Scourge Messenger

Chapter 3 "You're Dead"

Yan Qing had forgotten when he'd downloaded the game, probably to avoid inspections. After all, he worked at a gaming company, and it wouldn't have been right to not have his own game on the console. He'd probably opened it once, registered a character, and never played again.

So what's going on? Not only am I now transported to a gaming world, but I can even play my least favorite MMORPG in it?

Let's take a step back and say that even if I can open this game, there are no other players in this world. Could this be the legendary single-player private server?
Although it felt a bit confusing, Yan Qing had nothing to do anyway, so he clicked to open the game "The Messenger".

"Resist bad games and reject pirated games.

Pay attention to self-protection and beware of being deceived.

Moderate game benefits the brain, indulge game beverages.

Arrange your time wisely and enjoy a healthy life."

Yan Qing was somewhat disappointed. He had assumed that the game had changed since its arrival in this world, with features like "deep blue point addition" and "simulation deduction" appearing. But after seeing these eight sentences, he felt that this game was truly just a game.

Then the opening CG was quickly skipped. Strangely, it even skipped the account login and went directly to the character selection interface.

When Yan Qing looked at his character library, he was stunned.

He still remembered that the character he registered was called "Laplace", which was the common character name he used in all games, and it should be a female character with an appearance between Mai Shiranui and Tifa - the part where he spent the most time in this game was the face-shaping part.

However, the only character in the game library at this time is named "Yan Qing", and from the appearance, it is a male character who looks very similar to him, and the location is shown as "Secret Realm·Thieves' House".

Is it...

Yan Qing's eyes flickered, and he felt inexplicably excited in his heart. He resolutely chose to log in as the game character "Yan Qing"!
However, a message indicating that the login failed was displayed.

"The character is already in the game."

what?
Yan Qing tried several times but still couldn't log in.

If he guessed correctly, this game character "Yan Qing" should represent himself, which also means that as long as Yan Qing logs in as this character, he can strengthen himself in the game.

Attribute addition, pet recruitment, weapon inlay, skill enhancement... even the most common and common experience value system is a timely help to Yan Qing!

Because the gameplay of "The Messenger" is quite diverse, in addition to fighting monsters, players also have many ways to gain experience and practice skills. Yan Qing may be able to improve his level in a short period of time.

However, I couldn't get in, and everything was empty.

Yan Qing stared at the screen unwillingly. If he wanted to log into his "Yan Qing" account, he would have to log off. But besides dying, what other ways were there to log off? He couldn't actually summon the game panel to exit the game—he'd already recited every system incantation, from 'linkstart' to 'deep blue.'

I clearly know that this game console is the life-saving straw I can grasp after traveling to this world, but unfortunately this life-saving straw is like a flower in the mirror or the moon in the water, which can only be seen but not touched.

For the next half hour, Yan Qing tried various methods to "go offline," such as pretending to sleep to trick the game console into giving him access, but to no avail. He lay in bed, staring at the screen, his expression as agonizing as that of a billionaire who'd forgotten his bank card password.

"Ugh."

Yan Qing put the game console on the bedside table, covered himself with the quilt, and went to bed without caring about anyone.

But in less than two minutes he picked up the game console again - I don't believe that this game console is really useless!
However, the screen interface of the game console at this time was not "Character Selection" but "New Character". Perhaps when Yan Qing put down the game console, he accidentally pressed the other character column, so the system directly entered the new character link.

Yan Qing subconsciously wanted to quit, but he suddenly realized a problem: if the game character "Yan Qing" really represents himself, what will happen if he creates a new character?

Anyway, idle is idle.

The first step is to create a face and give it a name. Yan Qing instinctively wanted to create a female character that was between Tifa and Mai Shiranui, but the game console had obviously mutated. What if he created a female character with a curvy figure, and then the game console recognized the female character as his body... Yan Qing decided not to take the risk, but he was too lazy to create his own face, so he directly chose the default male character No. 01 face.

The next step of adding attribute points is the highlight. Yan Qing has not studied this game seriously, but he is a player after all, so he can understand it after taking a quick look at the introduction.

The initial character has four major attributes: "Qi and Blood", "Soul", "Agility", and "Comprehension".

Qi and Blood affect a character's health, stamina, physical attack power, physical defense power, movement speed, vision, disease and toxin resistance, and other secondary attributes related to the body.
"Soul" affects the character's spiritual power, skill strength, mental resistance, intuitive perception and other secondary attributes related to the soul;
"Dexterity" affects the character's attack speed, dodge rate, hit rate and other secondary attributes related to skills;
"Dexterity" is negatively impacted by one-third of the difference between "Health" and "Spirit." For example, if a character has 20 Health and 10 Spirit, their "Dexterity" will be negatively impacted by -3, meaning their Dexterity value will be reduced by -3.

Whether it's a "retard driving a truck" with high HP and low Spirit, or a "genius in a wheelchair" with low HP and high Spirit, both mean the character can't fully unleash their potential, which manifests itself statistically as reduced Dexterity. However, none of these attributes, including HP, Spirit, or Dexterity, are as important as the fourth stat: Insight!
"Understanding" affects the speed at which the character's experience of all skills increases. Every 1 point of understanding increases 1% of experience.

