Lucky billion players, you've never seen one before / I can accumulate my own luck

Gawain looked at the new laboratory: "There should be a lot of name tags here too. Let's hurry up and collect them. Maybe we can find some memory fragments that are useful for our current situation."

"I hope so."

Fan Xiao nodded, used the "Dustless Shield" to wrap up the head guard and carry him with him, then walked deeper into the laboratory.

The others followed.

The four people kept a safe distance from each other and did not get too close.

The previous "betrayal incident" made everyone more cautious.

Suddenly, Fan Xiao stopped.

This action startled Nori and the other two.

They reflexively jumped backward, pulled out their gear, and prepared for battle.

Fan Xiao frowned, feeling his mind gradually becoming a bit confused.

He suddenly had the idea that Nori and the others were disobedient experimental subjects who were running around everywhere, and that he should go over and give them a severe punishment.

Gradually, he suppressed the thought with his strong will.

"Brother Fan, are you...are you alright?"

Gao Wen's voice came through.

Fan Xiao reached out and pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve the dizziness caused by the conflict, then turned around and met the gazes of his three teammates, saying, "Don't worry, I'm fine."

"Is it really okay?"

Gao Wen did not let his guard down.

Norrie and the head maid also remained on high alert.

Seeing their reaction, Fan Xiao laughed and said, "Do you remember what I said before? You don't need to doubt that I will mutate. Because once I mutate, this dungeon will immediately enter Nightmare difficulty, and at that time, no one will be able to survive."

"He can still brag, so he must be alright now."

Gawain's vigilance eased slightly.

Nori asked curiously, "What happened to you just now, Earl?"

"Just as I guessed, cognitive interference."

Fan Xiao pointed to his head: "I just had the thought that you are the test subjects and I am the researcher, and I have to punish the disobedient test subjects who run around. The head of the guard should also be affected by this."

"You were actually able to sense the impact and even refused it..."

The head maid exclaimed in surprise, "It seems you are indeed in high spirits; you're not exaggerating."

"..." Fan Xiao said speechlessly, "You all took everything I said before as bragging?"

"They're both D-level players, and neither of them is willing to admit defeat to the other."

The head maid spoke with reason and evidence.

"If you have strong mental strength, you can avoid being affected?" Nori nodded. "Then it seems... I don't need to worry about myself."

She mimicked Fan Xiao's tone, looked at the head maid and Gawain, and said, "You can trust me as much as you trust the Earl. Don't worry about me changing. After all... if even I change, this instance will be hellish for you."

Wow... that's a really cool way to put it!

The Earl is so skilled!

She's even better at pretending than Tina!

She needs to learn a lot from him.

Gawain: "..."

Ignoring Nori's words, Gawain asked Fan Xiao, "Are you sure you just want to punish us? When the captain of the guard attacked us just now, he didn't hold back at all. He was practically trying to kill us. It went beyond the scope of punishment."

"Don't use normal standards to judge the researchers in this institute."

Fan Xiao cautioned, "They might have been normal people at first, but after conducting cruel human experiments here every day, their mental health has probably deteriorated long ago."

"Cold-blooded, cruel, indifferent to life... it's not surprising that these traits appear in them."

"So their so-called punishment is murder...that makes sense, doesn't it?"

"……All right."

Gawain accepted this explanation.

Fan Xiao glanced at the time on the player panel; it wasn't midnight yet, and dawn was still a long way off.

"Let's save the small talk for later, let's go find our name tags first."

After giving a reminder, he took the lead and walked towards the nearest glass room.

Nori and the other two followed behind.

Searching for name tags in each room is a very tedious task.

Experiencing the memory fragments on the name tag is a very painful thing.

However, Van Shaw noticed that Gao Wen was very proactive in doing these two things.

He seemed eager to confirm the identity of the original owner of these name tags, as if he were searching for someone.

About half an hour later, the four of them finished collecting the name tags and memorizing the experience.

“52 name tags,” the head maid said. “A few more than in the last lab, but the memory fragments are mostly the same.”

"Ugh……"

Nori sighed, "It seems that new intelligence won't be so easy to find."

Her sigh was very heavy, clearly not simply a matter of worrying about intelligence.

Vanshaw glanced at Nolly, guessing that she must have felt strong empathy and sympathy for the original owners of these name tags and was indignant about their tragic fate.

She's a very kind young girl.

Because they weren't very familiar with each other yet, Vanshaw resisted the urge to comfort Nolly.

He turned his gaze to the silent Gawain and asked, "So, did you find the person you were looking for?"

"..." Gawain: "Was I that obvious?"

"You don't actually think you've hidden it well, do you?" Fan Xiao: "Are you serious?"

Chapter 204 Nori was so scared she wanted to take off her clothes

“You’re being far too enthusiastic about searching for and experiencing fragments of your name tag memories.”

After overhearing Fan Xiao and Gao Wen's conversation, the head maid chimed in, saying to Gao Wen, "Everything unusual has a reason behind it. Are you looking for someone?"

