A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

Long Aotian answered casually.

"Good heavens, you send your underlings out to explore while you relax here, and then hand over the spoils when you return... What an old capitalist! He's got a knack for exploiting others."

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow!"

"Wrong. Exploitation means that the compensation paid is not commensurate with their labor costs, or is even far below their labor costs. But I disdain doing that; the compensation I pay is always far higher than their labor costs."

Long Aotian replied in a tone that said, "I'm very rich."

Damn rich people!

Oh? It seems Zhou Ke'er is the same. Oh well, never mind.

"Alright, alright, since that's the case... let's get straight to the point—it's simple, have you considered... reducing the number of other players?"

Zhou Ke'er casually found a sofa and sat down—it looked like it had just been wiped down not long ago, so it seemed that those underlings also worked as cleaners.

The first floor of this building appeared to have originally housed a large shop, and Zhou Ke'er and her group were currently in one of its conference rooms. Clearly, the conference room was fairly clean, a stark contrast to the dusty exterior.

"Reduce the number of other players?...

Long Aotian sat down opposite Zhou Ke'er. "Why did you do this? Isn't this weakening our side? Have you started the defection storyline?"

"No, it's based on a very simple fact. That is... we definitely won't be able to hold this city in the end. If you had gone deeper into the monster horde like I did, you would have found that... the increasingly powerful monsters would eventually reach a point where even I couldn't fight them. And not just one, but a whole horde."

Zhou Ke'er stated confidently, "Putting aside any possibility of me boasting, if even I can't defeat them, I think there are very few players in this city who can. If it were just one monster, we might be able to overwhelm it with sheer numbers, but there's a whole group of them. So I have to change my plan and start from the premise that 'we can't possibly defend the city.'"

"Hmm... I understand. Since the city will eventually fall no matter what, the most important thing for us is the overall score from the settlement rewards. And a large part of that score is survival time. If we can appropriately reduce the survival time of other players, it's equivalent to improving our ranking..."

Long Aotian quickly realized what was going on and pondered, "But there's a problem here. If we attack other players, won't that lower our 'helping defend the city' rating? We're weakening our own strength. With one side gaining and the other losing, it's not certain that we'll improve our overall rating."

“That’s right, so it’s very simple... Who said we have to do it ourselves? There are other monsters in this city besides us.”

Zhou Ke'er grinned. "They were killed by monsters. What does that have to do with me, Zhou Ke'er?"

"Yeah, yeah, we can have our underlings kill other players and then commit suicide. Anyway, the rating is based on individuals, not teams, so what does it matter to us who they kill?"

Long Aojiao crossed her arms and echoed her sentiments confidently.

Long Aotian looked at Long Aojiao in shock, "What's wrong with you? You've been corrupted by Zhou Ke'er! How could you say such a thing! They are our guild members! ... It costs a lot of money to get them to do this! Why not just kill them all together? That way they won't know our plan and will think that they just died because of their own problems, so we won't have to pay them."

"What you're doing is even more outrageous!"

Long Aojiao couldn't help but complain, then ran over and sat down next to Zhou Ke'er, pointing her finger at Long Aotian with righteous indignation, "I never thought you were such a vicious person, you've gone too far, I'm cutting ties with you!"

Honghe squinted at Long Aojiao, who was moving closer to Zhou Ke'er, and said expressionlessly, "Since your underlings aren't here, it means they saw what Zhou Ke'er and I did. So they'll probably go to where we left our things too... In that case, you don't need to plan anything against them anymore."

"What does it mean?"

Although Long Aotian immediately understood, Ye Liangchen and Chen Beixuan, who were standing behind him, couldn't help but ask.

"Since they went to look for those things, it means they're probably doomed. Unless they didn't find them, or someone else beat them to it, or they lost the robbery and just escaped unscathed."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged. "Of course, it's also possible that they're powerful enough to handle it themselves. After all, we only captured a few monsters from the city and released them."

"Hey! You didn't include me in this fun monster-catching activity! That's so unfair!"

Long Aojiao patted Zhou Ke'er's shoulder playfully and complained with a grin.

"Then I can capture you like a monster and then throw you back down. That would be more fun, don't you think?"

Zhou Ke'er tilted her head and grinned at Long Aojiao.

