Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes.

Chapter 209, Section 207: Three Time Gates

Ranking rewards settings are complete.

First place: (Obscured by mist)
Second place: 3 random draws
Third Place: Holy Spring Water *6
Given the unprecedented difficulty and scale of the game, the first-place prize is planned to be either a bronze or silver trophy, so he himself is not yet sure what it will be.

The second-place random draw requires fifty points per draw. He only tried it once and got a toilet, so he didn't continue. He never gets carried away with card draws.

The third place winner needs no introduction; he plans to turn the Holy Spring Water into a hard currency among players, making it a "spiritual stone" in the human world.

Alright, the rewards are set up, let's start drawing players!
Let's see if we can produce an SSR-level player.

"Sixty-one, sixty-two"

After refreshing the page twice, Higashiyama Shin vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

The scores were generally lower compared to previous games.

Refresh once more.

Seventy-three points, that's the highest I've seen so far.

"He actually has player talent? I had no idea."

Shinichi Higashiyama scanned the names and selected him as the first player.

Then two more were selected, both in their early seventies, and none of them scored in the eighties.

It truly lives up to its reputation as a difficult difficulty level.

He glanced at the scores given to veteran players for the game, and found that the average scores were quite high, mostly above 80.

Higashiyama Shin suspects this is because of the game "The Pact of the Underworld," which requires combining information from several previous games to complete.

New players who haven't played the previous games and lack information will naturally have lower scores.

Perhaps once they enter the game and complete the settings with their teammates, their scores will increase.

All three players quickly accepted the invitation.

With a sudden thought, Dongshan Shenxin announced that the new game would be officially open to all players.

[Awaiting new players to confirm their nicknames. Confirmation complete, proceeding to random team formation]

Team assignments complete

Hiro, Shima, Yui;
Zhi, Sen, Tian;

Yue, Zheng, Falcon. 】

[In this round of the game, those who play passively before the team achieves the ending will be penalized.]

At the same time, players, either in the player lobby or in real life, received the game refresh information.

A small group chat automatically appeared in the private message list.

Even the player lobby has opened a squad mode. As soon as you switch, the round table will quickly switch and shrink into a triangular table. Conversations held here can only be heard by teammates.

After finishing his meal, Uesugi stayed in the player lobby and quickly finished reading the information about the new game, then clicked into the squad mode to take a look.

Suddenly, everything around them changed, and the scene quickly zoomed in, revealing a triangular table, except that the other two seats were empty.

"If the team is bound together, won't it be affected by the 'weakest link' effect? ​​However, being able to communicate should make up for a lot of that, but it still requires all three players to be available to start the game."

Based on the information, Uesugi quickly identified the real challenge of the game.

In games, especially team games, it's often not true that more people mean more power.

Communication costs and the other party's personality are also factors to consider, especially if a new player who has never been interacted with the team appears.

"It's outrageous that veteran players have to spend points to allow new players to communicate in their teams earlier!"

Uesugi was furious about this.

In this world, earning points is incredibly difficult.

After processing the information, she raised an eyebrow, opened the store, and sure enough, found the description of the newly listed "Holy Spring Water".

[Holy Spring Water: 10 points - Restores stamina, spirit, and injuries for players, and replenishes a day's worth of play attempts; for ordinary people, it can restore injuries or slightly extend lifespan.]

[Weekly purchase limit: 2/3 (Note: All players)]

Uesugi instantly understood the value of this thing; it could serve as a form of hard currency among players, in addition to points!

There are also purchase limits, so the price of 10 points definitely has room for appreciation!
Someone was even faster than her.

Quickly grab the remaining two bottles; the Holy Spring Water immediately showed as sold out.

comfortable.

Exiting squad mode, the triangular table switches to a round table, revealing the positions of other players. Currently, in the lobby, besides Uesugi, only Nobita and Iwasaki are present.

They didn't enter squad mode; instead, they carefully reviewed the instructions for the new game.

Uesugi sent private messages to the other players, and soon they logged on one after another.

Six players have gathered in the player lobby, and there are three vacant seats that already have nicknames, but they haven't been granted entry yet.

In theory, as long as the other two teammates are waiting in the game beforehand, they can start the game together.

However, such a complete lack of communication is destined to be extremely inefficient, simply a waste of time and lifespan.

"I think everyone agrees that paying points will give new players early access to team communication, right?"

Nobita spoke first, his gaze fixed on Iwasaki and Oshima.

