As a player, can you be normal?

Chapter 584 Fragmented Narrative

Li Nuo always carries some [shit] with him when he goes out.

This good habit was also forced.

[Shit block] is a good thing.

It is smelly and poisonous. If you stick it on a broom, it will look like Lu Bu. If you put it on a door lock, it can be used as super glue. If you feed a piece to someone you like, it can help to enhance your relationship.

"Ah."

Li Nuo nodded.

"That's it."

The smiling procuress stopped smiling and said, "Then you don't need to carry so much with you when you go out, right?"

Li Nuo placed the five pieces of shit he brought with him on the eight-immortals table and wrapped them with black cloth. The stench was overwhelming. Perhaps because it was a bit smelly, the ghost fire floating in the air deliberately drifted away.

Li Nuo was unhappy and used his [Ghost Hand] to pinch the will-o'-the-wisp back.

"Don't you know what a great stink it would create if you merged with it?"

Smiling Bustard: "Alright, alright! Don't bully the will-o'-the-wisp!"

Li Nuo said proudly: "When I am happy, all the dogs in the community have to cover their faces."

"I..." The smiling procuress tried to change the subject: "I do eat shit..."

"Tsk..."

"I eat shit..."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, look at what you're talking about."

"I don't want to eat shit either!"

"Would you like to eat it?" The seller seemed to have turned into Li Nuo. He slammed the table and said, "Five pieces of shit, how much can you give me?"

The smiling procuress put the five [pieces of shit] into the food bowl, which was considered as the conclusion of the transaction. Then she took out a painting scroll and opened the canvas, which was filled with things that could be purchased with one to five [pieces of shit].

One of them is a walkthrough for [Dreamland].

Worth four [pieces of shit].

When Li Nuo was wondering whether he could rob it, the system's voice appeared.

[Reminder to players of "Endless Corridor" 5900, if you rob them by force, the Smiling Bustard will self-destruct]

"Take out that [Dreamland]."

The smiling procuress smiled and pulled out a thin booklet from the scroll and handed it to Li Nuo.

"I do not want."

"Then you let me take it?"

"Read it to me."

"what!?"

As a creature with a ghost face, the Laughing Bustard usually appears in a terrifying image and often scares the indigenous people for fun. She is rarely frightened by human greed and shamelessness.

"If you do this... I will leave..."

"If you do this, I will kill you before you leave."

A hand covered with age spots suddenly slammed down on the table, startling three fat geckos. The Smiling Bustard took a deep breath, and black feathers could be seen appearing on her old face.

The "bustard" in the smiling bustard refers to a kind of bird with a small head, long neck, flat back, short tail, and is good at running but not good at flying.

They said that the old lady liked to escape, but she could never escape the most dangerous fate.

Li Nuo saw the data on the old lady through [Emile's Mask]. The memory fragments showed that she was essentially a bird. She would go wherever there was trouble to make a fortune and usually only appeared in areas where players gathered.

"Okay, I'll read it."

She opened the booklet and recited in a language she could not understand, but the words became translated text, printed densely on the beams. The dark red text, like dried blood, disappeared in an instant.

——"Many years ago, the celestial spheres intersected, and a grotesque girl, an unknown demon, descended. She was caught and lived as an experimental subject, becoming a failed product of the fusion greatsword warrior, but it triggered the dream power of the ancient god. The abyss thing that was told for no reason, the terrifying monster became the oxygen for governing the underworld. The thick fog she emitted provided the survival value of the ghost market and delayed the emergence of demonization. The hungry people believed that she was a good omen and worshipped her, honoring her with the title of 'Ghost God Bodhisattva'."

——"He was originally a demon, but he became holy, and then he stopped killing. However, he is cruel by nature, so he can only be kept here."

——"Later, in order to protect her, the hungry people transformed themselves into demons and threw themselves into this place, reincarnating in nightmares for years, and captured the dead and violators in the ghost market."

——"This thing is a thing of bad luck, but it brings order."

——"Don't let her notice you, and don't hurt her 'people'. Just let her sleep in a dream. Ending her life in a dream is such a beautiful way to die."

