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

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644. Burnout

"Haa...."

In the early morning, Zhou Ke'er woke up from her sleep and couldn't help but yawn softly.

I haven't had such a good night's sleep in a long time.

Zhou Ke'er was a little dazed because she had just woken up, and her hazy gaze swept around her surroundings.

The cave was fairly clean, and the small campfire that had been lit last night, a little distance from the group, near the cave entrance, had long since gone out.

Zhou Ke'er then realized that this was the place they had temporarily found to stay last night.

Well, he was indeed lacking in consideration. Luckily, the campfire went out, otherwise... Zhao Ritian and Lengchitu might have suffered carbon monoxide poisoning?

Zhou Ke'er always inadvertently overlooks these details because she doesn't have to worry about them at all.

He slowly strolled out of the cave. All was quiet. Zhou Ke'er took a breath of fresh air and sighed contentedly—his favorite time to slack off. Although it would probably only last a short while.

He really didn't understand. In a backward setting where traveling normally would take several days, the pace should be slower no matter what. Even in a story about a hero fighting a dragon, the hero's travel scenes are just omitted, not that they don't actually have to travel. So how come so many things have happened in just a few days in Zhou Ke'er's case?

Take yesterday as an example. Who could believe that Zhou Ke'er, who was preparing to escape from the Demon Realm early in the morning, had already slipped away at the city gate of the capital of the Grand Duchy of Fuya by evening? In between, she even experienced a series of changes: from the Demon Realm to the human alliance army camp in the Central Continent, from the camp to the capital of the Kingdom of Light, from the capital of the Kingdom of Light back to the camp, and then from the camp to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Fuya.

Ah, what an eventful day!

The original plan was to bring the hero back to increase their fighting strength, but now not only did they fail to save the hero, they also lost everything and ended up in this predicament. Luckily, they were able to get help from Cold-Cooked Rabbit, otherwise this trip would have been a complete failure, a double loss.

Thinking this, Zhou Ke'er glanced at the mission progress. She hadn't expected that this year's players would complete the missions so quickly. The main questline had only been open around noon yesterday, and in just over half a day, the progress on eliminating the first ordinary infected was already full, and the progress on the second special individual was almost halfway done. It seemed that the next stage of the mission should be able to start today.

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but start to doubt herself—that special individual, the bishop, was taken down by a group of them, and his actual strength was even higher than Zhou Ke'er's. How come he was so easily killed by other players? Could it be that he was actually...surprisingly weak?

However, this is not the case. What Zhou Ke'er did not know was that his understanding of "special individuals" was slightly off: those like the bishop, whose strength was stronger than ordinary infected people, were obviously special individuals; but those monsters that Chen Tian encountered in the trial secret realm as trials were also considered "special" individuals - wasn't that special enough?

In other words, as long as the conditions recognized by the system are met, even if the other party is not strong, or even very weak, they can be considered a special individual.

This leaves room for maneuver, giving players a chance to succeed. Otherwise, if it involved killing a hundred monsters of the bishop level... this quest wouldn't even qualify as the first stage of the main storyline; it would be more like the final or only quest.

After all, those beings only want to use humans as props for amusement, and only a minority enjoy watching people fall into despair to gain pleasure. Therefore, the difficulty of the task given is still quite appropriate.

Perhaps because they went too far last time and ruined the entire human world, they are being a bit more cautious this time.

Of course, Zhou Ke'er had no idea about any of this. Unable to figure it out, he shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it. Anyway... if that were really the case, and all the other players were much stronger than him, then that would be fine—this so-called savior mission would have nothing to do with him, right? If the sky were to fall, there would be tall people to hold it up, and he would have a chance to fish in troubled waters.

"Why are you spacing out so early in the morning?"

A voice came from her side. Zhou Ke'er turned around and saw Honghe slowly walking towards her with a dead rabbit in his hand. A thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead, as if he had just done strenuous exercise.

"Nothing, just getting some fresh air. But you, going out to catch rabbits so early in the morning?"

Zhou Ke'er raised her eyebrows.

Honghe rolled her eyes at Zhou Ke'er: "Think about it carefully. Since I met you yesterday, have you eaten a single bite? You're not hungry, but I am. I really don't understand. Have you cultivated to the point of abstaining from grains and no longer need to eat?"

Zhou Ke'er suddenly realized—oh right, humans need to eat. So the power of habit is truly terrifying. From the beginning of the module until now, Zhou Ke'er seems to have never actually eaten any food, but she doesn't feel anything is wrong at all. Obviously, she has long been used to the fasting characteristics that come with the immortal body of "Lan Yanran".

However, since his body, which is entirely composed of evil beings, doesn't need to eat at all...

Upon closer reflection, Zhou Ke'er probably can no longer be considered human.

"What's with that expression? Like you're discovering for the first time that humans actually eat..."

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, then looked at the dead rabbit in her hand and was at a loss—although she had managed to catch the rabbit, she didn't know how to remove its fur, skin it, cut it into pieces, or wash it clean; she was completely clueless about how to handle it.

