Players, Please Board the Train

”Isn’t the ghostly shadow supposed to appear with the player? What’s the difference?” Wan Yunrong asked.

”Think about it carefully. The ghostly shadow didn’t appear on the player who became a ghost at the same time, which means there’s only one ghostly shadow, and it’s mobile. If it can move, catching the players is useless, the ghostly shadow can run at any time,” Ge Pan said confidently, ”So the thing we need to catch for the mission is the ghostly shadow, not the player pretending to be a ghost.”

”This is too vague.” Wan Yunrong said, ”A ghostly shadow, how do we catch that?”

”Something that appears in the dungeon field can’t possibly be a real ghost.” Wu Xiaonan said, ”That ghostly shadow might be a special item, or it could be a player’s item or characteristic hidden here. Don’t forget the corpses on the third underground level, maybe the ghostly shadow was produced by some hidden player.”

”But where did he hide it?” Wan Yunrong asked, ”We’ve searched everywhere here.”

There was still one place they hadn’t searched.

The remaining sealed half of the Deep Blue Laboratory.

”The surface is blocked, so we can only try from the metal seal side.” Miao Yu said, ”But we tried using items to break it before and failed.”

”Underground third level.” Xu Huo said, ”That passage on the third underground level was blocked by corpses. There might be metal seals in there, you can’t be sure.”

”I think this is promising. If there were metal seals, why stuff the corridor full of corpses? And if a player really controlled an item, they’d at least leave an exit. Otherwise, if the surface entrance was sealed when the dungeon started, the other side couldn’t get in either.”So the group reopened the elevator door and went down to the third underground level.

The moment the elevator door opened, white dust drifted out into the air, and the entire underground third level looked stuffed with haze, making visibility impossible.

”It seems Zhu Rumin and Qiu Xiangdong really did come to the third underground level.” Xu Huo said.

The players headed toward the laboratory boundary corridor and began moving the corpses to other places.

”This much pollen might explode, everyone be careful not to create sparks.” Ge Pan warned.

The players were cautious as they worked, forming a line to carry the corpses out.

During this time Xu Huo recovered two Flight Devices, but with so many people around he couldn’t open them to inspect.

”I can’t understand why this laboratory made even the floor out of metal. You might spark a fire by dragging a stool, and they planted so many random plants, no wonder it ended up destroyed.” Chu Yuan lamented.

”Why do you talk so much.” Miao Yu said impatiently, ”If you’re unhappy, go ask the people who built the lab.”

Chu Yuan sulkily swallowed his words.

Plants had grown all over the corpses, many of which were tied together by roots and stems. After two hours of clearing, the corridor was finally passable.

Sure enough, there was a door in the middle of the corridor, and it wasn’t sealed with metal bars, but when they opened the door there were more corpses inside.

They had no choice but to keep clearing.

Once both sides of the laboratory were cleared, Xu Huo and the others could finally see the full layout of the lab.

Unlike the cold sterility they had seen before, this half’s decor had a ”human touch.” The laboratories and offices were no longer high-frequency repetitions, but each had its own character, and there were fewer rooms overall, making it feel more like a community.

Large glass windows ran along the outer wall of the laboratory, and looking through them revealed the deep blue sea.

”This is basically a large underwater viewing building.” Wan Yunrong walked to the glass and peered at the vortex inside.

At that moment a hand suddenly pressed against the glass, and she jumped back in fright, ”There’s someone in the water!”

”That’s not a person, it’s a marine creature.” Wu Xiaonan moved closer to observe and said, ”It just looks a bit like a human hand. See, it has suction cups all over.”

”This thing looks pretty avant-garde.” Chu Yuan said.

Xu Huo glanced too, but the creature that resembled a human hand peeled away from the glass and gradually merged into the darkened seawater.

However, the mutated creature on the other side of a single window wasn’t the important thing; this third underground level had clearly been recently visited.

He tilted his head toward a corner of the level, and his gaze fixed there.

After a few seconds, faint sounds came from that corridor. Ge Pan and the others were alerted, and Mao Wei immediately threw several toy-like grenades. The next second a large mass of pink fluff squeezed out from the corridor, wrapping a few people as it spilled out.

”Dr. Deng.” Xu Huo called the middle-aged man who was wedged half in the air.

”Dr. Deng? And his bodyguards, I remember. They came with us on the same ship.” Miao Yu smirked, smiling without humor, ”On the ship they said they wouldn’t enter this dungeon, but after circumnavigating the island they still came to the Deep Blue Laboratory.”

Dr. Deng and his two personal bodyguards were stuck in the fluff mass and didn’t rush out. Dr. Deng said, ”We didn’t come to run the dungeon, we just came to the island to collect specimens, and we came in to rest our feet.”

”Resting feet down to the third underground level, impressive.” Chu Yuan was sharp, ”Tell us, are you the ones causing trouble with the ghostly shadow?”

”What ghostly shadow? I don’t know anything about that.” After repeating himself several times, Dr. Deng said, ”I’m not a player, I pose no threat to you. At least put me down first and I can show you the specimens I collected, they’re in my bag.”

”We represent the Bolun Family. If you have any finds you can sell them to us on the spot, we’ll give you a good price.”

Mao Wei stepped forward, pulled the bag stuck in the fluff out and turned it over, causing many jars and bottles containing plant and small animal samples to spill out.

”Really.” Mao Wei turned to the other players, ready to reclaim the items.

In fact he had little choice but to take the items back. Dr. Deng seemed easy to talk to, but his bodyguards might not be. The fluff around a man and a woman stuck nearby had already dissolved and they walked out, helping to pull Dr. Deng down and forming a tight protective ring around him.

What drew attention was that they were holding guns, real high-lethality weapons. Xu Huo had seen the Bolun Family insignia on common weapon listings in District 011.

Before Mao Wei could act, accompanied by a humming machine sound, the expanded fluff was all sucked into a vacuum device. The player holding the vacuum and six others appeared behind Dr. Deng — nine people in total, eight players.

”Dr. Deng, are you hurt?” the female player standing close to him asked with concern.

”No.” Dr. Deng waved his hand and hurriedly said, ”Please don’t act rashly. One side of this laboratory is under expansion. If we fight we might get buried under the island.”

But the expressions of the players around and behind him said otherwise.

”Let’s all stay calm, there’s no need for this.” Ge Pan smoothed things over, ”Mao Wei thought just now that the ones hiding here were the players trying to mess with us, so he acted. It was just a misunderstanding.”