Doll Survival Game

Even though someone had died just within reach, the others in the cage, including those in other cages, remained unresponsive.

Despite being startled by this sudden reaction, Luo Yiran didn’t avert his gaze. He focused intently on the others in the cage.

The man had charged at the barbed iron cage with his body full of spikes, and after just two or three collisions, he collapsed, unable to move.

Yuan Mo retched.

Zhang Mimi’s face also looked unwell. “Does this mean we have to find the key among these spikes and… flesh?”

He imagined it and felt like retching too.

The inexplicable spikes growing from the body, connected to the flesh, violently colliding with the object in front of them after being provoked… This would only make the person’s body even more tattered inside and out.

And they had to search for the key in such a corpse, and if they couldn’t find it in one, they’d have to search the next…

Zhang Mimi retched again, his face turning slightly pale. “I’d rather fight to the death with the boss for three days and nights than do this.”

But the guardian of this level wasn’t as strong as the Mantis Woman. Luo Yiran glanced at the long-haired man knocked out by Yuan Mo, then paused–Not strong?

Yuan Mo had bits of flesh and blood splattered on him. He closed his eyes and patted himself, then looked at the Mantis Woman, thinking of something. He lightly nudged the long-haired man lying at his feet. “Ran, can you try to enlighten this person again?”

Doll: “…?”

Doll: “No, he’s neither child-minded nor a normal person.”

“And this isn’t enlightenment. Anyone slightly perceptive can notice the Mantis Woman’s desire, but this man, though human, has a muddled and disordered gaze. He must have suffered significant trauma and hasn’t recovered, so he can’t communicate.”

In short, this person was likely insane.

‘Anyone slightly perceptive can notice’…

Yuan Mo and Zhang Mimi exchanged glances, seeing the awkwardness in each other’s eyes–they figured they wouldn’t look closely into a monster’s eyes.

Luo Yiran didn’t look at them. He wasn’t exaggerating earlier because he was sure that if Xia Lang faced the Mantis Woman, he could also see her true nature.

Yuan Mo took a deep breath. “Is there any way to make these creatures revert to their original form? Didn’t you say the scenery we see now is distorted? Can it be corrected?”

If they weren’t in human form, perhaps it wouldn’t be so disgusting.

“No, at least not now,” Luo Yiran replied without hesitation.

“When we entered this instance, what we saw was likely already a mix of reality and illusion. We weren’t caught in the middle of it.” Otherwise, he would have noticed something was off when it happened.

“But because we weren’t caught in the middle, we missed the chance to discover how all this was caused.” Luo Yiran unconsciously raised his hand, slowly grasping at the void as if trying to catch something, a gesture that made the Demon pause slightly.

It also caught the magician’s attention.

“From the levels we’ve traversed so far, to understand the background of this instance and the reason for the mix of reality and illusion, we might need to reach the top or search outside the tower.”

Knowing the background and reason might help break the “illusion” before them.

In Luo Yiran’s red eyes, there seemed to be a flowing light, and the corners of his mouth lifted. “Quite interesting.”

Interesting… Zhang Mimi silently lowered his head, missing Lin Ye a bit. Compared to Luo Yiran, Lin Ye, who occasionally acted a bit abnormal, seemed quite normal.

Because he couldn’t understand why, facing these incredibly lifelike humans, and having to dig through these “human” corpses, Luo Yiran was still filled with interest.

It was as if his eyes had already seen through the illusion to the truth.

“Don’t look so grim; they’re not human,” Luo Yiran turned back and smiled.

But in his eyes, they still looked human! Zhang Mimi shouted in his heart.

Luo Yiran seemed to see his thoughts. He put his index finger to his lips. “Then, let’s directly search the body with the key.”

Zhang Mimi was taken aback. “You know?”

“Just confirmed,” Luo Yiran looked upward. “Why do you think he didn’t dodge after being attacked, but responded this way?”

Yuan Mo instinctively replied, “To disgust us.”

Zhang Mimi: “…”

Luo Yiran nodded with a smile. “Disgusting us isn’t wrong.”

Yuan Mo scratched his head. “…Is there something else?”

Zhang Mimi, however, seemed thoughtful. “And they need to attack?”

Luo Yiran tilted his head back, his neck long, with a noticeable ball joint in the middle. He first said, “A small point, although these people have no reaction, their bodies express something.”

The two were stunned.

After saying this, the doll lowered his head again.

“At this moment, as long as they are harmed, they will recklessly, suicidally attack… One of the purposes should be to kill the enemy to the greatest extent. Such extremity indicates that the key is indeed easy to find, at least under their current behavior.” Luo Yiran’s lips curled into a faint smile.

