Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

On the other side, the group led by Blossoming Strokes, who also found a complete letter, now discovered a passage leading into the underground after searching through several cellars that had been cleared out by players.

There weren't any corpses inside the entrance of the descending passage, but a crumpled sheepskin parchment was lying on the stairs.

Jiang Wei, who entered the passage first, picked up the crumpled parchment and glanced at it before passing it to Blossoming Strokes who was behind him.

The contents of this letter, also made of sheepskin, were a complete mess. Most of the characters written resembled scribbles that even the system didn't provide a translation for. However, a few disconnected words were discernible and translated by the system: "forgiveness," "it," "craving."

"This is clearly one of the five letters players are required to find according to the system," said Blossoming Strokes, who handed the letter to her other teammates for perusal. "If we consider this letter, for the time being, as one of the letters written by 'Morris,' whom we know of, we can at least conclude that something happened to this 'Morris.'"

"Could his hand be crippled, or perhaps he went crazy?" Qin Guan suggested after glancing at the multitude of indecipherable characters on the sheepskin parchment and shook his head before passing it to the next person.

"It's more likely to be madness or severe psychological trauma," said Blossoming Strokes, rubbing her chin as she gazed into the depths of the passageway. "The appearance of this letter at the entrance of the tunnel, which hints at the writer's descent into madness, indicates that the 'underground world' of this town plays a significant role."

Jiang Wei had spent the night grinding the Lord's reputation with the two ladies. While he didn't get along well with the top-ranked player, Ou Huang, he was still alright with the other two.

Neither Blossoming Strokes nor Unceasing Entropy had the sort of demanding attitude of wanting special treatment because they were women. On the contrary, it seemed like both of them were women that wanted to prove the strength of women. They were the sort of people that made others feel comfortable interacting with them.

When Blossoming Strokes said this, Jiang Wei chimed in, "While doing the Lord's reputation quest, I guessed that unless the designers had twisted taste, the art style of the Great Leaf Vine didn't fit. But if it is actually the normal art style of the game, then it's possible that the game background isn't the fantasy style that we all imagined it to be."

"Are you suggesting that it's Cthulhu Mythos?" Blossoming Strokes probed.

"Yes." Jiang Wei nodded. "If the game background is Cthulhu Mythos, then the bizarre art style of the Great Leaf Vine makes sense. Moreover, the advanced NPCs often mention a place called the 'Kenyan Empire,' a prosperous country with many factories and large ships that the NPCs aspire to go to. With factories and large ships, there can't possibly be a feudal, medieval setting, which in turn fits the Cthulhu setting."

"Ah!" Qin Guan, who was walking behind Blossoming Strokes, exclaimed. "Speaking of it, the weirdest of the advanced NPCs, Warrior Instructor Charlie Rex, often behaves like a half-mad investigator of Cthulhu games!"

In the Town Hall, Yang Qiu, who was monitoring the two groups of players, couldn't help but exclaim, "Impressive, Earthlings! There are quite a few remarkable individuals even among just 300 players."

Cthulhu Mythos, created by Earth writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, actually didn't surpass the limits of human imagination when it came to "fear of the unknown," according to the standpoint of non-enthusiasts. Born in the late 19th century, Lovecraft associated the most fearful imagination of Cthulhu Mythos with the deep sea, believing that the depths of the ocean were filled with the utmost fears of the unknown.

In the Cthulhu Mythos universe, created by countless enthusiasts or through various derivative works, game novels, comics, and role-playing scripts, these elder gods had made numerous appearances. Many acclaimed Cthulhu-style games and movies featured scenes where these gods manifested themselves before people, above the sea.

The "resurrection of the elder gods," which sent shivers down many powerful beings standing at the pinnacle of intelligent life in this dark and magical plane, actually had a significant gulf… compared to the Earth's understanding of it.

Elder gods weren't in the depths of the ocean.

It was impossible for material worlds, where intelligent life thrived, to harbor the elder gods. Not even a fragment of their essence could exist here; otherwise, this material plane would have long been conquered and no intelligent life would remain.

It was also impossible for elder gods to "manifest themselves before humans" or intentionally bestow their "seeds" upon specific individuals.

Elder gods merely viewed humans and all other life as insignificant creatures, nothing more than ants. In the same sense, would humans occupy an anthill and choose a single ant as their "representative"? Certainly, nobody would engage in such foolishness.

