Chapter 14 The Skull of a Pessimist

"Timber!" Atobe roared, leaping several zhang into the air and kicking off the high trunk. This ensured that the tree would fall to the other side of the chasm, and not crush the players on this side.

The vines in the canopy had rapidly withered and contracted just minutes before, so they did not hinder the tree's fall. Seconds later, the sounds of rock and wood grinding, the rush of wind as the giant fell, were followed by a muffled crash.

"Ah~ I've always wanted to yell that," Atobe said, landing, wiping sweat from his brow, and striking what he thought was a cool pose as he hefted his axe.

Feng Bujue strode forward, completely ignoring Atobe, and went straight to the severed roots.

"Aha! Equipment!" Feng Bujue immediately found the "reward" that the man in the tree had spoken of.

However, Brother Jue didn't rush to pick it up, because there were many items in the game that bound upon pickup. If it was an equipment piece that wasn't useful to him but could greatly benefit someone else, picking it up would be a disaster.

Fortunately, the 1.10 version of Thriller Paradise added a new feature. For items whose ownership was yet to be determined, players could simply get close and observe the item description, without having to hold it.

[Name: Skull of a Pessimist]

[Type: Armor]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Defense: Medium]

[Attribute: None]

[Effect: Reveals Safe Paths through the Ghost Mire]

[Requirement: Must have chosen Walker as their Faith]

[Can be brought out of this Script: No]

[Note: All reality begins with a dream, but not all dreams become reality.]

The [Skull of a Pessimist] resembled a standard Roman soldier's helmet and was embedded horizontally in the severed tree roots.

The man in the tree's earlier statement, "Cut along my waist," was a fairly obvious hint. If players had cut too high or too low, they might have missed the item.

"This one's for followers of Walker," Feng Bujue said after reading the description, pulling the helmet from the tree trunk. He turned to Wasted Life and said, "Hmm... I think we'll need it soon."

Wasted Life stepped forward, took the helmet, and examined it for a few seconds before saying, "Indeed, no matter which faith you choose, it'll come in handy at some point."

"Yes, it shows that our strategy for choosing faiths was correct," Honghu replied. "Looking back... if no one had chosen Weston, we wouldn't have known about this 'shortcut'; and if no one had chosen Idient, we wouldn't have been able to cut down the tree and find this equipment."

"Actually… the choices we made only lowered the difficulty of clearing the script," Feng Bujue poured a bucket of cold water on them. "From what I can see, setting aside the benefits of each faith, there's still a way to force our way through…" He paused and continued, "If we didn't know about the shortcut, we could've found it ourselves, or simply taken the long way around; if no one could use an axe to cut down the tree, we could've risked taking the upper route and used a few more antidote potions." He pointed ahead. "The Ghost Mire ahead will probably be the same. If we didn't have the [Skull of a Pessimist], we'd probably face great difficulties, but… it wouldn't be an insurmountable problem."

Brother Jue's words filled in a blind spot for his teammates. A little thought would reveal that… these faiths were indeed very helpful, but they weren't "necessary" conditions for clearing the game.

The faith selection scene was simply a slight adjustment to the difficulty of the upcoming script.

Teams with strong curiosity or careful consideration would likely choose more faiths and benefit from them. Those who were conservative, or had simplistic strategies and were careless, might concentrate on choosing only one or two faiths, increasing the difficulty of the game.

In short, everything was based on "choice."

The earlier scene with Lesender clearly had many variables, the key branch being the "God of Wisdom, Weston" option. There were three possible scenarios here: First, no player chose Weston. In that case… Lesender would vaguely point out the approximate location of the Temple of Faith before leaving, but he wouldn't reveal anything about the shortcut.

The second was what Brother Jue and his friends were experiencing… someone chose Weston and asked a question related to the main quest. With this choice, Lesender would reveal the shortcut before leaving.

And the third was that someone chose Weston, but asked a question unrelated to the main quest. This was basically a death option. If a player did this, Lesender would leave directly, without saying a word about the Temple of Faith.

Of course, the above three were only one set of many variables. There were many other possible plot changes, such as "failing to complete a side quest," "actively triggering a battle," "talking nonsense when choosing a faith," and so on… most of which were instant-death flags, so there was no need to go into them in detail.

…………

After cutting down the tree, the five quickly passed through the chasm and continued on their way.

