Chapter 1143: Scheming and Backstabbing (Third Update)
The gate kept rising and falling, and the knight player was almost speechless. This mode had a bug!
How were they supposed to keep pushing forward if the traitor kept blocking this door?
Old Qin felt a surge of smugness: "As a famous streamer of Dark Souls, you think I can't handle you two? What's this? This is the crushing of intelligence! It all comes down to my thorough understanding of the level design in Dark Souls!"
Just then, the Deprived player sidled up to the knight player and whispered a few words.
Old Qin chuckled: "What? Thinking of giving up? It's fine, you can still turn back and fight the Dancer. You still have a chance."
That's what he said, but everyone knew what would happen if they fought the Dancer with their current garbage gear.
Even if those two went back to the Firelink Shrine to level up and grab equipment, it would still be a tough fight.
But the two didn't leave. The knight went back to the lever that controlled the gate.
Old Qin sneered dismissively: "Ah, I thought you had some clever idea, but you're still going to mess with this gate with me? I told you, it's a pointless move... Ah, what the hell???"
Old Qin saw the knight player pull the lever, so he pulled his own. But when he looked closer, the knight hadn't actually pulled the lever down—he just made a pulling motion and then pushed it back up!
As a result, the mechanism outside wasn't activated. Old Qin pulled the lever inside, and the gate opened...
There was no way to close it again, because each mechanism was independent. For the same mechanism, you had to pull it down, wait for the gate to fully open, then pull it a second time...
"Hahaha, get him!!"
The two players ignored the three dogs and rolled straight toward Old Qin.
They knew perfectly well that this ordinary-looking villager was the traitor. All they had to do was charge in and chop him down, and they'd win!
As for the dogs, they didn't care. Players could die dozens of times, but if the traitor died once, the game was over.
Old Qin panicked instantly. He wasn't controlling Gundyr or the Pusher of Men this time—he was just an ordinary villager...
Sure, he had a lantern and a cleaver, but his health was too low. One hit from each of these two, and he'd be gone.
Old Qin made a snap decision.
Just as the two players rolled through the gate, they saw this terrifying-looking villager turn and run!
The two players: "..."
This guy... chickened out instantly!
"Stop right there!"
The two players chased after him. According to the system rules, if the distance between the player and the traider was within a certain range, it would be considered a combat state, and the traitor couldn't switch to another monster.
Having finally caught this rare opportunity, how could they let it go?
Ignoring the three dogs behind them, the two players charged in like mad dogs. But there were just too many villagers.
"You keep on him! I'll clear the small fry!" the Deprived said.
They smartly divided the work. The knight chased while looking for shortcuts to cut Old Qin off, and the Deprived took out the dogs and ordinary villagers behind them to prevent a train from wiping them out.
The monsters' stats weren't high, but clearing them still took the Deprived some time. He finally caught up at the bonfire square in the village.
There, he saw the knight standing blankly at the square's entrance.
The Deprived frowned: "What are you doing? Did you lose him?"
The knight shook his head: "No, I didn't lose him."
The Deprived: "Then where is he?"
The knight pointed at a group of villagers ahead: "In there..."
The Deprived was dumbfounded: "Huh? Which one?"
The knight turned to look at him: "How should I know? Can you tell them apart?"
The Deprived looked closely and gasped: "Tsk... they all look the same..."
From this angle, it really was impossible to tell. The main issue was that all the villagers had the same model—black clothes, lanterns, and cleavers in hand...
Well, duh, the models were reused. Of course they looked the same...
The knight thought for a moment: "It's fine. They're all here anyway. Why don't we just clear them all out? Do you have any firebombs left? Blow up those explosive barrels over there."
The Deprived pulled a firebomb out of his fourth-dimensional anus and walked toward the explosive barrels, ready to throw it. But then he saw a villager in the monster crowd silently toss his lantern onto the barrels...
"What the hell?!"
Before the Deprived could react, the explosion sent him flying...
He was about to drink an Estus Flask to heal when he saw the villager who had thrown his lantern turn and run...
The Deprived wanted to chase, but the knight stopped him: "Forget it, don't bother... What kind of player have we run into here..."
The Deprived looked at the situation and knew it was hopeless. The deeper they went, the more monsters there were, and the paths branched off in many directions. Chasing further would probably lose the guy anyway.
Mainly, they never expected a villager to run so fast, or a player to flee so decisively...
Absolutely no sense of shame...
The two decided to head back to the Firelink Shrine to rest and regroup. But as soon as they entered, they saw the Pusher of Men sitting on the steps, with the blacksmith on the steps next to him, both staring off into space.
The two didn't dare walk straight in. They whispered at the entrance.
"Is this guy possessing the blacksmith again?"
"I don't know. It feels like the Pusher of Men is back to normal. The system said each NPC can only be possessed once, right?"
"Yeah... but why is the blacksmith sitting next to the Pusher of Men? That's really creepy. Is he deliberately possessing the blacksmith to stop us from upgrading our gear?"
"Should we try killing him?"
"Damn, think about the consequences..."
As they debated, they didn't notice that behind them, the Fire Keeper was tiptoeing, trying to hide herself somewhere they wouldn't find her...
...
...
Many players had queued into this highly entertaining mode. They were shocked to discover that Dark Souls could be played like this??
It had turned a casual game into a deduction game...
The players who became traitors were doing everything they could to disguise themselves and cause trouble, while the other two players focused intently on trying to expose him.
And this mode wasn't limited to just the first three bosses. Some rounds started in the middle of the game. Of course, in those rounds, the players playing as adventurers started with better equipment to keep the game balanced.
What's more, this mode even had a matchmaking system. It automatically determined what enemies you'd face based on the Dark Souls play records on your account...
A perfectly good single-player suffering game had been forcibly turned into a scheming, backstabbing PvP game. There was no one else like this...