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

"Huff...huff...where are we now?"

Zhang He, panting heavily, ran as fast as he could, glancing back at the infected relentlessly pursuing them: "I mean, we can't just keep running like this, can we? We've been running for almost half a day, and I really can't run anymore."

To be honest, for a normal player who hasn't been tainted by evil, being able to carry someone for so long is already incredibly impressive.

"Where are we now? We don't know. Where are we going? We don't know. What should we do? We don't know."

Lazy and tired, who was being carried by Zhang He, spread his hands and began to complain: "We arrived here at roughly the same time, and the disaster broke out not long after. So obviously, if you don't know something, I can't possibly know it either. By the way, speed up and turn left at the intersection ahead. I sense monsters on the right as well. Be careful."

"At least, I need to find a place to rest, right? I'm exhausted. If something bad happens now, I'm doomed."

Zhang He, panting, followed Chun Kunqiu Fei's instructions and sped up a bit more, turning at the next intersection. Sure enough, just as Chun Kunqiu Fei had said, there were indeed many infected people wandering around on the right.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm already looking—run a little further ahead, there's a house over there where I don't sense any monsters. I don't know why, but as long as I quickly escape into that house and keep those monsters outside, I'll be safe for now."

"Spring drowsiness and autumn fatigue" immediately pointed to a very luxurious-looking building not far away and said.

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675. The Unlucky Guy's Miraculous Escape

Despite feeling drowsy and tired, Zhang He ran all the way and finally arrived at the building that he had been pointing to earlier.

Although he heard a system notification in the middle saying that the first stage of the main quest was completed and the second stage of the area quest had been unlocked, he didn't have time to pay attention to such things now. He had to save his life first.

That said, the building in front of Zhang He was incredibly luxurious; it would be more accurate to call it a mansion than a building. However, the magnificent golden gate was tightly shut, undoubtedly impossible to open from the outside. It was even possible that it was blocked from the inside—after all, in a place practically teeming with infected people, the fact that a mansion could exist without them clearly indicated human intervention.

Zhang He took a deep breath, focusing his energy in his dantian. He then secretly used his lightness skill, his toes touching the ground as he launched himself like a cannonball. He stumbled a step and landed on the eaves above the mansion gate. He steadied himself with one hand and grabbed the extended part of the eaves above with the other. He used the momentum to leap high into the air, and just as he was about to land accurately inside the mansion, a soft "click" was heard.

Although the "crack" was slight, it was like a bolt from the blue to Zhang He—the eaves he was holding had been broken off.

Zhang He suddenly lost his footing, and his hands, propelled by inertia, tried to push downwards, but only managed to touch the air. He was about to fall out of the house in vain.

Just then, Chun Kunqiu yawned, helplessly stretched out his hand, one hand firmly pressed on the eaves, the other hand grabbed Zhang He by the back of his collar, and with a clean and swift flip, he landed in the mansion with Zhang He.

Zhang He scrambled to the ground, thankfully without falling in a pathetic manner, while the spring drowsiness and autumn fatigue naturally settled on his shoulder, and he continued to doze off.

Who are you people?!

Before Zhang He could catch his breath, he heard a low, wary voice asking from the side.

A group of men and women dressed like nobles, who had rushed out at the sound, looked at Zhang He and Chun Kun Qiu Fei with wariness and hostility. The leader of them frowned, as if afraid that some monster outside might be attracted, and asked in a low voice, "What is your purpose in breaking into our place!"

Zhang He immediately waved his hand and explained, "You misunderstand! We didn't deliberately wander in here. We've just been being chased by those monsters, and seeing that there don't seem to be any monsters around here, we thought we'd come here to settle down and rest for a bit!"

It's clear that Zhang He was too kind; if it were Zhou Ke'er here...

As expected, upon hearing Zhang He's words of submission, the group of nobles who were initially unsure of Zhang He's background immediately regained their arrogant demeanor, with the leader raising his head as if he wanted to say something malicious.

