Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

The girl in the white dress turned around, her face appearing deathly pale in the flashlight beam.

She didn't speak, but just stared intently at the pitch-black track.

clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang clang

A train emerged from the tunnel in front of Higashiyama Shin and slowly came to a stop on the dark platform.

Countless black humanoid figures surged down, almost instantly obscuring Dongshan's view. Amidst the chaotic and disordered figures, the girl in the white dress vanished from the spot.

Without dwelling on it too much, Higashiyama Shin turned around and carefully scanned the human figures with his flashlight, looking for the worker wearing a hard hat.

Soon, Dongshan found the worker's shadowy figure, who was noticeably larger than him.

This time, however, he showed no reaction to Higashiyama's bouquet. Like the other androids, he numbly bent over, carrying his briefcase, and headed towards the tunnel at the other end.

Higashiyama tried to hand the phone to the worker's shadowy figure as well. This time, the figure paused for a moment, but quickly resumed his original state and walked past Higashiyama Shin.

"The phone is working, but only slightly. Is it because I've already made the call?"

Higashiyama Shin had some ideas.

A mobile phone might only have one chance to make a call.

That's why the worker didn't stop.

But he had already used up his chance, and he couldn't afford to waste his life.

So he mingled with them and followed them toward the other end of the tunnel.

He walked numbly for an unknown amount of time before finally emerging from the tunnel and seeing a glimmer of light at the end.

"We didn't encounter any danger."

Higashiyama isn't a masochist, but having experienced the increasingly dangerous stations on the Yamanote Line, the sudden absence of such obstacles feels a bit strange.

As he approached, Higashiyama could already see the 【きさらぎ駅】station sign hanging under the lights, which was Kisaragi Station.

Next to the station, there was an extremely old-fashioned steam locomotive.

This is not an ordinary steam locomotive.

Have you ever seen Thomas the Tank Engine?

That's right, the horror version.

It was like a distorted, swollen human face forcibly sewn onto the front of a car, with the flesh at the edges acting like clumps of adhesive, firmly fixing the face to the front of the car.

And then, tendons extend backward.

The thing had its eyes closed and was breathing slowly, as if it were asleep.

Although the car body is an old antique, it doesn't look dilapidated at all; on the contrary, it looks brand new, provided you ignore the flesh and blood that spread like colonies on the car walls.

"What the hell is this thing?"

Dongshan Shen frowned deeply.

He kept walking, following the shadowy figure of the worker, step by step up to Kisaragi Station, and then joined the queue.

Dongshan could see that the doors of the steam train were tightly closed, and outside the doors stood a guy wearing an old conductor's uniform who, apart from being thin and sallow-faced, looked no different from a normal person.

He was watching as each of the black humanoid figures opened their briefcases, then threw the writhing, maggot-like, disgusting clumps of flesh inside into a grotesque mouth growing from flesh and blood on the side of the car.

A thin, black humanoid figure opened a briefcase and rummaged through it, but could only pull out a few black, viscous, worm-like things. It carefully reached out its hand, wanting to put them into the gaping, ugly mouth.

"Ha-hmm—click, click. Glug."

But the giant mouth was not satisfied with such a small scrap. It directly picked up the thin, black humanoid upper body in one bite, leaving half of the humanoid's legs sticking out and struggling. With each chewing sound, the humanoid quickly went limp and was swallowed by the strange mouth in a few bites.

The other black figures remained completely unmoved and continued to queue in an orderly fashion.

The second humanoid picked up the former's briefcase and threw it into the monster's mouth along with the clump of viscous substance the former had taken out of the briefcase.

After finishing its meal, the strange-mouthed creature licked its "lips" with satisfaction.

"The purpose of these dark, humanoid beings is to collect the resentment from the human world at various sites."

"Then feed these resentments to this evil thing."

Without a doubt, the monstrous steam locomotive in front of us is the culprit behind everything.

The source of this strange space.

Is the perfect ending going to involve killing this thing?

This character has already gone through a lot of hardship to get here, and the monster is clearly not awake yet, so he's not taking it seriously.

The difference in strength is too great; killing him is probably impossible.

The worker in the shadowy figure in front of Shin Higashiyama opened his briefcase, emptied its contents into the freak's mouth, and then seemed to shrink a little, his back bending even lower.

He completely ignored Higashiyama Shin behind him and followed the dark figures in front of him away.

Next up is Shin Higashiyama.

The thin flight attendant stared at him with an inscrutable expression, then slowly spoke, her voice rough and hoarse.

"If you want to leave here, you need to offer a complete soul to Lord Zhu Hai in exchange for a ticket to leave."

As he spoke, he pulled a stack of train tickets from his pocket, tore off one, and waved it in front of Higashiyama Shin—

instant!

Without any hesitation, Higashiyama Shin grabbed it and ran!

The flight attendants were completely bewildered.

No! You didn't hesitate at all?!

So skilled! What did you do before, you bastard?! You must be a repeat offender!

"Beep beep—beep!"

The urgent whistle immediately resounded throughout the entire platform.

A large group of rotten old soldiers, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, roared and surrounded and intercepted Shen of Dongshan.

