DSMC Chapter 112

[Want to be Human] livestream channel:

“Ahhhhhh! Kitty Baby suddenly turned back into a cat! Why do I enjoy watching the kitty clear stages solo so much? The rats screaming and running around are so cute too!”

“Strange… why couldn’t the animals talk in the previous zoo instance, but these rats are so lively and chatty? It feels like I’m watching a cartoon.”

“Hahaha, so is this the real-life version of Tom and Jerry?”

“Someone tell me why I’m watching a cartoon in an infinite flow game!”

“Wait, didn’t Kitty Baby enter a casino? Why is it a race with rats? Did the system bug out?”

“No bug. Did you forget this is the Peak Competition? This counts as a life gamble, specifically, betting on speed. If you can’t outrun the rats , you die; if you can, you win. Everything can be a gamble, so don’t get hung up on the format.”

The seven rats in red vests shrieked as they dashed forward, now sprinting for their lives. They had already reached the limits of their rat existence!

Meanwhile, Yan Jiyun suddenly rediscovered the joy of running. As long as he wasn’t being chased by monsters, he loved running. Because this time, there was no danger behind him. Instead, he was the danger to others. Being the villain actually felt pretty good.

This space was strange. He could speak just like the mice. So… he’ll abuse this privilege~

“Little rats, why are you running? Daddy’s here.”

What kind of world even was this? Some kind of bizarre animal world?

The rats screamed frantically:

“Ahhh, don’t chase me! I’m scared of cats!”

“Who the hell said he was human? He’s a sly cat!! He even disguised himself as a human to trick us!”

“This cat is huge. Can we even outrun him?!”

“If you’ve got time to talk, run faster! That black cat is also a player, the only way to beat him is to not let him win the race!”

“Ahhh! Squeak!!”

Yan Jiyun found their chatter amusing. It felt like he’d fallen into a nest of edgy teenagers. It was so fun.

Compared to being chased, he much preferred doing the chasing.

Rats naturally liked to run and then hide, but this was a simulated track, with nowhere to hide. Besides, they were all wearing red vests, clearly professional racers. Though even if they hid, it didn’t matter. After finishing, Yan Jiyun could still scare them a bit.

He had already planned how to spend his five-minute break.

Yan Jiyun deliberately slowed down. When he caught up to the rat in seventh place, he pressed a paw onto it on purpose. “Hey, I caught you!”

Rat No. 13 screamed, “Ahhh! If you’re going to chase me, just chase me! Why are you pressing me down?! Don’t eat me! I don’t taste good! I live in sewers, eat leftovers, I’m full of bacteria! If you eat me, you’ll get sick and die from plague!”

Yan Jiyun smacked its head with a paw. “Are you cursing me?”

The rat trembled under the black cat’s paw. In the end, Yan Jiyun let it go and continued running. He had just been playing around.

He hadn’t expected NPCs to be this easily frightened. As expected, to a cat, rats were the best toys.

To save time, Yan Jiyun began overtaking them one by one. Every time he passed a red-vest rat, he said, “Weren’t you going to beat me? You’re so weak.”

The rats were so scared their legs went soft. They could barely run anymore. They were no longer thinking about winning, only screaming: “Don’t eat me! I don’t taste good! How do I make the cat lose interest?” All their earlier bravado had completely vanished.

After successfully pulling his prank, Yan Jiyun ran alongside Rat No. 15, which was practically smoking from exertion. Since he felt completely relaxed during the chase, he figured not winning would be disrespectful to its effort.

“Number 15, since you’re trying so hard, I’ve decided to respect you.”

Rat No. 15 stuttered, “Y-you’re going to lose to me?”

Yan Jiyun immediately crushed that hope. “Of course not. I just mean I’ll pass you right away so you can save some energy.”

Rat No. 15: “…Damn it.” Cats really were the most cunning!

An 800-meter track was long for mice, but trivial for Yan Jiyun. He only needed to surpass Rat No. 15 to win.

Honestly, watching mice in red vests speaking human language while competing seriously was pretty fun. It didn’t feel like a horror game at all. If horror games were always like this, he’d play every day.

To conserve energy, Yan Jiyun stayed just slightly ahead of Rat No. 15 while chatting to gather information.

“Why do you participate in these races?”

Rat No. 15 replied, “Why? Of course it’s to eliminate humans.”

“What benefit do you get from eliminating humans?”

“Oh, tons of benefits. If you lose, we can ※※※ and then ※※※. Get it?”

Yan Jiyun: “?”

Why were parts censored? He couldn’t understand at all.

Was the rat revealing information it wasn’t allowed to?

