Chapter 2 - Virtual World and Reality

When Shu Jun woke up again, he saw the overcast clouds of the night above him.

He wasn’t in the place where he fell into the marsh, and the gigantic marsh was also nowhere to be seen. Surrounding him were rugged rocks, and looking up, the world had only three colours of black, white and grey. It was completely deserted in all directions, with only the deformed monsters pacing slowly in the rocky forest.

Shu Jun was a bit dumbfounded.

His mechanical armour had already fallen apart and his entire upper body was exposed, his wounds still slowly closing. The communication device on his arm was, with much difficulty, making buzzing noises from time to time.

His eyes moved along the shattered metal pieces on his body.

His skin was supposed to be a healthy wheat colour, but now it looked like a layer of dust that carried a mixed shade of pale white and gloomy grey. Shu Jun subconsciously rubbed his arm, which immediately caused some tiny blood marks to appear.

His fingers also didn’t feel right. The nails that were originally neatly trimmed and flat had become sharp, looking a bit like an animal’s claws, and the shade had become opaque black.

Shu Jun grumbled and swallowed hard. He did what all normal people would do — trying to turn on the communication device and contact the administrator.

However, the broken device only rustled and showed no intention to work.

Having lost his goal, Shu Jun slowly lay down and looked up at the night sky. If this was a dream, it should be almost time to wake up. But when he lay down, he didn’t wake up from any dream, rather, he was approached by an animal that had become mutated due to the contamination. Without him knowing, the creature came closer and looked down at him.

Shu Jun and the creature stared at each other for a while. The mutated monster blinked its six eyes that were squeezing together, then its eyeballs crazily rotated and a drop of saliva dripped onto Shu Jun’s face.

Shu Jun: “…”

Too close. This distance wasn’t favourable to control the wind. It was better to drown in the marsh rather than to have his head bitten off by this creature. He quickly looked around but couldn’t catch any glimpse of the hilt of his broadsword.

The mutated monster opened its mouth and the horrible stench from inside was flushed at Shu Jun’s face. As Shu Jun peeked at the creature’s throat and nervously pondered whether he should bite it, the creature made its next move —

It licked Shu Jun steadily.

Seeing that this creature had no intention of attacking, Shu Jun now had the nerve to stretch out his hand and decided to try the only thing on him that could be called a weapon — The claws on his fingertips.

As soon as his hand reached out for only a few centimeters, the mutated monster’s ears recoiled and it ran away.

…The situation was getting more and more ridiculous.

Shu Jun stood up. Except for the fatigue and the pain from his wound, there was nothing wrong with his body. After getting out of this terrible bug, ​​he absolutely must complain to the team behind [Erosion].

He wouldn’t be able to rest on this ground covered in cold mud. There was a cave with a fitting size at the higher part of the rocky forest. Shu Jun threw off his shoes that had almost broken apart and began to climb barefoot onto the peculiar-looking rock, sorting his thoughts while climbing.

[Erosion] had been in operation for many years and always focused on the experience of reality. A bug this serious had never occured before. But what was happening to him right now was that he couldn’t exit the game, the map was flawed and strange things followed one after another. He just wanted to retire early, but how could he know that he would receive this huge ‘benefit package’ of a bug?

Shu Jun took a few deep breaths and moved his neck.

…There must be someone out there who was solving this issue. In any case, he must remain calm. Besides, [Erosion]’s settings were not actually a mainstream apocalypse, so he wouldn’t have to struggle desperately for survival. 

In the settings of [Erosion], the world had been destroyed once. From the furthest regions of the two poles, mankind had revived a special life form, a type of microbe named ‘Erosion’. It accidentally leaked out and spread rapidly, swallowing the whole of human civilisation at a terrifying speed.

This microbe dyed the unliving black and white and caused abnormal mutation in animals, a process that could be called ‘living radiation’. The so-called ‘Erosion Marsh’ was born out of this phenomenon.

Fortunately, the survivors had found a way to deal with it, and the purifier was invented in time to prevent the spread of contamination. The world was now at the initial stage of reviving its civilisation. Compared to a time when humanity was on the verge of destruction, this background made it easier to come up with intriguing ideas for a new era.

Players were the only group with special abilities in the game, who all relied on the coalition government. Most of those who remained on the battlefield were fighters that stood at the front line of purifying the contamination.

Given the game settings, the fighters were equivalent to heroes, and the compensation they received were pretty good. Even if a combat player was trapped in the game, as long as he could get to the NPCs’ stronghold, he would be able to comfortably wait for rescue.

Shu Jun had no idea which aspects of the game the bug had affected. Perhaps I could first pass some information to the outside world?

After pinning down his next goal, Shu Jun was greatly relieved. But the situation still felt a bit odd — there had been no major updates as of late, so how could such a serious problem occur?

Talking about the plot updates of the NPCs, he only recently heard one thing from his teammates. The marshal of the coalition government broke up with his girlfriend who had been with him for many years, however, that sort of minor side plot should never cause the game to crash like this.

Thinking of the marshal of the coalition government, Shu Jun couldn’t help but snort.

