Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

In a vegetative state mumbles X Beijin.

It does give him new ideas.

He doesnt have an intricate understanding of the medical details of a vegetative person, but he has heard rumours about them.

For example, their EEG graph shows scattered activity, so they havent actually experienced brain death.

And people also say that those people arent actually unable to perceive the outside world anymore. They just cant wake up from their sleep.

X Beijin doesnt know about the scientific definition of life either, but he suspects, that the Fyecas would count a vegetative person as entirely alive, and they must also be capable of extracting the brain waves from them.

So a vegetative person like Xie Zhijin might actually be more like life as the Fyecas and Maertons would understand it, given they themselves are beings practically constituted by a consciousness alone and humans would perhaps classify them as artificial intelligence, or some kind of machine life, that can live without a form.

Thats what makes Xie Zhijin special.

And also, quite possibly all others who are in a similar state.

Being cast into this game by the Fyecas while being in a vegetative or similar state might have caused peculiar changes to them, for they are treated perhaps like beings of sole consciousness rather than of the flesh, which the Fyecas label antiquated and primitive.

Regardless, that might explain the sharper senses and instincts Xie Zhijin has in the game.

In other words, he wont truly lose himself in Nightmares. If one tries to quantify the qualities of a being in this game in statistical terms, Xie Zhijin would possess abnormally high mental fortitude, strength of consciousness, recognition of his self-identity, etc.

And possibly, X Beijin and Lin Qin as well, who are also more like the Fyecas and Maertons at this point, rather than human.

Well, at least Xie Zhijin still has his body, but X Beijins and Lin Qins are clearly nowhere to be found anymore.

X Beijin cant help but close his eyes for a moment, looking somewhat exhausted. He doesnt know how he can possibly explain all this to Xie Zhijin, to explain all these unwarranted, civilisation-ending catastrophes that have befallen humanity.

He cant even explain to him what Fyeca and Maerton even are, or what the two species identify as life.

Therefore, all he can say is, it might possibly be a quirky bug in the game.

Excusing everything with bugs isnt a good habit;

But at least, it should be enough to make Xie Zhijin understand the implications.

Though the man just blinks in response, looking confused.

X Beijin explains, anyway, you did lose your memories in the Ultimate Nightmare, and that makes you succumbed; at the same time, you havent actually lost your sense of self. You were able to perceive a problem with reality thusly.

This created a contradiction; you were both sane and insane, both succumbed and lucid.

The game would be treating you as a Missiontaker who has succumbed, so you are left to end up in the grey fog outside the Tower.

This situation means that, when you enter a door leading to the grey fog, a bug has to be triggered; no game would check twice whether youre succumbed or not, so your earlier amnesia took precedence, allowing you to return from the Ultimate Nightmare to the Tower.

Without flinching, X Beijin bullshits his way through.

Well,most of it is actually true. Those who are succumbed in the Ultimate Nightmare and enter a door inside will naturally end up in the grey fog; thats actually the same mechanism that removed succumbed players in other Nightmares of the Tower.

The only difference is that the grey fog has connected the Tower to the Ultimate Nightmare right now.

There are a few cases to consider.

Are they madmen who were already in the grey fog?

Are they madmen who succumbed in the Ultimate Nightmare?

Are they sane people who still were inside the Ultimate Nightmare?

The first group is to be transported from the grey fog to the Ultimate Nightmare as the difficulty, the danger within. That is their duty.

The second group is returned to the Tower via the doors in the Ultimate Nightmares grey fog basically, the crowd of insane people gathering outside on the bottom floor. These people have been treated the normal way via the game mechanics treatment of the insane, and of the grey fog.

If its the third group, as in, players who accidentally enter through a door in the Ultimate Nightmare, the game actually randomly teleports them through another door in the Ultimate Nightmare.

It is actually similar to how doors work in X Beijins Nightmare as a connecting path inside the Nightmare itself.

Given that Xie Zhijin is back at the Tower, the game must be treating him as insane, even though he is actually lucid.

Xie Zhijin thinks he understands.

He doesnt know why X Beijin would know about all these intricacies, but that was a watertight explanation of what happened to him.

He felt he had his wits with him entirely, though the game thinks that he is insane, succumbed because he has lost his memories of the Tower. So someone insane like him had to be put into the grey fog, such is its function to accommodate all who have lost themselves.

Thats why he returned to the Tower, and its nothing strange;

The stranger thing is, the fact that he had his wits about him.

Xie Zhijin goes over their conversation, and wonders if the fact that he is in a vegetative state might be what is keeping him sane in this case.

Its a bitironicto him.

Then he lets himself calm down, and asks about other things.

