Chapter 1 An Ominous Premonition

The opening CG concluded, and in that instant, the six players materialized in the classroom.

The classroom contained nine pairs of desks and chairs, neatly arranged in three rows of three.

Currently, all the players were seated: viewed from the blackboard, the first row from left to right was occupied by Ruo Yu, An Yueqin, and Xiao Ling, all female; the second row had an empty seat on the left, with Feng Bujue and the team's sixth member seated in the middle and on the right respectively; while Xiao Tan...sat alone in the middle of the third row.

"Eh~ It really is someone I know." Xiao Ling immediately turned to look at the sixth member of the team, and the words slipped out.

The reason for the "really" was that she had already anticipated this situation.

Since the new version had launched, everyone was busy leveling up, and the key to leveling up was "efficiency"...unquestionably, it was more efficient to repeatedly clear a few ordinary scenarios with a high success rate than to queue for a high-risk "Team Nightmare" scenario.

Therefore, only two types of people would solo queue for a Nightmare Team scenario: players without studio backing, and... top-tier experts.

Adding the condition that their "levels were similar to the Hell Front team," it was predictable that they would "run into someone familiar."

"Feng! Bu! Jue!" About two seconds later, [Tun Tian Gui Xiao] bellowed; ignoring everyone else, he shouted at Brother Jue as if he had met an enemy.

"What are you yelling about..." Feng Bujue stared with his dead fish eyes, looking at the excited Gui Xiao, and said weakly, "Preparing to use the Purple Gold Red Gourd to capture me? Calling my name to see if I dare answer?"

"Tch..." Being mocked like that, Gui Xiao also felt that he might have been a little too excited, and retorted with a sneer, "So calm... completely ignoring me, huh..."

"With your awe-inspiring one-meter-six frame, my eyes can't contain it." Feng Bujue's ability to mock was innate and effortless. "I've always held you in my heart with respect."

"I'm one-meter-sixty-nine! And still growing!" Hearing the height topic, Gui Xiao couldn't stand it, and he raised his voice again.

"It's okay, my heart is broad, I can still fit you even if you grow another half a centimeter." Brother Jue waved his hand, replying with a half-smile.

"How long are you two going to discuss this height issue?" At this moment, Ruo Yu, who couldn't stand it anymore, stopped the two from rambling.

Even before her words faded, a system prompt rang out.

[Your character abilities have been restricted. You are now playing an ordinary person.]

The same prompt rang in the ears of all six players, and they all knew this after exchanging glances.

"Sigh... I hate these restricted scenarios the most." Gui Xiao immediately expressed his dissatisfaction. "I always fail whenever I encounter this type of scenario."

"Then you're lucky today." Brother Jue replied with a smile. "Today, your older brothers and sisters will carry you through, so you can experience the fun of restricted scenarios."

"Hmph..." Gui Xiao crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Keep dreaming..."

"In any case, let's all confirm our identities first." At this moment, An Yueqin turned to the others and said, "If nothing unexpected happens, the roles we're playing have already been assigned..." As she spoke, she pointed to the upper left corner of her desk.

At the place she was pointing, three characters were carved: San Qian Yuan.

The characters... were carved with something like a utility knife, and the handwriting didn't look like that of an adult; of course, carving wasn't writing after all, and it couldn't be ruled out that the font was distorted due to the difficulty of carving, resulting in this effect.

"This is the last name of the character we're playing, right?" Xiao Ling had also noticed the characters carved on her desk long ago. In the same upper left corner, with the same handwriting, were carved the characters—"Tu Shou." "Speaking of which... I seem to have randomly gotten a particularly rare surname."

"Oh oh! I have one here too." Xiao Tan obviously discovered the carved characters on his desk after being reminded by his teammates. "It's called Sawada."

"Mine here is 'Yuan'," Ruo Yu added.

"Ha~" Gui Xiao saw the characters carved on his desk at this moment. "'Yamada'... It always feels like a common surname." He was inexplicably disappointed.

