Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

Of course, this level of radiation wouldn't kill someone instantly, but volcanic ash shows no mercy, and the remains of Mount Fuji are still billowing smoke.

According to experts, the amount of volcanic ash ejected this time will be stronger than that of the Baoyong eruption. At least for the next month or two, without the protection of the Stone God, it will inevitably create a large number of cancer patients.

The most problematic thing is that this stone Ksitigarbha doesn't seem to be very sturdy.

Some researchers who collected samples were able to scrape off marks with just a few strokes, leading them to suspect that even a person with a chisel could destroy the stone statue.

The officials were terrified when they came to this conclusion and immediately began to protect all the stone Ksitigarbha statues.

If a saboteur were to suddenly appear, everyone within a radius of several kilometers would truly be affected!

However, the public doesn't care about these things. They feel that this is a selfish act by the authorities, who want to monopolize the blessings of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, and may even move Ksitigarbha away in the future.

As a result, the people spontaneously formed a Tibetan protection army, keeping a close watch on the authorities to prevent them from taking similar actions, and the two sides stared at each other every day.

"Oops! Sorry—whoa!"

A few short gasps and a dull thud as something heavy fell to the ground broke the silence of the apartment building.

Uesugi Hitomi clapped her hands expressionlessly, returned to her room, and closed the door.

Although she rarely goes out, some people still know that a single, beautiful woman lives in her apartment. They guess that the little head controls the big head and wants to take advantage of the chaos to do something.

He was simply ruthlessly suppressed by Uesugi.

Don't think cats don't have energy!

They were all thrown downstairs, their fate unknown.

"Ugh!" Uesugi slammed back onto the bed, kicking his legs in frustration. "When will the electricity and water come back on?"

After dealing with the two idiots, Uesugi Daiji collapsed on the bed complaining that it was another day without electricity or water.

She felt like she was almost fully marinated.

It's a pity I can't turn into a cat yet, otherwise I could groom myself by licking my fur.

"Damn it! Why are so many of my rewards tied to my cat form?!" she couldn't help but complain to the air.

For this rare and excellent ending, she obtained a skill called [Night Shadow Step].

When switching forms, you can lock onto a shadow within a ten-meter radius, and instantly teleport there upon switching forms.

It's practically an escape technique, only slightly inferior to teleportation and flight; she's already quite satisfied.

Unfortunately, she still needs to unlock the intermediate growth level and be able to transform into a cat before she can use it.

The only good news these past few days is that she asked Nobita to contact her family and let them know that everything is alright and they don't need to worry.

"Oh, I almost forgot, today is the last day the game closes. What will the ranking rewards be?"

In the final few days, no one was able to achieve a perfect completion, making this the first game in which no one has achieved a perfect completion.

I wonder if this will have any impact on the final points settlement.

Even though some players have a vague sense of the path to the perfect ending, there's not enough time, and they can only watch the countdown approach little by little.

Player Lobby.

There is half an hour left until the countdown ends.

As soon as Uesugi entered, he saw Nobita standing there in a daze.

"Thinking about Hayato?"

"Oh... um." Nobita snapped out of his daze, uttered a few indistinct syllables, and then nodded.

“Didn’t Takii say yesterday that the situation was improving? The authorities won’t let anything happen to him,” Uesugi reassured him.

Nobi understood this and changed the subject: "My reward only increases strength, roughly the strength of three ordinary people, but there is no change in endurance."

Nobita was referring to his final reward, the Power Charm.

"If it can take effect even when you're not in Knight mode, that would be pretty good."

"I guess so." What Nobi really wanted was the Extreme Cooling Card; that was a god-tier item for him.

As for strength, it will gradually increase as his level increases.

If he had ten cooling cards and three bottles of holy spring water, he would dare to challenge Ashiya Doman one-on-one.

Well, whether this counts as a one-on-one fight is debatable.

"President." Oshima appeared and greeted the two, "Vice President."

"Has Iwasaki contacted you these past few days?" Nobita knew that Iwasaki must have obtained information about Oshima's true identity.

Oshima shook his head: "No, we've only played a few games these past few days."

"Protect your identity information. If anything unexpected happens, message me immediately." Nobi breathed a slight sigh of relief; he knew the trouble that could result from a leaked information.

"I will." Oshima smiled, seemingly in a good mood.

Perhaps it was the relief that came after eliminating Ashiya Doman.

"Regarding the curse... would you like to try the Rebirth Pill? I can help after the points are settled," Nobi pondered.

"No need, thank you, Chairman. I'll figure something out myself." He gently clutched his heart; in reality, he seemed to have become accustomed to coexisting with pain.

This serves as a constant reminder that power must not be defeated by desire.

It should be that power controls desire, not that desire manipulates power.

Nobita didn't say anything more when he saw this.

Black mist surged around the seat; Ethan Reno had logged in.

"Good evening, everyone." Renault gave his usual warm greeting, and then took the initiative to complain to them about his unpleasantness of being abroad.

It was clear that he was in a good mood as always, or rather, he was able to perfectly control his emotions.

And he certainly had reason to be in a good mood; he had spent some time thoroughly figuring out his ending reward, the function of the blood clotting spores.

It is a type of spore that can be grown inside the body. It is fed with blood energy on a daily basis, but it can be detonated when necessary to create a blood-red domain for a short time, within which one's abilities are enhanced.

Unfortunately, it's a one-time use item, and it reduces your maximum health after it explodes, but it's still an amazing trump card for survival.