——"It's just a dream, please wake up soon, but the answer may only lie in those who protect her."

The smiling procuress swallowed her saliva and tried to explain that "this thing is just like this" and she was not playing any tricks.

But what she saw was Li Nuo staring at the beam that no longer had any words on it. He looked completely different from before. He was sorting out what he had just seen.

"do not kill."

"Speedrun."

"Memory inheritance."

He murmured three key words.

"Damn..."

Only then did Li Nuo realize the problem. This crappy place was a team dungeon, and one had to consume lives to break it.

The guide tells the story of the hidden BOSS.

The story is a metaphor for a conjecture hidden beneath the surface: the world is not what we imagine it to be.

"Hey, let me ask you, do you know anything about White City?"

"I can't get out, how can I know where to go?"

The Smiling Procuress came to Baicheng and walked into this place by accident. Her real body was also sleeping.

Baicheng is different from what it seems.

Li Nuo thought.

It has been a long time since he was led by the script system. He almost forgot that he was often trapped by the "Endless" system in the past.

"Oh no……"

He thought about the time issue. Cha Bai was still fighting with someone and there was no time to delay.

"This is a dream, right? What about time?"

The smiling procuress reached into her waist pocket, took out a watch face without hands, and said with a smile: "One minute in reality, one hour here."

Li Nuo felt relieved. No wonder the speed at which the tasks came from Cha Bai was so strange.

He was thinking about how to go through the process again. According to the guide, the secret to cracking the level lies in the monster guarding the BOSS. Last time, along the way, the only three BOSSes that had any plot or strange monsters were the only ones.

The first one is a cat.

The second one is the skull of Jingguan.

The third one is a mute girl.

"Catnip, a ball of string, a hiding item, and an item to increase luck. I want these four things."

Li Nuo glanced at the smiling brothel owner, with an irresistible majesty in his eyes.

"Five [pieces of shit], whatever you do, bring them to me."

The Smiling Brothel owner was rarely afraid of a "human", so she had no choice but to do as she was told. As a businessman, she had plenty of strange things in her hands.

There is no catnip, but there is kiwi fruit as a substitute. Li Nuo extracted actinine and made a potion that can have some spring-inducing effect on cats.

The hiding item is the [Stone Badge]. After wearing it, you will become stone in the eyes of other creatures. It can only be used once and the effect lasts for a very short time.

The item to increase luck is a bag of [inferior lucky gold coins], which cost one hundred gold coins each in the "Endless Corridor".

As for the ball of thread, the Smiling Bustard pulled one out of the thread of her own tattered clothes.

Li Nuo planned to rely on the above four things to pass the dream that no one had passed so far.

He has a natural advantage, he is perfectly resistant to curses in dreams, only the hidden BOSS that controls dreams can touch him, as long as he doesn't kill, there will be no problem.

"Let me make it clear first..."

The smiling bustard took the [piece of shit] and devoured it with relish, its mouth full of dark brown residue.

"I'm right here. If you find anything interesting on the way, you can come over and exchange it."

Li Nuo took out a folding stool from the mask, held it in his left hand as a shield, and then sucked her into [Emile's Mask].

Don't even think about running away if you see her, Maljie's [shit block] can kill her.

In this way, the Smiling Bustard went from being a traveling merchant to being his resident merchant.

Walking through the map again, under the influence of [Drink that Enters No Man's Land], Li Nuo was not disturbed by the dream maker this time. He licked the map and found a large number of [shit blocks], indicating that the Smiling Bustard had become a part of the dream map. Seeing that there was nothing left to snatch, Li Nuo went to the place where the cat demon's BOSS battle was fought.

Just like last time, under the big locust tree, the dried cat corpse fell to the ground and turned into a catwoman whose entire body should be mosaiced.

Li Nuo directly opened the [Cat Aphrodisiac] made from kiwi alkaloids. The gas emitted from the bottle instantly softened Catwoman's body.

