Follower

Follower

"A little petty, aren't you? The diary wrote Qin Zhou so many times, and you didn't get annoyed then," Mu Sichen said.

There was no sense of being watched.

Mu Sichen smiled faintly.

He had been "marked" and was still a little worried about it, but now the existence that had marked him was too lazy to pay him any attention. Nothing could be better.

Still, the fact that he was watched just for saying Qin Zhou's name was enough to prove how powerful this world's so-called "Great Being" really was.

Even in this book, it did not dare write the master of the Town of the Eye's name directly. It only dared describe Him as the "Great Being."

If he learned the Great Being's real name and accidentally said it aloud, he would probably be watched too.

And when that happened, it would not be as gentle as Qin Zhou.

The System wanted him to light up icons and build an ideal town of his own. Was it asking him to fight an existence like that?

Mu Sichen looked at the pickaxe in his hand and felt that this was no longer a question of whether it was difficult or not. Even in a dream, he should not have such delusions.

Fortunately, he seemed to have a bit of a cheat ability too. Since the System had brought him to this world, it had not immediately sent him to his death. At the very least, it had given him a relatively safe room, though it was somewhat terrifying; a way to obtain information, though it might drive him mad; and a pickaxe, though he had no idea how he was supposed to use a physical weapon against mental contamination.

Mu Sichen rubbed his temple and compared the strength of the two sides.

On his side: one pickaxe, the skill "Undermine," and the stamina of an ordinary college student. On the Great Being's side: countless Apostles, indescribable abilities, and an attribute that contaminated anyone who merely learned about it.

At least it was not completely hopeless.

From the known information, he could infer that "Daylight" represented the Great Being opening His eyes, while "Night" represented the Great Being closing His eyes.

When "Night" descended, the Great Being's power would temporarily withdraw from the Town of the Eye. That would also be the best time for him to move.

The System had not asked him to become enemies with the Great Being immediately. Instead, it had told him to find a "Pillar" first and establish a safe house.

A safe house was easy to understand. It should mean constructing a space that could not be corroded by the Great Being. But what was a "Pillar"? What did that word mean?

The information Mu Sichen could currently access was still far too limited. He needed to venture deeper into the town.

He had to wait for "Night."

And for another event to occur.

Mu Sichen looked toward the door of the room and thought, I've been in this world for a while now. It should be about time, shouldn't it?

There was no clock in the room, but Mu Sichen was wearing a wristwatch. After he entered this world, the watch had continued running normally, helping him tell the time.

He glanced at it. Three hours had passed since he entered the game, and he had begun to feel hungry.

That hunger made Mu Sichen's heart sink. Feeling hungry proved that time was indeed passing, and if he could satisfy that hunger with food from this world, it meant there was a very high chance even his body had transmigrated here.

Maybe that had not been a game pod at all, but a transmigration device.

But right now, Mu Sichen had no room to worry about matters in his original world. The urgent priority was staying alive.

He walked to the door and waited patiently.

A mirror hung on the wall beside the door. Through the dim light, Mu Sichen saw that the person in the mirror looked exactly like him, down to the mole on his left earlobe. It seemed this really was his body.

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Mu Sichen turned off the flashlight, and the room sank into pitch darkness.

The footsteps stopped in front of this door. Someone knocked. A male voice, speaking as if he were reciting something, rang out from outside: "Townsperson No. 629, please read aloud the Great Being's deeds. After reading aloud for half an hour, please open the small window on the door. I will provide you with food."

So this was how the Town of the Eye treated town residents who refused to believe in the Great Being. They only distributed food after the person read the contents of the book aloud. In order to get food, the resident would chant the book's contents, and over time, they would naturally become one of the Great Being's Apostles.

After enduring the baptism of both the broadcast and the book, Mu Sichen had developed some resistance to the book's contents. Reading aloud for half an hour should not contaminate his mind. But if he did that, he would be kept and fed by the Town of the Eye. One day, he would no longer be able to resist this contamination.

Mu Sichen cleared his throat and casually recited a couple of lines from the book that had left an impression on him. "The eyes are the windows to the soul. Pure eyes symbolize a pure soul. Protecting the eyes begins with..."

His voice stopped abruptly. The person outside asked, "Why did you stop reading?"

Mu Sichen said, "The light is too dim. I can't see the words in the book."

"You town residents do not have the Great Being's protection, so your eyesight is too poor. You can turn on the light in the room," the person outside said.

Mu Sichen put on an act and paced a couple of steps by the door, then said, "The light might be broken. It won't turn on. Is there a power outage?"

"Liar! We guarantee the supply of water and electricity. You must have deliberately smashed the light and betrayed the Great Being's boon," the person outside snapped.

The light in the room had, in fact, been smashed by someone, leaving only this high-powered flashlight.

"It is my fault," Mu Sichen said. "But I have already begun to repent for my behavior. Without light, my eyes cannot read the words."

"I'll go find someone to fix your light," the person outside said.

"There's no need," Mu Sichen hurriedly said. "Why don't you come in instead? With your eyesight, you will definitely be able to see the words in the book. You can read each line once, and I'll follow by reading it aloud once. How does that sound?"

"We have always been devoted to proclaiming the Great Being's deeds. It is you town residents who resist letting us enter," the person outside said. "Open the door."

That was exactly what Mu Sichen wanted. He stood behind the door with the pickaxe in hand and unlocked it.

Light from outside shone in. Mu Sichen saw a figure carrying a meal tray walk slowly into the room, his back turned to him.

Once the person had fully entered, Mu Sichen kicked the door shut and quickly locked it. Immediately after, he raised the pickaxe in both hands and smashed it heavily into the back of the person's head.