As they chatted, the most mysterious player, Tian, ​​came online.

His appearance was strange; he had a human body with a head topped with a huge camera.

He simply nodded to everyone as a greeting, then lowered his head to look at his notebook, remaining silent.

Even though he can still talk quite a bit while playing games, it's all just related to the game.

As the countdown drew to a close, Yui also appeared online.

Her image is exactly as she appears, except she's wearing a plain white dress.

Apart from the large island they had seen before, the others looked somewhat surprised, as it was the first time they had seen a normal, unmasked figure in the player lobby.

Iwasaki logged on after her.

Currently, players are only missing Muramasa Taki and Miyamoto Hayato to be released.

Just two minutes before the deadline, Takii came online.

Also present was Hayato, dressed as a motorcycle rider.

"Hayato," Nobi said with a sigh of relief, "when did you wake up?"

Hayato scratched his head in a very Japanese way.

“I woke up half an hour ago. I’m sorry to have worried everyone. Ms. Muramasa told me everything that happened. You were thinking of my life. Don’t worry, I’m not ungrateful.”

"The officials on the other end were quite nice; they didn't press me too much, and they didn't force me to join. They just said they could offer me a monthly salary of ten million yen if I wanted to join."

He went on and on, seemingly recovering quite well.

Hearing that Hayato didn't blame him, Nobita felt a huge weight lifted from his heart.

Unfortunately, since blood beads are not a reward or item from the game system, they cannot be given directly. I can only try to give them to him in real life.

The group had barely exchanged a few words when the countdown came to an end.

The game "The Promise of the Underworld" has been open for a full month and is now officially closed.

[No player achieved the perfect ending before the game ended.]

Ranking rewards have been successfully distributed.

[Points have been settled ahead of schedule and distributed together. Team leader, please check and discuss distribution matters.]

Once the allocation is complete, the squad mode will be officially deactivated. If the allocation is not completed, the squad mode will be automatically deactivated after two days, and the rewards will be forcibly distributed evenly among the team members.

The game system will undergo a version upgrade, which will last for one month.

After the new version goes live, "Unknown" will distribute a batch of Holy Spring Water as a version settlement reward based on the performance of players in the old version. Please continue your efforts in the new version and strive for perfection.

More features coming soon!

Version update?

"The games we've played so far have all been related to Ashiya Dōman's plan to rebuild the underworld. Now that we've brought everything to an end, it's not surprising that this storyline has come to an end."

Uesugi added the announcement to his database: "In gaming terms, it's time for an expansion pack update, or you could call it a version update."

As the saying goes, each version has its own meta, and hopefully these veteran players won't be overwhelmed by the power spikes of new players.

However, they also know that the difference between new and old players mainly lies in points and items. In terms of ability, the most important thing is the result of the first clear of the game.

Even a veteran player with a C ending, who has accumulated advantages from the previous version, probably can't beat a genius newbie who gets a perfect ending as soon as they enter the game.

I'm talking about you, Uesugi-nyan.

At that moment, Nobita was thinking about the headless winged man.

If there's any mystery that remains unsolved, it's the unknown origin of the winged person found by Ashiya Doman.

Judging from Ashiya Dōman's core being the winged finger, which eventually transformed into a headless winged man, he must have fused with that little finger.

This is likely why he was able to maintain his sanity even after merging with so many demons, although he eventually broke down.

"For the new version, I hope everyone will pay more attention to the possible weaknesses of the demons." Muramasa Taki looked at Oshima. "During the final battle, only Oshima made the connection. Ashiya Dōman is an enhanced version of Shukai. And the demons that feed on negative human emotions are most afraid of positive emotions."

"This point is hinted at in 'The Promise of the Underworld' and even 'Subway'."

"Our superpower system is different from that of demons or any predecessors in cultivation. However, this is precisely our advantage. It is flexible and adaptable. Potential assessment does not determine everything. Even if we encounter a counter-power, B can still defeat A."

Oshima waved his hand somewhat embarrassedly: "I... I just asked for the benefit of being a descendant of Daoman so that I could guess a little more things."

Iwasaki looked at him: "Island, squad mode."

After saying that, he entered team mode and began distributing rewards.

The Iwasaki team ranked second, and their reward was 3 random draws and 220 points.

It can be said that the points awarded this time are unprecedentedly generous, even if they are split among three people.

"Do you have any opinions on the allocation?"

Iwasaki asked.

Iwasaki performed the best in their team this game, followed by Yui, and then Oshima.

However, it's hard to say that Oshima's suggestions were ineffective, after all, he is a descendant of the Doman family.

"As for the points, the captain gets half, and the island and I split the other half equally."

Yui looked at Oshima: "The reward is a random draw. We'll draw the reward first, and the captain will choose first. Oshima and I will play rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes first. How about that?"

Oshima had no objections; given his personality, it would be difficult for him to argue about anything, and besides, he felt there was nothing wrong with this distribution.

Iwasaki saw that Oshima did not object and proceeded with the allocation plan, but requested a whole number of points, one hundred.

The remaining two people split sixty.

The lottery involves a gashapon machine on the table. Twist it three times, and three miniature dolls representing the prizes will appear.

These are an energy-generating magic carpet, a doll-like figure, and a portable flushing toilet.

"."

The toilet is a bit much.

Iwasaki naturally took the clone doll; if its function was as he expected, he would be able to leave home for extended periods of time in the future.

Yui and Oshima decide the winner by playing rock-paper-scissors.