DSMC Chapter 100.1

Happy 100th chapter!

The lighting in the room was not very strong. A pane of glass separated them from the patients, and only when Yan Jiyun walked closer did he see clearly.

The sight of nearly two hundred patients lying together was incredibly shocking, and at the same time stirred a mixture of pity and anger toward the person who had done this.

Of course, Yan Jiyun was not swayed by such emotions. He simply followed the source of the sound he had heard earlier. He quickly pinpointed the next location the sound came from. He passed through the glass door and reached the tightly shut door opposite should lead him to the source. He guessed that it was the control room.

The black panther wanted to crash into the glass wall, but Yan Jiyun stopped it. No one knew how sturdy the glass was; if it shattered, they would be the ones injured.

The glass door was locked, but his universal key had no uses left.

Yan Jiyun searched through his items, took out a gun, and fired once at the lock. With a bang, the lock broke open.

Since his owner had taught him how to use a gun, why wouldn’t he buy one to use? The points cost was a bit high, but as long as it worked at critical moments, it was worth it.

Besides taking out a firearm, he also put on the bulletproof vest and helmet he had bought, reminding the large animals that followed him to be careful.

He prepared to rush toward the tightly shut door opposite, but the moment he dashed out, he noticed that each hospital bed had a black box attached to it, flashing a red countdown.

[15:00]

He glanced at it once, and the countdown changed.

[14:59]

He looked again, and the number decreased further.

[14:58]

The numbers were clearly a countdown, steadily ticking down.

What a terrible final mission! Someone had actually installed timed bombs on the hospital beds!!

He wasn’t a bomb disposal expert and knew nothing about timed explosives. Wasn’t this making things difficult for an ordinary player like him????

If he had known his owner would one day bring him into an instance, he would have spent the entire last year studying chemistry textbooks!

However, after scanning all the bomb displays, he noticed they all showed the same numbers. Considering the zoo’s various control systems, these devices were probably centrally controlled. Finding the switch should allow him to shut them all down.

In the end, it still came down to finding the source controlling the bombs: the mastermind behind everything.

The black panther stepped forward and sniffed at a bomb, but Yan Jiyun quickly stopped it. “I know this might’ve been your old line of work, but you can’t touch anything now. We still have to find the person holding the remote.”

“We don’t have much time left, only fifteen minutes. No, fourteen minutes now.”

Yan Jiyun rushed toward the tightly shut door and fired at the lock again. The first shot didn’t open it, so he fired another. This time it opened, simple and efficient!

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“Why did Kitty Baby suddenly change style? This rough approach doesn’t feel like him. What is this tough-guy mode?”

“I think so too. His teammates in the previous instance were more brain-focused, and even in the second instance there were guns, but Mimi never touched them.”

“What’s strange about that? Many players have guilds. Maybe he joined one after logging off. Wouldn’t it be great if high-level players guided him through instances? If Kitty Baby gets stronger, he can clear more instances, and I can watch more of them. It’s a total win-win. You don’t understand the joy of cloud-raising a cat¹cloud-raising here means raising via the internet. “Cloud” means “internet”. So, if you read something like “cloud-sucking a cat” is sucking (it’s more like… watching and healing yourself, it’s the same feeling as wanting to bury your face into your pet’s fur) a cat via the internet aka. watching cat videos!”

Although he had forcibly opened the lock, Yan Jiyun didn’t rush in recklessly. The black panther pushed the door open with a paw, and the world behind it revealed itself once again.

Rows upon rows of monitoring screens appeared, each corresponding to a different exhibition area of the zoo, allowing real-time observation of every animal’s condition and daily life.

Compared to Dr. Zhou’s underground laboratory, the setup here was clearly more terrifying. It covered every corner of the zoo.

Among the monitors, Yan Jiyun even saw footage from Basement Level 2 and Basement Level 3.

So the person behind all this knew everything perfectly.

Which animal showed abnormal reactions, which employee committed theft, who secretly gathered to discuss matters. Without ever leaving the room, they could see it all clearly.

Even in this room filled with dense rows of surveillance screens, Yan Jiyun still couldn’t find the mastermind.

His ears twitched slightly. The person wasn’t upstairs, nor downstairs. There was still hidden space here. He was certain the person was within twenty meters of him, likely to his left.

Standing in the center of the control room, Yan Jiyun turned in a circle. There had to be a hidden door leading to the space on the left.

The black panther stayed close beside him and pushed the only chair in the room toward him. Yan Jiyun immediately understood its intention.

He lifted the chair and hurled it hard toward the direction of the sound he had heard!

The chair was an ergonomic one, quite heavy, but Yan Jiyun had enough strength. When it slammed into the wall, the effect was immediate.

After the first strike, a dent appeared in the wall, and a large patch of white paint peeled off the wooden surface, revealing the natural wood color beneath.

Yan Jiyun didn’t waste a second and struck again. Then, a third time—

When he prepared to swing again, a massive hole had already opened in the wall, large enough for a person to pass through.

Yan Jiyun crawled inside. The black panther jumped in after him, and the others followed one by one.

He didn’t have time to worry about whether they could keep up. Time was extremely limited. He had to catch the person quickly and obtain the remote control.