When Zhou Ke'er saw the barely perceptible hint of embarrassment on Hong He's expressionless face, she knew what was going on, so she reached out her hand and said, "Alright, alright, give it to me to deal with."

This is a good opportunity to test out the strange techniques I spent the whole night studying in the cave yesterday.

Zhou Ke'er took the dead rabbit and then controlled the evil spirit to pour it into the rabbit's seven orifices, spreading it throughout its body.

Immediately afterwards, with a very faint "pop," the rabbit's entire body underwent a slight explosion, shattering its outer skin and internal organs. The skin exploded and fell to the ground, while the internal organs, after exploding, were peeled away by the evil forces within the body, clumped together with blood, compressed into small pieces, and rolled out of the body through some of the holes.

Finally, cut off the head.

Zhou Ke'er handed the thing in her hand to Honghe: "Here, it's done. Quick, right?"

Honghe rarely showed the expression of an old man on the subway looking at his phone, "How disgusting! It makes me feel physically uncomfortable just looking at it... How come you don't feel anything at all?"

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645. Abnormal

Zhou Ke'er pouted, "It's just a piece of meat, what's so disgusting about it? Are you trying to pick a fight? Just tell me if you're going to eat it or not!"

Honghe squinted as he watched Zhou Ke'er try to hand him the dead rabbit, then reluctantly turned his head away, not reaching out: "If it weren't disgusting, I'd definitely eat it..."

Zhou Ke'er could tell at a glance that Honghe probably wouldn't handle this thing himself, so she could only shrug helplessly—well, he's just destined to be a busybody, it seems he'll have to take care of this rabbit too.

Zhou Ke'er used her evil powers to float the skinned and cleaned rabbit meat in mid-air. While using her evil powers, she quickly cut it into pieces of easily edible size, and then walked to the campfire to start a fire.

"Hey, you didn't go out to catch a rabbit so early in the morning just to treat yourself, did you? Even if I don't need to eat, there's still cold-cooked rabbit and the others."

While preparing the rabbit meat, Zhou Ke'er asked, "Although there are no seasonings, the fishy and gamey smells on the meat can be removed by the evil magic, so it should still be... edible, right?"

Flamingo awkwardly looked away: "There's nothing I can do. I don't recognize any of the plants in this forest, and I can't tell which ones are poisonous and which ones are edible, so I didn't pick any. And after running around for so long, the only animal I've encountered that doesn't look too strange is this thing. I don't know if the other animals are edible—not because they're weird-looking, but mainly because they all have black eyes and seem crazy. I'm afraid they've been affected by something eerie. Eating something like that would definitely cause problems."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.

Meanwhile, the sleepy-eyed Cold-Eat Rabbit groggily emerged from the cave: "What's that smell? It smells a little good... I'm hungry."

Zhou Ke'er took a closer sniff—the rabbit meat without any added seasonings couldn't smell any aroma, yet this cold-served rabbit could still smell the aroma. Could it be some kind of ultimate foodie who doesn't discriminate between meat and vegetables?

"They're burning your flesh."

The flamingo squinted and answered in a terrifying tone, sounding alarmist.

"?"

Cold-Eat Rabbit was startled awake and instinctively reached out to touch various parts of her body. Only after confirming she was safe did she breathe a sigh of relief and complain, "What?! There's nothing wrong! Don't scare me! For a second I actually believed what you said! I thought you'd all become cannibals, you scared me to death!"

With a look of disgust, Honghe tossed Zhou Ke'er to the ground with her fingertips, picked up the rabbit head that had been skinned and gutted, and pointed its empty eye sockets at the cold-cooked rabbit: "Look, this is your kin, and it's still staring at you with those unseeing eyes!"

Cold-cooked Rabbit was startled: "What is this?! It's disgusting and creepy... Why keep something like this?! It's a rabbit head, right? It's definitely a skinned and bled rabbit head! It's such a waste to just throw it away like this, why not cook it and eat it..."

As she was talking, Cold Rabbit's stomach rumbled a few times—after all, she hadn't eaten anything all night.

Zhou Ke'er glanced at the cold-cooked rabbit: "Do you want some? I can specially cook the rabbit head for you."

Cold-cooked Rabbit awkwardly tugged at the corner of his mouth: "I was just saying it casually, don't take it seriously."

Watching the rabbit meat being held aloft by the evil spirits and floating on the campfire flames, Zhou Ke'er used the evil spirits to construct skewers, skewered the cut and cooked rabbit meat, and handed a skewer to Honghe: "It should be cooked, you can try it."

Cold-cooked Rabbit complained, "Zhou Ke'er is so biased! I want some too!"

Zhou Ke'er glanced at Honghe, who nodded and said, "It's alright, half a rabbit should be enough for breakfast."

It means we can share half of the cold-cooked rabbit. Got it. Zhou Ke'er touched her chin. He and Bolius don't need to eat. It seems that only the world where Zhao Ritian is injured is complete.

"What?! Zhou Ke'er, you were acting like a pitiful henpecked husband just now!"

