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

That would be terrible; we'd have to cook again and clean the sofa.

"Drink! Secret technique! The art of cooking instant noodles in a pot!"

Zhou Ke'er gave a silent shout and put the cooked noodles from the pot into a bowl.

This goes beyond the low-level method of "just adding water to make instant noodles". It's a high-class and luxurious way to eat noodles, not only by cooking them in a pot, but also by adding one or two eggs and a few slices of ham!

Double yolk egg! Nice!!

Zhou Ke'er contentedly placed the bowl on the living room table, ready to eat, and casually said to Lin Wen, "By the way, since there's nothing else, then you..."

"You actually kicked me out? How could you do this to me? Waaah, you heartless bastard, you scumbag!"

Lin Wen leaned closer, looking like she was about to cry, but her eyes were fixed on the instant noodles in front of Zhou Ke'er's table.

"..."

Zhou Ke'er's forehead veins bulged.

It had been a long time since Zhou Ke'er had felt her mind explode. At this moment, she finally recalled the fear of being dominated by Lin Wen.

Zhou Ke'er's gaze gradually hardened. Yes, the reason why Zhou Ke'er couldn't be as disgusting as Lin Wen was that she still had a bottom line! Let's focus on "breaking the bottom line" as our next challenge!

Thinking of this, Zhou Ke'er silently mourned for half a second for the teammates she would be matched with in the game later.

As Zhou Ke'er's heart was filled with turmoil, Lin Wen continued to blink, looking at Zhou Ke'er with an innocent expression.

"...OK!"

Zhou Ke'er couldn't take it anymore and walked towards the kitchen. "You eat this bowl, I'll cook another one, okay?"

"Oh dear, how could I possibly accept that? *slurp*"

Lin Wen apologized as he happily started eating, exclaiming, "Ha! A double-yolk egg!"

Damn it! What a shame to lose a double-yolk egg!

Zhou Ke'er gritted her teeth and wrote down the 3,721st tally mark for Lin Wen in her mental notebook.

Once Zhou Ke'er's disgusting techniques are fully mastered, she'll definitely pin this guy to the ground and crush him a hundred... a hundred billion times!

------------

72. Dream

After finally getting rid of Lin Wen, Zhou Ke'er found herself in a predicament, unsure of what to do.

Going back to work is out of the question; I've already taken a whole day off, why would I go back? But... right now I don't really want to play games.

Seriously, when it comes to playing games...

Wait a minute... Zhou Ke'er hasn't played solo mode yet! She's always been in matchmaking or team play...

Thinking about it that way, it does make some sense...

Zhou Ke'er stroked her chin and nodded. Since there was nothing else to do, she figured she might as well play a game instead of just spacing out.

"Ok?"

After Zhou Ke'er stood up from the sofa, she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness spreading through her mind without any warning.

"how..."

Almost without any resistance, Zhou Ke'er had just stood up and hadn't even taken two steps forward when her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the sofa, her consciousness fading into darkness.

No sign.

Silence, an endless, deathly silence.

It felt like it was falling straight down.

It's like being submerged at the bottom of the sea, drowning, unable to breathe...

I felt enveloped in thick fog, cool, no... bone-chillingly cold, the icy frost seemed to penetrate my skin.

I don't know how much time passed before a glimmer of light appeared before my eyes.

The thick fog, the black fog that had enveloped me, gradually dissipated.

The smell of gunpowder wafted from somewhere, somewhat pungent. The sky, tinged with red, looked as if it had been stained with blood.

Everything around was blurry, except for one huge door.

It stood tall in the sky, with thick fog of dark red and gray-black swirling behind the door, giving it an eerie sense of tranquility.

The door frame was carved with patterns and decorations I'd never seen before, as if they were alive, wriggling and wandering on the frame, whispering incomprehensible murmurs and whispers.

"Are you crazy?!"

A serious voice, tinged with a hint of fear, came from the side.

Zhou Ke'er didn't know how she turned her perspective, but the scene in front of her did indeed turn in that direction.

A stern, serious face, a white linen robe...

It's the same Chronos I last saw in that module!

He seemed to be talking to someone else.

However... the person's face was so blurry that it was impossible to see clearly; one could only make out that it was a short-haired woman.

What's going on? Was I dreaming? Impossible. That dizziness just now couldn't have been from being asleep. There must have been some kind of uncontrollable external force at play.

Could it be that the evil entities that the module was forced to absorb from Kronos at the end carried some of the other party's memories?

