25. Hidden Worldview Unlocked

The resistance fighter looked at Li Nuo, momentarily stunned, after finishing his sentence.

Li Nuo had no choice but to remove the "Emil Mask" to reveal his true face. He slowly crouched down to maintain eye contact with the wounded soldier. "What happened? Who did this? What is going on with those 'humans'? And what are these terrifying creatures you speak of?"

He asked one more question than the usual three.

The resistance fighter let out a cough. "Regardless... you should leave quickly. Don't worry about me."

Chen Shou patted Li Nuo on the shoulder and said, "It looks like you lost that five-cent bet; this guy isn't the quest giver."

Ignoring him, Li Nuo pulled out the diary he had taken from the resistance fighter he knocked unconscious and handed it over.

The other man took it, his hands trembling as he flipped it open. His vacant eyes suddenly lit up. "You met Takuta?"

"Yes, we did," Li Nuo nodded. He assumed Takuta was the one he had knocked out; answering "yes" was the safest bet. He added, "We saved him."

In truth, Li Nuo wasn't lying. Regardless of the methods used, he had technically saved the resistance fighter. To put it in a rather shameless way, one should judge a scoundrel by their actions, not their heart.

Having received the diary, the resistance fighter stopped holding back. He took a breath and spoke: "January 30th was the date of a YoRHa combat operation. We were acting as support units, but on January 29th—yesterday—the sky and the earth began to tremble..."

Li Nuo pulled out a pen and notebook to start recording.

"...At the forest's edge and several key strategic locations, white walls appeared, blocking our exit. We couldn't see what was beyond them, and they were indestructible." As he spoke, sparks flew from the damaged parts of his arm, like a dying robot performing its final duty.

"White walls... are those invisible barriers?" Chen Shou asked.

Li Nuo gestured for him to be quiet and said to the resistance fighter, "Please, continue with your account."

The resistance fighter realized Li Nuo was the "leader" of the trio. He nodded and continued: "Abnormal signs appeared in the sky; dusk and dawn began to appear during the daytime... Ever since the tidal locking occurred and the world was divided into realms of day and night, such a phenomenon had never happened. But the terrifying situation didn't end there!"

The resistance fighter suddenly grew agitated, grabbing Li Nuo's collar with strength unknown.

"We found a massive amount of corpses—humans! They were exactly like the humans described in the records. There were also many buildings we had never seen before. My teammate, Scar, opened a hidden passage there that led to the sewers. Inside... there were so many strange creatures we had never seen before! I'm the only one left! They're all dead! They all..."

So, the sewers are indeed crawling with monsters... Li Nuo thought. "Continue."

"Only Takuta managed to escape. Thankfully, you saved him. Thank you... Go back, alert the resistance, alert the Bunker, alert everyone—find a way out of here!" As he spoke, his neck made a crunching sound, like the friction of rusted mechanical gears.

"I found this here... based on the scanned data, I found the root of this thing..." Finally, he produced a white petal. "2003, Shinjuku, Japan, the Red Dragon descends..."

Li Nuo: "After the dragon died, Maso spread across the world, leading humanity to its demise."

He took the white petal from the resistance fighter's hand.

[Fragment of the Flower of Destruction]
[Plot Item]
[Description: An object from "Drakengard," which serves as the prequel to the two generations of "NieR" stories. The Flower of Destruction contains Maso, which can cause humans to go berserk with red eyes. It is the root cause of the world's descent into chaos.]
[However... it has appeared here.]

The resistance fighter said, "I can feel my consciousness on the verge of collapse. Please, kill me before I go insane."

[Special Mission: This World is So Wonderful]
[Current Task Objective: Kill him before he goes insane.]

What would happen if I didn't follow the instructions? Li Nuo thought to himself. He grabbed the resistance fighter's collar and said in a very soft voice, "No one is going to die."

The resistance fighter looked at Li Nuo with confusion. He could not see the mission panel Li Nuo had closed, but he could see the candle of hope flickering amidst death and fear.

If Chen Shou knew what the resistance fighter was thinking, he would surely have been unable to resist a sarcastic remark.

Li Nuo stored the Flower of Destruction in his inventory. [Plot Items] could occupy inventory slots, but they would automatically disappear once the mission concluded. Generally, the appearance of a [Plot Item] meant it was either a "key" set by the system—an inherently irrational existence, like the [Room 5 Key] hidden in the male corpse's head—or its destructive nature would cause the player, or even the world itself, to fall into a tearing, catastrophic ruin.

Li Nuo handed the notebook he had been using to record notes to Malj and Chen Shou. While listening to the resistance fighter, he had already jotted down his own theories about the hidden truth behind this world.

