【It turned out that the NPC Village Chief had killed David and Anbu…】
Li Gang and Wang Dama exchanged glances, both reading incredulity in each other’s eyes.
Wang Dama suddenly remembered that on the second day after David’s death, when eleven players were discussing countermeasures in the tavern, Xia Xueqin had jokingly asked if the village chief was the culprit.
Damn, who would have thought she had actually guessed right?!
Outside the church, echoes of humans battling giant insect monsters mixed with the cries of villagers and the roars of beasts.
Inside the church, Mu Shan held the peashooter in one hand and the laser sword in the other, slowly inching toward the old man.
“You killed those two to cover up the village’s secret. And as for what that secret is, it must be related to the villagers no longer going to the old insect nest to dig up insect shells, right?”
The old man’s face was as aged as a stone tablet painting, his skin grayish-white. He stared at Mu Shan without a word, his once kindly features now eerily like those of a dying man.
“This secret made the giant insects change their previous attitude toward humans, becoming obsessively fixated on your village. Even with players rushing in one after another to block and kill them, they wouldn’t give up.”
Mu Shan said, “The only two things you could have done in the old insect nest were steal or set up an ambush.”
“But I still couldn’t figure out exactly what you stole.”
Wang Dama quietly drew near and whispered in her ear, “A massive wave of insects is about to reach the village entrance. There’s no time left; we can’t hold them off…”
The noises outside the church grew louder and louder. She could hear Zong Rui and Yu Da fighting the insect monsters, and even He Yuncong and Xia Xueqin had joined the fray.
But the village chief before them remained impervious to reason. Without him speaking, the instance plot couldn’t advance, and they couldn’t resolve the current crisis.
Sweat dripped down Mu Shan’s cheeks one by one. Her face took on a stern expression. “In the past year and a half, how many players have died, and so many innocent villagers too? They were all living people, their corpses rotting in the forest. You brought all this about—don’t you feel any guilt at all!”
The village chief’s eyes flashed with anger. “Nonsense…!”
Mu Shan didn’t stop. “The villagers trusted you and revered you, but you never treated them as people at all. You did it all for your own flimsy excuses!”
“If it’s gold coins you want, then take them!”
As her words fell, Mu Shan raised her hand and tossed out a chunk of gold. The irregularly shaped piece arced through the air, rolled across the floor, and finally bumped into the table leg before stopping.
The village chief, who had been motionless, suddenly had light in his eyes upon seeing the gold. With agility unfit for his age, he lunged forward and clutched the gold tightly in his palm.
“What do you outsiders know? You’ve only been in the forest for twenty days. You don’t live here year in and year out—you have no right to judge me!!”
The village chief kept turning the gold chunk over in his hand. “Gold… it’s gold…”
He muttered deliriously in his defense, “I’m not doing this for myself. It’s all for the village’s future… The forest produces nothing. We only have farming, weaving, and brewing. The village children can never afford school or enough food.”
“We need gold—more gold!!!” The village chief became hysterical, his face twisted with demonic madness.
In the next moment, Mu Shan abruptly raised her hand, aimed the gun, and pointed it at the deranged old man.
He didn’t flinch.
In a flash, she made her judgment. She swung the gun barrel around toward the church’s only—Savior Statue.
Just before Mu Shan pulled the trigger, the village chief lunged like a madman, trying to spread his arms and block the statue.
The peashooter fired fiercely, hitting the village chief’s shoulder. Blood sprayed, and the massive inertial impact sent his whole body reeling backward onto the ground.
Mu Shan turned and shouted, “The statue!”
“Smash it—!”
Li Gang and Wang Dama, who had been waiting on either side, rushed forward at once. They swung their crowbars and hammers with all their might. With a “bang,” they smashed the false, majestic face of the Savior Statue.
In the next instant, the statue’s divine face caved in. Gray stone powder rustled down. The two pressed on relentlessly, smashing a large hole into it after a few blows.
“It’s hollow inside!” Li Gang’s voice trembled.
The village chief on the ground stared in shock. Ignoring everything else, he scrambled up on all fours, clutching his still-bleeding wound, and stumbled toward the back of the church.
Mu Shan gave chase. Wang Dama shouted from behind, “I’m calling for backup!”
In the next moment, with her skill’s effect, the figure of an old woman gradually coalesced in midair.
Wang Ruizhi said, “Great-grandma, stop that old man!”
The great-grandma, with bound feet and clad in a traditional buttoned jacket, opened her wrinkled eyelids. Her eyes gleamed sharply. She flew across the rows of church pews, crossed her legs to lock around the village chief’s neck, tore at his hair with one hand, and viciously twisted his ear with the other.
Wang Ruizhi said, “Shanshan, now!”
Mu Shan took a deep breath, raised the peashooter, and aimed at Tasi Village Chief, who writhed and screamed in the great-grandma’s grip.
Flower buds sprouted along the barrel of her gun. In the instant a snow-white, pristine flower bloomed, a green bullet burst from the muzzle.
Everyone’s eyes followed that bullet. It tore through space, time seeming to pause.
The bullet drew closer to Tasi Village Chief’s contorted face. He tried to flee, but his movement was futile against the relative speed.
“Bang—” The village chief fell, a pool of blood slowly spreading from the back of his skull.
The three panted heavily. Li Gang dropped his hammer, his voice shaking. “W-What… what is this?”
Mu Shan looked down from above at the thing amid the shattered lime rubble, her eyes gleaming.
“It’s the king bug larva.”
