novellk Chapter 2 The Crisis of Rainbow Village
Chapter 2 The Crisis of Rainbow Village
Lynn didn't really want to recall how she had traveled through time.
It was three months ago, one night, when he was walking home after working overtime at the game company until the early hours of the morning.
A heavy truck carrying steel coils overturned suddenly while trying to avoid a vehicle that was trying to overtake it. Under the pressure of the "civilian two-dimensional foil", Lynn bid a clean and decisive farewell to this beautiful world.
When he opened his eyes again, he had fallen from the asphalt road of Jiangcheng into a real world called "Adventure Island".
He has survived in this world for three months now.
For the first twenty days after he arrived, Lynn was practically rubbed into the mud.
He thought that with his attribute panel, he could at least level up by killing monsters like a normal player, but reality coldly told him that he could not gain experience by killing monsters.
He once tried to do what a proper MapleStory player would do: grab a stick he'd dug out of the ruins and knock it down a Green Slime.
Instead of shattering like in the game, the sticky thing stuck to the stick like glue.
The foul-smelling green liquid splashed all over his face, scalding him so badly he howled in pain for a long time. When he caught his breath, he discovered that the other person hadn't lost a single hair.
In order to survive, Lynn completely abandoned any semblance of self-respect befitting a transmigrator.
In the slums of an abandoned city, he once huddled in a corner reeking of urine, fighting with a group of beggars for half a moldy black potato.
At the Mingzhu Port dock, he braved the torrential rain and humbly begged the blank-eyed natives for a chance to move moldy hay.
On the most difficult nights, he rested his head on a tattered sack infested with fleas, listening to the dull thuds of monsters leaping in the distance.
The blisters on his palms burst and festered, and his stomach felt like it was filled with red-hot steel nails. The burning pain made him realize clearly that there was no save file or health regeneration in this world, and if he died, he would really just be a lump of fertilizer in this wilderness.
This seemingly endless despair finally took a turn for the better a few hours ago, when he was about to become a sacrifice for Rainbow Village.
After many twists and turns, he arrived at Rainbow Village, but unfortunately, he was detained by the old village chief Lucas just a few days after arriving.
The peaceful and tranquil Rainbow Village he remembered was now facing annihilation, and in the past two days, greenery had gradually spread along the coastline.
A thick fog slowly rose and enveloped the entire village.
The once sacred maple leaf stone tablet in the village is now enveloped in a cloud of green poisonous mist.
The green mist writhed like living things, emitting a pungent, sour smell, and even the surrounding vegetation was gradually withering.
This is not just a simple matter of corrosion; it's more like a formatting process that transcends the laws of the world.
Old village chief Lucas noticed that some young people were beginning to forget how to fish, and even his once-proud forging skills were starting to become somewhat fuzzy.
If things are left to their own devices, the entire village may soon become walking corpses.
Old Lucas ordered his men to tie Lynn to the stone tablet, the villagers' knives making him dizzy.
"Young man, don't blame me. The poisonous fog has already devoured three hunters in the past two days. The fortune teller says that only the blood of a stranger can appease the wrath of the stone tablet."
The old village chief was not a bad person; he was simply helpless against the green poisonous fog, and perhaps sacrifice was a viable way out.
Lynn was tightly bound with rope, and old Lucas's hands were trembling.
Just as his sacrificial dagger was three inches from Lynn's chest, a cold system notification exploded in his mind:
[System Activation]
[Passive: Devour]
[Skill: Summon the Fourth Calamity]
[Passive skills and skill descriptions in progress...]
At the same time, another system's voice overlapped in his mind.
[High concentration of toxin detected. Should we physically expose ourselves to it?]
There wasn't even time to listen to the system's description.
"Answer it! Answer it now!" Lynn roared in his heart.
The next second, he suddenly broke free of his restraints and, amidst the gasps of the crowd, pressed his hands firmly against the boiling green mist.
"hiss!"
A sharp pain shot through Lynn's throat, and he let out a muffled groan.
But to the villagers, this scene was eerily sacred: the highly poisonous green mist, which was originally so strong that even the wind couldn't disperse it, seemed to have received a command and frantically crawled into Lynn's body through his fingertips.
A series of thoughts surged wildly through Lynn's mind.
These poisonous gases aren't attacking me... they're desperately trying to penetrate my body.
The feeling wasn't like being poisoned, but rather like... something I had abandoned was begging me to take it home.
As the green mist dissipated, the stone tablet regained its warm, bluish-gray luster.
The entire room fell silent.
The dagger in old Lucas's hand clattered to the ground, and his previously fanatical gaze was quickly replaced by extreme fear and awe.
"My lord...you..." The old village chief's knees buckled, and he knelt on the ground with a thud.
The faint green lines appearing beneath Lynn's skin, in old Lucas's eyes, were the marks of a curse borne by the village.
"You are a saint!"
"I've seen it clearly," Lynn said, forcing himself to endure the weakness that was almost making him faint. He looked down at old Lucas and spoke very slowly. "This poison, only I can suppress, but only temporarily."
Old Lucas trembled as he kowtowed, his forehead pressed against the earth, his voice humble to the core: "It was our foolishness... My lord, please forgive our offense! From this day forward, everything in Rainbow Village will be at your command."
Lynn nodded in satisfaction. After three months, she finally had a place to stay.
