Outside the window, the previously clear starry night became densely covered with dark clouds. The village plunged into a death-like silence, and even the chirping of insects stopped. Every household lit their candles simultaneously. Regardless of age or gender, everyone stood rigidly in front of their windows, expressionless.
Night blurred the colors. At a glance, people looked like portraits pasted on the wall. Nol recognized familiar faces among them—people who had nodded at him with smiles during the day. Now, they stared outside their windows without blinking, as if there was something in the void more important than their lives.
The moment the alarm sounded, Teest woke up almost immediately. He jumped up smoothly and put one hand on the Betrayer.
"Everyone's gone? But I'm still…" Muttering halfway, Teest took a sharp breath and didn't continue.
Nol also realized—under the curse's influence, the system completely ignored the Player "Teest".
The dark clouds in the sky continued to gather, changing from a deep lead gray to a suffocating black, as if the night sky had been torn open. A fog gradually arose in the village, and lovely wildflowers all sank into the milky base of the mist.
A lingering scent of grass remained in the breeze, but Nol smelled the scent of death amidst it. It was heavy and sickly sweet, mixed with the aroma of mud and rust.
He didn't see anything, but a chill ran down his spine, and his hair stood on end.
"Run!" Nol decided immediately.
Teest grabbed his money pouch, already rushing to the door.
Unlike the oppressive feeling of the Lich, they instinctively knew that they couldn't resist whatever was coming. Neither of them wanted to waste precious escape time out of mere curiosity.
Exiting through the back door of Mrs. Petty's house, the stables were just a few steps away. If Nol remembered correctly, there were at least four horses in the stable. They should have enough time.
Teest, untroubled by the darkness, moved like a shadow across the living room, running swiftly and lightly. However, Nol slowed down—
Mrs. Petty stood by the window, dressed in her nightgown, tightly holding her baby. A dim candlelight flickered behind her. A fly landed on her face, slowly crawling over her moist eyeball.
Nol gritted his teeth, hesitated for a split second, then turned. He hoisted the tall Mrs. Petty onto his shoulders. Her body was still warm, her heart still beating, but she was rigid, like a mannequin from a store, as if her joints had lost the ability to bend.
The baby was held so tightly by Mrs. Petty that it seemed welded to her chest.
Carrying Mrs. Petty, Nol continued towards the back door.
Even if his attributes were suppressed by the curse, he was still a genuine "monster". It wasn't difficult to take two humans, let alone one of them was a baby.
Teest looked deeply at him, saying nothing.
Soon, they reached the stables.
Despite Teest's frantic efforts—pulling at the reins and even stabbing the horses with the hunting knife—not a single horse moved. Just like the villagers, the horses stood as if enchanted, all staring in the same direction. The night was thick, and their huge pupils were devoid of light.
Teest shook off the blood from his knife and said sarcastically, "What now, run on foot?"
'There's enough time,' Nol thought.
"That thing" was already getting closer. Now they both could see it—it wasn't moving but rather frequently blinking short distances.
A massive figure enveloped in fog stood out. It was about five meters tall, its silhouette resembling a headless slender girl in a skirt. The houses in the mountain village were mostly rough wooden structures. Compared to this giant headless figure, they looked like adorable toys used in a child's pretend game.
The figure in the fog extended its long arms. Its ghostly hands passed through the walls, caressing the stunned villagers. Nol couldn't clearly see the true form of the figure, but he could see the fate of those it touched—
With just a slight touch, the villagers turned into flesh-colored rubble in an instant. The colors of bones, flesh, and hair remained, mixing together and crashing to the ground.
The headless figure swayed, appearing at one house and then another in the next second. It methodically destroyed the village, ensuring not to miss any newborn or elderly.
As people disappeared one after another, the lights in their houses went out, leaving only window holes that looked like skull eye sockets.
We need a solution… We need to think of a solution.
Nol bit his lip, covered in cold sweat. He put down Mrs. Petty and took out the Dragon Corpse Notebook pinned to his waist. He then bit his finger and began scribbling on the blank pages.
"…What are you doing?" Teest's voice was hoarse.
"I'm not sure," Nol said rapidly, no longer bothering to hide his eyes that shone with an inhuman blue light. "You can run first."
Teest was silent for a few seconds, crossing his arms. He didn't speak or run. He just leaned against a pillar in the stable, waiting quietly.
Nol attempted to depict the "short distance teleportation" spell from the game. Instead of runes or magic circles, he used programming information.
He understood the underlying logic of these spells and even knew the algorithm the developers use for pseudo-random numbers—all the healing and fireball spells he used before were outside the skill list of undead monsters, but he hacked them out by using this method.
The higher the magic level, the more complex the algorithm. With limited conditions, Nol could only reproduce the simplest spells. Honestly, "short distance teleportation" wasn't simple, but it was their best choice right now. "Flight" and "long distance teleportation" were overwhelmingly complex.
After completing the "short distance teleportation" with three pages of blood writing, the programming language automatically turned into runes, forming a complex and beautiful magic circle. He looked up and saw that two-thirds of the houses in the village had already gone dark.
He took a deep breath and activated the magic circle.
Insufficient mana. Activation failed.
"..."
Damn it. He had hoped the Dragon Corpse Notebook itself would be excellent casting material and might make up for the mana deficit.
The system wasn't that flexible.
Without wasting time on regret, Nol began to write again. Just as he was trying to modify the algorithm for "short distance teleportation", the system voice echoed in his ears—
[Warning! Warning! Modifying game settings is strictly prohibited!]
