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Chapter 016 The Poor Kid

Her sudden shift in attitude and momentum even made Ling Mo briefly suspect she had possessed someone.

But he didn’t resist, mainly because he didn’t want to hurt her, and… there were several girls beside them brandishing rifles.

From his astonished expression, Xia Xinyan could tell what he was thinking.

After all, he had just started playing this game, so it was normal that he couldn’t react instantly to many things.

However, she didn’t have the time or the opportunity to explain it to him now.

“Is he a participant?” One of the girls glanced at them for a moment and pointed at Ling Mo.

Xia Xinyan continued to grip Ling Mo’s neck and shook him: “I don’t know, but this guy is definitely not fresh meat. Killing him is a sure thing! Down with masculinity!”

“Right on, sister!” The girls were pumped by her words, instantly fired up, “Down with masculinity, the world belongs to fresh meat!”

“Exactly!” Xia Xinyan also acted excited, “You all go find others. This man is mine!”

“Okay, watch out, sister!” The girls responded, turning to leave.

Xia Xinyan immediately leaned down, almost pressing against Ling Mo. To the casual observer, it looked like she was using all her strength to strangle him, but to Ling Mo, she hadn’t applied any real force on his neck—at least, he finally realized she was acting.

But acting or not, being so close to him made his heart race for a moment.

The soft sensation on his chest felt like a poison to him.

An addictive poison.

However, Xia Xinyan didn’t let him indulge for too long; she relaxed one hand and discreetly passed him a gun from a blind angle of the girls, whispering in his ear, “As they turn, shoot directly. Kill them all.”

Ling Mo paused, then quickly reacted, “Got it!”

The real spectacle was finally here!

First time pulling the trigger to kill!

…Cough, it’s not that he had a twisted desire to kill; after all, those Protection Association members were NPCs, and now he was just in a gaming mindset. The main difference between virtual reality games and regular games was probably the sense of realism when taking down enemies… or rather, he just wanted to experience this novelty.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Protection Association girls had turned; Xia Xinyan immediately flipped off Ling Mo, dropping down outside of him. Ling Mo raised his gun and aimed at the girls without hesitation, pulling the trigger.

Xia Xinyan aimed her gun at them too, but didn’t shoot.

She intended to let Ling Mo do the shooting as much as possible so she could earn system points; she didn’t mind game points just yet.

Plus, points could be earned in many ways, not just by clearing dungeons.

Under the foliage, the two sides were barely ten meters apart; Ling Mo had good aim and took down all the Protection Association members within a single magazine.

A few seconds later, all the Protection Association members vanished into white light, leaving only their weapons scattered on the ground.

At the same time, a prompt chimed in Xia Xinyan’s mind—

【Protection Association Kills: 5】

【Good start, host】

‘Thanks for the compliment, Tianji.’

Xia Xinyan replied silently in her mind.

【……】

Ling Mo was a bit surprised, “They… just died like that?”

Isn’t that a bit too weak?

The gun he held wasn’t even a large-caliber pistol, so its power was limited, and he hit each one in the body; each should have taken at least two hits to go down!

“It’s the first dungeon; it’s normal for it to be easy,” Xia Xinyan stood up from the ground, helped him up, and patted the dust off him, smiling, “By the way, I didn’t scare you just now, did I?”

“No, no…” Her words led Ling Mo to recall the softness from earlier, making his face turn slightly red, “If you hadn’t reacted quickly, we might have been shot!”

He really hadn’t noticed anyone approaching them earlier.

Xia Xinyan stared at him for a moment, gently saying, “You did great just now, and your shooting skills are strong.”

“Really?” Ling Mo immediately felt elated.

He grinned like an idiot.

Xia Xinyan still wore a smile.

At that moment, she suddenly felt no desire to continue teasing this guy.

Instead, she thought he looked a bit pitiful.

It was precisely because he had no experience dealing with such situations that a mere compliment could make him feel elated…

No, to be precise, he had hardly ever been complimented face-to-face by girls in specific ways.

If one had to say, Ling Mo had some experiences, but mostly those were the tactics girls used to pursue him; even if they complimented him, they rarely hit the mark, so he never really felt that response.

That created a misunderstanding, making those girls think Ling Mo was hard to pursue, resulting in fewer and fewer girls coming after him.

But in reality, this guy was just a clueless straight man.

So… now that Xia Xinyan had found something to compliment him on, Ling Mo instantly lost all defenses.

Really, the more she thought about it, the more he seemed pitiful.

Well… she should give him more compliments in the future.

While thinking about all these things, Xia Xinyan also went to scavenge the dropped items from the Protection Association.

Most were automatic rifles, and the magazine count was quite impressive—a real windfall.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t unlocked the game warehouse yet, so they couldn’t carry all those guns.

Thus, Xia Xinyan simply took two rifles, pocketed all the magazines, and handed Ling Mo a rifle: “Our firepower has leveled up!”

Ling Mo checked the gun and suddenly said, “If those enemies are this easy, I feel like we could clear the game pretty smoothly.”

Enemies that could be taken down with one or two shots from a handgun were easy to trick… this dungeon really felt like a beginner level.

“No, it won’t be that easy,” Xia Xinyan shook her head, explaining, “The dungeons get progressively harder; it won’t be long before the difficulty ramps up.”

The rapid deaths of NPCs weren’t due to low difficulty but were part of a gradual adaptation process set for players. Even knowing it’s a game, if the simulation were too real, the act of killing could cause physiological discomfort, even making players scared of the game—something the game definitely wouldn’t want.

Therefore, the early-stage killing processes are harmonious; there’s no blood, no corpses, not even severed limbs. But as the game progresses, those effects will gradually appear, showing blood, corpses, etc., ultimately impacting NPCs and even players themselves.

And when players realize this, the cataclysm has already begun.

But for now, this game could still be played as a game.

For instance, the difficulty of dungeons goes from easy to hard—

【Breaking News: The Fresh Meat Protection Association has confirmed its participant list and will begin hunting all participants soon】

【Breaking News: Due to risk concerns, the organizers have decided to terminate this reality show; a rescue helicopter will arrive at Flat Top Mountain in one hour, so please proceed in time】

【Current Task: Head to Flat Top Mountain】