If it were just Angel City information, there’d be no need to censor it. So maybe what couldn’t be revealed… was system-level information?

Yan Jiyun slowed down deliberately and pressed further, “Be more specific. Elaborate a bit~ Let me feel your joy too.”

Rat No. 15 squinted. “Aren’t you human?”

Yan Jiyun: “As you can see, I’m just a cat undercover among humans.”

Rat No. 15 scoffed. “Do I look that easy to fool?”

Yan Jiyun: “Then what do you think I am?”

Rat No. 15: “You’re obviously one of those lazy, dumb pet cats. Too useless to survive on your own, so you latched onto humans. You’re a disgrace to your kind.”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Yeah, he had overestimated it.

Since he couldn’t get any useful information, Yan Jiyun sped up and crossed the finish line, easily winning the race.

He didn’t even need to celebrate. The red-vest mice had already fled out of sight.

“Run, run! Thank goodness he’s just a pet cat… he doesn’t eat rats!”

“Pant, pant— I’m never coming back, that was terrifying~”

“I never want to see a cat again!”

[Congratulations to the player for winning the first round. Entering the next round in 3 seconds.]

[Five-minute rest countdown begins.]

[“Whack-a-Rat¹ in One Minute” game countdown: 4:59]

The scene shifted. In front of Yan Jiyun now stood a machine, the kind he would normally see in an arcade, except this one was nearly ten times larger.

There was no rat dealer this time, but the rules were displayed clearly beside the machine.

“One-Minute Whack-a-Rat” Rules:

Press the “Start” button to begin the game.
Use the hammer provided to hit the rats that pop out of the holes. If inconvenient, you may also use parts of your body to strike them.
Hitting a rat earns points; missing earns none. Missing three times consecutively results in failure.
As levels increase, difficulty rises. The rats will pop up faster.
There are three stages total. Upon reaching the required score, you will automatically proceed to the next stage. Clearing all three stages completes the game.

Yan Jiyun remembered that the last time he played whack-a-mole was when he was very young. The memory was still vivid. It was his dad who took him to the arcade.

His dad was always busy, with only four days off a month. It was rare that the day happened to fall on a weekend so the whole family could go out together. But midway through the trip, his mom had to return to work, so she asked his dad to take him to lunch and then go home.

His dad had agreed readily. But after his mom left, he asked Yan Jiyun if he wanted to play video games. Before Yan Jiyun could even nod, he found himself already inside the arcade. Back then he was still little. Aside from claw machines, his favorite was games like whack-a-mole.

That night when they got home, unsurprisingly, both he and his dad got scolded by his mom. Even so, he had been very happy that day.

From then on, he fell in love with games, until the accident that turned him into a cat.

The most recent time he played whack-a-mole was when his owner bought him a toy at four months old. Out of respect, he played with it for two days… then stuffed it into the “Caramel toy storage area,” where it had never seen the light of day again.

He only had one chance at this game. If he failed the first round, he wouldn’t proceed to the next, it would mean his game was over. As for what would happen after losing… that was unknown.

This was an enlarged version of whack-a-mole, still in a 3×3 grid with nine holes.

The center was where the player stood. If he stayed in human form and used the hammer, his speed would definitely be insufficient, as swinging it took reaction time. But using his paws would likely be faster.

Yan Jiyun didn’t know how fast the rats would appear. The rules stated that he couldn’t miss three times consecutively. So, he could miss, but not repeatedly. If his rhythm broke after one miss, the following hits would become easier to miss as well. So once the game started, he had to maintain absolute focus.

He had only played arcade versions before and he could clear those easily. But here, he had no way of estimating the speed. If there were multiple players, he could at least observe, but since this was solo, he could only rely on guesswork.

He stretched his front paws on the ground, warming up.

Once the five-minute rest ended, he had to press “Start.”

[“One-Minute Whack-a-Rat” countdown: 40 seconds]

No need to wait. Whether he hesitated or not, the outcome would be the same.

Yan Jiyun took a deep breath, leapt up, lightly tapped the start button, and landed in the center of the machine.

A countdown appeared on the screen, accompanied by beeping sounds.

“3—2—1—Game Start!”

He focused completely.

Even during the countdown, he had already heard the machinery below activate. Unlike the previous round, where the rats had genuinely raced him, this one returned to a mechanical game.

This tested not only reaction speed, but also hearing.

Click.

A fluffy rat head popped up at the eleven o’clock position.

Smack!

The moment it appeared, Yan Jiyun struck it. The hit registered, and the number “1” appeared on the screen.

The machine clattered again, this time from the three o’clock direction.

Smack! It’s a clean hit.