What do I need to do to help next? He asks, should I go to sleep again to reenter the Ultimate Nightmare?

There is no need to, replies X Beijin, and further asking, what were the others doing just before you left the Ultimate Nightmare?

They were going to look for the developer of the AI, says Xie Zhijin, who suddenly seems to have an epiphany and blurts out, wait, do you

X Beijin nods, and says, I know.

Xie Zhijin then skips the explanation and just tells him, they want to do something rather than nothing in the Ultimate Nightmare.

X Beijin genuinely comments, and I pray for their success.

Because that is actually the way to resolve the Ultimate Nightmare, as dictated by the plot of the game, unlike what X Beijin is doing attempting to force a conclusion to the Ultimate Nightmare by violent outside intervention.

That is when Xie Zhijin seems to recall something and says, oh, right. I must also thank you, sir.

X Beijin asks, what do you mean? If its the Ultimate Nightmares

Oh, I mean Xie Zhijin explains, I want to thank you for lowering the difficulty of the Ultimate Nightmare.

X Beijin

Since when did he lower the difficulty of the Ultimate Nightmare?

Xie Zhijin continues on his own, all the mad people that ran outside of the grey fog arent attacking people, and the Missiontakers and Actors are all able to find each other quickly you could only have arranged everything beforehand. It was such a brilliant move!

X Beijin

After a slightly awkward moment of silence, he smiles and says, oh, my pleasure.

Hes had enough of explaining himself to these Missiontakers who always misconstrue the facts left and right! Fine, he did it! Hell take the undue credit!

Though what Xie Zhijin mentioned is worth further consideration.

The madmen escaping from the grey fog arent hostile

That actually would also make them similar to those crowding outside on the bottom floor, but X Beijin didnt think deeply about that earlier.

Perhaps the Ultimate Nightmare has caused unexpected impacts on the madmens psyche.

Who knows what they actually think about?

Sure, both X Beijin and everyone else enjoy labelling them as insane, but that is only something true when compared to themselves.

Theyre not absolutely out of their minds, but merely, theyve lost some kind of rationale inside the Tower.

When they succumb to the Ultimate Nightmare and lose their memories of the Tower, they turn back into who they once were on Earth, before experiencing the Apocalypse anew in fast forward.

So for them, when they are transported through a door in the grey fog, its like a transmigration, almost, from Earth to a strange placeA tall, lonely building.

X Beijin would like think that this is a kind of revisionism for how the Apocalypse on Earth ended.

Obviously, aliens landing and taking humans away would not be recreated in the Ultimate Nightmare, even though that was the last step of the Apocalyptic plight of humanity After the spread of the madness, and the Raining Hellfire. This stage is what X Beijin wants to call, the imprisonment of humanity.

That is the complete Apocalypse.

Those Missiontakers and Actors still awake would not experience it, but those who have succumbed to the Nightmares and actually thought of themselves as people on Earth still living on Earth, would be the ones to be moved from Earth to this prison for countless humans.

X Beijin cant help but say that the human designer of this gameIf there really was onethey sure are obsessively concerned with minutiae.

Demanding these human players to re-experience everything in the last instance of the game. That, or possibly, theyre simply trying to jolt their fellow humans memories back.

And the madmenOr, rather, Terrans, who are possibly quite frightened that they ended up in this strange place, therefore have no aggression. Even if they do, its simply a result of the insanity experienced during the recreation of the Apocalypse in the Ultimate Nightmare.

If so, then why would those who have succumbed before the Ultimate Nightmare and emerged during the Ultimate Nightmare also stay non-hostile?

X Beijin didnt notice, because he was busy keeping an eye on the data port, and merely occasionally seeing if the Missiontakers and Actors are doing alright.

After thinking a little, he comes to a conclusion soon enough he doesnt buy the theory that the Ultimate Nightmares difficulty was lowered.

It might be that, these insane people are still players.

In other words, in the Ultimate Nightmare, whether they attack or not,are still dictated by their own will, and not by the games mechanics.

Madmen, as it wereLike those who just came to the bottom floor from the Ultimate Nightmare, act insane in all sorts of manner, primarily based on their experience in a Nightmare based on what happened on Earth, and then repeatedad nauseumfor them in truly nightmarish fashion. If they are transported to somewhere that the Nightmare does not repeat again, and the Apocalypse is ongoing, but not set in stone, and Earth is still living, rather than a charred piece of lifeless rock

What will they decide to do? Attack people?

No. They wont.

If NE were still awake, he might have used means like the plots for Actors to make them attack people still awake.

But NE himself is asleep, and X Beijin is obviously not going to do something to that effect. This means it is now up to the madmen themselves.

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