DSMC Chapter 193

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“Holy shit, if Kitty Baby were in cat form right now, his fur would probably be standing completely on end. That’s his owner’s face, after all. At first glance, it’s pretty terrifying.”

“Kitty Baby’s owner is the terrifying one. He took out his own clone quickly, ruthlessly, and accurately. He really did achieve a one-shot kill.”

“There are more and more clones. How are they going to deal with them? Someone ask the experts who’ve watched Top-level instances before how other players used to handle these clones. Players in Top-level instances all came from Hard-level instances, so they’ve got both the skills and the brains for it. But the more clones there are, the worse things will get for them, right?”

“That’s true, but it’s not like there’s no way to deal with the clones. I have a feeling Mimi and his owner have already figured it out.”

“Lure the clones into the game machines and kill them there?”

“I remember Sweet Christmas is an instance where people get eaten. Very few instances in the Top-level games open up. You can’t even get 50 in a day, and plenty of players don’t want to advance to the Top-level. It’s too difficult, and people die too quickly. But high risks come with high rewards, too. Anyone brave enough to enter a Top-level game is a warrior.”

“It’s already the final day. Almost all the players who were dragged in during the second wave have died. Is there really a way out?”

“I’ve been following Kitty Baby’s perspective through this instance, but I missed the earlier parts. Can one of the experts give us a rundown of the plot and what’s going on?”

“There’s actually not much of a plot in this instance. It’s all about fighting the monsters and the clones. If a player gets so frightened that their Sanity value plummeted, it’s basically Game Over for them. Only those who keep their heads can make it to the end.”

Qi Feng truly showed no mercy when it came to himself. Compared with the player he’d seen earlier, who had been wildly swinging a knife around, Yan Jiyun felt that Qi Feng had a much stronger and more steadfast mind. His willingness to shoot a clone without hesitation proved that he was clearheaded and capable of making rational judgments.

Yan Jiyun picked up one of the black cats and stepped back, putting some distance between himself and fake Qi Feng.

He then glanced around. Apart from the player who had lost his sanity and was fighting with his clone, there was no one else around.

Qi Feng naturally couldn’t tell which of the two was the clone, so he hadn’t shot either of them. Before long, both men disappeared.

It wasn’t that Yan Jiyun was unwilling to save the player, either. He didn’t know that player and couldn’t tell which one was the clone. Acting rashly would only bring him more trouble.

After retreating, Yan Jiyun put down the black cat, gritted his teeth, and ventured back out into the corridor. He dragged fake Qi Feng behind the counter of a shop and covered his face with some clothing.

He wanted to keep using this spot to lure out the other fake Qi Fengs. There were still two of them left.

They were all in danger. Aside from Qi Feng, even the more capable players had no idea how many clones were out there. Even though Qi Feng had entered earlier than Yan Jiyun, he still didn’t know the current situation. The numbers kept changing.

The only thing that hadn’t changed was the current death toll among the players.

They had heard the scream of the player from earlier, but the overall number hadn’t changed. So, it was possible that both of those men had been clones.

The situation was changing constantly. This was too difficult.

Yan Jiyun and Qi Feng had the same idea: deal with their own clones first, then find trustworthy players and work together to eliminate the rest.

For now, that was just their plan. Whether it would work depended on how well the two of them cooperated.

Yan Jiyun was certain that there wasn’t a second fake Qi Feng nearby at the moment. He didn’t know where the other one was hiding and deceiving people. Since the second fake Qi Feng wasn’t showing up, they’d have to go looking for him. They couldn’t just sit around waiting for the enemy to appear. They needed to take the initiative.

Yan Jiyun pointed toward a technology shop on the fourth floor.

A shopping mall was a good place to be. It had everything.

Once he calmed down, he realized that the mall offered them plenty of useful equipment. Weapons designed to kill weren’t the only things that could be helpful.

On the fourth floor, Yan Jiyun had spotted the electronics section. There was a mobile phone shop, a drone shop, and a walkie-talkie shop that was easy to overlook.

However, the game was deliberately making things difficult for the players. All the phones in the mobile shop and all the drones in the drone shop were just models.

Yan Jiyun found walkie-talkies in a shop next door. Surprisingly, their batteries actually worked.

He grabbed a bag and collected as many walkie-talkies as he could carry. After tuning two of them to the same channel, he checked that no one was around and returned to the secret base he shared with Qi Feng.

Qi Feng was still lying prone on the floor, using the gun in his hands to watch the area around the mall. He looked up and asked Yan Jiyun, “Why are you back?”