Next was at one o’clock. Then, at six o’clock.

Yan Jiyun felt like a spinning top, but it was still within control. It’s easier than expected. If he were being a bit boastful, it was almost effortless.

Smack smack smack smack!

One minute ended.

Every hit landed, with zero misses.

The screen displayed celebratory confetti.

A mechanical voice sounded: “Congratulations, you have entered the next stage. Beginning in ten seconds.”

Yan Jiyun stayed focused.

“3—2—1—Second stage start!”

One… two… three—

Again, every hit landed. Fireworks burst across the screen, almost like cheating.

“Congratulations, you have entered the next stage. Speed will increase. Beginning in ten seconds.”

He stretched his forelimbs during the short break.

This game was actually fun! It’s more enjoyable than chasing. As long as he listened to the mechanical sounds below, he could predict where the moles would appear.

The break ended. The third round began.

This stage demanded sharp reflexes, and luckily, Yan Jiyun had excellent reaction speed and focus.

The final stage.

The machine started again.

This time, the rats appeared even faster, but it still wasn’t enough to challenge him. One appeared, one got hit. His paws blurred with speed, but his strikes remained precise.

Three o’clock— nine o’clock— ten o’clock— one o’clock—

Smack! The last mole was hit.

“Congratulations, you have cleared the game!”

[Congratulations to the player for winning the second game. Entering the next game in 3 seconds.]

[Five-minute rest countdown begins.]

[“Little Rats Climb the Lampstand” countdown: 4:59]

Yan Jiyun: “…”

Wasn’t this another rat chase? Didn’t he already do that once?

So the second round had basically been his “break”? What a strange arrangement.

In the blink of an eye, the environment changed.

It now resembled a small playground, filled with tunnels and little doors he could crawl through.

The gates were still closed. Next to the white fence gate was a description of the game:

“Little Mice Climb the Lampstand” Rules:

Game duration: 3 minutes.
Once the game starts, 15 blue-vest rats and 15 red-vest rats will be released inside the rat house. The player must find all the rats within 5 minutes and stop them from knocking over the lampstand.
The player must not harm the rats. Any harm will invalidate the score. Severe harm will result in punishment.

The game sounded simple, but also cruel. The previous two rounds had just been warm-ups.

After reading the rules, Yan Jiyun lay outside the fence gate, half-closing his eyes to rest.

When the five-minute break ended, he pressed the “Start” button.

Two platforms outside the house lowered, releasing thirty mice in red and blue vests. Their chatter sounded like a thousand ducks.

“Oh my god, why is it a cat?! Can I not play anymore?!”

“Mom, please let me go home and do homework! I’ll never sneak out to play games again!”

“Ahhh! There’s a black cat!”

“The way he’s looking at me is terrifying!! I can’t even meet his eyes!”

“Who’s going to protect me later? I don’t want to die!”

“You cowards! It’s just a cat! We’ve already ※※ it! It must be fake! Be brave… b-brave!”

Yan Jiyun listened to their muttering, filtering out the meaningless chatter and picking up a few interesting bits of information. It wasn’t that he misheard, some words were genuinely being censored by the system.

When he entered instances before, none of the NPCs ever had their dialogue censored; everything had always been complete.

Could it be that the NPCs in the Peak Competition were different from the others?

They seemed to have more independent thoughts, and Rule 3 of the game was clearly protecting these little mice. They were more like—

A sound from the rat house interrupted Yan Jiyun’s thoughts.

“All rats are in position. The game begins. We wish all players a pleasant game.”

It wasn’t that Yan Jiyun was nitpicking, but he was clearly the only player here, yet the announcement said “all players.” He didn’t believe the game would make such a low-level mistake.

Still, the most important thing now was to catch the rats first.

The game’s name probably came from a nursery rhyme. Here, the rhyme had been turned into a mini-game.

Little rats climbing the lampstand~

The rats were real rats. With a cat present, there was no way they’d be climbing any lampstand.

Yan Jiyun wasn’t teamed up with anyone, while the rats numbered thirty. One versus thirty? His chances weren’t high.

And these rats had intelligence. They could cooperate.

He needed to find them quickly before they coordinated and climbed onto the roof to reach the lampstand.

He spotted the lampstand. It was on the roof, and it would be easy enough for the mice to climb up.

As soon as the game started, the rats stopped chattering. Even the most lively ones went silent, focusing on finding places to hide.

Yan Jiyun thought, Isn’t this just a rat version of hide-and-seek? This was a game he knew well.

He had accidentally stumbled into his specialty. Ah… such pure enjoyment.

Just by listening to the faint sounds, he could already map out the positions of all thirty rats in his mind.