The space inside was large, yet still empty. There was only a spiral staircase leading to the second and third floors!

The sound he had heard earlier must have been the person climbing the stairs. The structure was hollow, allowing a clear view of the steel framework at the top.

What else could he do? Continue the chase, until the person had nowhere left to run!

He had already been running nonstop for nearly two days and didn’t care about a little more time now. He was racing against life itself.

“Soy Sauce, let’s go!”

“I refuse to believe we can’t catch him!”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Mrow-ow~”

Yan Jiyun: “???”

He heard the black panther’s response. The sound was similar to his own. Just as expected from a feline²T/N: It shouldn’t be similar. Panthers (so, jaguars or leopards) make deep growling, snarling, and roaring sounds; quite different from the meowing cheetahs or domestic cats.

But it was completely different from the call he had originally imagined.

He never expected such a majestic leopard to sound like this.

“So you do know,” he said while climbing the stairs. “Just like me, cool and handsome!”

Yan Jiyun had never liked being called “cute.” He quite liked the black panther’s build, and since its call sounded like his, if not for the slight difference in species, he would have wanted to become sworn brothers with it.

He would be the older brother, and the black panther the younger.

The black panther had probably responded out of excitement while running; now it didn’t make another sound, because the contrast between its call and its cold, intimidating image was simply too great!

Caesar followed behind them, the roar of the lion king echoing through the vast space.

“Roar!”

Yan Jiyun: “Caesar, competing like this isn’t right.”

Xixi, who had been quietly not disturbing Yan Jiyun, suddenly entered chatterbox mode: “Comparison is bad, awoo~ meow~ roar~ woof~”

Yan Jiyun instantly heard four different animal calls. “I have to say, classmate Xixi’s learning ability is impressive. Completely stealing everyone else’s chance to speak.”

Xixi said, “My talent.”

Caesar roared again.

The black panther refused to make another sound; it had been careless earlier.

Yan Jiyun was only trying to ease the tension between them anyway. The atmosphere within this temporary team was actually quite good.

They chased relentlessly. The layout of the second floor differed from downstairs. There were fewer rooms, making it feel more open and extremely dark.

But this didn’t trouble them.

For a human, moving through darkness might slow them down, but not for them.

Yan Jiyun precisely followed the person running ahead into an extremely empty room.

The footsteps ahead were less than ten meters away!

Suddenly, the other party stopped, and lights flooded the large space.

Yan Jiyun raised a hand to shield his eyes!

The man standing before him wore a black hood. Turning around, he threatened in a hoarse voice, “Don’t come any closer. Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill him?”

Yan Jiyun followed the direction indicated by the remote control in his hand toward the floor. A person lay there, mouth taped shut, only able to make muffled sounds.

He looked at the hooded man. “Uncle Man. No… I should call you Director.”

Uncle Man unwillingly tore off the hood. “How did you know I’m the director?”

This answer had been something Yan Jiyun pieced together through repeated deductions.

At first, Yan Jiyun didn’t know Uncle Man at all, because Uncle Man was the earliest NPC to go offline, and also the first NPC he had to defeat in his initial side mission.

Later, after thinking carefully, he found it strange. There was no reason for Uncle Man to be jealous of him.

Now he understood: no matter how players dealt with Uncle Man in the first task, Uncle Man’s ending was always being struck on the head and taken away by an ambulance.

In contrast, another zookeeper who chased him fell from the rock hill but no ambulance ever appeared. She was effectively recycled by the system as an NPC.

Comparing the two, both were zookeepers defeated by players, yet their endings were completely different: one didn’t directly disappear, while the other vanished immediately with no follow-up. It made no sense. There could only be one explanation — Uncle Man had another identity in this instance and could not die.

Yan Jiyun’s deduction also came from how the instance tasks constantly created misdirection; otherwise, he wouldn’t have connected it to Uncle Man. Most importantly, from beginning to end, he had never believed the director had suffered a stroke.

When he saw Uncle Man again, it confirmed his conclusion.

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“Damn, how did Kitty Baby figure that out? I can’t understand. Didn’t Uncle Man get eliminated right after appearing? He’s actually the director?”

“I always thought the director was just an invisible character. Never imagined it would be Uncle Man. In previous runs he never came back.”

“Help, I feel like my brain is useless. The biggest villain is Uncle Man! Did anyone guess it?”

“First time seeing the complete storyline of this instance. Never knew the director was Uncle Man! No wonder some players triggered the explosion ending before — it wasn’t because their items were strong, but because they accidentally detonated the timed bombs in this building and blew up Uncle Man hiding inside?”

“Ahhh, Uncle Man captured Dr. Zhou. Can the kitty grab the remote before the bombs go off?”

• 1
  cloud-raising here means raising via the internet. “Cloud” means “internet”. So, if you read something like “cloud-sucking a cat” is sucking (it’s more like… watching and healing yourself, it’s the same feeling as wanting to bury your face into your pet’s fur) a cat via the internet aka. watching cat videos
• 2
  T/N: It shouldn’t be similar. Panthers (so, jaguars or leopards) make deep growling, snarling, and roaring sounds; quite different from the meowing cheetahs or domestic cats