"Hmm..." After everyone had reported the surnames carved on their desks, Brother Jue slowly added, "Mine here... is carved with 'Fu Jian'..."

Silence.

Prolonged silence.

For some reason, after Brother Jue reported those two characters, the other five all cast strange glances at him, and no one spoke.

"Well, then..." After nearly a minute, Feng Bujue broke the silence himself and changed the topic. "Speaking of which, didn't the end of the opening CG say that someone shouted? Why didn't we hear it..."

"Uh... maybe... we already shouted when we were loading the characters." Xiao Tan was also quite understanding, and casually added a sentence.

"Hmm..." Feng Bujue stroked his chin and said, "The main quest hasn't been refreshed yet either, which means... we need to trigger some flags." As he spoke, he stood up and walked towards the podium. "Let's look around first to see if there are any clues."

Hearing this, everyone didn't say much and began searching.

According to habit, people would generally first check the things closest to them at this time, such as... inside the desks.

But they quickly confirmed that the insides of all nine desks were empty, without even scraps of paper.

Then, everyone investigated the surrounding objects one by one according to their "degree of suspicion."

At the same time, Feng Bujue picked up an old newspaper on the podium, and whether it was a reading addiction or not, he stood there and started reading...

Five minutes passed in the blink of an eye.

The results of everyone's investigation were as follows...

The sliding door of the classroom was locked and couldn't be opened. There was no prompt like "Need a key" when forcefully pulling it.

The windows facing the playground and the corridor were all tightly closed. A prompt appeared when approaching: "Sealed by some dark power." Looking out through the glass was pitch black, and only their own shadows could be seen.

The arrangement of the lockers on the side rear of the classroom was the same as the top-down order of the desks and chairs. When trying to open them, the prompt "Need a key" appeared.

There was a wooden bookcase on the right side of the podium, which also couldn't be opened.

On the wall to the left of the podium hung a painting, which depicted a huge human face. The painting style didn't seem like something a primary school student could have, to put it more specifically—abstract art.

There was also storage space inside the podium, but it also "Need a key" to open.

In summary, after a preliminary survey, the clues were still concentrated on the old newspaper on the podium. If there were any hints... they should be on it.

"So... what's your side like, team leader?" Xiao Ling asked after briefly telling Brother Jue the information everyone had gathered.

"Hmm... first of all..." Feng Bujue put down the newspaper in his hand. "This is a May newspaper, and the date is May 19th."

"What does that tell us?" Gui Xiao asked.

"Do you remember the first sentence of the narration was—'This is a summer evening.'" Feng Bujue replied.

"Oh..." Gui Xiao nodded. "So?"

"Judging from the layout of this classroom, the names on the desks, and the atmosphere of the scenario..." An Yueqin explained at this time, "This is undoubtedly a horror story that takes place in Japan, and Japan and us are both in the northern hemisphere, so its 'summer' should be June, July, and August of each year."

"Which means..." Ruo Yu also added, "This newspaper is one or two months old?"

"Not necessarily..." Feng Bujue replied, "The year on the newspaper is Showa 47, which is 1972; it may be a newspaper from one or two months ago, it may also be a newspaper from one or two years ago, or even a newspaper from one or two decades ago..." He paused for a moment, "We also have no way to deduce the era when this scenario takes place, as well as the specific age and graduation year of these characters... because the narration didn't mention the specific time of the 'present', only said 'many years since we last met', and this 'many years'... can be ten years, twenty years, or even thirty or forty years."

"But..." Xiao Tan said with a puzzled look upon hearing this, "Didn't he also say 'Everyone hasn't changed much'? That means it hasn't been too long, right?"

"Not necessarily." Feng Bujue immediately replied with these two words and continued, "Most people will say that when they reunite with childhood friends after many years; because people's memories from childhood are the deepest, as long as they recognize the person in front of them, the memories of that time will be awakened, and then the face in the memory will overlap with the face in front of them... plus some 'emotional' factors, they will naturally say 'no change'."

"Yeah, that's the most common line you hear at class reunions." An Yueqin immediately added.

