CH 18

"Phew, what a long day... Now, what's this 'Player' thing?"

Back in his apartment just above the food stall lane, Bai Zhi wasted no time turning on his laptop and went online to find out what he could about Players.

Unfortunately, perhaps it was protected by official censorship, all the results he found led to some webnovel or other. He was unable to uncover a single lead to the information he really wanted to know—the authorities had scrubbed it all clean.

The internet could be organized into several layers. The "Surface Web" was the outermost later and could be readily explored by inputting accurate search terms into any search engine, while hidden below it was the "Deep Web", the contents of which could not normally be uncovered by search engines. Beyond that lay the Dark Web.

After a moment's thought, Bai Zhi sat up again. Clicking and typing away with practiced movements, he eventually made his way into the deepest corner of the internet—the Dark Web.

While commonly thought of as a sub-section of the Deep Web, the Dark Web was not easily accessed, as it was uniquely protected. Special techniques, such as secure data encryption, password-protected file transfer protocols, P2P networks, proxy servers and more, were all implemented so that its users were given an environment to trade information in perfect anonymity—the most characteristic feature of the Dark Web—so anyone hoping to gain access had to know how to navigate around those special features.

Most people were not familiar with the Dark Web, but Bai Zhi, who had been searching up information on the Dark Web since he was ten, knew it like the back of his hand.

There were subtle differences between this world and the world he came from, but it would seem that the internet worked in largely the same way.

Even on the Dark Web, information about Players was restricted, and only people who actually possessed the Player status were allowed access. After a lengthy, complicated process of cracking passwords and answering verification questions, Bai Zhi finally achieved his goal, successfully logging in to a forum where the interface was presented in shades of purest black.

While the interface was sparse, the forum featured quite a number of different boards. Bai Zhi was glad that his adventures had led him to find out about Players—there was no way he would have found this forum otherwise.

After browsing the site for about two hours, Bai Zhi leaned back in his chair and massaged his temples tiredly.

He had learned a lot from the forum.

The changes to this world had started about three months ago, which was the same time that Players started to appear. From then on, the whole world turned into the arena for some game, albeit a dangerous one, where life and death were real consequences.

It obeyed the principle that only magic can fight the magical—thus, only Players had the power to defeat the seemingly endless waves of strange beasts and supernatural entities that showed up. Normies might be able to escape the clutches of such things and save themselves, but they could not do any permanent harm to the entities.

Against creatures that simply posed a physical threat, they might have more of a fighting chance, but supernatural entities whose powers were intangible were the deadliest. One of the most popular threads on the forum described, in detail, events in Japan surrounding an entity that was said to be an impossible problem.

The entity was discovered when strange stories surfaced about an otherwise unremarkable Japanese-style garden. Anyone who entered the garden was guaranteed to be found dead within the next three days, their body torn to pieces and scattered randomly within a thirty-mile radius. It was a grisly way to die.

The authorities in Japan tried to organize high-level Players to take care of the problem, but after losing over ten such players to the entity, they had no choice but to concede defeat—all they could do was seal off the area.

However, out of the reported cases considered "impossible", that was one of the more harmless ones, because a garden was immobile. Some supernatural entities roamed around regularly, and the most extreme, well-known one had a range that spanned over ten countries.

This world-roaming supernatural entity appeared mainly in the form of a bespectacled grade-school student. Depending on the situation, it was variously accompanied by two sidekicks—a tall, middled-aged man, or a young woman who could snap a blade in two with a single kick. Wherever they appeared, there was sure to occur a murder most foul.

The entity had come to be known as the Kid Reaper, and had proved to be an impossible problem thus far. The Kid Reaper was untouchable—once it activated its "murder-mystery-solving" mode, it was practically over for its targets. If they were fortunate enough not to be declared the victim, their only hope was to avoid being identified as the murderer.

Once someone was identified as the murderer, they would be completely unable to fight back as a stout police inspector appeared on the scene and took them away in a patrol car. To date, there had been a total of 126 people taken away in such a manner, 24 of them Players. After they entered the car, they were never seen again. In other words, they disappeared from the face of the earth.

The more he read about this particular supernatural entity, the more Bai Zhi's face twisted into an incredulous expression. When he got to the end, he went on to search up more information that confirmed his suspicions.

Everything indicated that the manga "Detective C***n" did not exist in this world, and neither did the anime.

"...Is fantasy becoming reality? There's so much I can't figure out about this..."

Bai Zhi slapped his forehead, feeling stumped by the problem.

"Seriously, if I encountered the Kid Reaper, what could I do to keep myself alive? I think I read something once, on Seddit, about how to beat the detective... Huh?"

Bai Zhi was surprised to see a notification from his QQ* app.

[ Infinite Divine Wing ]

>> log in log in log in log in log in! where the hell u been? havent seen u online in 2 days!

Hmm, is this 'my' friend from when the other me was a video game addict?

After some thought, Bai Zhi typed out a suitable response.

[ Black&White ]

>> funny story, i was just outside, really hit it off wit this 20 some y/o girl and before i knew it, we spent all day in a room together.

[ Infinite Divine Wing ]

>> WTF! since when are u into females?! games before dames, don't u know?!

[ Black&White ]

>> then the next day, girl calls up a friend and they both spend the day in the room wit me.

[ Infinite Divine Wing ]

>> top 10 betrayals! don't talk to me u filthy traitor!

[ Black&White ]

>> I still remember the name of the room... Orthopedic Ward, Beds 10 - 12

[ Infinite Divine Wing ]

>> ???

[ Infinite Divine Wing ]

>> ?????????

*QQ is the name of an instant messaging app.