15. The Mysterious Resistance Camp

Amidst a flash of white light, voices echoed in his ears.

“Hey... are we there yet?”

“This terrain is completely unfamiliar; it’s going to take a while, right?”

“Damn explosion...”

“Ah~ Found it, it’s the temporary base!!”

As his vision returned, Lino realized he was walking through a jungle-like area. Breathing in the humid air, he looked around. A few people dressed in wasteland-style gear were heading toward a campsite with tents set up at the edge of the forest. A ponytailed girl turned back and called out to him, “Hey, newcomer, come over here quickly!”

[Complete the prologue performance as prompted.]

Hearing the system’s voice, Lino smiled slightly and followed them. Someone among them asked, “Are your injuries healed?”

Lino replied, “I don’t remember.”

The ponytailed girl looked puzzled. “Has your memory been affected?”

[Your current default identity is an android.]

[Yes, an android with no memories has merged with you; he looks exactly like you, so now you are him.]

[You belong to the resistance group.]

Someone nearby murmured, “You collapsed in the forest; we found you. Looks like you need a checkup. I heard there are five others like you.”

Lino nodded; those five were also players.

The ponytailed girl said, “But you’re different from them. You’re too unique.”

Lino was surprised; this girl was no ordinary person.

She continued, “What were you thinking wandering around with a folding stool and an iron rod?”

Lino lowered his head slightly. As weapons bound to him that weren’t stored in his backpack, he held the iron rod in his left hand and the folding stool in his right... Being called unique wasn’t wrong.

He explained, “So I can rest anytime when I get tired.”

A resistance member whispered, “Better check his brain thoroughly when we get back...”

Suddenly, Lino asked, “Excuse me, what year is it now?”

“Hmm...” The person in charge of repairs in the group rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Looks like your memory loss is more severe than we thought. It’s the year 11,942.”

11,942... Lino pondered. The storyline of the game Nier: Automata was set three years later in the current timeline.

What concerned him more were the few lines he heard on the train:

“The wheel of reincarnation has begun to turn; the world of ceaseless daylight is under invasion by darkness; dawn will become the anchor point, opening a new...”

The last sentence was noticeably stretched out, as if unfinished.

He had a feeling this script would deviate significantly from its original path.

At that moment, they entered the camp.

Lino scanned the surroundings, and his eyebrows twitched involuntarily.

This camp was different from the game.

In the game, the resistance camp was surrounded by towering buildings and thick walls, with the colors inside dominated by dark gray, creating an indescribable oppressive atmosphere.

But here, it was more like a large temporary tent camp.

There were no abandoned buildings or high walls nearby, just dense tall trees.

He followed the resistance members to a rest area with medical beds.

Five individuals who clearly didn’t belong to this world were sitting there.

“Rest for a bit. In five minutes, our captain will come to talk to you,” said the resistance member before leaving.

The remaining players exchanged glances.

Lino quickly scanned them. The environment was ordinary, but the players sitting nearby piqued his interest.

From left to right: a stout man, a girl with wheat-colored skin, a clean-cut buzz-cut guy, a guy with a middle part hairstyle, and someone wearing a “Doraemon” mask.

Starting with the stout man:

He was over 180 centimeters tall, weighed around 220 pounds, with a solid build. If survival became a crisis, he could probably sustain himself for a month on his own ration.

The two young men were unremarkable, with serious faces suggesting they weren’t fond of jokes.

The one leaning against a rack wearing the Doraemon mask was the only one not sitting and struck a pose. He gave Lino a bad feeling...

“Hello, everyone,” said the wheat-skinned girl first. “Um... I won’t say my real name; just call me 'Xiao You'... I’ve only done one official mission, so I hope I don’t hold you back.”

“Not at all,” replied the buzz-cut guy. “I’m Old Guan, level 12.”

“What a coincidence, I’m also level 12. Just call me Zhang Wei. Let’s look out for each other,” said the middle-part guy, whose face was full of an air of self-importance.

“Okay, great,” Xiao You nodded.

Lino unfolded the stool and sat down, his mind constantly filtering through these players.

He felt uneasy about the girl.

Appearance-wise, Xiao You was attractive, looked to be in her twenties, with short hair just past her ears, curved eyebrows like willow leaves, almond-shaped eyes, and slightly tanned, vibrant skin. In reality, she probably had no shortage of admirers.

However... this kind of cute exterior gave Lino a feeling of unease, as if she might be used as a shield.

Never underestimate a woman's natural advantage; simple acts of coquettishness or cuteness could make even strangers risk their lives for her in critical moments.

Lino always thought that beautiful women were like summoners.

From the girl’s fluent conversational style, she was likely skilled at this.

Should he kill her?

As Lino mulled this over, the girl’s gaze lingered on him for a moment.

When she saw his folding stool and iron rod, she hesitated, then skipped over Lino and looked at the one in the Doraemon mask.

“Where’s brother?”

“Humph... Doraemon,” came the reply.

Xiao You was speechless.

Lino felt that “humph” sounded familiar...

The girl looked at the stout man, who seemed to be pondering his own name.

Lino turned his head and smiled, saying, “Hello there.”

“Ah, hello, you all,” the stout man timidly licked his lips. “I’m Chen Shou.”

Lino smiled back, “...Skinny brother, huh? I can tell. Nice to meet you.”