At this moment, only a few houses in the village still had lights on.
Nol almost cursed out loud.
It was the simplest teleportation magic, yet he didn't have the mana and couldn't modify it. Letting Teest cast it wasn't an option; Nol was well aware of the "intelligence" of a Fallen Knight. If Teest cast it, they would teleport only a few hundred meters at most, which was no better than running.
Stay calm. It's just a problem.
Like the Lich Valdorlock… Valdorlock?
"Valdorlock is a Lich, so why doesn't he have necromancy as a skill?" An artist colleague once asked.
"It's sensitive, given he's a professional class boss. We have to consider Players of all age groups… I wish he had necromancy, but flesh and corpses are too sensitive, easily subject to complaints," he had replied then.
"Well, it seems we won't have any necromancers in 'Tahe'."
Screw the complaints.
Nol pressed down with his bloody finger and quickly wrote a new spell.
Having structured the framework and clarified the computing logic. The most important thing was that this spell prioritized drawing magic from the medium of the magic circle. As long as the material was sufficient, the caster only needed to provide one mana to activate.
Blood writing twisted again, forming a new magic circle. Its lines were distorted, looking somewhat eerie. The next moment, the magic circle was activated, and a dim blue light spread over the nearby ground.
Pale horse bones emerged from the ground; their empty eye sockets lit with ghostly flames. Under the moonlight, two skeletal horses walked slowly towards Nol, bowing their heads in submission.
In the village, there was only one house left with lights on.
Teest stared at Nol in shock, his mouth agape, but in the end, he swallowed all his doubts. He swiftly mounted his horse and gave it a hard slap on its rear. The skeletal horse's eyes shone bright blue as it raised its forehoof, emitting a rough neigh, and dashed out like an arrow.
Nol hoisted Mrs. Petty with one arm and likewise mounted the other horse.
The skeletal horse was much faster than a living one. Its hooves lightly grazed the grass tips. With the wind rushing past, the surroundings quickly receded.
The two tacitly spurred their horses southward. The Three Forks Road Village was quickly left behind, but neither dared to stop—not until they had crossed several low mountains and the little novice village completely disappeared from view.
The eastern sky began to brighten, with the sun about to rise. The two skeletal horses watched the horizon warily, their hooves restless. As low-level undead creatures, they would be instantly destroyed by sunlight.
The two had to dismount. As soon as their feet touched the ground, the skeletal horses quickly disintegrated into bones and sank into the ground like shadows.
Teest leaned over, gasping for breath. Nol carefully laid Mrs. Petty on the grass. Her eyes were still wide open, but her body wasn't as stiff.
"Everyone has their little secrets… but honey, you have too many." Teest panted out of breath as he tucked a strand of his messy hair behind his ear.
"Thanks for the compliment," Nol replied, unceremoniously sitting on the grass.
Teest looked at him silently. "Don't you have anything to explain?"
"No," Nol said straightforwardly. "Anyway, you're not going to spend your life with me. We'll part ways soon."
"Alright." Teest shrugged, politely ending the topic.
"But if it's really necessary…" Before Nol could finish, a woman's wail interrupted him.
Mrs. Petty had somehow regained consciousness. She sat slumped on the ground, and the swaddle fell to the side. The swaddle was devoid of any baby, only dry, crumbled clumps of soil remained.
However, Mrs. Petty didn't even look at the swaddle. She stared straight at Nol and Teest, her eyes filled with fear.
It wasn't the panic of an adult survivor. Her gaze was so pure that it was eerie—fitting a five- or six-year-old girl, not a woman in her mid-thirties.
Teest immediately stood up and gripped the Betrayer tightly.
"Who are you? Where am I? Dad! Mom!" Mrs. Petty cried out shrilly, patting the ground. "Dad, Mom—help me! Help me! Wah—!"
She patted the swaddle beside her, causing the dirt clumps to scatter.
The scene was too terrifying that it took Nol a moment to respond. "Mrs. Petty…?"
"Who's Petty? I'm not Petty! I'm Rebecca! Rebecca from Whitebird City!"
She scooted back a couple of steps. Her red hair was a mess, and she started screaming defensively, "…Don't come any closer. My father's a merchant. He's rich. He'll hire people to deal with you!"
Whitebird City was a city-state in the game, so she wasn't his neighbor after all, Nol thought bitterly.
He took a couple of steps back, speaking softly. "Rebecca, right? Don't be afraid, we mean no harm."
"Mage, come here," Teest said.
"She's just frightened," Nol replied. "She might know something…"
"Come here."
Teest's tone was tense, and he quickly approached, grabbing the back of Nol's collar and pulling him several steps back. He then positioned himself in front of Nol, with the Betrayer now in the form of a longsword.
"Fog's coming in," Teest said, holding his sword tightly, his golden eyes fixed on the spot behind Mrs. Petty. "There's fog rising from the meadow."
Nol remained silent.
Amidst the warm dawn, a fog mysteriously rose from the grassland. The fog grew denser and concentrated at one spot. The air rippled familiarly, and a figure obscured by the thick fog appeared behind Mrs. Petty.
A tall, slender, headless girl.
She extended her fog-wrapped arm and gently touched Mrs. Petty's head.
The author has something to say:
Experiencing VR games with skeletons and zombies is truly terrifying, man. At least for me, someone who adores regular horror games, it's just too much.
Levels of horror sensation: Third-person horror game < First-person horror game <<< VR horror game.