Renault chimed in, "Of course not. It would be troublesome if we couldn't communicate. Captain Knight, our goal is the first-place reward!"

He has no need to vie for the captaincy; now is not the time to jump the gun. Besides, Nobi is unlikely to be the type to hoard the rewards.

If he were on the same team as Iwasaki, he would definitely have to agree on the profit sharing beforehand.

Thinking of this, he sent a private message to the island, telling him to be careful to secure benefits for himself.

However, in his view, such reminders would have little effect on the island's current personality.

[Island: Thank you!]

Oshima felt immense pressure about being paired with the infamous Yokai, sitting ramrod straight and avoiding looking directly at Iwasaki.

"Since everyone agrees, let's press the confirm button to pay the points," Uesugi reminded them.

Everyone pressed confirm on the virtual screen.

Soon, players in each team were able to send private messages to new players.

Immediately afterwards, Iwasaki entered squad mode without saying a word. To everyone else, this meant that a green notification appeared next to "Hiro's" nickname: Squad Mode.

"Don't worry, Hiro has great gaming talent. Following his instructions, the outcome won't be too bad. Just don't let his ideas influence you." Muramasa saw that Oshima seemed a little nervous.

"Thank you." Oshima took a deep breath, nodded, and pressed the switch to squad mode.

In a Hogwarts-like transformation, in the blink of an eye, the seat diagonally opposite him had become a humanoid black mist representing Iwasaki.

The next second, Yui's nickname lit up.

As the mist dissipated from her seat, a humanoid figure emitting a white light appeared.

After she appeared, her face, devoid of features, seemed to be looking at Oshima. Just as Oshima was about to say something, she suddenly turned to Iwasaki.

"The game can begin."

She didn't ask anything, she just said it directly.

"Um, we'd better check the basic information first," Oshima suggested tentatively.

Yui looked at him.

Do you know what this game is about?

Oshima opened his mouth, as if he truly couldn't say he knew.

We can only vaguely guess from the game's name that it is probably related to the promise that Orochi made when he escaped from the game.

Therefore, the best approach is to start a game first, and then provide targeted training to new players based on the information revealed in the game.

He doesn't even have the same level of understanding as a new player who has just been selected!
"I'm the captain. For the rest of the game, I need you to follow my instructions," Iwasaki suddenly said.

Oshima had no objection to this; he was probably the player least obsessed with game rewards, and was more interested in finding a way to break the Orochi curse.

Regardless of what Iwasaki did in the real world, as a player who has achieved a perfect ending, his gaming talent is undoubtedly the strongest known in the team.

This is the new player.
"I agree to proceed. I'll leave the rest to you."

To Oshima's surprise, Yui did not object to Iwasaki's direct statement.

Thus, the team leader was decided, and unsurprisingly, it was Iwasaki.

Let's begin the game.

After the last person pressed start, the three were completely enveloped in white light. Then, they lost all feeling in their bodies, as if they were floating in mid-air, and in front of them appeared three pitch-black doors, each with a line of numbers in the center.

1220, 1500, 1602
It looks like it's from the Gregorian calendar.

The year 1602 AD is the starting point of "The Demon Blade".

It seems they can enter through one door at the same time, or each choose a door to enter.

The three players cannot see each other, but they can sense each other's presence and can communicate directly.

Iwasaki stared at the three black doors and pondered for a few seconds.

"Island, you choose 1220; Yui, you choose 1500. For the first game, gathering information is the top priority."

"Yes."

Iwasaki believed that the difficulty curves of these three doors were different, and should be from easy to difficult, so he assigned the most difficult one to himself.

After determining which gate each person was responsible for, they each floated into the gate.

Other teams also adopted this strategy: in the first game, they took a cautious approach and focused on gathering information.

Nobi and Iwasaki had opposite strategies, believing that the first door should contain more crucial information, so they assigned it to themselves.

As you pass through the doorway, the pitch-black scene gradually brightens.

Nobita looked on in surprise as he gazed at the familiar pixel art style before him, a flood of memories of countless RPG games washing over him.

"God's-eye view, pixel-art RPG"

[Winter, the tenth year of the Jianli era.]

[Villages near Higa in Harima Province]

The camera zooms in.

From God's perspective, the interior of an ordinary, dilapidated house appeared before him.

There were two quilts around the fireplace.

The picture shows a woman sleeping, looking very uncomfortable, breathing with her mouth open; she is probably a mother.

The other picture appears to be of a boy, eyes open, lying on his side looking at his mother, seemingly lost in thought.
We're almost out of food at home.