"Pfft..."

"?"

Zhou Ke'er suddenly heard a soft laugh from beside her, but when she turned around, she found that Honghe still had a blank expression. She couldn't help but scratch her head and asked, "Did I hear wrong? Did you just laugh?"

No. You must be deaf.

The flamingo stared with dead fish eyes and answered in a serious tone.

## Chapter 436 431. So what is the price?

"So... what do you need us to do? If it's just this plan, didn't you already finish it?"

Long Aotian raised an eyebrow, temporarily ignoring the playful fighting in front of him. After all, they were all women (Zhou Ke'er: No way!), so a little intimacy didn't matter. He continued to ask.

"It's very simple... There's one thing you've obviously overlooked, and that's the strength of those monsters. Since I was able to capture and release them, there's a relatively high chance that other players will take care of them. After all, they're all assigned to the same module as us, so they can't be too weak."

Zhou Ke'er, resting her chin on one hand and crossing her legs, replied, "So the core of this plan is definitely not just to let the monsters I capture cause some insignificant trouble for other players. Rather... it's about escalating the conflict between the players and the powerful monsters in this city by instigating conflict."

"Using someone else to do your dirty work, is that it? So you want me to send my guild members on a large-scale operation to attract the attention of those powerful monsters, making them discover that 'humans are killing their own kind on a large scale,' thus enraging them and forcing them to turn against other players..."

Long Aotian seemed to understand upon hearing this and nodded slightly, but quickly continued to ask, "But... first, how can you be sure that those powerful monsters have reason? At least the monsters I just encountered didn't seem to be able to communicate with me. Second, even if they do have reason, how can you guarantee that they won't attack humans just because their kind were killed?"

"These questions are easy to answer. First, the powerful monsters in this city are rational, as I recently encountered one of them. Incidentally, this was also the catalyst that led me to come up with this plan."

Zhou Ke'er leaned forward slightly. "The reason those powerful monsters attacked wasn't because their own kind were being killed—something they might not even know they possessed, based on so-called morality or emotion. It was because those weaker monsters were merely food for them. If we attacked those monsters, it would be seen as an invasion of their territory, a provocation. That's the real reason they attacked other players."

"I see... then there shouldn't be any major problems."

Long Aotian pondered for a moment and finally nodded. "However... the problem now is that I don't have a means of communication with the guild members. If I want to issue orders to them, I can only wait until this break is over and when they come here to gather."

"It's alright. It was just a plan that came up on a whim after I met you guys, so starting it a little later won't have any impact."

Zhou Ke'er waved her hand, seemingly unconcerned.

"Huh? If you hadn't run into us, what were your plans afterward?"

Upon hearing this, Long Aojiao, who was standing next to Zhou Ke'er, couldn't help but lean over and ask.

"Oh, it doesn't matter if I tell you this."

Zhou Ke'er grinned and turned to look at the expressionless Red Crane. "In a little while, if the plan doesn't go wrong, there will be a little commotion in the city. To avoid accidentally running into those powerful monsters, we plan to go outside the city to take shelter and, incidentally, infiltrate the enemy camp and become traitors."

"Speaking of which...have you forgotten about Finger Sand and the others?"

Suddenly, the flamingo asked a question.

"what..."

Zhou Ke'er's expression froze for a moment, but she quickly recovered and coughed twice in a mock manner, saying confidently, "How could that be! You don't know Asha. As soon as she sees that it's the two of us causing trouble, she'll realize that something bad is about to happen, so she'll be on her own alert."

"...Save your breath. If they really saw us, Cold-Cooked Rabbit would have already sent a communication array. They just happened not to see us. (Finger Sand: No, actually I was just stopping her so as not to disturb you XD)"

Honghe squinted and said, "So when they encounter the monster without any warning... they will likely suffer heavy losses."

"It's alright, you have to trust them. Especially Chen Tian, ​​that guy is usually quiet, but he's incredibly strong. At least he can protect the others and get them all out of danger."

Zhou Ke'er waved her hand, then quickly changed the subject, saying, "Okay, well... let's set off right away! How can a proper war be complete without traitors?"

"Then why not become a double agent? How about taking me along?"

Long Aotian stood up, patted his clothes, and asked.

