I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 777 - 777 776. Welcome to Miskatonic_1

Chapter 777: 776. Welcome to Miskatonic_1 Chapter 777: 776. Welcome to Miskatonic_1 Old Eggplant was perplexed.

Had Lu Ban created this copy based on the film festival, for his own past experience?

Or was it saying…

“It’s not possible that Lu Ban is now at the film festival, letting us experience it on-site with these virtual reality helmets, right?”

Old Eggplant laughed.

He had seen some game concepts before that used augmented reality technology; players would don special glasses, and elements of the real world would take on the guise of the game’s environment, allowing players to interact and play within reality.

For instance, the previously popular Pokémon mobile game, which required players to go to specific locations in the real world to catch Pokémon, was one way to implement it.

With “Morning Star,” Lu Ban had leaped straight into virtual reality. Now, was he turning back to augmented reality?

Despite being a player, Old Eggplant also had his own thoughts about the gaming industry.

The problem with modern games, plainly speaking, was not a lack of ideas, but a lack of ways to realize these ideas. Many fantastical concepts and playing methods were not without thinkers, simply lacking the technical means for proper implementation.

People in the past had thought about how interesting it would be if games allowed free movement, climbing, flying. But the coding and computer capabilities of the time could only support characters moving on a plane. As computer technology developed, open-world games emerged. Nonetheless, those open worlds weren’t entirely free; their NPCs all followed predefined code and couldn’t produce a truly real world.

Clearly, Lu Ban’s “Morning Star” had solved this problem. In the Night Country, Old Eggplant had interacted with the natives. They seemed like real humans, with their own thoughts.

Despite many appearing somewhat wooden and stiff due to a lack of knowledge, their intelligence was obviously normal.

Therefore, Old Eggplant always suspected that Night Country truly existed, as a real place, and what Lu Ban had done was merely allow players like himself to cross over and arrive there in some way.

Regardless, Old Eggplant was definitely going to check out Miskatonic.

Before entering the game, Old Eggplant did some homework, searching for news related to Miskatonic, but he only found news about the film festival, which he silently took note of.

Afterward, he put on the helmet and entered [The Silent Land].

Old Eggplant didn’t enter “The Last Lesson,” which he had been working on. Instead, he pushed open the door to [The Film Festival].

As the door moved, a gray haze enveloped Old Eggplant, and then he felt a powerful force pulling him from the front, sucking him into the door.

The surrounding scenery began to blur, like different colors of fuel mixed into water, rippling out and ultimately forming a myriad of hues.

These colors seemed like they didn’t belong to this world, soaring into the high heavens, between the cosmos and the stars.

Coming to his senses, Old Eggplant found himself standing firmly on the ground.

He first checked his status.

At least he looked human.

Old Eggplant was wearing the clothes he had on in his room. He immediately felt a chill.

He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt!

It was way too cold!

It was winter, December, nearing Christmas, and the New England area was now bitingly cold, quickly causing Old Eggplant’s teeth to chatter as he curled up.

“Damn, I should have worn more clothes!”

Old Eggplant knew that exiting the game to change now wouldn’t alter the situation. He could only endure the cold and look around.

“What about the promised film crew?”

He found himself next to a broad meadow, which seemed to be a city parking lot, but there was only one car parked. There were a few pedestrians around, with the sky darkening as night approached. It would doubtlessly grow even colder.

Old Eggplant decided to go and see what was happening.

He had only taken a couple of steps when he noticed pedestrians beside him looking his way.

Old Eggplant looked back and found that all of their faces bore a bizarre smile.

That smile held not the slightest bit of joy, resembling the visage of the dead made up by a mortician after death, their bodies clothed in suits and dresses, standing rigid like puppets in the cold wind.

“… What are you looking at?”

Old Eggplant asked, realizing only then that he had spoken English, even though his English had been “returned to the teacher” after passing the Level Six exam, but now the words came out fluently.

Thinking about it, it made sense; this was North America, an English-speaking place, and if he had to communicate with the locals in broken English, it would be very difficult indeed.

“Is he suitable?”

The people looking at Old Eggplant suddenly made a noise, as if discussing with the people next to them.

“Where did he come from?”

“He’s suitable; he really needs it now!”

“Yes, he’s suitable, we’ll take him!”

“Sacrifice, sacrifice, he is the offering!”

After exchanging a few words, Old Eggplant saw the puppet-like people, stiff as before, suddenly begin to move, quickly running towards him.

Their running gait was comical, like infants who had just learned to walk, stumbling and bumping into each other, but they were moving fast.

Before he could react, Old Eggplant was seized.

His hands were grabbed, and Old Eggplant saw the skin where they touched him turn black quickly, as if stained by dye. He frantically struggled to escape but was quickly surrounded by many people.

Old Eggplant was lifted into the air, crying out loudly, but soon his mouth was covered.

He was carried onto the street, and as the night’s passersby were many, Old Eggplant, with his mouth covered, made muffled noises.

He wanted to ask for help from the people around him, but then Old Eggplant noticed that these passersby all wore the same eerie smile on their faces.

A chill went through Old Eggplant’s heart, and in the blink of an eye, he was carried into a church.

He saw at the prayer altar of the church stood a Divine Idol of the Virgin Mary, but its eyes were covered with black cloth, giving off a forbidden aura. What caught the most attention, however, was the object in the statue’s arms.

Normally, it should have been the infant Jesus there, even though the religion itself doesn’t always give God a specific form. But in some sects, idolatry exists, and they endow God with a concrete image to worship fervently.

But now, in the Virgin Mary’s arms, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lay a mass of black ooze.

The ooze was like the deepest night sky, or an unknown abyss, and just one glance was enough to strip away human Sanity.

Within the ooze, delicate tentacles were gestating, spreading outward, and Old Eggplant thought he saw countless eyes among the flesh, something reminiscent of goats’ hooves, he didn’t know what more.

Old Eggplant’s consciousness became hazy; he was placed in the center of a complex Array made of an unknown bright red pigment.

“He can be used for the sacrifice.”

Old Eggplant heard a man clothed in black robes, his face covered by a hood, say.

The next moment, an Obsidian dagger plunged into Old Eggplant’s chest, causing a piercing pain. Then, quickly, before blood could gush forth, Old Eggplant had turned into a puddle of filth, soiling the exquisite ceremonial Array.

The man holding the Obsidian dagger was taken aback; he looked at the dagger in his hand, then at the others, and cocked his head.