mtl008 Chapter 4662 Desperate Escape (34)
Chapter 4662 Desperate Escape (34)
Chapter 4662 A Deadly Escape (Thirty-Four)
A few minutes earlier, Bruce had boldly put his plan into action: after going up in the elevator, he would flip the disc back and jam the cage. And the plan was a complete success; the cage was firmly in place.
Schiller, who remained below, indeed heard the unusual sound coming from the upper part of the right wall. Something clanged, making a clicking or rattling noise. They immediately determined that the pulley system was inside the wall of the room, and not far away.
Considering the need for adjustments and maintenance at the facility, there must be a room inside, and therefore, an employee access point. Unfortunately, although noises could be heard, the wall tiles couldn't be pried open; otherwise, we might have caught the maintenance workers red-handed.
Even if they can't catch them, it's highly likely they can confirm whether there are actually people inside. Since the mechanism is broken and the checkpoint is blocked, the organizers will definitely try to rescue them.
While it was ultimately their own fault for getting themselves stuck, part of the responsibility lies with the poorly designed mechanism and the lack of reverse safety measures. If they were simply judged a failure, they would undoubtedly receive two negative reviews after the game ends.
Meanwhile, everyone in the monitoring room had already put on their masks and were ready to leave. Greed was about to ask the agent to fix it when he realized that there were exactly six of them, including the agent. If the agent went to fix it, there would be one less actor sitting at the top when the first group entered, which would obviously seriously affect the understanding of the plot.
The detective remained calm, saying, "Bring Deathstroke in. We can just give him some points."
Greed thought about it and realized that one repairman wouldn't be enough given the trouble these guys were capable of causing. Sooner or later, they would have to call in a few more people, so they might as well call for help now.
So, the Death Knell of the main universe was summoned and, while the six were performing, took on the roles of repairman and cleaner. However, he clearly hadn't fully transitioned from that sweeping, aggressive fighting style; he had no stealth habits and didn't slow down at all when walking through the employee passage, just clattering past. Schiller and Bruce heard everything clearly from outside.
Not only that, this guy made an absurdly loud noise while repairing the pulley system and controlling the disc mechanism. He would even throw things around when he encountered some problems, making the noise of three or four people at once, which left Bruce somewhat bewildered.
"Do they have such a surplus of manpower?" Bruce asked, somewhat puzzled. "Do they need so many people to repair a pulley system and mechanism?"
“I guess they’re on guard,” Schiller said. “Don’t forget, from what we know about the story, some employees got killed. I guess they won’t send anyone to repair things alone anymore, to avoid getting caught by the players.”
“What a coward,” Bruce said. “It seems the idea of taking hostages and escaping is not very realistic. Fighting three or four armed security personnel is too dangerous. We can only consider energy.”
"Are you planning to cut off the power?" Schiller, though not a frequent experimenter, often accompanied Victor to the lab. He said, "The power supply and lighting supply must be separate, because when the balance was being repaired before, the power supply was cut off, but the lighting was not affected."
"We just need to cut off the power supply. But we need to draw up the structure of the building first and determine the location of the power source. This is not difficult, because any structure needs to be repaired by cutting off the power supply first, so the energy room must be placed in the very center, otherwise it would take too much time. All the staff passages will lead to the energy room. As long as we can determine the direction of the staff passages behind each room, the intersection of them is the energy room."
Bruce looked at the wall and said, “His footsteps are so loud, which means the staff passage is very close to the wall and goes up, which means the energy room should be right below us. If we consider this as a building, we might already be above the center line.”
Schiller sketched out the blueprint in his mind. He understood what Bruce meant. In essence, the employee passageway was a series of lines, and each room in the passageway was the end point of these lines. Now, the task was to deduce the starting point based on the location of the end point.
“There are two possibilities,” Bruce said. “One is that the designers are very meticulous, and even in places we can’t see, the staff access routes are built according to the laws of physics and architectural rules. They will connect rooms that are close together and use spiral staircases to increase the height. There may be some inclined staircases, but the angles won’t be too outlandish.”
"Another possibility is that, in places we can't see, the level designers of the Battle Realm have simply created a chaotic network of lines, drawing countless threads directly from the center, each leading to a different room. From a design perspective, this is the simplest approach and is also more user-friendly for the staff who need to navigate through it, as there are only single-pathways, so they won't get lost..."
“It should be the latter,” Schiller said. “I understand Greed. He is very efficient and would prefer to spend money on important things and make sure that money is spent wisely. The parts that players can see will definitely have well-funded modeling and art; but the parts that players can’t see will be done haphazardly to save money.”
"Isn't the development team's funding unlimited?" Bruce asked, somewhat puzzled.
“How could that be?” Schiller shook his head and said, “There’s no need to spend money materially, but energy is limited. They’re not full-time developers; most of them just work on it in their spare time. And they have to release a lot of new content within a certain period, so there’s a limit to the time they can spend on each content. They can’t keep refining it indefinitely, and they’ll get criticized if they don’t release new content for a long time.”
