Chương 20: 20 - Fear
Finally, the countdown to the release of Residual Devil Chapter 02 had come to an end. Streamers and Players across Sandstone Bay were excited as they clicked to download the second chapter, a feeling of jubilation many had never felt in their lives! Waiting for a new game from a famous Developer to be released was something many had experienced, especially Rank E Players, but waiting for a game to release a new update was something they had never experienced.
Usually Players would just discover one game, play it for a few days until the training efficiency of it diminished to the point where it was no longer useful, and then move on to play another game that had more new stuff. But strangely, for most of them, even if they played Residual Devil for several hours, the amount of improvement they received from training in that game was still relatively good, especially for the more fearful players. And on top of that, the game had something they had never experienced before: a very fun story!
So, for the first time for many players, even though the game didn't have such a huge improvement for them, they were still very excited to keep playing and find out what was going to happen next.
Amoura had just downloaded Chapter 02 and logged into the game again.
"Well done everyone. I'll try to complete the beginning part again as soon as possible, so maybe we can experience a bit of Chapter 02 history later today!" Amoura said excitedly as she looked at the game's loading screen.
But to her surprise, instead of being redirected to the screen where she would have to start over, as she imagined, the game had saved her last attempt in Casual mode where she had left off at the end of Chapter 01, but beside it was a message:
[Chapter 02 added!]
This made her a little confused. She thought that she would have to start playing the Casual game again until she reached the end of Chapter 01, as well as have to play the game's prologue and then play the Demo content again, as she understood that Developers needed Mana from the players to get stronger. But to her surprise, EA apparently was a very conscientious and magnanimous Developer and had actually added Chapter 02 directly to the game she had played right where she left off at the end of Chapter 01, where she could continue playing without having to spend several more hours playing until she reached it!
'Won't EA receive less Mana because of this?' Amoura thought, a little worried.
Not quite sure how to decide what to do next, Amoura decided to ask the viewers.
"Guys, it looks like EA didn't require me to play Chapter 01 again to get to Chapter 02 and I can continue playing through my previous game to find out the story of Chapter 02... What do you think I should do? Continue playing in my Casual mode game or continue with the 'Insane' mode game I had played for a few minutes to try this out on hard mode?" she asked.
[Woah, I thought everyone would have to play Chapter 01 again to get to Chapter 02, since that way EA would get more Mana, but he let us play that directly?!]
[Hey, I even feel bad for EA, I think even though I'm curious I'll start playing over again to give him more Mana…]
[Amoura, don't wait, first find out how the story works in Casual mode, then play in 'Insane' mode from the beginning and experience everything in a more difficult way, that way you can both experience the new story directly, as well as help EA giving him even more Mana as a thank you!]
[Yes, I loved the idea of the previous comment!]
[I think I will also do as this person said!]
[Thankfully, as I'm a Rank E player with a lot of Mana, I already finished Chapter 01 in 'Insane' mode, so I can experience Chapter 02 in 'Insane' mode directly hehe!]
[So jealous!]
[I'm also jealous…]
When players who were doing SpeedRuns saw that they could use the game they had completed in 'Insane' mode directly to play Chapter 02, they were very happy, as many Rank E players already had more than 5 Mana Units, which meant that they could play at least 5 hours without stopping, and if they stopped to meditate, they could still play a few more hours. So, many of the Rank E Players had already finished the game in 'Insane' mode and still had Mana to play for a few more hours in Chapter 02!'
But despite having completed Chapter 02 in 'Insane' mode, many players decided that they would play this new chapter first in 'Casual' mode, as they were afraid that if they died because they didn't know the enemies they would face and would have to start all over again.
Seeing that viewers in the chat were recommending that she play the game in Casual mode anyway, Amoura decided that after completing Chapter 02 in Casual mode she would play through it all again in 'Insane' mode to encourage EA to continue developing the game.
Clicking to start, Amoura found herself again in front of a bridge, the bridge that would take her to the castle. Without thinking twice, Amoura started walking across the bridge and entered the castle.
The first place she passed was a corridor lit by a few torches. This corridor was quite narrow, something that made her a little uncomfortable for a few seconds of walking until she finally arrived in a room. This room looked something like a storeroom, filled with sacks of grain and a few barrels of liquor, which the people of the castle would probably have stored to eat.
"So there really are humans in the castle, since monsters aren't supposed to eat that kind of stuff, right?" Amoura commented as she looked around, "But those things could have been left by the humans who lived here before the monsters invaded and took over."
Looking around, she saw a door, but unfortunately that door was locked.
'Maybe it has a key,' she deduced, and turned to look for the key. But Amoura's heart froze when she saw a man walking towards her.
"This is the man who appears to be human and lives in the castle!" Amoura said excitedly to the viewers, so that the man could not hear what she said.