"Meow……"

Catwoman turned her back, lay on the ground, and stuck her butt out. The meaning was clear. Li Nuo threw out the prepared ball of thread, and Catwoman hugged the ball of thread and rolled around on him lovingly, not caring at all about the filthy stuff (dried feces fragments) on the ball of thread.

When Catwoman let go of her hostility, [Emile's Mask] shook.

【Catwoman: Lee Chae-young】

[Level (Phase 65): lv]

[Level (Phase 99): lv]

[Danger Level: B~S-]

[I cannot detect the memory fragments, but I have already regarded you as a "kind" human being, and I can go one step further]

The last time I pushed the map, the mask was unable to detect the deep memory fragments, and I could only see sloppy explanations such as "This guy is a man-eating monster". The current situation indicates that there should be no problem in passing the level without killing monsters.

Li Nuo didn't want to have any R-rated stories with Catwoman. After all, he was the male protagonist of a pure love anime, so he put the folding stool on the ground and kicked the chair leg.

Da da da da da!
Catwoman was happy sitting on the stool.

Three minutes later, Catwoman was done with her pleasure. She looked with her green vertical pupils towards the corner of the wall to the north of the locust tree. The darkness there suddenly glowed with a phosphorescent light.

Li Nuo picked up a grain of dried and hard rice there.

【Dried rice grains】

[Story items cannot be taken out]

[Brief description: Many years ago, a girl brought her brother here. In order to cure her brother's disease, although this city was safe and there was food here, her brother still died. Before his death, her brother left a bowl of rice. The last grain of rice was treasured by the girl as a treasure. She heard that the ghosts in the ghost market could bring blessings to her brother, so she was willing to turn into a demon to protect the ghosts. In exchange, her brother's spirit tablet was placed in the place closest to the sun.]

"Soul-like fragmented narrative..."

Li Nuo turned around and saw the catwoman smiling at him, then turned into phosphorous fire and disappeared into the air.

[The Heavenly Venerable said that all living beings, after death, pass through hell, and their souls are bound to Fengdu, where they suffer all kinds of pain.]

[I will now chant the precious stanza for you, raising immeasurable sound that will resound through the ten directions, and all those who are heard in the ninth level will be freed from all torture.]

"They say they are gods and Buddhas, but the scriptures for salvation are actually from Taoism."

Before becoming a player, Li Nuo found many scriptures for himself. His original intention was to carve the scriptures on the wall before he died to scare people. Anyway, no one cared whether he lived or died at that time.

He had heard of things about Taoism.

"The Ten Kings Delivering the Dead".

He bowed slightly towards where Catwoman had disappeared.

"I wish to recommend this deceased soul to be reborn in the Pure Land."

The trees rustled sparsely in the cold wind, and a bloody kidney fell down.

The correct strategy process is now like this.

Do not enter the BOSS battle with Catwoman. In fact, the correct way is not to fight her. If it exceeds a certain time, it will trigger her to cease fighting. Li Nuo just used an absurd method unique to the "Endless Corridor" to resolve the BOSS battle.

If you follow the so-called "strategy", you also need to go to the Smiling Bustard to buy a pair of glasses that can directly see hidden props. They are worth six [shit blocks] and can be obtained normally by licking the map in the town outside, but this means that a lot of trial and error is needed to get the correct route.

That's why Li Nuo felt that this dream was a group mission, and the correct answer needed to be found out at the cost of human lives.

Come to the Five Elements Altar again.

Li Nuo placed the kidney that Catwoman gave him on the altar, and like last time, he entered behind the opened stone door and came to the [Corridor of Confessors].

The effect of [Drink for Entering No Man's Land] had lost its effect when Catwoman found him, so this time he wore the [Stone Badge].

We arrived at the room of BOSS Jingguan without any obstruction.

The stench of rotting meat and rust suddenly became strong, and swarms of green-headed flies exploded.

The hill made up of thousands of skulls exuded blood. They were the BOSS, but they did not attack because they did not find Li Nuo.

Although Li Nuo only fought it for 15 seconds last time, he remembered clearly the different ones in its heads.

One of them still had rotten flesh.