He knew some would run while he caught others, and some would try to sneak up to the roof during the chaos.

A drawn-out guerrilla approach wasn’t worth it. Better to finish it quickly, take them all down before they could react.

He focused early on the area where most of them had just scattered and quickly caught several mice that hadn’t fully hidden yet.

The loudspeaker in the rat house announced:

“Rat No.13 eliminated.”

“Rat No.25 eliminated.”

“Rat No.10 eliminated.”

…

Yan Jiyun really didn’t want to keep playing with rats anymore. He had never seen so many gathered in one place in his life.

He caught them one after another. Out of thirty, he swiftly reduced them to twenty, all in all, it’s an impressive record.

The rats had zero sense of enjoyment left. All they wanted was to hide deeper!

They had no choice but to discuss sending their fastest runner to the roof to touch the lampstand. But as soon as one set out, the black cat pinned it down with a single paw. Worse still, the cat had a wicked streak and even stepped on their tails.

They could have reported the black cat for harming them, but the cat kept things just within limits. It had no intention of tearing them apart.

The black cat threatened, “No matter how well you hide, I’ll find you. If you don’t want to be dangled upside down, come out yourselves.”

Oh god, the black cat could actually talk to them!

One rat retorted, “No way!”

Fine. Yan Jiyun dragged that defiant rat out from the second hole. He hadn’t harmed it, but that didn’t mean he lacked other methods.

The rat that challenged his authority wailed under his paw, “I-I surrender! Don’t eat me, ahhh!”

The defeated rat disappeared immediately.

The black cat turned to the remaining nine rats. “Are you coming out yourselves, or do you want me to chase you down?”

The nine rats knew they had no chance. One by one, they crawled out.

“Alright, alright, we’re coming out.”

“If anyone drags me into playing with a black cat again, I’ll kill them!”

“I surrender, I surrender.”

“I’m warning you, black cat! You can only pat my head once, no hitting. I don’t want to get stupid.”

The nine little rats lined up, letting the black cat sitting there pat their heads.

Yan Jiyun watched them being so lively and so expressive, almost as intelligent as humans. He just didn’t know whether they were truly NPCs.

He casually tested them, “Go back and do your homework properly.”

The remaining rats that hadn’t been tapped yet said, “Can you not bring up homework? We finally—※※※—”

The rest was completely censored. Yan Jiyun didn’t catch a single word.

So what exactly was special about these rats?

Unable to probe further, he gave the last rat a pat on the head.

Thus, the “Little Rats Climb the Lampstand” game ended.

After clearing all three stages, Yan Jiyun didn’t find it thrilling at all. For someone who had cleared multiple instances solo, this was more like a relaxing game.

[Congratulations, player has won the third game!]

[Want to be Human] livestream channel:

“Damn, that’s it? Why do I feel like Kitty Baby thinks this game is boring?”

“Same. It clearly doesn’t want to play with the rats and thinks the whole thing is childish.”

“But actually, for normal players without Mimi’s hearing and reflexes, the punishment would be severe. At the first stage, no one can outrun the rats. At the second stage, whack-a-mole at that speed? Impossible to react in time. But Mimi could predict and react early. Third stage is an upgraded version of the first. How would normal players even catch rats? Some girls would scream just seeing them. There were also a lot of traps in the room, but Mimi cleared it too fast and avoided everything. Normally, we’d see some pretty bloody scenes.”

“Thanks for the analysis! Honestly, I’ve been watching it like a cartoon since the first stage. My dad just walked in and asked why I’m watching such childish cartoons… I really want to tell him it’s actually a horror game livestream…”

Yan Jiyun quickly switched his Human Form Time Card. The next second, he returned to the original room in human form.

The rat-costumed dealer looked surprised. “Congratulations on winning all three games.”

She removed 30 small cards and spread the remaining 22 on the table. “Please draw your card.”

Yan Jiyun picked one without hesitation and flipped it over immediately.

The dealer’s voice tightened slightly. “Congratulations, this is an information card. The information is contained within the image on the card.”

The card depicted a rat wearing a crown and holding a scepter, looking extremely imposing.

‘What an ugly rat.’

‘Can’t they make it a black cat with a crown and scepter instead? That would look way cooler.’

1
T/N: So, the game is actually “Whack-a-Mole”, but in Chinese, the game is called “打地鼠” which translate directly to “hit/whack rat/mouse”. Mole is 鼹鼠, and the last character does mean rat/mouse, so the CN game name probably is a shortened version (if it is adapted from the Western ver). Therefore, I’m translating it to “Whack-a-Rat” because there’s no actual moles involved here