Since everyone had introduced themselves, the girl and the others’ eyes turned to Lino.

He raised the iron rod and said, “Just call me Director Tong.”

Xiao You said, “...That’s quite a distinctive name.”

“Director Tong, I’m the iron rod hospital,” the buzz-cut Old Guan joked before asking, “Brother, you didn’t seriously bind the iron rod and folding stool as your equipment, did you?”

“Yes,” Lino raised an eyebrow. “So I can rest anytime when I’m tired. It’s convenient. Plus, this stool has explosive damage.”

Old Guan pursed his lips and glanced at the others, seemingly seeking agreement—this guy was a bit off.

Only Xiao You awkwardly said, “Well... okay, brother, you thought that through.”

Lino was telling the truth.

But no one believed him.

Besides Lino, none of the others had bound equipment—they simply didn’t have enough gold.

People tend to judge others by appearances.

From an outsider’s perspective, Lino looked the most comfortable, but he gave off a weak vibe.

Putting looks and toughness aside, someone who used a folding stool as bound equipment either had a stool that truly packed a punch or just had a screw loose.

In this regard, you couldn’t blame others.

Few would believe a folding stool had explosive properties.

Actually, the Endless Corridor had a hidden rule barely mentioned in the manual: rewards drawn might align with the player’s personality and tags.

Many players overlooked this rule.

But it carried significant implications.

Puzzle solvers had a higher chance of acquiring puzzle-solving tools like a “searching staff.”

Killers were more likely to obtain bladed weapons.

It was easy to imagine that Lino’s [Random Attribute MOD Poké Ball] was related not only to his play style but also to his jumpy personality.

After some small talk, before the resistance members returned, Old Guan analyzed: “We’re probably all here for random missions. I’ll say this first: the task levels range from 8 to 12. Most likely, the script’s difficulty won’t be too high, but I’m still a bit worried about the world setting of Nier: Automata.”

“Um...” Chen Shou raised his plump hand, timid as a student facing a teacher. “I... don’t know much about this game.”

Old Guan frowned. “The Endless Corridor is all game worlds; you don’t know the game?”

Chen Shou sheepishly replied, “I just caught up to the PS2 games... haven’t reached PS4 yet.”

Old Guan sighed and briefly explained:

In 2003, a massive temporal rift appeared in the sky over Shinjuku, Japan.

Dragons and giants descended; this shocked the Japanese government.

After fierce battles, the giants were slain by the dragons’ claws, but the dragons were killed by human missiles.

However, a substance called “magic element” carried by the giants dispersed into the air.

Magic element acted like a virus, infecting humans rapidly.

Infected humans turned into salt-white, violent monsters.

To stop this catastrophe, humans developed “soulization” technology: extracting souls, capturing soul data, then creating replicas based on that data.

Replicas had no consciousness but were programmed with two aims: to eliminate the rampaging infected and to continue extracting souls to create more replicas.

Souls were frozen until the plague subsided, then thawed and returned to their replicas.

But things went awry; a tragic event 700 years later made stopping the disaster impossible...

By 4196, humans were extinct.

Yet during this time, humans created androids.

Thousands of years after humanity’s extinction, two intelligent life forms remained on this planet: androids and machines.

Nier: Automata tells the story of conflicts between these two life forms.

At the end, Old Guan mused, “The main game story starts in 11,945, but I remember hearing the script mission’s time was 11,942, three years before the story begins...”

Zhang Wei, the middle-part guy, added, “So this might involve stories beyond the game’s content, maybe with unexpected developments.”

Lino silently thought, Isn’t that obvious? The resistance camp turned into a tent camp—an unexpected event is already underway.

Xiao You blinked her bright eyes and said to Old Guan and Zhang Wei, “You guys know so much. I’m just not there yet...”

Old Guan smiled proudly.

His level was indeed among the highest present.

He had no problem showing off.

For the next minute, Xiao You said many flattering things to everyone.

Lino, however, drifted mentally.

He kept pondering the prelude he heard on the train:

“The wheel of reincarnation has begun to turn; the world of ceaseless daylight is under invasion by darkness; dawn will become the anchor point, opening a new...”

There had to be another sentence after “opening a new...” that was missing. Lino found it perplexing.

At that moment, a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing a hooded military uniform entered.

She addressed the players: “I’m Ram. I was supposed to arrange medical exams for you, but unfortunately... our repair technician is busy. Since your memory systems are damaged, I’m here to brief you.”

Ah, the mission was beginning.

Lino sat upright on his folding stool.

“Yesterday, a special explosion occurred nearby. The environment was affected; buildings and vegetation were destroyed. We all lost consciousness. When we woke up, many people couldn’t even find their bodies.”

Ram deliberately said “bodies” instead of “corpses” because androids theoretically had lifespans over a hundred years.

“The leader went out with a team to investigate and can’t be contacted.”

“Many events beyond our understanding are occurring nearby.”

As she spoke, a mission panel appeared before each player, signaling the start of the mission:

[Main Quest Start]

[Find the Resistance Leader]

[Time Limit: 3 Hours]

[Reward: Base gold 1500, experience 1000, additional rewards based on contribution]

[Special Mission: ???]

[Hidden Lore: ???]

[Average Mission Difficulty Level: 10]