Chapter Forty-Four: GM

The moment Chen Hao turned his face, he witnessed a scene that surprised both him and Viviane. Behind each massive stone, several people were hiding, each brandishing a very peculiar weapon. Judging by their appearance, if Chen Hao wasn’t mistaken, these must have been the earliest firearms known to mankind—matchlock guns.

Moreover, these figures concealed behind the stones were unmistakably human, not any other kind of creature. This realization brought Chen Hao a sense of relief. Thankfully, they were humans. Since he himself was human, he could at least count himself as one of their kind, and considering Viviane was an elf—whose relationship with humans was generally friendly—there should be no danger to their lives.

But why were so many armed humans lying in ambush here? Could it be that they were specifically targeting those who had been capturing Viviane? That didn’t quite make sense. After all, he and Viviane had only fled in this direction on a whim. If, upon escaping her cage, Viviane had chosen to fly to the other side of the canyon, she might have ended up moving in the opposite direction, and those strange creatures—whatever their race—would have chased after her. In that case, the humans lying in wait here would have been wasting their efforts.

Unless... A new possibility dawned on Chen Hao: surely these weren’t the only humans in the area. Besides those hiding behind the stones with firearms, there must be other companions elsewhere. Perhaps another group of humans lay in ambush on the opposite side of the canyon, also armed and hidden. Initially, they might have planned to attack the monsters chasing after him and Viviane from the canyon’s edge. But the unexpected arrival of Chen Hao and Viviane had forced them to change their plans, abandoning their original ambush points and retreating to new positions.

And in fact, this worked greatly to their advantage, since the monsters, desperate to catch Chen Hao and Viviane, had all abandoned their swift mounts. They’d already burned a lot of energy climbing up the canyon, and the ensuing chase had drained them further. Though stronger than ordinary humans, these monsters were not like Chen Hao, who seemed immune to fatigue—a quirk of being a “bug” in the system. After all, these monsters were still programs created by Unreal Company’s developers, and to maintain realism, even they had been programmed with a degree of fatigue.

After enough exertion, their physical capabilities would inevitably diminish, slowing them down. At this thought, Chen Hao was genuinely grateful to Unreal Company for designing the game with such realism, giving him, the “bug,” a precious opportunity. Without this, he and Viviane might have already been captured.

But now, that worry seemed unnecessary. It appeared he and Viviane had found allies, while the monsters chasing them were about to be in serious trouble. The roles had reversed: the humans hidden behind the stones far outnumbered the monsters in pursuit.

Chen Hao quickly pulled Viviane behind a boulder, raised his hands high to show he meant no harm. The humans clearly did not regard Chen Hao and Viviane as enemies or threats. They simply gestured for silence, one of them stealing a few extra glances at Viviane.

Chen Hao wasn’t surprised. Viviane, after all, was an elf—creatures who rarely left their forest homelands, as she’d told him during their last meeting. So, it made sense that the humans would be curious about her; perhaps some had never even seen an elf in person before.

More importantly, the human scrutinizing Viviane was a woman, and an attractive one at that. Though perhaps not as adorably lively as Viviane, she possessed a mature allure. If Viviane was the image of youthful innocence, this woman exemplified graceful confidence.

But Chen Hao had no time for such thoughts—a non-player character, no matter how beautiful, was still just an NPC. He gestured his thanks and, with Viviane, hunkered down behind the large rock, awaiting whatever would happen next.

Yet, Chen Hao overlooked one detail: if this were just an ordinary NPC, how could she display such curiosity toward Viviane?

Chen Hao and Viviane could see that almost every rock concealed one or two people. All of them gripped thick hemp ropes that stretched to the ground, their presence camouflaged by the yellow soil. Without a word, Chen Hao and Viviane understood the humans’ intent, and anticipation welled up within them.

But another question nagged at Chen Hao: were these human NPCs merely the kind that followed simple scripts and commands, or were any of them, like Viviane, special beings with self-awareness?

He guessed they were likely the former—having even one self-aware NPC like Viviane was extraordinary; having many would spell chaos. In truth, besides regular and special NPCs like Viviane, there were also others in the game: the so-called GMs—game masters—controlled by real people. These GMs could interact with players naturally, even chat with them, making them seem very human.

The only drawback was that a GM could only interact with one player at a time, or at most two or three via text, and only one at a time via voice. Since they were operated by real people, they couldn’t multitask like automated programs.

Thus, GMs were usually reserved for particularly difficult or secret tasks, rarely encountered. As for today... Chen Hao glanced around; this didn’t seem to be such a scenario. Besides, the game hadn’t officially launched yet—there was no need to assign GMs to this kind of work.

He reasoned along these lines, unaware that reality was far more complex. Although the game had not officially launched, it was already in internal testing. Not only were there GMs present in this area, but more than one.

One GM was the leader of the monsters pursuing him, and another—by twist of fate or misfortune for Viviane—was the very human woman who kept stealing glances at her.

Why were there two GMs here at once? The answer was simple: this area was the setting for one of Unreal Company’s major quest scenarios.

The story’s background was not especially complex: a young elf girl, privy to an important secret, had been captured by a winged humanoid race. They sought to force the secret from her, but she refused to speak. Determined to succeed, they decided to take her back to their lair, where the high priestess, skilled in interrogation, would deal with her personally.

Meanwhile, their eternal rivals—the humans—had learned of the situation and decided to attack the monsters during their transport of the elf girl, intending to rescue her. Of course, the humans’ motives were not entirely pure; they, too, hoped to extract the secret from her. Perhaps their only distinction from the monsters was that their methods were not quite so extreme.

Within this greater conflict, our hero—the game’s player—was entrusted by a mysterious figure to rescue the elf girl, caught between two hostile factions. Naturally, the elf girl would never reveal her secret to the monsters, but faced with her human rescuers, she felt indebted to them but equally unable to betray her people, leaving her in a terrible bind.

At this point, the player needed to take action: to infiltrate the human camp and spirit Viviane away without alerting any NPCs. This, of course, would involve a great battle. The player’s adversaries would not only include the human leader—the GM—but also the monster chief from earlier.

According to the plot, after being defeated by the humans and losing the elf, the monster chief would not give up. He would stealthily trail the human forces to their camp, hiding in secret. Knowing he couldn’t assault the camp alone, especially without knowing where the elf was being held, he bided his time, seeking the right opportunity.

Meanwhile, the player, armed with inside information, would locate the elf first and rescue her while most were distracted. However, this would not go unnoticed: both faction leaders—the two GMs—would catch wind of it.

The player would first have to duel the human leader, and, while exhausted from the fight, would then be ambushed by the monster chief, who would seize the opportunity to defeat the weakened player. Though described as an easy defeat, the player was required by the game’s script to put up a fight before being forced to lose—yes, forced to fail.

As for Chen Hao, he remained completely unaware of all this. Though he and Viviane seemed to have escaped danger, in truth, they were about to step into an even greater peril...