Are there any people you know among the test subjects?

Nori also spoke up and asked.

After asking the question, she sighed softly again.

These test subjects are long dead. Even if we find the person we're looking for, what good will it do?

It was just a name tag; it only had commemorative value.

"You want to confirm the life or death status of the person you're looking for, right?"

Fan Xiao said, "Not all the test subjects died. Successful test subjects will probably become psionicists."

"Judging from the current state of this research institute, they either escaped on their own or were transferred away and trained as players."

"You want to confirm this?"

Faced with the three questions, Gao Wen remained silent for a while, seemingly organizing his thoughts.

After about ten seconds, he said in a slightly confused tone, "I am indeed here to find someone, but... I'm not sure if the person I'm looking for actually exists."

"Find someone whose very existence is uncertain?"

The head maid paused, then asked, "What do you mean? You only know the name, but not what she looks like?"

"Hmm... if that's the case, then it'll be difficult to find," Nori cautioned. "There are only numbers here, no names to help us confirm."

"No, I know the name and the appearance, but..."

Gao Wen shook his head: "I've always had doubts about whether this person truly exists in this world, and I'm not sure."

"Knowing their name and appearance, yet doubting their existence..."

The head maid didn't quite understand.

Nori also looked puzzled, waiting for Gawain to provide an explanation.

Only Fan Xiao frowned almost imperceptibly.

Knowing what someone looks like, yet doubting their existence... Doesn't that sound a bit familiar?

and many more!

Wasn't he like that before?

He had memories of his "older sister" in his mind, but his investigation yielded no results. He even began to doubt his own mind and underwent several years of psychological treatment.

He didn't have a new guess until the Evolution Game arrived.

Fan Xiao looked at Gao Wen, remaining outwardly calm, but inwardly he took it seriously.

Meeting his teammates' gazes, Gao Wen said, "In the last dungeon I experienced, the dungeon boss was a monster with a spiritual attribute. Its abilities were very strange. It could materialize the most beautiful things in a person's heart and interfere with their mind, making them obsessed and unable to get out."

“One of my teammates got caught in it. The dungeon boss showed him his daughter who had died many years ago. He got caught up in it and his spirit was consumed. He died in the dungeon.”

"but me……"

He paused, a hint of confusion in his eyes, and said, "I saw a little girl. She called me 'brother' affectionately, clung to me, acted spoiled towards me, and was extremely close to me..."

"Your sister is dead?" Nori asked.

"..." Gao Wen: "I don't have a younger sister."

"So what you're doing is... pedophilia? Perverted? You like little girls?"

The head maid said, "After all, that dungeon boss embodies the most beautiful things in a person's heart. If you didn't have an extreme desire for little girls, you probably wouldn't have seen it."

"...I don't know if you're teasing me or if you really think that way."

Gawain's eye twitched, and he explained, "I don't have a sister, so I didn't get caught up in it back then. But I'm not completely immune to the effects of dungeon bosses on me."

"The longer I spent with that little girl, the more I felt... as if I really had a younger sister with whom I had depended on since childhood."

"A sense of warmth kept welling up inside me; it was such a strange experience."

"Afterwards, I asked my teammates, and they all said that what they saw was what they most wanted to see, not some irrelevant thing that they had no recollection of."

"It can't be that I'm the only one being treated differently, right? Maybe I really do have such a 'sister'?"

"Do other people feel the same way you do?" Fan Xiao asked. "It's this feeling, this inexplicable sense of closeness that gradually arises in your heart?"

"No, they all saw things they were familiar with, and it all felt natural and there was no sense of abruptness. I was the only one who saw strangers."

Gao Wen sighed, "That sense of intimacy was so real. After I left that instance and returned home, I dreamed about my 'sister' almost every night."

"Furthermore, my feelings and memories became clearer and more real. I gradually recalled some everyday fragments from when I lived with my sister a long time ago. About two weeks later, I could hardly distinguish between reality and memory."

"Is it the dungeon boss's abilities that caused you such severe aftereffects?"

The head maid asked, "Are you going to verify the authenticity of the extra memories? As long as a person exists, they will definitely leave traces in the world. If you really have a sister, even if you have forgotten her, it should be very simple to verify, right?"

"I did verify it."

Gao Wen nodded: "Following the extra details in my memory, I investigated them one by one, but to no avail. I only remember this 'sister'; none of my other acquaintances have ever heard of her."

"The facts tell me that my memory is false; it's a side effect of the dungeon boss. This kind of side effect is not uncommon among players. Many players have even posted and shared their experiences, just like PTSD."

"But... that feeling was so real! So real that even if all the evidence proved it was fake, I still subjectively felt it was real."

“Perhaps,” the head maid suggested, “you should see a psychiatrist?”

“I’ve looked at it,” Gawain shook his head. “It’s useless.”

Fan Xiao asked, "What does this have to do with you coming to this instance to find someone?"

"I'm not here to find someone in this instance; I'm just running a normal instance."