Looking at Zhou Ke'er's actions and Honghe's response, Lengchitu couldn't help but loudly complain, "No matter how you look at it, it's too strange!"

Zhou Ke'er was about to retort when she suddenly seemed to sense something. She abruptly stood up and rushed in a certain direction. The Azure Trace Sword instantly appeared in her hand, and she cleaved through the bushes with a single strike: "Who goes there?! Why are you hiding here?"

Strangely, although he had just sensed a very familiar aura here, he couldn't see anyone after cutting through the bushes. Not only could he not see anyone, but he couldn't even sense anything.

If Zhou Ke'er's perception was correct, that guy's concealment technique was unexpectedly strong! Logically speaking, beings in this world, unless they use the same or higher-level evil energy as Zhou Ke'er, should absolutely not be able to escape her perception—evil energy is extremely sensitive to perception, and other concealment methods, unless they are strong enough, should be as if they don't exist at all to evil energy.

"Wait, what is this..."

Zhou Ke'er noticed a glittering object under the bushes. She carefully lifted it up with her evil spirit and discovered that it was a broken timepiece, a small gadget similar to a pocket watch. The flip cover was engraved with intricate and eerie patterns, giving people a creepy feeling at just one glance.

Lifting the flip cover reveals a clock face, but it appears broken or unwound; the hands are motionless and no longer function as a timekeeper.

Zhou Ke'er narrowed her eyes slightly and frowned gently. Someone who could so easily evade his senses couldn't possibly have carelessly left something here. Zhou Ke'er wondered... could it be that this guy deliberately left it here, just waiting for Zhou Ke'er to pick it up?

"What happened? Is someone hiding there?"

Honghe realized what was happening and quickly came over to ask.

"I should have it... but I can't feel it now."

Zhou Ke'er nodded, then shook her head and said, "You guys eat quickly, it's not safe here anymore. We need to keep going soon. We don't know where this direction will lead..."

Just then, Porius suddenly rushed out of the cave in a panic. Seeing that Zhou Ke'er was safe and sound, he looked relieved.

Zhou Ke'er looked at Bolius strangely, "What's wrong? What happened inside?"

Bolyus shook his head: "Just now... I realized that I had fallen into some kind of illusion. In the illusion, I thought I had woken up, but in reality I am still asleep... And what's even more strange is that I don't need to sleep... I'm worried that some being is carrying out a trick against my lord..."

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646. Leaving

"..."

Zhou Ke'er sighed and rubbed her forehead: "I understand the general situation now, so could you please stop talking like that? Just use 'I' and 'you' normally."

Well, it's one thing to talk like this in front of strangers, since they don't know Zhou Ke'er and it won't be embarrassing. But if you do it in front of people you know... then it will become a source of constant ridicule for them!

Especially that guy Honghe, he'll definitely seize on this and laugh at him!

Bolius wanted to say something more, but seeing Zhou Ke'er's serious gaze, he finally nodded under pressure.

Zhou Ke'er nodded in satisfaction, glancing casually into the cave as she said, "In that case, we need to get going. You two can take what you haven't finished eating with you on the way... By the way, why isn't Zhao Ritian awake yet? He's such a late sleeper, should we go wake him up?"

Porius and Cold-Eating Rabbit didn't sense anything amiss, but Red Crane squinted and said, "What are you talking about... That guy Zhao Ritian, he probably left alone late last night, didn't he? Didn't you even notice?"

"Huh?"

Zhou Ke'er was greatly shocked. After all, he had just woken up in the morning and left without even noticing that Honghe was not there, so it was impossible for him to have discovered that Zhao Ritian had already disappeared.

Cold-cooked rabbit, meanwhile, was half asleep when it smelled the aroma and came out, making it even less likely that it would notice Zhao Ritian was missing.

Honghe tilted her head and added, "Anyway, when I got up early this morning, that guy was already gone. I guess he was still worried because we said yesterday that we were allies with Long Aotian, so he slipped away first."

Zhou Ke'er scratched her cheek: "So you mean you didn't see him leave?...Isn't it also possible that he was kidnapped by some being while we were asleep?!"

Honghe looked thoughtful: "Ah, that's certainly possible. But what does that have to do with me? It's not like you suddenly disappeared."

Cold-cooked Rabbit glanced at Honghe, then at Zhou Ke'er, and immediately gave the same look as an old man on the subway looking at his phone, feeling that the rabbit in his hand no longer tasted good.

Zhou Ke'er didn't think there was anything wrong with those words. After all, when he was gender-swapped, he used such language as a normal conversation, so he didn't feel anything when he heard such words now. He just took it as normal communication.

After extinguishing the campfire and covering it up on the spot, Zhou Ke'er and her group set off, randomly choosing a direction that was not the same as their original route back to the Grand Duchy of Fuyaer.

Zhou Ke'er used her supernatural senses to monitor the surrounding environment, leading everyone away from danger—although so far they hadn't encountered any danger at all. The concentration of supernatural energy in the air in this forest was unusually low, far from being high enough to give rise to monsters.