"Hey hey... I'm saying..." Gui Xiao already seemed a little impatient at this time. "What are you guys researching all that for? Is it necessary to be so meticulous about the character backgrounds? Isn't the focus now on triggering the flags and receiving the main quest first?"

His words immediately attracted the attention of the entire Hell Front team.

"Why... why are you guys looking at me with those eyes..." Gui Xiao muttered, "It's kind of creepy."

"I think I know why you can't clear 'scenarios with restricted abilities'." Feng Bujue shrugged and shook his head. "Too impatient."

"Tch..." Gui Xiao said with a sideways glance upon hearing this. "That line and tone sound familiar... I feel like Brother Chan also told me something similar."

The "Brother Chan" he was talking about was naturally Chou He... oh no... Meng Jingchan.

"Hey? By the way, why aren't you queuing with your studio teammates?" Mentioning Brother Chan, Xiao Tan also remembered something.

"Uh... this..." Gui Xiao hesitated.

"This might involve the secrets of his studio, you better not ask." Xiao Ling's ability to read the room was also very strong, and she nudged Xiao Tan with her elbow to remind him after seeing this.

"Oh oh! Sorry." Xiao Tan smiled sheepishly. "Pretend I didn't ask."

"Hmm... actually, there's nothing wrong with saying it." Gui Xiao curled his lips. "Anyway, you're not professional players, as long as you don't blab about it everywhere, it's okay to tell you..." He paused for half a second and continued, "When leveling up, our studio will arrange complementary teams based on each person's characteristics; and I... am the type of person who is more suitable for solo queueing." Gui Xiao spread his hands and said in a rather proud tone, "To put it bluntly... I will 100% become 'excessive combat power' in 'scenarios without restricted abilities'."

"Conversely, he's a burden in scenarios like this one." Feng Bujue poured cold water on him just two seconds after he started bragging.

"Stop yapping!" Gui Xiao said, "Didn't you confidently say you were going to carry me through? It's been ten minutes since the scenario started, and we haven't even found the main quest! What are you being arrogant about?"

"Don't be anxious, Yamada-kun." Feng Bujue smiled. "I'm about to tell you something closely related to the main quest."

Then, Brother Jue, with a smiling face and a very relaxed tone, said something that made people's scalps tingle: "Based on what I read in the past few minutes... all the news on this newspaper is about a school. Of course, if nothing unexpected happens... it refers to the school we are in." As he spoke, he gestured with his eyes towards the seats in the back row corner of the classroom. "The headline on the front page is—'Warehouse across from the principal's office catches fire. Although the fire didn't spread, a student still died in the fire'; and the name of the deceased student... is Suzuki Takayuki."

When these words came out, his teammates... especially Xiao Tan and Gui Xiao, had a jolt.

Because they all remembered—the name carved in the upper left corner of that seat was "Suzuki."

"You mean..." Two seconds later, Ruo Yu was the first to reply. "That Suzuki is the class monitor who hasn't appeared yet?" She paused for a second and then continued, "That doesn't make sense, right?"

"Yeah..." Xiao Ling also said, "Even if he is the class monitor, this Suzuki was burned to death when he was a student, and the matter was even reported in the newspaper, so there's no reason why his classmates wouldn't know about it; under this premise, the situation of 'receiving a letter from him' would scare people half to death, who would go to the rendezvous?"

"That makes sense." An Yueqin thought for a while and added, "Judging from the tone of the narration... no matter who the real class monitor is, at least the classmates who came to the rendezvous all think he or she is still alive and well, so it can't be Suzuki."

"Hmm, good judgment." Feng Bujue said after listening to everyone's opinions, "Therefore, the actual situation may be... Suzuki Takayuki was indeed a member of this class, but he wasn't the class monitor, and he was burned to death when he was a student, so he didn't appear at today's gathering. It's also possible... the Suzuki who was burned to death wasn't a member of this class, but also someone from this school, after all, Suzuki is a relatively common surname in Japan."

At this point, Brother Jue changed the topic: "But..."