Yan Jiyun handed him one of the walkie-talkies with the channel already set. “I brought you something good.”

“A walkie-talkie?” A flicker of surprise crossed Qi Feng’s eyes.

When they’d first entered, they’d been relentlessly hunted by all kinds of monsters and clones. In the process of outsmarting their enemies and fighting for survival, they’d forgotten to look for the most basic equipment.

“That’s right. But first, we need to establish a code phrase. Once another clone appears, the secret code becomes invalid.” Yan Jiyun had to think things through carefully. They needed to guard against the clones inheriting their memories. His own copies were all cats, so there was no need to worry about that. Qi Feng’s clones, however, inherited the original’s memories, so they had to be cautious.

What’s the code phrase, then?” Since the idea had come from Yan Jiyun, Qi Feng left the decision to him.

Yan Jiyun thought for a moment. “Makka Pakka?”

Qi Feng vaguely remembered coming across it while scrolling through videos on his phone. He said quite seriously, “Then whenever I call you, I’ll say ‘Makka Pakka’ first. You do the same when you call me.”

Yan Jiyun suddenly burst out laughing. Watching Qi Feng say “Makka Pakka” with such a solemn expression, he struggled to contain his amusement and nodded enthusiastically. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm!”

Actually, saying “Makka Pakka” felt inexplicably embarrassing.

Yan Jiyun handed all the other walkie-talkies he’d found to Qi Feng. He figured that if he went out later and turned into a cat, carrying them around would probably be a hassle. It was better to leave them all with Qi Feng.

They needed to relocate now. There were no clones of Qi Feng in this area.

Building D was also some distance away from Buildings A, B, and C.

The two walked as they discussed their plans.

Yan Jiyun said, “I dealt with Chu Mo’s and Wen Ye’s clones in the City of Sin. If they don’t have any other clones, I think we can work with them.”

Qi Feng said, “If we run into them, we can give each of them a walkie-talkie.”

“Sounds good. I’ve met both of them before, so I shouldn’t mistake them for their clones.”

Chu Mo had cooperated reasonably well with them during the Peak Competition, so he was someone they could potentially work with.

Qi Feng asked, “How will we tell the difference?”

Yan Jiyun gestured toward Xiao Hei, who was following him. “They carry the same scent as these cats. We just need to bring them along.”

Qi Feng was skeptical. He’d never imagined that Caramel’s copies could be used to get things done. Once again, he realized that he really wasn’t a very good cat owner. Cats needed their owner’s trust, too, if they were going to work together.

Yan Jiyun deliberately walked a little faster, putting about a hundred meters between himself and Qi Feng to test the walkie-talkies.

Yan Jiyun: “Makka Pakka, can you hear me?”

Qi Feng: “Makka Pakka, I hear you.”

Yan Jiyun: “Makka Pakka, hahaha, this is so funny!”

Qi Feng: “Someone’s coming.”

Yan Jiyun stopped laughing. “Copy that.”

He’d already heard footsteps earlier, but they were still some distance away, so he could afford to fool around with Qi Feng a little longer.

They had now reached Building C. The two of them were positioned inside a cosmetics supermarket that straddled the space between Buildings C and D. It was a single-story store, with Yan Jiyun walking in front and Qi Feng following behind.

When Yan Jiyun had rushed off to find Qi Feng earlier, he’d taken the elevated walkway on the second floor. Now they were traveling through the first floor, which was far more brutal than the second.

There were drag marks made of blood on the floor, and the stench of blood was particularly strong. It wasn’t just human blood, either. There was also the blood of monsters he’d never seen before.

Curious, he glanced at the 2m-tall monster lying in the corner. Its head was missing. He had no idea who had chopped it off, but whoever had done it was impressive.

Yan Jiyun crouched behind the last row of shelves, keeping his body low and trying to conceal himself as much as possible.

Footsteps — two heavy steps followed by one light one — were drawing closer.

Since they were on the first floor, Qi Feng couldn’t conveniently use his sniper rifle. He took a mobile phone out of his item inventory instead. If anything dangerous happened, he could knock the other party down immediately.

There were three people.

They were clearly terrified. Two men and one woman. One of them appeared to be injured.

It wasn’t that Yan Jiyun’s nose was so sensitive that he could smell the injury. Rather, he heard one of them making a low, hissing sound of pain, while their companions tried to comfort them.