The settings of the game weren’t important to combat teams like Shu Jun’s. This NPC might be their boss in name, but he actually rarely appeared. Even when he appeared, the guy never said a word, only showing a pair of emotionless eyes from behind his gas mask.

In the settings, the marshal of the coalition government, Zhu Yanchen, was an extraordinarily talented strategist. He tightly wrapped his body with the uniform, then completely covered the remaining parts with his mask, collar and gloves. Had it not been for the guy’s eyes that always seemed excessively cold, Shu Jun would have thought that he was a robot.

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The planning team had the guts to give this kind of man a girlfriend… even though she was an ex-girlfriend now.

Shu Jun pursed his lips and carefully climbed up to the cave. The rock surface was cold but dry, much better than the muddy ground. The contamination at such heights wasn’t so serious. He breathed in the cool night air and felt as though the burning sensation in his lungs earlier had never existed.

A spot of light travelled through the rocky forest and glimmered above the horizon. There was a high chance that it came from the army inside the game. He would look for their stronghold tomorrow. Knowing his goal for the next day, Shu Jun entered the cave and soon fell asleep.

At the other end of the horizon, there was a mess inside the stronghold.

Zhu Yanchen was sitting at the desk, an aura as cold as an ice sculpture exuding from his whole body. No one would think of entering that suffocating office, but one person was persistently trying to rush in.

“Miss Xia, you can’t go in, the marshal is now… well, not in a good mood.”

“Even if we broke up, he can’t just see me as an enemy.” Xia Liang glanced up, her eyes brimmed with tears: “He needs me, let me see him, please.”

The guard at the door felt a lump in his throat, but in the end, he couldn’t defeat a woman’s tears and let her in. The pretty girl picked up the hem of her skirt, thanked him with a graceful and adorable gesture, then disappeared on the other side of the door.

“Marshal, what’s the matter?” 

As soon as the door closed, Xia Liang’s frail look vanished in an instant and her expression turned icy. She stared at Zhu Yanchen behind the table with an unhappy expression.

“I’ve told you before that this time of the day is when I’m having a date with my girlfriend. You specifically called your ‘ex-girlfriend’ over, so the situation mustn’t be very good.” She said.

“Something has happened to Shu Jun.” Zhu Yanchen said concisely.

Xia Liang crossed her arms, a posture that wasn’t fitting for her image, and frowned: “Aren’t you always discussing strategies with him? Can anything even go wrong with that monster of a combatant?”

“He fell into the marsh for his team to win. I tried to interfere but failed to catch up in time.”

“…” Xia Liang was silent for a moment. “Regrettably, he’ll die with not even a bone left. There’s no way to find him.”

“It’s my mistake.”

Zhu Yanchen lowered his gaze, his handsome face shrouded with dark clouds.

Having pretended to be a couple for several years, Xia Liang had never seen the man showing such obvious emotions. She only liked women. In order to escape the arranged marriage at home, she hit it off with Zhu Yanchen, who wanted to avoid a political marriage. They claimed that they were dating — one of them was a singer who was constantly on shows, the other was a marshall who just wished he could permanently take root in the office. With this, they never had to meet up often, which saved them from the trouble of having to act in front of others.

If it were not for the two families urging them to get married, they wouldn’t throw out the news of breaking up.

Over the years, the two could be considered acquaintances. Marshal Zhu on the opposite side had basically no private life or hobbies; he only worked like a machine day by day. Xia Liang actually thought that this person would never grow any feelings.

Having said that, Shu Jun was Zhu Yanchen’s most powerful humanoid weapon, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t comprehend why the man was showing such emotions.

“Let me just say it, you’ve always paid too much attention to that guy. It’s really a pity that the weapon is broken, but it’s also better to get a new one.” Faced with a familiar person, she couldn’t bother to hide her bad temper. “So, why did you call me over?”

“Shortly after he fell into Erosion Marsh, the marsh also started moving. The situation is unusual.”

“Understood, the higher-ups will definitely pull you in to study this together. You want me to lead the team to look into this privately.”

“Yes. You go with the Fourth Team to investigate this matter.” 

Saying so, Zhu Yanchen took out a chip and put it on the table. “The main reason for calling you over is because of this — The chip to be used for the plan will be in your care now.”

“You still want to continue with the plan? Troublesome. I should have guessed that this day would come when I made the agreement with you.” Xia Liang put the chip into her shoulder bag and gave him a standard military salute: “Roger, Marshal.”

Zhu Yanchen nodded, and those emotions earlier seemed to be just illusions and were gone in a blink. This guy has sealed himself inside a shell again, Xia Liang could see it.

However, their relationship wasn’t yet ‘friends’, while Xia Liang also wasn’t interested in Zhu Yanchen’s personal life and didn’t intend to interrupt. It was just that as a subordinate, she still had to fulfill her responsibilities —

“Oh, by the way, let me remind you something. Since I’ve been transferred to the Fourth Team, I need time to hand over things. No matter how much manpower you’re lacking, someone still has to guide the Blackbird team.”

Before heading out, Xia Liang turned around.

“There are quite a few people who keep in touch with Shu Jun, and we can’t let them find out that —”

“We absolutely can’t let them find out that ‘over there’ is virtual reality, and ‘here’ is reality.”

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