Higashiyama Shin glanced back briefly, and thankfully, the monster hadn't woken up.

Even though the so-called Lord Zhu Hai did not awaken, those ferocious old soldiers easily blocked his escape route.

Soon, Dongshan Shen was captured.

"Those who break the rules have no right to leave."

After the flight attendant finished speaking through gritted teeth, he ordered the former soldiers to throw him directly into the monster's mouth.

Crunchy, tastes like human flesh.

"vomit--"

Waking up in reality, Shinichi Higashiyama felt nauseous. Even being eaten alive at the Yamanote Line station hadn't made him feel this disgusted.

Shinichi Higashiyama can accept different forms of death in the game, but he cannot accept being eaten whole like this.

"I'd better not run into you in real life, Hajito Locomotive."

Dongshan Shen will remember this grudge.

Chapter 82: Some Guesses

Before I begin—I want to become a master of the subway game.

After it ended— Waaah, I'm so bad at this game, I never want to be a pro at this stupid game again.

Uesugi Hitomi quit the game in despair and lay sprawled on the bed.

Her eyes lost their sparkle, and she stared blankly at the ceiling. Sweat splattered across the bed in the shape of a human, making her look like a broken cat doll.

"This is so hard, meow. How can it be so hard? I thought my dog-walking tactics were invincible, but I didn't expect these beasts to be able to chase me better than the last. Whose subordinates are these?"

Moreover, the consequence of being caught was dismemberment and torture; she was dismembered several times.

She came here to play games, not to learn human anatomy.

If this continues, she'll be able to distinguish the different textures of the monster's heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys just by listening to the sounds of the monster chewing.

The liver definitely tastes better—wait a minute!

Now all she wants to do is take a bomb and blow up the Tokyo Shrine that worships those trashy bastards. What a bunch of unlucky trash, notorious before they died and still disgusting people after they're gone.

"Could it be... because I forgot to use a key item that reduces the difficulty in my speedrun, meow?"

She couldn't help but suspect this, a design element found in many games.

This means designing side quests that can reduce the difficulty of the main storyline, allowing players to actively experience the complete game process while also providing experienced players with another option.

If that's the case, then she only has two paths ahead of her now.

One option is to grit your teeth and continue using your extensive experience in chase battles to clear the game.

The second option is to start over and explore previously unexplored areas, but this will inevitably slow down the progress and result in the loss of many lives.

"Will we win? No way, meow."

After glancing at the rankings, Uesugi Hitomi abandoned her second idea.

It's now clear that she chose the wrong direction from the start, playing with a speedrun mentality. Now that she's at this point and wants to turn back, she'll most likely be unable to catch up with the other two players.

When she received the reward, it was explained that each player's ending completion reward only applies to the first ending. Unless a perfect ending is achieved, a second ending reward will not be obtained.

One of her strengths is her ability to see reality clearly; the other two players are likely to be at a similar level to her, or even better.

However, it's unrealistic to expect to get ahead of them and achieve a perfect ending when you're already behind.

Therefore, the best option is the third option: lying flat.

This is not self-abandonment, but the result of calm analysis.

Anyway, there are only three players in this round of the game, so even if she's at worst, she can still reliably get the Fitness Pill reward for third place on the leaderboard.

Moreover, she has already achieved one ending, although it is probably the worst ending, but at least she got the ending reward.

Further up, only perfect endings and points can be rewarded.

I dare not dream of a perfect ending, and I don't know what the points will do yet, but I'll most likely be at the bottom anyway.

It has to be said that even in this worst-case scenario, she was rewarded with the special "superpower" of "cat ear switch," which she found to be very useful after two days of in-depth testing.

The downside is that it gets sleepy very easily, and it feels uncomfortable if it doesn't end its speech with a "meow".

Aside from that, he has many advantages: he runs fast, jumps high, and even his reaction time while playing games on live stream has improved significantly.

Moreover, wearing cat ears doesn't seem to be anything strange. People just think of them as hair accessories or headphones. There are plenty of people in Akihabara who dress much stranger than her.

Of course, to be on the safe side, she wouldn't consider launching an attack in this form.

I really wonder what better rewards those players who get a good ending get. I'm so envious!

"Since the rewards are fixed, should I continue playing?"

Uesugi fell into deep thought.

This game is incredibly demanding! You should have already gotten all the rewards, and there's no hope of competing on the leaderboard anymore. If you continue playing, your earnings will be negative!

Uesugi wasn't a particularly emotional person; rational thinking always prevailed. Although she was eager to know the true ending of the game, the tangible benefits were far more important.

Unless the game's plot contains some secret, or something she can gain from reality.

But how could that be? This must just be some unknowable virtual game, and the rewards can only be obtained from the game.

unless

The things that happened in the game actually happened in real life.

In the game, she is merely a possibility of reenacting history, but similarly, she can also find profitable parts for herself from these "historical moments".

"Hahaha, how could that be, meow."

"You scare yourself."

"Ghosts can't exist in reality, right?"

As she laughed, Uesugi looked at her palm, and the marks that remained despite her countless washes made her smile gradually freeze.

【0120】