...

The story of NieR originated from a game called "Drakengard."

The game is divided into three timelines. The root of the timeline comes from the "Cataclysm" in another world, where an earthquake led to the emergence of magic and monsters.

Considering the resistance fighter's description—the tectonic movements and inexplicable explosions occurring in this area on January 29th, followed by the appearance of strange creatures and humans—it matched the "Cataclysm" almost perfectly.

After the Cataclysm, a girl with a white flower growing out of her right eye appeared; that white flower was the "Flower of Destruction." The flower spread Maso, and those infected turned into berserk, red-eyed humans. The girl was eventually killed, but the "Red Eye Disease" brought by the flower continued to spread through the world.

Years later, a man named Caim, due to a war and a red dragon, traversed warped space and arrived in the sky over Shinjuku, Tokyo, in 2003. The red dragon was shot down by missiles, and along with them came the Maso from the "Flower of Destruction," which began spreading the Red Eye Disease in the "reality" world.

What this scenario is facing is likely a similar cross-dimensional transmission. The hidden plot is likely that the Gate of Space-Time has been opened, bringing in strange things, and the Flower of Destruction, carrying Maso, has appeared in this world once again.

...

After reading what Li Nuo wrote, Malj showed no reaction. He had already built up psychological defenses against the various bizarre situations of the "Endless Corridor." In other words, no matter how strange the scenario was, it couldn't be stranger than him. He at least had that bit of self-awareness.

However, Chen Shou was stunned.

"Li Nuo, what happens to this world after this?"

"The plot after this is very magical," Li Nuo said. "Humans extracted technology from Maso, which led to the creation of the Android Project. In 5112, the space war began; Emil fought against the alien legion. After the Fire of Prometheus was passed on, machines gained emotions. And when the 243rd YoRHa descent operation began, that was the moment the two protagonists of 'NieR: Automata,' 2B and 9S, first met."

He paused, considering a question: "2B and 9S met between January 30th and some day in February 11942, when the story of 'NieR: Automata' begins."

Today was January 30th, 11942.

"At the end of the day, did you guys find anyone from the YoRHa squad or not?" Malj asked. Clearly, he was concerned about something else.

The resistance fighter said, "We found them... the lady with the short white hair. She saved me, just outside..."

Short white hair—that matches the description of the game's protagonist, 2B.

"Where is she?"

"She was... eaten..."

Eaten!?

Li Nuo and Malj stared at each other, their minds completely blank, as if they had frozen. The combat strength of a YoRHa android was far superior to that of a resistance fighter. She got eaten?

The one who was eaten... could it be... 2B?

Malj immediately asked, "But the YoRHa squad is very powerful, right?"

The resistance fighter shook his head. Every movement of his neck produced the sound of grinding joints. He spoke as if he had exhausted all his strength: "Ever since the tectonic movements started, when we woke up from our unconsciousness, everyone felt a sense of powerlessness. That lady from the YoRHa squad seemed the same. It's as if our world has been cursed..."

"It's not a curse at all..." Li Nuo leaned against a corner of the wall, head bowed. "The plot is forcing the world's character levels to match the players' mission standards, resulting in a sharp drop in the power of the plot NPCs."

This also explains why I was able to knock that android out.

As Li Nuo voiced these deductions, the three of them—along with the other three players in the factory ruins—heard an incredibly grating system prompt:

[Hidden Worldview Cracked 1/2]
[The truth of the worldview has been discovered by you. The difficulty level of this plot mission has been adjusted to Lv20–Lv30.]
[Note: As the mission level increases, the quality of your side quest rewards and total mission settlement rewards will also be boosted.]
[Adjusting mission system...]
[The main storyline will be changed; adjustment in progress, estimated time: 10–20 minutes.]
[Please wait patiently.]
[Have a pleasant time.]

"Ah..."

Li Nuo was dumbfounded.

Then he saw the resentful glares from Chen Shou and Malj.

"Well... I have to say a couple of things..." Li Nuo raised his hands in a defensive gesture, smiling awkwardly.

Just then, the ground began to rumble.

Immediately after, Li Nuo’s expression tightened, and he shouted, "The resistance fighter's plot is over, the crisis is coming! Get down!"

He was already on the ground as he spoke.

In an instant, the wall shattered!

A thick plant root burst into the room.

As the dust settled, they looked up.

A giant plant that looked like a Venus flytrap appeared outside the ruined wall.

Chen Shou, while calmly reloading his rifle, shouted in a panic, "What, what, what the hell is that?"

Li Nuo immediately put on the "Emil Mask" to check. When he saw the monster's panel data, his mind felt as tangled as a ball of yarn.

"...Final Fantasy?"