"That's right, that's right! How could I miss out on something like this!"

Long Aojiao also jumped up from the sofa, wrapped her arms around Zhou Ke'er's arms, and hung on Zhou Ke'er while laughing.

Zhou Ke'er shook her arm vigorously, but couldn't shake Long Aojiao off. This guy was too clingy, so she simply gave up on him. "My original intention was... to pretend to defect to the enemy, and then, after learning about their attack plan, to sabotage it secretly. How could I, the king of traitors, really just become a traitorous collaborator?"

"There's only a little over half an hour left in the countdown. If we don't leave now, it'll be too late."

Honghe glanced at Long Aotian and Long Aojiao with narrowed eyes, "If we bring these two along, it'll probably take half an hour to get to the city gate."

This place, though called a city, is actually only about the size of a small county town, probably because a small section of the original city was deliberately divided up by high walls. But that's alright, otherwise, with only about two hours, Zhou Ke'er really wouldn't have been able to catch the ghost, act, and rush between events. This is also thanks to Zhou Ke'er's sword-flying technique, which allows her to fly in a straight line and relatively fast.

"Why are you always targeting me like this? Are you jealous because I'm so close to Zhou Ke'er? Don't be so petty!"

Long Aojiao taunted Honghe with a playful grin, then continued, "And you don't need to worry about that."

With that, Long Aojiao released his grip, then struck a pose and began to chant: "Wind spirit, heed my call! Gentle breezes gather, transforming into my wings!"

Immediately, a gust of wind howled, and a pair of wings made of wind appeared behind Long Aojiao, helping her fly into the air.

"Hey! If you can fly, why did I have to save you before?!"

Seeing this, Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but complain.

"Oh, that's exactly what I wanted—for you to come and save me!"

Long Aojiao said in a sweet and self-righteous voice.

Long Aotian shook his head, turned to Ye Liangchen and Chen Beixuan and gave them a few instructions, telling them to take the lead in implementing the plan he had just mentioned when the other guild members gathered. Then he quickly transformed into a blood-red bat and flew into the air.

"Hurry up, hurry up, my skill can only last for a short time."

Long Aojiao immediately urged.

Seeing this, Zhou Ke'er had no choice but to summon her spirit sword. She only had enough spiritual power left to fly for less than five minutes using her sword-flying technique, hoping to reach the city gate in time.

## Chapter 437, Section 432. These days, even being a traitor is tough.

After barely reaching the city gate, Zhou Ke'er and the others tacitly landed and chose to walk—clearly, apart from Honghe, the others had run out of mana to continue flying.

And the flamingo was always relying on Zhou Ke'er's sword-flying technique, since she herself couldn't fly.

Before long, the group quickly approached the large group of monsters that had formed a formation and were standing motionless in place.

However, as soon as they got close, the monsters near them reacted instantly and attacked them fiercely.

Long Aotian glanced at the monsters, confirming that they were just weak creatures from the area near the city wall, the kind that could be easily mowed down. He didn't take them seriously at all, casually conjuring a blood sword to retaliate while shouting, "We've come to surrender to you..."

Incredibly, before he could finish speaking, he was sent flying by those monsters. He didn't even have time to defend himself before being thrown into an arc and slammed hard to the ground, completely bewildered.

Seeing this, Zhou Ke'er narrowed her eyes and looked up at the sky again—slightly behind, there were also flying monsters blocking the way to go further.

It seems we can't fly over there.

Zhou Ke'er can teleport, so flashing through the area isn't a big problem, but the main issue is that she can't bring anyone else along.

Thinking this, Zhou Ke'er took several steps back with the red crane, and Long Aojiao quickly followed.

Sure enough, once the three of them retreated a certain distance, roughly within the so-called "attack range," the monsters stopped moving and returned to their original positions, standing motionless.

"How much health will I lose in that hit?"

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but squat down next to Long Aotian and take a closer look. He didn't seem to have any wounds or vomit blood, so he probably wasn't seriously injured.

However, that's not necessarily true. Zhou Ke'er was slapped by that giant monster before, and although she didn't vomit blood or have any wounds, her stamina dropped rapidly.

"This shouldn't be...it doesn't make sense. These kinds of monsters should be easy to kill, right?"