civilwarnovels Chapter 4656 Desperate Escape (28)
Chapter 4656 Desperate Escape (28)
Chapter 4656 A Desperate Escape (Twenty-Eight)
When Anatoly and Lucifer arrived at the room of the steel needles, the mechanism was already locked. They didn't even need to go through the secret passage; they could simply climb up the ceiling.
Lucifer struggled to climb. The passage was narrow, and he could only try to fold his wings, but the edges were still chafed raw. As soon as he reached the top, he complained, "Couldn't the passage for this level have been designed to be wider?"
“I’m afraid even the widest space couldn’t contain your wings.” Anatoly glanced back at him; Lucifer’s wings had probably never suffered such damage since birth. This wasn’t a problem with his own abilities; it was simply that the level design hadn’t taken non-humanoid creatures into account, causing him unnecessary harm.
“I’m going to complain about them,” Lucifer said, somewhat indignantly. “I’m also going to give them a bad review and warn other angels to avoid this kind of dungeon.”
“Besides you, I doubt any other angels will come to play,” Anatoly laughed. “Or perhaps you'd like to have one with Michael?”
"Oh, come on. That guy just keeps yelling about desertion and he's incredibly rigid. He's totally bad at this kind of game."
"I'll take that as a compliment on my skills."
“You are indeed very good at it.” Lucifer looked at him and said, “I dare say, if I hadn’t been in the game, the moment the mechanism broke, those guys in the design department would have already been banging on my office door.”
"Who's in the design department?" Anatoli asked, seemingly casually.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Lucifer said. “They have many non-staff members, some invited, some just out of interest. But most of these independent copies are designed by them.”
"Actually, you can see distinct personal characteristics in many dungeons, and people will speculate in the comments section about who designed a particular dungeon. Some dungeons have consistently received high approval ratings, while others..."
“I can’t say they did a bad job.” Lucifer paused for a moment, then said, “It’s just that overly stylized designs still depend a lot on the target audience. Some niche themes, while not violating the rules of the battle world, still require the designers of the dungeons to see a doctor.”
"Who has the highest approval rating?" Anatoly asked.
"Most people don't know who the real designers are; they use code names to refer to them. However, according to the system's backend data, the copy designed by Greed currently has the highest approval rating."
In the monitoring room, Greed immediately waved his hand, bowed to the left and then to the right, as if he were receiving an Oscar.
"Why?" Anatoly asked.
"I mentioned that overly stylized and niche themes are not popular, so what's popular are actually the relatively mainstream dungeons. While Greed's dungeons aren't top-notch in every aspect, they are well-balanced, offering a good experience in terms of art, combat, and story. The discounts are also substantial, and the bundles are very affordable, so everyone likes to play them."
Anatoly understood, then asked, "What about negative examples?"
“Of course, it’s those lunatics at Arkham Asylum,” Lucifer sighed. “The dungeons they design are so niche, often difficult and bizarre, with a whole bunch of Riddler storylines and incomprehensible philosophical discussions. But because of this, they’ve also amassed a small group of fans who love this kind of niche work. They’ve become loyal followers of these lunatics, even more fanatical than the average person.”
“I know you want to ask who designed this dungeon,” Lucifer said, stroking his chin. “But in the Battle Realm, dungeon designers are just doing their jobs. Even if they might add some of their own twisted sense of humor, it only increases the difficulty of the game. Since no one will actually get hurt, it doesn’t count as murder for money. I think you’d better not go looking for trouble with them.”
Anatoly shook his head and said, "I'm not the kind of person who would go to a game studio and beat up the main creators just because a game is too difficult. I just want to deduce what the plot is like by identifying who the main creators are. There must be a mastermind behind this plot, right?"
"So that's what you meant." Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief.
"Looks like you've designed quite a few challenging dungeons," Anatoly said. "Are you afraid I'll hold you accountable later?"
“Uh…” Lucifer opened his mouth, seemingly a little embarrassed.
Anatoly noticed this and asked, "The copy you helped design received poor reviews? Why?"
“They say I’ve mixed in too many religious elements, which constitutes illegal proselytizing,” Lucifer said somewhat dejectedly. “Some people even commented that they would avoid buying anything with Eden elements. I haven’t sold many of my bundles yet.”
"Couldn't you have included fewer religious elements?"
“But for me, those aren’t religious elements,” Lucifer said somewhat helplessly. “For example, Eden was my childhood bedroom, the church was like my living room, the Holy Spring was my family’s bathtub, and the Bible was my father’s diary. If I had to say, I was just using my family of origin as a blueprint for my designs, and many designers do the same.”