Before he could speak, he was stopped by a fellow who also looked like a nobleman, but at least seemed quite shrewd. The man whispered a few words in his ear, seemingly saying things like, "There's no need to make enemies with them," "It wouldn't be good if they got angry and opened the door to let the monsters in," and "Anyway, they just want to rest for a bit, so it's no big deal to let them stay here for a while and then leave."

After hearing this, the leading nobleman found it quite reasonable, so he coughed and said, "Since that's the case, we're not unreasonable people—we'll make an exception for the two of you here. Listen carefully, I said 'here,' rest for a while, and then you'll have to leave immediately!"

Zhang He frowned, but said nothing, only nodding in agreement, and continued to press, "If I may ask another question—where else can we seek refuge after leaving this place? Are the guards in the city unable to control the situation? What about the people from the city lord's mansion?"

The leading nobleman was somewhat annoyed upon hearing this, and snorted coldly, "I am the city lord! In the current situation, it's already a miracle that I can protect everyone in this house. Who can be relied on those guards!"

Having said that, he angrily turned and left, ignoring Zhang He. The other nobles, seeing this, also hurriedly followed the city lord and left.

Only the shrewd nobleman who had just offered the suggestion quietly approached Zhang He and whispered to him, "I can tell you which places might still be safe, but there's a condition—you must promise me that if you do find a safe place, you must inform the nobles stationed there about our situation and have them come to rescue us as soon as possible!"

Zhang He nodded without hesitation, "I promise you—even if you don't say it, as long as you tell me where else I can get help, I will do it."

"very good."

The nobleman nodded, glanced behind him, and then quickened his pace, saying, "The first place is the royal palace on the other side of the capital. Because our city lord's mansion is set up separately in the capital, all the elite troops of the capital are gathered in the royal palace, so the city lord's mansion naturally doesn't have much fighting power. However, the situation there must be much better than here."

Zhang He frowned upon hearing this, shook his head, and said, "This won't work. We escaped all the way from the palace. The disaster initially broke out near the palace, and the palace guards were among the first to mutate into monsters. You can imagine what the situation was like there!"

The nobleman's face paled slightly upon hearing this, but he continued, "I never expected something like this to happen... It's alright, we have other alternatives! Uh, what about the military academy's training ground on the west side of the capital? I remember several generals have been training their personal guards there recently, and their combat strength should not be underestimated..."

Zhang He's expression worsened: "From the very beginning, we were entrusted by a dying soldier to go there and check the situation—it was already a complete mess, not a safe place at all—perhaps it's because they were originally powerful that they became even more difficult to resist once they turned into monsters!"

The nobleman's lips began to tremble: "Then...then the capital city is practically completely lost! Damn it, no, I need to calm down and think carefully, there must be another way out...That's it, that's it! You guys leave the city! Keep heading north, it's less than a day's walk to the Human Alliance's camp. There are many brave warriors stationed there, it must still be safe for now, all we need to do is find them!"

After saying that, he hurriedly tore a badge off his clothes and handed it to Zhang He: "They may not believe your identities and your story, but as long as you have this badge, there won't be any problems! It only takes two days to go and back, and we should be able to hold out here—you must go and come back quickly!"

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676. Dangerous

Let's turn our attention back to the present.

A day had passed since Loyal's death. Zhou Ke'er and her group walked briskly across the land of the Kingdom of Brownbo, now traversing through ruins.

What should have been a bustling town had become a ruin and deserted in just one or two days. Clearly, even for the Kingdom of Brambo, the largest country in the Central Continent, this sudden disaster was not something they could handle in a short time.

Furthermore, the regional missions in the Kingdom of Brambo differ from those in the Grand Duchy of Fuya'er. Instead of killing a powerful, malevolent entity, it's a rescue mission—rescuing members of the Brambo royal family who are in danger. The success of the mission is judged based on the number and identities of the royal family members rescued.