New characters only have 10 free attributes. Even adding all of them to "Comprehension" only increases experience by 10%, which may not seem like much, but adding them to the other three attributes can actually enhance the initial character's gaming experience. However, Yan Qing learned from chatting with colleagues that there are very few ways to increase Comprehension in "The Messenger", while there are various ways to improve Qi, Spirit, and Dexterity.

Many players find it difficult to level up after the fourth level due to either not adding enough savvy early on, while characters with full savvy only hit a plateau after the sixth level. Furthermore, The Messenger is a monthly card-based MMORPG that doesn't offer reset items, forcing players who incorrectly add savvy to start over on a new account.

1 point of Qi and blood, 1 point of spirit, 1 point of dexterity, and 10 points of understanding!
Next, choose the game mode. However, Yan Qing found that the first two options of "Adventure Mode", "Ashura Mode" and "Real Mode" were gray and could not be selected, so only Real Mode could be selected.

Adventure Mode is the most popular PVE mode, with normal experience gains;

Shura Mode is a PVP-only mode that grants 200% experience gain, allowing players to quickly level up in the PVP battlefield while significantly reducing rewards from dungeons and monsters. It can basically only be played in the battlefield.

In "Real Mode", players will gain an additional 5% experience, but the price is that they only have one life, and death will result in the cancellation of the character.

Obviously, only those who are self-abusing and advanced players would choose "Real Mode". Yan Qing has never tried Real Mode, but now he can only give it a try.

As for the character's name, let's call it...'Yan Yi'!

You can choose the three affiliated novice villages of the main cities, namely "Jiangnan Affiliated Novice Village", "Chang'an Affiliated Novice Village" and "Buyetian Affiliated Novice Village". Yan Qing casually chose "Buyetian Affiliated Novice Village" and then chose to start the game.

As the screen lit up, Yan Qing saw the newly created character 'Yan Yi' appear in a village, wearing cloth clothes and holding a wooden stick, without even shoes.

Ah, it’s really just playing games?

I thought I'd time travel or something...

After Yan Qing got familiar with the operation a little, he planned to take on tasks to level up, but after he controlled the character to walk around twice, he immediately found something wrong - why was there no one in this novice village?
Not only was it deserted, but it was even dilapidated. The charred houses, collapsed straw huts, and knee-high weeds made it look like a deserted village. He entered the burned house and saw a water tank. He clicked on it to see if there was anything inside. Then, a scene appeared on the screen that made Yan Qing's eyelids twitch wildly: in the water tank were two highly decomposed skeletons, one large and one small. Judging from their clothing, they looked like a woman and a child.

Standing in the center of the village, Yan Qing was confused. No quests, no monsters, no novice village. What should he do next?
A road extended from the village entrance, and Yan Qing could only try to follow it. This time, he was lucky and soon reached the main road, even seeing passersby. When he asked for directions, passersby either avoided him or looked at him warily with weapons raised. Only a kind old farmer told him, "Pingcheng is just ahead. Go back to the village."

Pingcheng, although not the main city of the game, should have quests, right? If not, at least there are NPCs. Even if Yan Qing doesn't level up by killing monsters, he still needs to learn skills from other NPCs to increase his level.

Pingcheng was indeed very close, or perhaps it was Yan Yi's speed that made it there in just over ten minutes. Although Yan Yi's HP was only 1, the average for an adult, he was still a game character after all. He could expend energy to accelerate his sprint, then, when his stamina was about to run out, return to a normal walking pace to wait for his stamina to regenerate. This cycle of accelerating and walking alone was enough to allow Yan Yi to surpass many of the merchants and civilians along the way.

At the city gate, there was a hunched woodcutter carrying firewood, a country lord riding a donkey with his followers, and a traveling merchant with bags on his back. They lined up in a long queue on the left side of the city gate waiting to enter the city. There were guards on the right side, but no one entered the city from the right.

Yan Qing was naturally too lazy to queue up, so he went in directly from the right, and was then stopped by the guard.

Guard: "Who are you?"

Yan Qing's heart moved, and a dialogue option popped up with Yan Yi in the game.

Yan Yi: "Traveler, I want to enter the city."

Guard: "Where is the pass?"

Yan Yi: "Past? No."

Guard: "Who do you know?"

Yan Yi: "No one I know."

From the screen, it was clearly seen that the guard touched his chin, then looked at the others and showed a strange smile. Then two guards came over, holding "Yan Yi" on the left and right, and pushed him into the barracks next to the city gate.

Yan Qing tried to leave, but the game prompted that Yan Yi's health was too low and he was not strong enough to break free from the control of the two guards.

After entering the barracks, there was a sudden muffled sound, and Yan Yi fell to the ground. The screen turned dark, and his health bar dropped by one third.

Immediately after the health bar is exhausted, the game pops up a prompt:
"You're dead."

(End of this chapter)