The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 609 Recruiting Experts: Tokyo Story (Seeking guaranteed monthly votes at the beginning of the month)

[Side Quest Triggered: Find the answering machine within 5 minutes to de-escalate the deadly conflict.]
A system notification flashed before Xu Meng's eyes.

But before he could recall what an answering machine was or where it might be, another voice rang in his ear:
"Isn't this the capital of Izumo?"

"Why is the commander an American?"

Can Americans represent all of humanity?

Another female player also pinched her nose and entered the room. After seeing the situation outside the window, she was shocked and immediately asked three questions.

Xu Meng smiled gently: "Isn't it normal for American soldiers to be the bosses in Izumo?"

"Is this normal?" The female player clearly didn't participate much in online politics and didn't even know these basic online political jokes.

Xu Meng then stopped discussing the topic—of course, this was also related to the fact that he was live-streaming.

If we keep going, users of Zhumeng on Chuyun might lose their temper.

"Never mind that, let's run!"

"Did you see the system notification? If we don't hurry up and find it, we're going to get bombed."

Xu Meng shook her head and quickly left through the side door.

"Goodbye, sister!" Xiao Meng, carrying the goldfish bowl, waved goodbye to the two female players and quickly followed.

The two then realized what was happening and quickly took action.

One headed straight for the other side door, while the other instinctively chased after Xiaomeng.

The two paused for a moment, then raised their fists and played rock-paper-scissors in the distance. The girl who was chasing Xiaomeng reluctantly turned around and followed her teammates to the other side.

The ghost finally regained its senses and continued its pursuit.

However, as he rushed into the room, he suddenly noticed the soldiers outside the spaceship.

The next moment, a scene flashed before the eyes of the eight surviving players simultaneously—

The monster roared and slammed its head against the French windows.

The next moment, it passed through the glass without any hindrance, rushed into the crossroads outside, and charged towards the nearby commander and crowd.

What followed was a brutal massacre that lasted for more than ten seconds.

Faced with an enemy invisible to the naked eye and untouchable by conventional weapons, the soldiers of Izumo and the United States were completely powerless to fight back.

Bullets fired in a panic have no real effect other than killing one's own people.

Hoshino, inside the spaceship, watched this scene with mixed feelings.

He was still feeling conflicted.

His new friend Haki, whom he met on the [Road to Death], was livestreaming, and that's when he really felt terrible.

Faced with a barrage of question marks in the live stream, even his usually fluent tongue suddenly froze.

He was also completely baffled!
The ghost weaved through the crowd, slaughtering the soldiers. Just as it was about to wipe them all out, it suddenly turned back to look inside the spaceship.

After a brief hesitation, they passed through the glass and returned to the spaceship.

This brief visual change then disappeared.

Instead, everyone heard noise coming from inside the spaceship—the noise of a mistake made while repairing the energy node.

Then everyone immediately understood:

The monster was lured by the leaked energy, which is why it stopped its killing spree and returned.

Haki and Hoshino are studying a pair of boots with magnetic soles. There are no energy nodes around them, so they know they are safe.

While letting out a sigh of relief, Haki couldn't help but complain, "Is this... considered an Easter egg?"

"Should it be considered?" Hoshino wasn't quite sure either.

"Is anyone in Shibuya?" Haki asked again. "Please tell me everything is normal there, and there are no aliens."

Viewers in the live stream quickly informed them that everything in Shibuya was normal.

The two breathed a sigh of relief and continued playing the game.

The topic of "why soldiers in Tokyo are commanded by American soldiers" is not suitable for public discussion; we can only talk about things within the game.

How do I find the answering machine?

What does "the highest level of military response" refer to?

Hoshino had a bad feeling, and his eyelids started twitching.

He then thought of his experience at Gamescom last year.

When Lord of War was first showcased at Gamescom, the Izumo soldiers were the villains, which caused quite a stir on the internet.

Now, a year later, is Xu Meng about to start again?
As for the highest level of military response...

"When it comes to the most well-known and most lethal weapon in human history, what comes to mind?" Hoshino asked rhetorically.

Haki was taken aback for a moment.

After a long pause, he finally managed to utter a single word:
"……what?"

He said incredulously, "You mean... a nuclear bomb?"

"They...want to drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo???"

Both of them felt a chill run down their spines.

But Hoshino held onto a sliver of hope, thinking it was probably impossible.

Things are different now than they used to be.

Back then, Dream Building was just a small company with novel ideas and niche technology. Although it planned to sell games all over the world, it was essentially a Chinese company.

The games we develop will primarily cater to players in China, with a secondary consideration for players in Europe and America.

It's understandable that they don't care about the cloud market.

But now Zhumeng is an out-and-out multinational giant.