The uninjured male player said, “Yin Zi, hang in there. I remember skincare shops like this usually have clean cotton cloth. We can use some to give your wound a quick treatment.”

The woman replied weakly, “Mm.”

The other player, who had remained silent, was already searching the shelves for the medical supplies they needed, such as gauze and alcohol.

Yan Jiyun guessed that they’d probably run out of the medical supplies they’d brought with them.

This shitty game was such a rip-off. Half of the offensive props players brought into the game could be reused after a cooldown period, but medical supplies, protective props, and the like were all consumables. Once they were used up, they were gone.

He glanced at the various wound medicines and stomach medicines in his own item inventory and felt a little more at ease.

As for the defensive and offensive props that were practically useless decorations, he had brought fewer of those this time. The medicine already occupied two-thirds of his item inventory slots.

The skincare supermarket was small, laid out in an L shape. A little farther ahead was the route to Building C. The three people had probably passed Qi Feng without noticing him. However, Yan Jiyun wasn’t in a good position to hide. There were only two shelves in front of him that could conceal his body, and they were stocked entirely with bottles rather than large items. If the person rummaging through them moved quickly enough, Yan Jiyun would be exposed in no time.

The silent man searched through the items at an impressive speed, making it obvious how anxious he was.

From behind, Yan Jiyun got a look at him. He was a buzz-cut man wearing a black tracksuit. He was drawing closer and closer, and just as Yan Jiyun thought he was about to be discovered, the man’s searching hand suddenly stopped.

The man in the black tracksuit turned to the injured woman and the player supporting her. “There’s no cotton cloth or alcohol on the shelves.”

From the side, Yan Jiyun could see the impatience written all over the man’s face. His frantic rummaging just now had probably been for show. Was this a clone?

Yan Jiyun had spotted a large pack of alcohol wipes to the man’s left. These prepackaged wipes should be sterile, so they ought to be fine for cleaning around the edges of a wound. Farther along were pure cotton facial towels. They were all individually unwrapped, but there was no sign that any of them had been used.

Either this man thought his teammate was a burden, or he was a clone who had no intention of saving anyone.

Yan Jiyun pondered it for a moment before reaching a conclusion. It came down to the same problem: he didn’t know any of the players in the Top-level game, and he had no intention of sticking his nose into other people’s business. He decided to slip away.

The man in the black tracksuit deliberately rummaged through some other shelves for a while, then repeated that he hadn’t found anything. The other male player didn’t believe him, so he rushed over to search for himself.

Yan Jiyun pressed his back against the shelves along the wall. If the other player came just a little closer, the two of them would practically end up nose to nose.

There was definitely a clone among these three people.

Yan Jiyun planned to slip out through the aisle before the other player reached him.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t transform back into his black cat form right now, and the place was too small. The other man still spotted him.

The player was a tall, thin man with very pale skin. Under the supermarket lights, his face looked frighteningly white, and the dark circles under his eyes were so heavy that he resembled the kind of man described in novels as having his yang energy drained by a female ghost. His gaze was unsettling, and his eyes were uneven in size.

Yan Jiyun heard the female player call this man, who looked as though he lacked yang energy, Yang-ge.

Yang-ge got straight to the point. “Player or clone?”

Yan Jiyun put on a pitiful expression. “Please spare me! I’m a player, definitely not a clone.”

Whether Yang-ge asked or not didn’t really make much difference. It was obvious that he didn’t believe Yan Jiyun’s explanation.

The man in the black tracksuit walked over and declared with absolute certainty, “Anyone still wandering around outside at this hour can’t possibly be a player. He’s a clone!”

Yan Jiyun stood up and smiled at the man in the black tracksuit. “Buddy, you saw those disinfectant wipes just now, but you didn’t give any to your companion. Doesn’t that make you look more like a clone?”

He even deliberately pointed toward the wipes. “Look, there are several packs stacked right here.”

With just one sentence, he changed Yang-ge’s opinion of the man in the black tracksuit.

Following Yan Jiyun’s gaze, Yang-ge spotted the disinfectant wipes on the shelf, along with several other items that could serve as makeshift medical supplies.

He grabbed a brow razor from the shelf beside him and pointed it at the man in the black tracksuit. “You’re a clone!”

The man in the black tracksuit didn’t bother hiding his identity. He abruptly shoved over the shelf beside Yang-ge and Yan Jiyun, then took off running. Yan Jiyun, who had been planning to leave himself, hadn’t even had time to get away.