Although this mission may not seem particularly difficult at first glance, its difficulty rating is exactly the same as that of the Grand Duchy of Fuya, which means that this mission is just as difficult as killing a powerful evil lord like Loyal.

That's quite normal, though. After all, who knows where those royals are now, or what dangers they're facing? Without prior planning, the mission would be impossible to complete without knowing anything about the situation.

Zhou Ke'er was too lazy to spend any more time on this kind of rescue mission; it was such a waste of time. She might as well hurry back to the capital of Wright.

"Wait... there seems to be someone ahead."

Honghe suddenly stopped and stretched out her hand to block the group, whispering a warning: "Something seems off—although we can't see their faces, something strange is going on everywhere."

Zhou Ke'er subconsciously used her supernatural abilities to investigate and immediately discovered that although the guy the red crane was pointing at had enough supernatural abilities to become an infected person, he felt different from ordinary infected people. It was as if he had something else mixed in, which made him feel even more disgusting.

He nodded and added, "He seems like an infected person, but something's off. That guy could be a bit dangerous... be careful."

Cold-Eating Rabbit rolled up her sleeves, and a hammer immediately appeared in her hand. She picked up the hammer, which was taller than herself, and walked towards the person in front of her. "Leave this one to me—although I've been slacking off, I can still handle these roadside monsters without any problem."

Honghe squinted: "If you're going to clear up the trouble, then clear up the trouble. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? You're not Zhou Ke'er. Making such a big deal out of it could really cause trouble."

Sure enough, as Lengchitu walked closer, the "person" who had been facing away from Zhou Ke'er and the others finally turned around unsteadily—this was no "person" at all!

The head of this thing was a capsule that looked like it was wrapped in a white, semi-transparent silkworm pupa. You could clearly see that there were no organs inside, only one swollen cystic tumor after another, and something that looked like an eyeball constantly moving around inside.

It can only be described as utterly disgusting.

Moreover, it wasn't just the head; Zhou Ke'er and the others then discovered that all of the monster's exposed limbs only appeared to have a rough human outline from a distance, but in reality, just like the head, they were disgusting, semi-transparent capsules.

When it saw Zhou Ke'er and the others, it seemed to become excited and rushed straight towards the nearest cold-cooked rabbit.

Cold-Eating Rabbit couldn't help but frown deeply, suppressing his nausea, and slammed a hammer into the guy's head, making a sound like hitting some kind of slime, like slime, and even the feeling of the impact seemed almost the same.

At this moment, Zhou Ke'er immediately used her evil powers to condense into threads, which she launched and quickly wrapped around the cold-cooked rabbit, pulling it back immediately.

Cold-cooked Rabbit was startled. She was wondering why Zhou Ke'er would do this, but before she could turn around to ask, she saw the monster's head suddenly explode. The vesicles and tumors stored in the capsule head gushed out from the crack and swallowed up the spot where Cold-cooked Rabbit had just been in an instant.

"evil……"

Secretly relieved that Zhou Ke'er was quick-witted and nimble-fingered, Lengchitu couldn't help but feel a wave of nausea mixed with lingering fear—he was almost overwhelmed by this disgusting thing, and no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't accept it at all.

When the monster failed to strike, it immediately retracted all the vesicles. However, as it retracted them, the shape of the "human" gradually changed. When all the vesicles were retracted into its body, a "cold-cooked rabbit" appeared before everyone's eyes.

The "cold-cooked rabbit" looks exactly like a cold-cooked rabbit, except for a stiff, fake smile on its face that looks extremely disgusting.

"I've...found you."

She spoke haltingly to Zhou Ke'er and the others, as if it were the first time she had spoken.

"Ugh... This feels so disgusting! Red Crane, quickly use your invincible Zhou Ke'er to think of a solution! Quickly get rid of this disgusting guy!"

Cold-Eating Rabbit looked at the monster that had suddenly become exactly like itself, with such a strange and disgusting smile, and was saying inexplicable words. It couldn't help but shudder, and even got goosebumps all over its body.