A legitimate multinational giant should have rigorous business planning, public relations assessment, and a global perspective.

There's no reason for them to badmouth their own users.

Even though that's what he was thinking, Hoshino didn't dare to delay: "This is probably to give us a sense of urgency."

"It's a side mission! As long as we find the transponder and complete the mission, we shouldn't be bombed."

"Let's go, let's go find the answering machine quickly."

“Oh, okay.” Haki quickly followed.

Without giving it much thought, the two put on their boots and hurriedly began their search.

At this point, only 4 minutes and 11 seconds remained of the 5-minute countdown.

……

While Hoshino and Haki were busy, the other players were also taking action.

Some people were being chased by unseen monsters, some were looking around for windows to see what the so-called "outside world" was like, and of course, some were also frantically searching for answering machines.

Fang Shuo and Zhang Siming saw the situation outside the spaceship even before Xu Meng did.

Before the side quests appeared, they all thought that, like Saturn in the tutorial level, the street scene outside was just a scene texture outside the game area and didn't pay much attention to it.

Now that side quests have appeared, the situation is naturally different.

Without a second thought, they dropped what they were doing and began searching for an answering machine.

Both of them are top performers in the gaming industry. When they put their all into action, their efficiency is much faster than that of the slow and unhurried Xu Meng, and the headless Hoshino and Haki.

Fang Shuo's thinking was very clear: "Giving us only 5 minutes means that this thing is probably not far from us."

"At least it's not far from the surviving players now, otherwise it would be too late."

"We'll split up, one person on each side."

The two put down their weapons and loot, and began to quickly search the surrounding area, even re-searching the rooms they had already checked.

The viewers in the two streamers' rooms weren't very enthusiastic.

"Please, that's Tokyo!"

"Brother B, don't be in such a hurry. So what if it explodes? We're a spaceship, we're not afraid of being blown up!"

"No, really nobody wants to see Tokyo go nuke?"

"I know this is a system task, but can't you guys sacrifice yourselves and have some fun for everyone?"

"I want to see a mushroom cloud rise over Tokyo. If you can see it, I'll board a ship and send rockets! If you can't, I'll unfollow!"

"Why isn't this game officially released yet?! I really want to play it!!!"

……

Fang Shuo and Zhang Siming were racing against time and didn't have time to look at the comments.

Their focus soon paid off—"Over here!" Zhang Siming shouted.

"Coming, coming." Fang Shuo rushed over and saw a device in front of Zhang Siming that looked a bit like an old-fashioned landline phone, but had a holographic display.

"this one?"

"That's what the system is saying." Zhang Siming nodded, pointing to the flashing red light and the red button next to it. "You answer or I answer?"

"You answer it!" Fang Shuo said without hesitation.

Zhang Siming didn't hesitate and pressed the button decisively.

A crackling electrical noise rang out directly over the spaceship's loudspeaker.

Then came Zhang Siming's voice:
"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Why is there no sound? Could they have been wiped out by monsters? Are they that weak?" Fang Shuo's voice interrupted over the loudspeaker.

After a two-second silence, a third person's voice finally rang out from inside:

"Earthlings?! People from Xia Kingdom?!"

Outside the spaceship, the newly appointed commander's voice was full of surprise.

“That’s right, we’ve taken over this place. Now I’m officially informing you: this spaceship now belongs to the Xia family!” Zhang Siming was talking nonsense.

However, in order to advance the mission smoothly, Knight Walker intentionally did not allocate too much intelligence to the NPCs in Deep Space Echo.

Therefore, the commander's tone was always the same: "Then why did you attack Tokyo? Don't you know that this is an act of war!"

"Uh..." Zhang Siming just said it casually, he didn't really think that much about it.

But Fang Shuo wasn't going to tolerate NPCs: "I'm going to crash into Tokyo, you gotta have a problem with that? Come and bite me if you dare!"

"Do you think you're absolutely safe hiding inside this shell?" The NPC's voice became low and suppressed. "The nuclear submarine has been entered into the coordinates, the nuclear missiles are ready, and the high-yield nuclear missiles are enough to destroy the entire Tokyo!"

"So what? There are over ten million people in Tokyo. Do you dare to bomb it?" Fang Shuo said confidently.

The NPC remained silent for a few seconds.

Then he slowly said, "For the sake of world peace, we have already destroyed two cities in Izumo."

"Now you're asking us if we dare to bomb Tokyo?"

Let me tell you: our resolve has never wavered!

"For the benefit of all mankind, we would not hesitate to sink the entire city of Izumo into the sea, let alone just Tokyo!"

"I urge you to open the hatch immediately—or at least show a willingness to cooperate, or you will face destruction and death!"

Fang Shuo and Zhang Siming fell silent upon hearing this.

