured the entire staff of the Indahl City's police department, and some players, out of curiosity, had visited the prison in the west quarter for fun…

In other words, this game, with a setting close to modern times, had the presence of laws, and even if the owner of the lumberyard cared little about human lives, he couldn't treat workers' deaths as insignificantly as a real slave owner would.

"That means, the heavy mist here must be related to the cause of the incident," said Give Me Medicine, nodding in agreement.

Unceasing Entropy holding the opened dossier suddenly halted and frowned at Qin Guan. "Vanilla, have you looked at the contents on this file?"

"Yeah, I did. There's a reward of 2,000 copper coins and choice of equipment," Qin Guan replied matter-of-factly.

Unceasing Entropy didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Raising the black leather dossier, she said, "I'm not talking about the reward. The exorcist quest doesn't pop up in the quest log, right? So, the quest text is based on this file given by the NPC in the Night's Watch Hall. To complete the task and solve the puzzle, we definitely need to carefully peruse the text here."

Qin Guan made a noncommittal groan, his gaze wandering… It wasn't that he didn't want to read through it; the information in the file was disorganized and unfocused, like a cobbled-together work report, and he lost interest after flipping through a couple of pages…

Tang Jia, who only glanced at it before losing interest and started chatting with Yang Ying instead, complained, "Do we really need to pay attention to so much detail for a mere exorcist quest? Why can't they just tell us where to go and what to kill? This combat sub-class mode is so poorly designed."

Everyone nodded in agreement, especially Give Me Medicine, who wasn't even interested in the meticulously designed narrative texts of the game developers, let alone a dry, pointlessly detailed document.

In resignation, Unceasing Entropy could only sigh. "…Alright, I'll summarize the contents of the case—"