A golden beetle the size of a basketball, like a toy forged from gold, locked in an iron cage and buried deep beneath the Savior Statue revered by the villagers. If not for its antennae and limbs twitching faintly, anyone might have thought it fake.
The gold armor on the king bug larva had been forcibly stripped, leaving it pockmarked like the moon’s surface. But thanks to the giant insect monsters’ powerful vitality, it kept repairing the damage, constantly growing new golden armor.
“The village’s stone roads, church, and school were all built from the king bug’s golden carapace,” Mu Shan said.
Wang Dama sighed. “This isn’t just a beetle—it’s a never-ending money tree.”
“Who would have thought the honest, poverty-stricken village chief would do something like this… He killed players without batting an eye.”
This instance taught them not to judge by appearances.
Mu Shan opened the iron cage and lifted out the weakened king bug larva. It twitched its antennae feebly.
In the next moment, a system message appeared before all three.
【Ordinary Player 537099, your [Humid Heat Forest] side quest progress:
Quest 1: Protect NPC Village (0/1)
Quest 2: Kill Instance BOSS (1/1)】
【This instance BOSS (Tasi Jifeng) has been successfully killed. The instance will no longer add new players.】
【Warm reminder: Side Quest 1 failure countdown: 59, 58…】
The three exchanged glances. Before they could act, the church ceiling above was smashed open by immense force. Swarms of winged moths descended like meteors from the sky, accompanied by falling dust, stones, and wing powder.
Mu Shan could only raise her arms to shield her head.
Dense dust filled the air, nearly blinding the players’ vision.
The village chief was dead, but the enraged insect swarm wouldn’t calm because of it.
Wang Dama and Li Gang were forced into the fight, but there were too many insect monsters. Their sharp limbs acted like meat grinders, whittling the church walls shorter and shorter.
“Roar—!”
Someone powerfully broke through a shaft of light, descending from the chaotic insect pile.
He Yuncong’s clothes were mostly shredded, hanging in tatters like rags. His eyes gleamed crimson amid the blackness, his canine teeth growing longer, pushing past his lips.
His arms already showed clear beastly features. Under his control, surrounding quicksand repeatedly formed walls, only to be smashed by the insects and stubbornly reform, guarding the last safe bastion.
Zong Rui, Yu Da, and the others struck at the insects from the sides when they could, but everyone soon realized the insect monsters’ target wasn’t the NPCs or players. They charged madly toward Mu Shan.
Or rather, the golden orb in her hands.
“What the heck is that??” Xia Xueqin, unaware of the prior events, felt the world had changed too fast. “I wake up and the BOSS is dead—what important plot did I miss!”
Zong Rui and the others hadn’t entered the church either, so they didn’t know the situation. But the NPC Village was now at a critical survival juncture. Even if everyone activated invincibility, they couldn’t stop the tsunami-like insect tide.
Zong Rui asked, “Can he use that life talisman again?”
Mu Shan glanced at He Yuncong behind her, whose state was growing more inhuman. “Impossible.”
She clutched the golden beetle tightly.
Holding the king bug larva, the surging insect swarm would trample the village to dust, and the players wouldn’t survive either.
But returning the king bug larva to the swarm now—they probably still wouldn’t change course, would flatten the village anyway, and Side Quest 1 would fail.
There had to be a way, some way…
Mu Shan shouted, “Uncle Li, can you run off holding the larva?”
Li Gang looked troubled. “My running speed maxes out for 10 minutes, and it’s slower than flying insects. I’d be caught before leaving the village…”
Xia Xueqin said, “Holy crap, this is the king bug’s kid? No wonder the swarm persisted so long—this is like their crown prince being kidnapped!”
By now, the larva wasn’t just a ‘prince’—it was the true king bug. Wherever it was became the swarm’s directive.
Mu Shan shouted, “Bro, lift me up high!”
He Yuncong behind her gave no reply, but the sand beneath their feet rapidly piled up, forming a tower shooting skyward—without railings.
Moths, butterflies, bees, and other insect monsters circled the sand tower in flight. Wind whipped her clothes and hair, but one arm around her waist held firm.
Mu Shan endured her fear of heights, cradled the larva, and raised it high.
The golden king bug emitted dazzling light from on high, like she held a sun in her hands.
From every corner of the village, some villagers hiding in tree hollows, others in cellars, saw the scene. Their gazes fixed on her.
A dirt-streaked boy pointed at the glowing orb. “Mommy, the Savior.”
The woman behind him clamped a hand over his mouth.
The sand tower reached its maximum height. Mu Shan felt the worker insects’ frenzy around her. She quickly pulled something from her backpack, tossed the king bug larva hard into it.
【Confession Balloon (Auxiliary)
Use: Inflate balloon at origin, release at destination; balloon ignores suspended weight at bottom and returns to set origin.
Note: “Back to your side.”】
The pink bathtub wrapped in the balloon soared through the sky. Following the balloon’s release path, it would fly straight back to the insect nest.
Fearing the larva would be hurt falling from the heights, the surrounding worker insects didn’t attack the bathtub.
Mu Shan panted, watching the dense, tornado-like swarm chase the tiny balloon farther and farther away. The ground insects followed the direction, retreating the way they came without a backward glance, leaving only ruins behind.
The sand tower collapsed. She and He Yuncong slowly landed.
Zong Rui slumped exhausted onto the rubble. She gazed into the distance. “They won’t come back, right?”
Wang Dama smiled, looking utterly relieved. “The giant insects have welcomed back their king bug larva. The debt is settled—no more insect swarms flowing downstream.”
All the players turned to Mu Shan. She gazed regretfully at the shrinking black speck on the horizon.
Too bad she had lost a flight item.