Yang-ge didn’t chase after the clone. Instead, he turned a wary gaze toward Yan Jiyun.

Yan Jiyun followed the direction in which the clone had fled. The two black cats hiding in the corner followed him as well.

Yang-ge was startled when he saw the two black cats dart out of the corner.

Although the woman leaning against the shelves was injured, her mind was still sharp. “Where did those black cats come from?”

“I don’t know,” Yang-ge replied. “It’s my first time seeing someone bring cats along while playing a game.”

The woman was too weak to do anything more than roll her eyes at him. “That proves he’s a player, not a clone. No clone would waste time looking for cats to play with.”

Yang-ge quickly treated the wound on the woman’s arm. The two of them glanced in the direction Yan Jiyun had left.

“But that brings us back to your question,” the woman said. “Why is he the only one with cats?”

Meanwhile, Qi Feng, who was hiding behind a curtain, tightened his grip on the dagger in his hand. He wanted to ask the same question. Those were supposed to be copies of his own cat, yet not a single one of them was attached to him. What exactly was he lacking that made him so unattractive to kittens? Could it be that raising Caramel had been nothing more than a fluke?

While Qi Feng was once again questioning his abilities as a cat owner, Yan Jiyun had already rushed into Building C.

Compared with Building D, Building C was clearly much livelier.

He could hear running footsteps and heavy, labored breathing.

Just as he was looking for somewhere to hide, a piece of black cloth came flying straight at him. Fortunately, he reacted in time, quickly sliding sideways to avoid the enormous piece of fabric.

“Little brat, you’ve ruined my plan!”

Yan Jiyun looked at the person who had thrown the black cloth at him. It turned out to be the man in the black tracksuit.

“So what? If you hadn’t done it, no one would have suspected you. If you’d just acted a little more convincingly, who would’ve questioned you?”

As though he were genuinely regretful, Yan Jiyun even offered the man some advice. “Look at me. I’m different. I’ve already earned the real one’s complete trust.”

“You’re a clone too?” The man in the black tracksuit looked confused, unsure whether Yan Jiyun was telling the truth.

After all, he hadn’t encountered anyone using this tactic before. The clones were all busy proving that they were the real deal, while the real players were busy figuring out which people around them were clones. Everyone was practically going insane from the constant suspicion and confusion. Someone openly admitting to being a clone was unheard of — especially when he sounded so utterly convincing.

“Of course I am. Otherwise, how do you think I’ve survived this long, Ge? If you want to be a clone, you have to know how to act. You have to make your performance so convincing that no one would ever suspect you. Don’t doubt me, I’m sharing my experience with you here.”

Yan Jiyun spoke with an utterly serious expression. “But whether you’re a clone or not, you still have to die. Only clones who survive until the very end can receive the rewards that belong to us.”

The man in the black tracksuit swept his right leg toward Yan Jiyun. He had other weapons on him, too, including a long, thin chain. He whipped it straight at Yan Jiyun’s head. As it was about to strike, he smiled triumphantly.

But his smile had barely begun to spread beyond the corners of his mouth when Yan Jiyun raised his gun without hesitation and pulled the trigger, aiming directly between the man’s eyebrows.

“So you’re the one who has to die. Thanks for providing me with an important clue.”

It turned out there was a reason the clones were working so hard to eliminate both players and their own kind.

If they survived until the very end, the system would reward them too?

Why would NPCs need rewards?

Did that mean they weren’t conventional system NPCs?

Another question surfaced in Yan Jiyun’s mind. Were the NPCs in the game he was playing really just data, or were they part of another independently generated world?

He looked at the clone lying dead in front of him, and his thoughts grew momentarily unsettled.

[Your Sanity Value has decreased by 5 points.]

[Current Sanity Value: 92]

Yan Jiyun took a deep breath. He could hear someone approaching from another direction, so he quickly found somewhere to hide.

At the same time, Qi Feng’s steady voice came through the walkie-talkie. “Makka Pakka, have you dealt with the clone?”

Hearing Qi Feng’s voice helped Yan Jiyun relax considerably.

He let out a sigh of relief. “He’s taken care of. He said that clones who survive until the end will receive a reward from the game, Makka Pakka.”

Qi Feng suddenly said, “Understood. By the way, you did a pretty convincing job pretending to be a clone just now.”

The corners of Yan Jiyun’s lips lifted slightly. “Thanks for the compliment.”

‘Thank you for trusting me.’

[Your Sanity Value has increased by 3 points.]

[Current Sanity Value: 95]