"Well, I didn't think there was anyone left," the man said as he walked towards her.
Amoura was surprised by what the man said, imagining that the man was happy to have seen another human alive. But something shocked her; all of the metal pieces that were scattered on the floor began to levitate around the man as he walked towards her.
"You must be pretty strong, huh?" the man asked.
"Who are you?" Amoura asked the confusing man.
"Ah, so you're not from around here." The man lifted his head and looked into her eyes. "Even better!"
When the man finished saying that, he raised his left hand and pointed it at her.
Player instincts from Amoura, who had dealt with several Rank E monsters in the last mission, made her feel that something was wrong as she tried to raise her weapon, but before she could react, an iron rod flew towards her and penetrated with ease straight through her abdomen, making Amoura's heart race!
"What is happening?" She tried to grasp the spear that had been stuck in her belly. She pulled on it desperately, but more pieces of metal started flying towards her and sticking all over her body as she knelt down in pain and despair.
"Mother Miranda will love you… haha!" the man said, laughing as he stood very close to Amoura.
Amoura was getting very desperate. This was the first time she had been in such a desperate situation since she started playing Residual Devil. The only situations close to this were when Chris killed her husband and she couldn't do anything, or when she was surrounded by monsters in the city for the first time and had to flee.
Finally the last piece of metal stuck to her, but to her shock, it hit her hard on the head, making her head go dizzy and knocked her character out. Amoura didn't know what to make of her black vision.
"I died?" she wondered, uncertainly.
[Woah, WTF, how would that be possible to survive this man?!]
[Wasn't that man supposed to help the players?! How did he become a villain all of a sudden?]
[Guys, haven't you noticed that this man is controlling metal?! EA is only an F Rank Developer, how was he able to create a monster that controls Metal?!!!!!!!!!!]
[Damn, I hadn't thought of that!!!]
[Good thing you're not playing on 'Insane' difficulty, Amoura, otherwise it would be Game Over, Haha!]
[Did you do something wrong?]
Amoura was still confused by what happened, until the scene in front of her started to change, with some pieces of metal falling around, but she soon felt that something was strange.
Feeling pain in her wrist and stomach, Amoura realized that she was bound by the wrist and being dragged away by the man she thought had killed her.
"Uhhhg…" Amoura moaned a little from the pain she was feeling.
Even if this was just a game, she still felt some of the pain the character was feeling, so that everything was as real as possible for the players and that they got used to it for missions, but this was the first time she felt it would be great to be able to turn off the pain option.
Worried about where the man was taking her, Amoura tried to lift her head, but the man just turned back and said to her while still carrying her body.
"Stop crying! We're almost there."
Hearing the man's mocking tone, Amoura felt very angry with him, who she initially thought was an ally, but she had another feeling - fear. She was afraid of the place the man was taking her.
But her body was very weak. Without her noticing it, Amoura fell unconscious again, only waking up to the sound of a female voice speaking near her.
"That woman is good for nothing… and my daughters happen to love to entertain outsiders."
"Furthermore I warrant that if we entrust this woman to House Dimitrescu, my daughters and I would privilege the vials of her sacrificed blood."
Confused and scared, Amoura opened her eyes to understand what was going on, but to her shock, there was a macabre doll pacing back and forth as she looked at her.
As she slowly stood up, a strange hunchbacked monster with a disfigured body and face came very close to her and started sniffing her body, making Amoura even more scared and uncomfortable.
"Get out of the way ugly thing! I want to see!"
To Amoura's surprise, the doll started screaming at the deformed monster that was smelling her, scaring the monster away from her, something she didn't know whether to be grateful for or even more scared by.
"She woke up!"
The doll was euphoric as it jumped back and forth with an annoying voice.
"Shut up!" a man shouted angrily.
"You'll fuck with her on the sly. Where's the fun in that?"
Hearing this, Amoura's heart froze. For a second she even thought if she should turn off the game and stop playing it, since if that really happened she definitely wouldn't want to continue playing.
But thinking about EA, who had made such an interesting story so far, Amoura decided to give him a vote of confidence and continue trying the game, hoping that something as terrible as that really wasn't going to happen. But without her realizing it, the fear she was feeling in those last few minutes of Chapter 02 was already greater than several hours when she had been playing Chapter 01, and it was greatly affecting her learning speed in this game!
//NunuNote//
Current Rank: 6!!
WE ENDED THE WEEK ON TOP 6!!! OMG, I NEVER IMAGINE THAT WE WILL GET THERE SO FAST!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to the Top 6, you will get 3 Bonus Chapters today!!!!
Lets reach Top 5 for the next week?! It means more extra chapters on next sunday!!
Your gift is the motivation for my creation, give me motivation!
Your Bonus Chapter are down here!!!! :DD
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