“That makes sense.” Bruce nodded and said, “If it’s a flywire, then it’ll be much easier.”
After saying that, he took out Andrew's notebook, which had many blank pages at the back. Since he didn't have a pen, he took the tip of a metal stencil, dipped it in some water from the ground, and started drawing on the blank pages.
First, there's the first room, two rooms connected together. Then there's the long corridor and the room at the end. Next, go up to the second floor, then continue climbing to the balance room, then up to the steel needle room, and then up again...
Bruce was drawing a 3D diagram of all the rooms and estimating the location of the maintenance room. Using the information he had gathered in this room, he pointed to the room with the steel needle: "I suspect the energy room is in the center of this polygon."
"There's enough space here, and it's located directly below the room we're in, in the same direction as the footsteps we just heard. Most importantly, the balance system and the steel needle system are probably the most crucial mechanisms. Placing the energy room here makes it easy to switch the power off and on for adjustments."
“It’s a pity we left too early,” Schiller said. “If Anatoly really did break the scales, then we can verify your conjecture by measuring the time it takes to repair them.”
“There will be opportunities,” Bruce said. “I guess there will be more cooperation stages later. We’ll find a way to communicate with them and ask them.”
"I didn't expect the collaboration challenge you requested to arrive so quickly." Schiller stood in the lantern room, looked up at the six silhouettes above, and sighed.
"What's wrong, Professor?" Bruce asked.
He paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up: "Wait, Professor, you can read minds, right?! I mean, your mind-reading isn't a superpower, it's not restricted! So you can…"
“I think sometimes we still have to play the game by the rules.” Schiller repeated Bruce’s previous words verbatim and walked toward the door without saying a word.
“Oh, don’t do that, Professor, I’m not telling anyone.” Bruce chased after him. “Just tell me, or give me a hint. Maybe I can guess from their next words and actions…”
Stark, sitting atop the chair, nearly choked on his own words, clutching his neck and coughing violently, though he dared not cough too loudly. How could he forget that Schiller could read minds!
They'd probably open their accounts within three seconds of entering. And this isn't some kind of superpower, so it can't be controlled. What can they say? They can only pay homage to the owner of the legendary weapon with silence.
Mephisto seemed to still hold some hope, saying, "As long as we don't speak or move, he can't just appear out of thin air..."
“Beware of the devil,” Schiller told Bruce. “They are masters of sweet talk and manipulation.”
Mephisto clutched his neck and coughed along with Stark.
Bruce was a little confused. Was the topic changing too quickly? What did it have to do with the devil? He thought for a moment and then said, "Professor, do you mean this might be a religious ritual?"
"Oh, I see. Although it looks like a gambling game where the rich place bets, it could actually be a religious sacrificial ritual..."
"Cough cough cough..." Greed also started coughing.
“I’m not surprised that the wealthy would gather to play this kind of game; the formula is too classic. If it only had this one layer of setting, it would seem a bit thin. If I were the story designer, I would definitely add some more,” Bruce speculated. “Imagine that among the wealthy there is a cultist who wants to sacrifice everyone, including the wealthy and the players, together—that would be a good starting point and a kind of plot twist. Although it’s a bit simple, it’s not a level that focuses on the plot, so this setting is more than enough.”
"The earlier levels consume energy and stamina, and the appearance of the tycoon and his pawns in this level incites hatred. The later level design includes a 'level error' to make players mistakenly believe that the tycoon has messed up, and they begin to hunt down the tycoon and his pawns. But at this moment, the cultists appear, and the players and the tycoon have to join forces to fight the enemy, resulting in a lot of deaths and injuries. At the end of the story, there is a moral choice for the survivors: whether to let the tycoon go or not, and that's about it."
Everyone inside the lantern started coughing.
"See, this is the consequence of a plot that's too simplistic." The scarecrow was clearly already dissatisfied. "I told you one twist wasn't enough, it was too easy for people to guess, but you wouldn't believe me. Now look what happened!"
“It’s alright, only their group guessed it anyway.” Stark took a sip of water, caught his breath, and said, “The others probably haven’t noticed anything yet.”
"Why do I feel like the billionaire himself is sitting right above us?" Harley said, leaning against the wall of the cubicle with her arms crossed.
"No way?" Pamela frowned, somewhat skeptical. "Is this tycoon crazy? Getting so close to a bunch of lunatics like us? Isn't he afraid of getting killed?"
“They had no idea we were this tough,” Harley said. “The people they captured before probably didn’t make it past the first few rounds, and they’d be half-dead by the time they got here. Of course they weren’t afraid.”
“And…” Harley drew out her words mysteriously, then lowered her voice and said, “I suspect there’s a traitor among these six people who might cause trouble at this stage.”
"How did you know?" Pamela asked, somewhat surprised.
“Intuition,” Harley pointed to her head. “You know, my intuition is often very accurate when I’m under pressure.”