He still held back. He did not use the pointed end or the flat end of the pickaxe. Instead, he swung it horizontally, using the hardness and weight of the iron itself to strike the other party.

Mu Sichen did not know whether ordinary physical attacks could injure this person, but he had considerable confidence in his plan.

According to the book's description, Mu Sichen had determined that the Town of the Eye's population structure could be divided into the following types: the Great Being, Apostles, Followers, town residents, and the Fallen.

Town residents were ordinary people like the diary owner. Once they went mad, they would become Followers. The Fallen were a group of people who remained calm and were even capable of resisting the Great Being's contamination.

The book had not mentioned the Fallen, but Mu Sichen believed such a group must exist. Otherwise, there was no way to explain why the diary owner's room contained a radio capable of resisting mental contamination.

Apostles should be the leaders among the Followers. Their number of eyes would increase, and from the descriptions, they could no longer really be counted as human. In the broadcast, it had mentioned that Xiangping Town had cleared out the nearby "Thralls." Mu Sichen believed Apostles and "Thralls" should be the same type of thing. Maybe they were monster-level existences, and humans and Followers simply used different names for them.

Apostles would definitely be difficult to deal with, but Followers could not be too strong.

The Follower outside had called him a town resident and had merely sent someone to brainwash him. There was no need to send a powerful Apostle.

The System had provided him with a pickaxe. If the pickaxe could not even defeat an ordinary Follower, then there was no point in playing. He might as well stop resisting, recite the Great Being's deeds at the top of his lungs, and go mad. He would probably be happier that way.

Mu Sichen had confidence in this operation. At worst, there were only two possible outcomes. In one, he subdued the Follower and gained a deeper understanding of this world. In the other, the Follower subdued him, so he recited the book to save his life, and everyone went mad together.

Neither ending was too bad.

Sure enough, the pickaxe worked.

The Follower crashed heavily to the floor. A wound appeared on the back of his head, but no blood flowed out.

For some reason, a sense of crisis rose in Mu Sichen. He lifted something, aimed it at the back of the Follower's head, and pressed the switch.

At the same time, the wound on the back of the Follower's head suddenly opened, revealing a single eye seven or eight centimeters long. It glared viciously at Mu Sichen and let out a shrill voice. "Fallen! It's a Fal..."

But before his voice could spread, it cut off abruptly.

A beam of intense light aimed directly at the lone eye, stinging it so badly it could not open and leaving it in unbearable pain.

"So it really works," Mu Sichen murmured.

Earlier, when he had put the flashlight into his inventory, the System's description had been "a rather aggressive flashlight, unexpectedly suited to this town." Combined with the fact that the Great Being's power manifested through eyes, Mu Sichen had concluded that aiming strong light at an eye would produce an unexpected effect.

Only, one line in the description was subtle: "unexpectedly suited to this town." Who exactly had said that? Did it prove that this kind of flashlight had not originally existed in the Town of the Eye, and that the flashlight had come from outside?

There were many mysteries, and he would have to unravel them one by one.

The Follower struggled desperately but could not make a sound.

Mu Sichen planted one foot on his back, pressed the pickaxe across his legs, and held the flashlight with an unusually steady hand. The beam shone accurately onto that eye.

After waiting a while, the Follower stopped moving. The eye on the back of his head also squeezed tightly shut.

Only then did Mu Sichen put away the flashlight, pick up the pickaxe, crouch down, and check the Follower's condition.

"Don't you dare die. What I want isn't a dead Follower," Mu Sichen muttered.

[The player's current combat power is insufficient to eliminate a Follower. The HP bar and MP bar interface will now be enabled for the player.]

The System suddenly gave a prompt.

Mu Sichen's vision swam for a moment, and then he saw two bars appear above the Follower's head. One was red, with only 1/3 of its health remaining. The other was blue and had already been exhausted.

HP bars and MP bars were common game stats. An HP bar represented a player's vitality; once it was depleted, the player would die. An MP bar represented a player's magic power, spiritual power, or similar value. In short, it was a form of energy for special abilities. Once the MP bar was depleted, the player would be unable to use any special skills.

In other words, the Follower in front of him was a captive who was seriously injured and unable to use special abilities. That was exactly what Mu Sichen wanted.

"There are actually HP and MP bars too. This is looking even more like a game," Mu Sichen said.

But a game with no revival function, where there was only one life to spend, was no different from reality. If he truly treated this world as fake because of HP and MP bars, that would be what killed him.

Mu Sichen lifted the heavily injured Follower, tore off a piece of cloth, covered his eyes, and only then set him down in front of the desk at ease. He tied him up firmly with a bedsheet and placed the pickaxe upside down beside his head.

At the moment, the Follower looked like an ordinary adult man, but Mu Sichen did not underestimate him.

Right now, Mu Sichen had very few ways to subdue an enemy. He still did not know how to activate his only skill, "Undermine." Even if he had subdued the Follower, he did not know how to make the Follower comply.

Mu Sichen said gently, "Relax. I'm not a bad person. I just have a few questions I'd like to ask."

The Follower turned his face aside and said nothing.

Mu Sichen sighed and said, sounding extremely troubled, "I don't want to do this either. I only just told myself I wouldn't rely on Qin Zhou. I'm really the kind of person who goes back on his word."

Despite looking troubled, Mu Sichen still turned on the radio without the slightest hesitation and placed it beside the Follower's ear.

"Don't keep focusing on the Town of the Eye. Let's look at the outside world together," Mu Sichen said with a friendly smile.

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Author's Note:

Mu Sichen: After all, this old man is no demon.

Follower: You devil!

Qin Zhou: Actually, I am a little annoyed.