Anatoly seemed somewhat intrigued, saying, "So you're just reminiscing about the past, but they think you're giving a religious narrative?"
“Yes, a lot of people are annoyed by this now.” Lucifer sighed. “Those who can participate in the battle are not fools. How many of them truly believe in God? Let’s put it this way, compared to some of them, your view of God is actually quite friendly. These people will not hesitate to bombard every religious story with negative reviews.”
"So design copies can be used like this," Anatoly said thoughtfully. "Can I join the design department?"
“Oh my god, you’re going to preach too… I mean, spread your ideas?” Lucifer scratched his head and said, “Greed told me that he’s preparing to open up a free design feature, which means everyone can design and publish copies and compete freely. The competition will be fierce then, and only truly outstanding works will stand out.”
“Then I can give it a try. If I have any technical questions, I’ll come to you.” Anatoly was clearly very interested.
What kind of story are you planning to design?
"What's our story like?"
Lucifer was astonished. He looked at Anatoly, who said, "The things we've been through together have certainly been quite eventful, haven't they? There are plenty of literary and artistic works with autobiographical themes."
"Then you can totally write your own autobiography."
“But you played a very important role in it,” Anatoly said, looking into Lucifer’s eyes. “I can’t even avoid talking about you when I’m writing my autobiography, otherwise none of this would make sense.”
Lucifer seemed somewhat bewildered, and after a long pause, he managed to stammer, "Really? You want everyone to know our story? Even though..."
"Despite what?"
“Even though I’ve lost many of the things you gave me.” Lucifer avoided Anatoly’s gaze.
“But I lied to you too, so we’re even.” Anatoly said, glancing at the steel needle he had been holding in his hand.
“Something’s not right.” Greed paced back and forth in the monitoring room. “Anatole isn’t the type to expose his private relationships to the public. In fact, he’s quite reserved in that regard and rarely mentions his friends to strangers. And, with someone like Batman around, is it really a good idea to just reveal his past to the public like this?”
“What are you worried about?” Stark asked, looking at him. “Isn’t it normal to want to write a book or make a game about my experiences with my best friends? Once the free design rights are opened up, I’m going to make an autobiography too.”
"It seems he's very important to you," the Joker said casually to Schiller. "Could it be that you also played a significant role in his life?"
"That's the problem. If he can't avoid talking about Lucifer, then he can't avoid talking about me either. And he's a very ethical doctor; he would never disclose a patient's privacy."
“Perhaps he didn’t intend to sell it,” Stark said. “He just made it as a keepsake.”
The word "commemoration" seemed to stir some greed in him, but he said nothing and simply looked at the monitor screen again.
“How do we play this level?” Charles looked at the cage in the middle of the room, while Eric noticed a brick on the wall. The room wasn’t as dark as before; although not as bright as the room where the scales were, it was still bright enough to see clearly. Therefore, he instinctively noticed a brick on the right wall that seemed to be protruding.
He went over and pried at the seam with his fingers, some debris fell off, and then he tried to pry it open with an iron rod, finding that he could actually pry it open. While Charles was examining the cage, Eric, by persistently prying at the seams of the bricks, finally managed to pry the brick off.
On the back of the brick was written in blood: "They are watching."
Charles also came closer, paused for a moment when he saw the words in blood, blinked, and then said, "Is this part of the plot?"
“Probably.” Eric nodded, then thought for a moment and said, “'They’re watching'? Who are these 'they'? And how are they watching?”
“It seems the mastermind behind this really is an organization.” Charles, however, began to think from another angle. “If it really is an evil company conducting human experiments, it’s normal for them to be watching this place through surveillance.”
Eric shook his head slightly and said, "I don't think it's that simple. After being tormented by the previous levels, this person's condition is probably not very good, and it certainly won't be easy for them to spend the effort to leave clues. If they did leave any, they would definitely leave the most important ones."
"Since this person was able to fool the surveillance personnel and hide the information behind the bricks, it proves that he is very smart and not so stupid as to be unable to summarize important information. So the fact that he chose to tell us 'someone is watching' means that this information is the most important. But this is actually not normal, is it?"
“That’s true.” Charles nodded. “Normally, important information should help with getting through customs, or directly reveal the identity and purpose of the mastermind. Whether someone is watching you or not is not important, and even if someone is watching, so what?”
"It would be strange if no one was watching. Anyone who's made it this far could more or less guess that someone is behind this, so why would they build such a huge secret room and forget to install surveillance cameras? Any normal person could deduce that someone is watching this place; this seems like completely invalid information. Unless..."
The two exchanged a glance, and Eric said, "The identity and purpose of the mastermind are both related to 'seeing'."