A sharp black mist spike pierced through the guy's torso, but no blood spurted out. Instead, disgusting vesicles spread out of the wound, seemingly trying to follow the spike all the way to Zhou Ke'er.

Unfortunately, the evil could only cause harm. Zhou Ke'er wanted to make it lose its physical form, so the resulting spikes were illusory. Therefore, the vesicles missed their target and could not attach to the spikes at all.

But even so, it's still quite tricky.

Zhou Ke'er frowned and reminded, "Don't use physical attacks to deal with this monster. It doesn't seem to have any parts that can kill it, and it might even try to turn your attacks on it."

What kind of new kind of evil monster is this? It's really disgusting.

It turns out that this being is capable of devouring and mimicking other "humans," and the unsuspecting NPC residents will obviously suffer a great disaster because of this monster.

Although their imitations are quite clumsy.

Zhou Ke'er frowned and used black mist to form a sphere from a distance, enveloping the monster within it and squeezing it frantically—a replica of the move she used against Luo Ye'er, only this time the power was obviously a weakened version, countless times weaker than before.

A series of popping sounds, like bubbles bursting, rang out continuously. Zhou Ke'er didn't even bother to pay attention, simply tossing the black ball far to the side before leading the group forward.

Turning the corner ahead, amidst the same ruins, the group of people eerily discovered a group of "people" who, despite being dressed in rags, appeared unharmed and sported strange, disgusting smiles on their faces. They seemed to be replicating the scene before the disaster, walking back and forth on the street, pretending to chat or argue.

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677. Not at all, not at all.

Seeing this scene, Zhou Ke'er probably understood what one of the major difficulties of the main quest in the Kingdom of Brambo was—it was very likely that these mimicking monsters had already infiltrated the group of royals and were even slowly replacing them.

In other words, if someone were to actually go to the rescue, there's a good chance that among the "people" they manage to rescue, many might not even be human at all. Moreover, there might be these "people" acting as traitors along the way, hindering their progress.

That would indeed be very difficult. Fortunately, the mimicry of these monsters is rather clumsy, so it should be easy to spot.

Zhou Ke'er originally wanted to ask Chen Tian what kind of monster it was, but then she thought that it had nothing to do with her and the others. After all, they didn't plan to do any missions in this area and were just passing through. Knowing would not be of much use to them, so she gave up the idea.

The "people" on the street sensed the arrival of Zhou Ke'er and the others, stopped what they were doing, turned around to look at them, and once again showed the same disgusting smile as the monster from before.

Without hesitation, Zhou Ke'er put on the same disgusting smile as them and continued forward leisurely. She only paused for a moment at first before fearlessly plunging into the crowd.

The moment Zhou Ke'er smiled, Honghe understood his meaning and quickly followed suit, mimicking Zhou Ke'er's actions and staying close behind him.

To be honest, it's not impossible to force our way out of here, but since it can be done with just a smile, why not?

The others weren't stupid either. They might not have realized it at first, but once Zhou Ke'er and Hong He had taken the lead and gone ahead, they quickly realized what was going on and hurriedly started to follow their example.

Whether the monsters were fooled or not, they didn't do anything after Zhou Ke'er walked down the street; they just watched her and the others leave.

After turning the corner, there were still a few scattered "people" on the road ahead, doing some inexplicable things, but compared to the bustling scene just now, it was clearly not dangerous. Zhou Ke'er didn't intend to pay too much attention to these few "people."

The group hadn't gone far when Zhou Ke'er suddenly seemed to sense something. She turned around abruptly and said in a deep voice, her face expressionless, "You've been following us all this way, why don't you come out and have a proper greeting?"

There was complete silence; no one answered.

Cold-cooked Rabbit looked at Zhou Ke'er with a puzzled expression, wondering what was wrong with him this time.

But then Zhou Ke'er conjured the Azure Trace Sword in her hand, pointing it steadily in a certain direction: "I'll give you three seconds, three, two..."