Recalling the system's notification, he vaguely remembered hearing the words "Fourth Calamity".
If I understand correctly, this system should be able to summon people from Earth through some special means, allowing them to enter their own world as players.
However, the progress has come to a complete standstill after the poisonous fog was only initially absorbed, not because the fog was cleared, but because several rows of red system warnings were slamming into his head:
[Warning! The body's current capacity has reached 99%, a near-death threshold!]
[Only 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 27 seconds remain until soul formatting!]
[System suggestion: Summon a player to share the burden and metabolize the toxins for the host.]
As he watched the deathly countdown, a sharp, stabbing sensation shot through Lynn's back.
It seems the system didn't grant immunity; instead, it forcibly turned my body into a poison gas canister about to explode!
If I can't trick those players on Earth into coming over to be human vacuum cleaners within a day, I won't even qualify to be fertilizer, and I'll probably explode on the spot.
Even worse, he had only temporarily absorbed a small portion of the green mist surrounding Rainbow Village. Once these villagers, who had just wanted to kill him, discovered that this "saint" was actually a crooked man, or if the poisonous mist returned tomorrow, old Lucas would definitely put that sacrificial dagger back against his neck without hesitation.
We're surrounded by deadly poison from within and lurking troublemakers from the outside. There's no way out; we must call for reinforcements immediately!
"Go and clean up the southern outposts. I have a way to summon warriors from another world to completely dispel this poisonous fog."
A plan began to take shape in Lynn's mind.
"Also prepare some wooden sticks, short swords, and hand axes. My followers don't like to work empty-handed."
If the summoned beings could mistake their adventures in this world for a game, that would be the best solution.
After all, gamers are creatures who are truly willing to sacrifice their lives for games.
"Go and do it."
After receiving the order from Saint Lin, old Lucas turned around and prepared to organize the villagers to work.
"etc."
Lynn suddenly remembered something: "Where's that damn fortune teller? Let's bring him out for a one-on-one fight!"
That unreliable charlatan, with all that talk about outsider blood, almost got me killed here.
"This...this...he left several days ago, before the poisonous fog completely sealed off the village, heading in the direction of Pearl Harbor..."
Old Lucas was trembling with fear, lest the saint before him take his anger out on him.
"Never mind, you go and take care of your business first."
We can settle accounts with that charlatan later. Right now, we should focus on getting the people on Earth here. I just don't know how this so-called Fourth Calamity System works.
With this in mind, Lynn began to meditate and study.
……
As for what happened next? It went quite smoothly. After figuring out the logic of how the system worked, Lynn sent VR glasses to the four players who had made reservations on Earth, and then waited patiently for their arrival.
How was the VR device delivered, and how did the players get there?
The system didn't tell him, but it probably wasn't a difficult thing. After all, he had already transmigrated, so what was a pair of glasses?
About an hour later, Lynn was getting a little impatient. He logged into the chat group through the system in his mind to see what was going on in the group.
.....................
【Did you go on an adventure today?】Chat group.
The group chat has completely exploded.
Roasted Whole Lamb Ah-Hmm: "Holy crap! Guys, this is haunted! I just went downstairs to pick up my takeout, and my phone suddenly got a call from an unknown number saying my package had arrived. I deliberately didn't fill in the address when I made the reservation, and the black metal box is right there in front of my house, without even a delivery slip!"
Czech public security agent: "I received it too. I'm in Lucheng. From the time I placed the reservation to receiving the call, it only took a few minutes. Linzi, this doesn't make sense. What delivery method did you use? And I've never seen this kind of metal material before."
Xiaoyu: "I got it too! But my phone didn't ring. It was my dog barking at the door that made me realize it when I opened it."
Upon seeing these messages, the others in the group immediately launched into a mocking tirade.
Da Niu, being rather lazy, said, "Keep acting. How much does Lynn pay you guys? This script is pretty hardcore."
The girl who slipped: "These days, the registration system is so unprofessional. They don't even need to fill in the address? Did Lynn hack into the registration system or do she have supernatural powers?"
Happy Brand Blade: "There's a limit to acting, right? Six-minute delivery? Are you on a rocket? If I were Lynn, I'd be a deliveryman, definitely the top spender."
A dozen or so replies appeared in the group chat at once, and soon a photo was posted to the group.
Climbing snail: Image.jpg
Climbing Snail: "I'm not kidding, there's photographic evidence. @Lin En, if this is a prank, the cost is a bit high."
Looking at the screen full of messages, Lynn thought that the system should still be stable.
The equipment was delivered in no time.
He then typed the reply in his mind.
Lynn: "You'll see once you try them on. The glasses are accessed through consciousness; only those whose IDs you fill in can use them. Just relax on the sofa, put on the device, and you're good to go. Believe it or not, it's up to you."
After sending the message, he immediately disconnected the link.
Lynn sat in a wooden lounge chair with a rainbow-colored canvas backrest.
He suddenly opened his eyes, as if he had sensed something.
"It's coming..."
Lynn trembled with excitement.
However, things didn't go as he expected. A flash of light appeared, but no players showed up.
Instead, a greyhound that resembled a greyhound stood before him. It was gray all over, with white fur on its mouth, chest, and four paws.
The dog, which looked a bit like a car seat, was looking at Lynn with its mouth open and its head tilted excitedly.
"no!"
"Where did this dog come from? Where are my players?"