Beyond the chasm was still within the range of the Mocking Woods. Therefore, after walking for a hundred meters, they were again surrounded by a chorus of curses.

But the players were already used to it and treated it as the sound of the wind…

Atobe still acted as the vanguard, hacking through thorns and brambles to clear the way. After a while, he suddenly said, "This forest is getting thinner and thinner…"

"Which means we're getting closer to the edge of the forest," Feng Bujue replied.

As they spoke, Atobe chopped open a wall of vines blocking the path.

Instantly, a strong stench assaulted their noses…

"Holy crap!" Atobe cursed, raising an arm to cover his mouth and nose, and stumbling back.

At first, the four behind him thought Atobe had seen some kind of danger and was running away. But less than two seconds later, they all smelled the foul odor that was carried on the wind…

"Ugh… what's going on?" Pegasus Fluttering in the Sky put his hands together, covering his mouth and nose, and spoke in a muffled voice.

"This game doesn't allow you to fart… so we can rule out the possibility of the smell coming from a teammate," Honghu said, covering his nose with his sleeve.

"Your analysis is pointless…" Wasted Life reacted like the former, also hiding his face behind his sleeve.

"Hmm… it smells like shit." Feng Bujue stood at the front, covering his nose with his gloves, and said thoughtfully.

"Damn it! I took a big gulp without any preparation…" Atobe had retreated to the very back, sitting sideways on the ground, his face clouded over. "I feel like I've lost something important…"

"It's just the smell of shit," Feng Bujue replied casually. "Do you have to act like you've been ruined?"

"Hey… Brother Feng, why are you so sure it's shit?" Wasted Life's tone was a little strange, because he already had some bad premonitions.

"Oh, it's like this… When I was in middle school, my natural science research project was – 'Smells'," Feng Bujue replied.

"Your teacher must have been crazy, right?" Honghu blurted out, but as soon as he said it, he immediately thought of something else and followed up with, "Were they driven crazy by you?"

"The teacher assigned 'independent research', which meant we could choose our own project," Feng Bujue said. "I hesitated for a long time between the topics of 'perfect crime' and 'smells', and considering that the former might cause misunderstandings, I ultimately chose the latter."

"If you're afraid of causing misunderstandings, just do something normal! Just plant a pot of flowers and write an observation log, and you're all set!" Honghu roared. "Speaking of which… is a perfect crime considered a natural science?"

"Anyway… according to humans' tolerance for odors, I classified them," Feng Bujue ignored the other party's吐槽 and began to explain with great interest. "The mildest is 'acceptable', like stinky tofu and garlic; then there's 'generally unpleasant', like farts, body odor, smelly socks, and moldy food; a little more serious is 'extremely unpleasant', like corpses, shit…" He paused for two seconds, took a breath, "Finally, there's 'unbearable stink', this level of substance is the nemesis of the human sense of smell, and can even directly harm us physiologically, such as hydrogen selenide, ethanethiol, skunks, etc."

"And the smell in front of us…" Feng Bujue gestured in that direction with his eyes, "...it's definitely shit, there's no doubt it's the smell of indole and skatole. This is different from the stench of corpses, although it is also a derivative of intestinal bacteria, but..."

"Okay! Stop talking! The more you say, the more disgusting it gets!" Atobe used his axe as a support, stood up again, and shouted to interrupt Brother Jue, "That's not the point! You say it is, then it is, okay! Why is this even worth discussing!"

"Hehe… there's a reason why I'm saying all this," Feng Bujue smiled. "I'm psychologically building a 'disgust defense' for you, so you can better cope with the physiological pressure that follows."

"What do you mean?" Pegasus Fluttering in the Sky widened his eyes. "Are we going to have to keep going forward with this smell?"

"Of course," Feng Bujue said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Do we have a choice?"

"He's right…" Honghu chimed in. "There's no fork in the road here, and we can't turn back… so, no matter how bad the smell is ahead, we have to go."

"Don't worry," Feng Bujue shrugged. "After a while, your sense of smell will go numb. If you really can't stand it, you might throw up a few times at most." He waved to Atobe. "Let's go, don't waste time, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

"Can I force quit? Seriously, I wanted to quit from the start!" Atobe resisted with all his might.

"Ah… it's okay, Atobe," Wasted Life said weakly. "When we get to the crap mire… uh… Ghost Mire, it'll be my turn to lead the way."

"Hey! You were going to say crap mire, weren't you! You already said it!"