Ha... This is too surreal. What's in the game is just a string of data. How could it possibly come into reality?

But besides that... is there any more reasonable explanation?

Before Zhou Ke'er could think any further, Kronos, seeing that she remained silent, continued, "You don't need to go to your death! Yellow Springs! And you certainly don't need to drag me along to my death!"

The Underworld?

Zhou Ke'er heard that name again. Was Huang Quan this person? But... she couldn't see clearly, as if through a thin mist.

Even so, despite not being able to see the other person's face clearly, Zhou Ke'er inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity... as if she knew Huang Quan.

"Oh dear, old Ke, how can you call this sending someone to their death? This is called a glorious death, it is death! Let's put it nicely."

The man from the underworld reached out and patted Kronos on the shoulder, grinning as if he had absolutely no feeling about "death".

She held a scythe taller than herself in her right hand and swung it around nonchalantly.

"You, a mere mortal, can die so easily! Why should I, a supreme god, the king of gods, accompany you to your death! Damn it! That wretched Di Xin... If it weren't for him, how could I have fallen to this state..."

Cronus's stern face couldn't help but contort slightly. "I barely escaped from Tartarus, not to go and die again!"

"He was the former king of the gods."

Huang Quan kindly reminded him, "Besides, aren't you looking for revenge against your unfilial son Zeus? He's already inside. How can you take revenge if you don't go in?"

"I don't necessarily have to seek revenge on him! I can rebuild Mount Olympus, I can also..."

As Cronus spoke, his voice gradually lowered.

"..."

Huang Quan was silent for a moment, his smile fading, and he said softly, "They're all gone. The Greek gods, the glory of Olympus, they're all gone."

Cronus did not answer.

"You know best, don't you? It's not a question of whether we live or die anymore."

Huang Quan's voice lacked the laughter from before. "Actually, I know that even if I go to my death, I can't save the world. But that's the problem. We all know we're going to our deaths, but we have no other choice."

As Huang Quan spoke, he looked up at the door. "Chen Tian, ​​Pompelo, and countless others are there, using their flesh and blood to build the last line of defense... You know we can't be absent."

Acrid smoke rose all around, silently and lonely dissipating on the reddish horizon.

The door stood there quietly.

"...Does it make sense?"

After a long silence, Cronus spoke in a hoarse voice, as if somewhat puzzled: "I have struggled and endured in Tartarus for tens of thousands of years because there was still hope of escaping there and fulfilling my long-cherished wish for revenge... But what is the point of going to my death in such a hopeless way?"

"Of course it's meaningful!"

Huang Quan shook his head. "If my death can allow humanity to exist in this world for even one more second, then that is the meaning of my death, and the meaning of everyone's sacrifice."

"...This isn't the point of me going to my death!...Never mind..."

Kronos looked up helplessly at the slightly murky sky, sighed, and tried to sound cheerful as he said, "So, this is what you humans mean when you say that the reason they can live peacefully is because someone is bearing the burden for them?"

"...There is no comparison between them and us in terms of who is more noble than whom."

Huang Quan, however, did not show the silly smile that Kronos had expected. Instead, he answered seriously, "Do you think that going to one's death without hesitation for the sake of the last hope, or clinging to life while carrying that last hope, is truly more noble than the other?"

“They bear no less burden than we do.”

Huang Quan stared at Kronos and said, word by word.

"...Ha...I'd like to carry that kind of burden too..."

Cronus smiled helplessly.

"Oh dear, Old Ke, what are you saying? I've already chosen to go and die here, aren't you going to come with me?"

Huang Quan chuckled and patted Kronos on the shoulder forcefully. "See? We're actually quite strong, aren't we? It's not necessarily a suicide mission. We might even win. So what if he's an evil god? Aren't you a god too?"

"Hey... there's absolutely no comparison between them..."

Kronos, his face stiff, retorted, "Don't you remember? That old Jehovah thought the same thing that day, and then led an entire angelic army of Heaven to charge at those evil gods. And what happened in the end?... That guy was at least one of the current chief gods, and he died after only a few exchanges. Me, a former chief god..."

"Oh, the most important thing in life is to have confidence in yourself..."

"...I'm not human..."

"Oh, I forgot. After all, you're such a coward, you're just like a human being!"

"...You're nothing like an ordinary person."

"Hehe, just take it as a compliment. It's really rare for you to compliment me."

Huang Quan chuckled and scratched his head. "Alright... enough chit-chat. It's time for us to go and die."

"You yourself told me not to say it was a suicide mission."

"Oh right, to die, um, to die."