The village has run out of food to borrow.

We need to find a way.

Okay, Nobita knows what he's thinking.

At this moment, an input box appeared.

He instantly realized that he would need to manipulate the character by inputting text, rather than directly controlling the character's actions as in ordinary games.

When it comes to Harima Province, it's the only one related to Onmyoji.

Ashiya Michiman.

He is a very famous Onmyoji, at least in Japan.

He is usually portrayed as an adversary of Abe no Seimei, and his image is primarily depicted as evil.

The year doesn't quite match.

I glanced at the sky outside; it was already getting light.

According to the ancient way of life, it's time to get up, even though it's the off-season for farming now.

"Get up and check on Mother's condition."

Input this text as a voice message.

The words transformed into bubbles, filling the character's head.

The character quickly gets up and goes to his mother's side.

My mother looks very unwell. But she's already finished her medicine. The pharmacist said we need to make sure she doesn't go hungry.

"I put my own blanket on my mother and wandered around the village trying to find a solution."

He followed the instructions and quickly left the house.

The view suddenly opened up, indicating that there must have been a heavy snowfall yesterday, and some people were shoveling snow in front of their houses.

A name appears above the character's head: Huiming.

Then the names of the villagers around them also appeared above their heads.

The name Huiming is not something that would be given to a typical farmer's son.

The character wandered aimlessly.

In this kind of weather, hunting would probably be fruitless, not to mention that hunting requires tools and permits, which this boy certainly doesn't have.

Moreover, Nobita discovered with a headache that, apart from the protagonist's monologues, the game offered no guidance whatsoever, not even an inventory interface.

"I need to think carefully about what I still have on hand."

Nobi could only use this kind of sentence structure to determine what else Hikari could do.

Perhaps we could check if the traps we set on the mountain yesterday caught any rabbits.

After this sentence appeared, a route was displayed.

Without delay, Nobi quickly sent Hikari to search for traps.

After walking for almost half an hour without seeing any villages, Huiming finally arrived near the trap he had set the day before.

One, two.
He found very clear footprints.

It led to the third trap he had set, and a sound could be heard coming from it.

Huiming followed the path, and two pixelated figures appeared.

One was named Yasuke, and the other was named Matsujiro.

Mi's assistant was holding a rabbit.

"Haha, I didn't expect that guy's trap to actually catch a rabbit."

"Let's go set up a few too."

"It was just a coincidence, and what's his is ours."

A countdown timer appeared in the input box.

Nobi hesitated for a moment and did not type anything.

As the countdown ended, Huiming, unable to bear it any longer, rushed out and crashed headfirst into Yasuke, who was standing among them.

The latter was knocked to the ground in the snow, and the dead rabbit in his hand fell to the ground.

"You little bastard, you're looking for death!"

The two realized what was happening and started punching and kicking Huiming.

Huiming possessed a fierce spirit; enduring the attacks of the two, he curled up into a ball, tightly protecting the rabbit in his arms.

In the end, both of them were exhausted and panting, but Huiming was still unwilling to give up the rabbit.

Yasuke also became ruthless, and with a clang, he pulled out a wakizashi. From Nobita's perspective, it looked like he had pulled out a short sword and pointed it at Himei's throat.

Something's not right. This villager is clearly just an ordinary farmer. Where did he get the knife?

"Huiming, hand over the rabbit! Or you'll die right here!"

Matsujiro shuddered and carefully grabbed Yasuke's arm: "There's no need, we're all from the same village."

"Don't think I don't know your family is planning to take over his land. I'm helping you!" Yasuke exposed Matsujiro's family's scheme, making Matsujiro's face turn somewhat awkward.

"Get out of the way," Nobita commanded.

Huiming shuddered, as if he were having a fierce internal struggle.

"You're asking for death!" Misuke had gone mad. He thought that Huiming was certain that he wouldn't dare to kill anyone. His eyes turned red with rage, and he plunged a knife into Huiming's throat.

In an instant, warm blood splattered on the snow, his strength quickly dissipated, and the rabbit meat he was clutching tightly in his arms was forcibly snatched away.

"Ahhh!!! What did you do?!" Matsujiro was at a loss, covering his head, looking at the seemingly hopeless Kumi, and then at Yasuke holding the knife.

"Shut up! You're an accomplice too. If you don't want anyone to know, come with me and bury him."

The image is blurred, and they can no longer see what they are discussing; the glimmer of life has been extinguished.

I am dead

(End of this chapter)