Moreover, with about sixty or seventy people in all the cages on the fourth floor, the collision of just one person had already made a hole in the iron cage. If they all charged, the iron cage would soon be destroyed.

This method of killing a thousand enemies at the cost of a thousand of their own… is truly vicious.

Luo Yiran glanced at the Demon again, his gaze obscure.

Demon: “…”

No, if this isn’t his doing, then there’s no need to look at him… Does it mean that now, as long as there’s something disgusting, the blame will be thrown on him?

“Is it easy to find…” Zhang Mimi pondered hard. If it’s easy to find, it means it’s actually quite conspicuous. And if it’s easy to find amidst their current chaotic behavior, it might mean… it’s close to them? So there’s a worry about it being snatched away?

He paused, then turned his head.

Yuan Mo was still observing the direction of the bodies. Some people in the cage were lying down, so he excluded them and discovered that most people’s body orientation allowed them to see an iron cage, and that cage had a large hole broken into it.

Yuan Mo widened his eyes and looked down.

The large hole in the iron cage was broken open by the long-haired man!

Luo Yiran slowly extended the silver thread, brushing aside the hair of the long-haired man who had fainted on the ground, and then looked at a scar near the right shoulder blade on his back. The edge of the scar showed signs of having been stitched before.

“This is it,” the doll said with a smile.

Zhang Mimi was slightly stunned by the doll’s words, suddenly recalling what the doll had said before–

…

“If this scene was my doing, I would hide the key under a person’s flesh.”

…

This sentence seemed to echo in his ears again, Zhang Mimi blinked in confusion, watching as Luo Yiran calmly used the silver thread to cut open the long-haired man’s flesh. The people in the cage above suddenly became agitated, strange cries and the sound of banging against the iron cage rang out frequently.

Yuan Mo watched the cage above, which had been previously damaged by the long-haired man, with vigilance. The three people lying inside stood up together and rushed towards the opening, only to get stuck.

Yuan Mo: … How stupid.

Zhang Mimi was also alert, but his gaze remained on Luo Yiran. The exquisite doll face showed no surprise, as if everything happening now was within his expectations.

Was it a coincidence?

Zhang Mimi stared at him–although hiding the key under a “person’s” flesh was indeed what the doll had said.

But it must be a coincidence. It just so happened that this long-haired man on this level was a real human.

However… the first one to pull out the long-haired man was the doll. At that time, the doll had been looking up, was he watching this man?

Perhaps this man jumped down not because everyone was looking at him, but because Luo Yiran’s gaze clearly expressed “the key is with you.”

“…”

No, no, if he knew from the start, that would be too exaggerated…

Moreover, didn’t the doll just say? He said he wasn’t sure who had the key…

“I found the key!” Yuan Mo exclaimed as he saw the key brought out by the silver thread, interrupting Zhang Mimi’s thoughts. Then he excitedly pointed upwards: “Sure enough! I just checked, although their body orientation isn’t obvious, they can all see the cage of this long-haired man!”

Zhang Mimi: “…!”

The doll smiled warmly: “Yes.”

Yuan Mo enthusiastically took the key: “Ran, you’re amazing, you figured it out so quickly.”

The [regeneration] had already been used on the silver thread, so Luo Yiran discarded the blood-stained silver thread without hesitation, then regenerated a new segment to catch the extracted key: “I actually hesitated midway, because the clue was too obvious at first, so I wondered if the key might not be on this man. But after seeing their suicidal attacks, I understood a bit about the designer.”

“He might not be that meticulous.”

Not that meticulous… Zhang Mimi automatically interpreted it as–not very smart, not as thoughtful as a player like the doll.

But where was the clue obvious at the beginning! Who would carefully observe such a scene? Just the fact that they were all naked would make anyone with a bit of shame not stare continuously, right?

Yuan Mo decisively emptied his mind: “Yes, yes, yes!!”

Luo Yiran chuckled at his tone.

Zhang Mimi: “…” He really missed Lin Ye.

Why, at first glance, it seemed like they were just “lucky,” but why did he always feel a sense of eeriness?

The doll, at least in this instance, seemed devoid of the worldly emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness he claimed to possess as a human.

Luo Yiran’s emotions were very “refined,” like reactions his character setting would naturally produce, so the compatibility was high.

After all, he was different from ordinary people, which was something everyone who had encountered the doll knew, so the behavior of the “abnormal” doll was considered “normal.”

But still… something felt off.

In certain moments, in an inadvertent instant, Zhang Mimi would see something in those ruby-like eyes that shouldn’t be pondered deeply.

Not conspicuous, but it would give a chilling sensation down the spine.