At this moment, they and the NPC opposite them felt a sense of mutual respect...

but--

"Come on if you dare!"

"Let me see if your nuclear weapons are more powerful, or our spaceships are tougher!"

"If you're men, bring all your nuclear bombs down on me!"

"I'll show you with my face!"

Fang Shuo exuded an imposing aura.

The other party was so angry that they hung up the call on the spot.

Zhang Siming, on the other hand, had been looking completely bewildered since the beginning.

Seeing that Fang Shuo had finally finished speaking, he slowly asked, "Was this our initial plan? Wasn't it to clear up the misunderstanding and prevent a nuclear explosion?"

"Huh?" Fang Shuo blinked, somewhat surprised.

What do you mean?

"I'm sorry, I misunderstood! Shall we call back?"

Zhang Siming shook his head with some difficulty: "Forget it, you've already made some tough statements, it would be too embarrassing to fight back."

"This one……"

Just as Fang Shuo was about to say it was nothing, he saw Zhang Siming's troubled expression quickly turn into excitement.

He added eagerly, "Let's go back to where we were before. That place is high up and has a good view; we should be able to see a panoramic view!"

"Huh?" This time it was Fang Shuo's turn to be stunned.

"Shouldn't we be repairing the energy nodes as quickly as possible and evacuating before the nuclear bomb explodes?"

“Where are you going!” Zhang Siming shook his head decisively.

"To be able to experience a nuclear explosion up close, and the explosion location is... well, it would be worth dying for, right?!"

Seeing Zhang Siming's excited expression, Fang Shuo and his viewers immediately realized what was going on:

"I almost forgot, SiMaXiao is still an active professional player, so we can't just say whatever we want."

"His face is practically splitting open from laughing so hard, and he even said he wanted to reconcile before..."

"Fang Shuo, you did a great job! Hurry up and get to the front row seats with a great view, I can't wait!"

……

The two went back to pick up the weapons they had thrown down and turned to go upstairs.

As for the spoils of war...

Most of the time, you'll die here, unable to take your equipment back. Whether you fall here or upstairs, it's all the same.
-
Hoshino and Haki listened to the conversation between Zhang Siming, Fang Shuo, and the NPC commander on the radio, their heads filled with question marks.

At this moment, the viewers in Haki's live stream were practically in an uproar.

Half the people were cursing Fang Shuo and the American NPCs, while the other half were urging them to quickly find a good angle to enjoy the nuclear explosion up close...

The social atomization level of Izumo is extremely high.

Many people simply don't care about grand narratives like history or national affairs.

What? You're saying our country was bombed by nuclear weapons before?
It wasn't me who got blown up.

It's not my business?

Many viewers have this mentality: they are not angry at all, but rather eager to see the explosion.

The two female players also stopped running away, returned to the window, and quietly waited for the nuclear bomb to fall.

Only Xu Meng was truly full of questions—

"This isn't right, friends!"

"This is wrong!"

He didn't care about spoilers and immediately began to explain:

"The plot arranged by the development team should be that, under the threat of nuclear bombs, everyone does their best to repair the energy and engines before the countdown ends, so that the spaceship can jump away again in order to save themselves inside the spaceship and the lives of tens of millions of people outside the spaceship."

"During this process, everyone must work together to outwit and outmaneuver the monster, respond to external communications every five minutes, and deal with potential traitors and infighting..."

"What a wonderful plot!"

He said this unwillingly.

"What's the point of this... directly provoking the NPCs and then sitting still, idly waiting for the nuclear explosion??"

"If you guys do this, the development team will cry!"

The viewers in the live stream didn't feel sorry for the development team at all; instead, they laughed uncontrollably.
"Hahaha, it was already funny, but now it's even funnier!"

"Tokyo Atomic Bomb - Happiness level 100%, development team collapses, happiness level 10000%! Hahaha, this is amazing, Mr. Xu!"

"Mr. Xu, please make sure you find a good angle!"

……

Only Xiaomeng comforted Xu Meng, saying, "If they won't do it, what will we do? Xiaomeng will help too!"

"Sigh..." Xu Meng sighed helplessly.

"Forget it, there's too much work, one or two people can't handle it."

"Let's find a good spot and watch the fireworks together..."

Realizing there was no way to turn the tide, Xu Meng gave up and dragged Xiao Meng to a window seat to wait.

Before long, six bright shooting stars lit up the sky.

It was sunset outside, and the dust in the missile's contrail reflected the sunlight, forming a cone-shaped beam of light visible to the naked eye.

The beam of light moved extremely fast, sweeping across the sky in just a few seconds.

Before the waiting group could even lower their heads, an endless burst of light and heat erupted before their eyes!
Destruction and death have arrived!

(End of this chapter)