Nevertheless, despite the considerable gulf in knowledge, Yang Qiu had to admit that the "Cthulhu-inspired imagination" on Earth contained fragments that reflected the truth about elder gods.

Yang Qiu speculated that the Cthulhu Mythos born on Earth might have been influenced by a fleeting trace of the elder gods' will. When the elder gods projected their consciousness onto this material dimension, there might have been an inadvertent crossing through temporal and spatial rifts, resulting in it entering the earthly plane.

However, as the will of the elder gods was incapable of existing in a magicless plane, it faded away quickly. But before it completely dissipates… the tiny fraction of the elder gods' will resonated with the soul of the author who created the Cthulhu Mythos, leaving behind… something relating to it.

The primordial rulers isolated beyond dimensions and the twisted wills lost in the boundless void actually no longer possessed the conscious desire to invade or conquer material planes.

Their spiritual influence projected onto certain material dimensions was merely a remnant of their former divine existence, an inertia preserved from when they were still gods, and the remaining chaos turning into genuine catastrophes.

Insane humans devoid of reason could bring about immense calamities upon all of humanity, much less gods who had lost their sanity.

Yet, Yang Qiu wasn't concerned about Earth being overtaken by genuine elder gods. The primary reason being that on Earth, magic did not naturally regenerate, nor could it be absorbed. The dimensional rules of Earth's universe denied the existence of magic.

"Rules" were something immensely powerful.

Even rules created, maintained, and enforced by humans themselves were exceedingly difficult to eliminate, regardless of whether positive or negative.

Take, for example, the recent anti-vaccine movement, which emerged merely as an anti-intellectual activity orchestrated by certain Western populist ideologies. To rational individuals, these people appeared as fools, yet even the power of nations would struggle to suppress this tide of anti-intellectualism once it took hold.

And that was why it was much more inconceivable for dimensional rules, guided by the will of a universe, to be eradicated.

The elder god's tentacle that ensnared Yang Qiu only started brewing up something after dragging him to this plane…

"While there is a vast chasm in terms of knowledge, with a foundation of 'Cthulhu-inspired culture,' Earth's players will find it much easier to comprehend the background setting of this 'game world,'" mused Yang Qiu as he continued to monitor the two groups of players.

His confidence in the resilience of fellow Earthlings allowed him to release the Great Leaf Vine herb for this bunch of players to take care of, which would usually make any normal person's SAN fall! Earthlings, who even popularized the concept of Cthulhu Mythos, wouldn't have their SAN drop so easily.

After progressing in the underground passage for 10 minutes, the group led by Unceasing Entropy was suddenly jumped by a low-level thirteen-legged spider-like monster hanging from the tunnel ceiling.

"What the f*ck!"

"Motherf*cker, ahhh!"

Study Obsessed, Unceasing Entropy, and Brother Lahong screamed in panic as they fled.

The low-level monster swung its suction cup tentacles and grabbed Study Obsessed, lifting her skeleton, which weighed only 40% of a normal person, into the air.

"Arghhh!"

"Take this!"

Yang Ying grabbed a wooden stick she found in the tunnel, while Tang Jia, in a defensive stance, swung a broken shovel she had picked up. Side by side, they tried to rescue Study Obsessed.

"Damn it! Stop hitting me, I'm going to be shattered!" Study Obsessed screamed after receiving several blows.

Unceasing Entropy, who had regained her ability to think rationally after running away, shouted out, "Don't aim for the tentacles! Hit its body!"

"I can't reach it!" Yang Ying yelled.

"You can lift Tang Jia up!"

Yang Ying quickly dropped her wooden stick and lifted Tang Jia by her legs. The players' skeletons were light enough to carry and run at the same time.

As expected, the body of this spider-like monster with thirteen tentacled legs wasn't really resilient. After being struck several times by Tang Jia's shovel, it dropped Study Obsessed and fled deeper into the tunnel.

"It's wounded and running away! Chase after it!"

Brother Lahong, who had initially been frightened away, immediately reverted to his veteran player instincts and quickly called for everyone to pursue…

"Mm… Understanding the true nature of this world from a game's perspective does make things much easier." Yang Qiu felt a sense of satisfaction witnessing the brave pursuit of these players.

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