He walked over, the soles of his boots pulling up the broken flesh fibers stuck to the ground. Suddenly, a grumbling sound similar to the croaking of frogs came from deep within the Jingguan.

Less than twenty seconds later, Li Nuo came out of the room using the decoction that went through the wall, holding a child's head in his hand.

[Head: Shiqian]

[Story items cannot be taken out]

[Brief description: He grew up here and was an idiot when he was young. He regained his memory after being made into a half-demon, half-human monster by an alchemist a year ago. However, he still wanted to leave this damn city, but was restricted by the city's isolation layer and could not get out. Until one day, an accident occurred and he finally got out. After that, he never came back until his head was brought back by a passing "ghost", and he finally returned to his hometown.]

Li Nuo tied the head to his waist, and the rice grains left by Catwoman were in the small pocket of his box. These two things might be able to decipher the dream.

But there are still two last things missing.

"..."

The silver key to open the boss's door, and some token or item on the third boss.

The last time he got the key, the process was very smooth. The key was divided into two halves, one half was in the throat of a demon, and the other half was in the body of the third BOSS.

So the answer is…

"No key required..."

If killing cannot be avoided in the process of getting the key, it would go against the strategy he learned from the Smiling Pimp.

The key is a trap, one of the traps that triggers the hidden BOSS instant kill mechanism.

He did not show off his abilities along the way, and this time he did not have the feeling that his mind was being controlled by anyone. It is not ruled out that this feeling is also false, but at least it is evidence that he is on the right track.

Assuming it doesn't work this time and he is killed instantly again, Li Nuo can only prepare to be resurrected by Maljie. That means the subsequent story will have nothing to do with him. The temptation of success is great. This world has a narrative style similar to soul fragments. The benefits behind the risks are what he values, even if he doesn't know what it is.

But it is very likely related to the world view of "Claymore" and will affect the future.

Li Nuo stood on the last step and looked up into the sky. The mute girl looked down quietly at the gears oozing with blood. The effect of the [Stone Badge] had ended and the mute girl fell to the ground.

Li Nuo crushed all the [low-quality lucky coins].

Before the mute girl took action, he used the [Seal of Axis]. The mute girl was stunned and fell into a hypnotic state.

What was reflected in Li Nuo's silver eyes was no longer a BOSS, but just an ordinary, poor woman.

"I won, but you didn't die, so you will give me the important things."

[Difficulty: 20]

The difficulty of the question is extremely high, which shows that its actual passing method is even more difficult.

The dice spun out of Li Nuo's palm.

With the help of a bag of [low-quality lucky coins], the dice spun wildly and stopped at the number "22".

The mute girl took off her earrings and put them on the ground silently. Then she turned around, turned into a pool of pus and blood, and returned to the middle of the huge gear at the top. She sat there and stared at Li Nuo strangely. She felt as if she had skipped a step for some reason.

Li Nuo picked up the earrings and left in a hurry.

[Mute Girl's Earrings]

[Story items cannot be taken out]

[Brief description: One year ago, my mother brought me to Baicheng, where I could survive. Apart from Baicheng... we couldn't survive.]

[Why is this happening…]

[The poisonous rain in the sky...the monsters on the ground...this world...]

[Heh, how could garbage like humans have a happy ending...]

[It is better to be a monster and guard the ghosts and gods...]

Li Nuo held the earrings in his palm.

He returned to the altar beside the bronze door and placed the three BOSS objects in front of the door. The clay figure in the crack of the door looked at him.

In front of the bronze door, there was a layer of blood words: Do you know anything?
Li Nuo recalled the most important information from the three BOSS objects and put them together.

……

Catwoman:

The girl brought her brother here to cure his illness, even though the city was safe and they could get food.

……

Jingguan Head:

He still wanted to leave this damn city, but was restricted by the city's isolation layer and could not get out. Until one day, by an accident, he finally got out, but he never came back after that.

……

1. Dumb Girl Earrings:

How could garbage like humans have a good ending?

……

The above information pieced together a truth that did not exist one hundred and thirty years later.

Li Nuo stared at the bronze gate and said:
"This world of "Claymore" is actually finished."

(End of this chapter)