I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 641 - 201: OK! Having fully explored Sobs Peninsula, the game progress bar should be over half now!_1

Chapter 641: Chapter 201: OK! Having fully explored Sobs Peninsula, the game progress bar should be over half now!_1

This time, Wang Laoju learned his lesson.

The harsh lesson absorbed from the Big Tree Guardian led to his instant death from a combo when he encountered Omen.

He immediately judged—it’s better to explore this area later!

As for that damn BOSS, most of his damage comes with holy properties.

Even the usual strategy of blocking with a shield wasn’t very effective anymore, and his mobility was incredibly high.

Blindly charging in and brute-forcing it was definitely not the intention behind the game’s design.

If that were the case, why not put up a BOSS domain blockade right at the Big Tree Guardian, forcing you to defeat the BOSS before you could pass?

Plus, he had learned from the Big Tree Guardian the technique of finding alternate routes.

Wang Laoju made up his mind.

"I’ve finally understood the essence of this game. Designer Ke wants to tell us that if we hit a wall in one place, we can try our luck somewhere else."

————

"Ya’er, so it’s about hitting another wall in a different place, huh? I’m gonna turn you into a freaking cucumber juicer!"

Meanwhile, on the Shark Platform.

The PDD live streaming room erupted with a high-pitched squeal of a pig.

He, like Lao Ju and the other streamers broadcasting "Elden" at the same time,

had struggled against the Big Tree Guardian and couldn’t get through.

After finding a way around the tree and getting some intense training at the camp,

he thought he’d gotten stronger, only to be pulverized by mountain demons again.

He had barely triumphed over them when he barely set foot in Stonewell City,

not even making it to the city gate tower before Omen jumped out and killed him in a few slashes.

He realized that maybe the game wasn’t meant to be played this way.

At the beginning, since he had no experience with this type of game,

almost all streamers treated it like a linear RPG.

A linear RPG is just about following the main quest line until it’s done, right?

You see the light from the Blessing Spot ahead of the level, slowly transforming into a very distinct guiding beam.

It was obviously trying to get players to explore Stonewell City!

So, hack and slash!

But after being roughed up by the roadblock monsters and left bloody, most of the streamers finally realized something.

No, the game probably isn’t about brute-forcing the main storyline...

Just like the game’s tagline said.

Open world.

"Does that mean the whole world is open to players?"

"Or does it mean something else?"

"Whatever, let’s go check out other areas first! Just like when we couldn’t beat the Big Tree Guardian and had to find a detour to avoid it, we’ll see if there are other paths."

PDD turned his horse around and headed straight east from in front of the level.

He remembered there was a fork in the road by the campsite.

Heading west would take you to the main story road and up the mountain to fight Omen.

He hadn’t explored the eastern side yet, which seemed worth a look.

But soon after, PDD became perplexed.

After passing through the novice training camp in the opposite direction, he realized that he could go anywhere around him...

And it wasn’t just a few branching paths for the player to choose from.

It was truly an open direction—you could go anywhere!

No end was in sight no matter which direction you looked.

The vast expanse of the terrain was broad, but it also made it easy for players to lose their way.

Where am I? Who am I? Where should I go?

In other games, they sometimes fear players would play too wildly, creating invisible walls to prevent progression and force them back on track.

But this game, damn it...

forces you off the main track to explore other areas...

None of the streamers had experienced a game like this, with no guidance or hints, suddenly throwing a huge area at you to wander around aimlessly.

At this point, many were somewhat at a loss.

However, PDD soon got distracted by what was ahead.

At the end of his vision, there was a group of miners with pickaxes, clinking and clanking against the mountain.

The miners, one by one, looked gaunt like dried corpses.

Next to them, some soldiers with seemingly better equipment were wandering around with curved swords, broadswords, and torches, apparently maintaining order at the construction site.

None of that was a big deal.

What really shocked PDD,

was seeing two Stone-digging Mountain Demons!

They looked almost identical to the mountain demon guarding the gates at the level’s entrance.

But the difference was, the gate guardian mountain demon carried a greatsword.

While these two mountain demons were treated as slaves, shackled at the feet, slowly dragging a cart carrying a coffin towards a nearby arch bridge.

"Holy moly, such strong monsters can only pull carts here?" PDD exclaimed in amazement.

Not just PDD, even the chat was staring wide-eyed.

Consider this.

The players had just barely managed to kill the mountain demons.

And next thing you know, over here they can only serve as cart-pulling laborers?

The shock spread intangibly in an instant!

"Looks like they are transporting the already dead towards the city outskirts, huh?"

"And think about it, no wonder those city walls were made of such large stone bricks, they had these heavy-duty laborers to pull the stone and then the ashes."

Despite the awe, there was still killing to be done!

PDD rode by reaping the gaunt miners, then tried to break down the situation with the nearby overseers.

These overseers, compared to the soldiers in front of the novice campsite, although not much different in damage, were clearly more robust, requiring three to four hits to take down one.

And the most troublesome was a Cavalryman.

With high-speed mobility on horseback, he would suddenly charge over and hack a third of the player’s health in one fell swoop.

After a struggle with horsmanship, PDD finally defeated the Cavalryman, cleared the surrounding threats, then dismounted and slashed the leg of a cart-pulling mountain demon, bringing the cart to a halt in the middle of the bridge!