49. Cairosoft

If Chachai were to handle it herself, her movements would be much more graceful. However, the available skills listed on the move sheet that Li Nuo could see were only four.
[Down-Forward Punch = Backstep Reverse Spinning Kick], [Down-Back Punch = Charged Jump Smash], [Down-Forward-Down-Back Punch = Shoulder Charge + Suplex], [Up-Down Punch = Shoryuken].
Aside from the first skill, the spinning kick, the other three were not necessarily more useful than a basic attack.
Simple, rapid attacks, and discard all flashy nonsense—this was the conclusion Li Nuo had reached during the days he spent training alongside Chachai.
Therefore, he controlled the pixelated version of Chachai on the screen, repeatedly pressing the "H" key to swing her blade at the monster that had rammed into her.
From the visual feedback of the pixel sprite, Chachai merely swung her knife up and down. Across from her, a horribly scarred woman in tattered clothes began to spew blood as blade-on-flesh impacts caused stuttering hits.
However, in the hospital, the nurses and the male doctor witnessed an entirely different scene.
A robust, elderly woman in a tattered hooded outfit was kneeling on the ground. Opposite her, the slim, white-haired girl who claimed to be a magical girl was expressionlessly and frantically swinging a meat cleaver. As the blade repeatedly sliced through the old woman's body amidst a chorus of wails, blood and flesh splattered every corner of the surroundings.
Several nurses who grew up watching magical girl anime felt their worldviews shatter completely. They did not care about ghosts or terror; they only cared about one question: is this really what a magical girl is like...?
In fact, even Chachai herself was in a daze.
Why on earth am I helping Li Nuo...?
At that moment, Li Nuo communicated via telepathy: "Chachai, leave that thing's head intact. I want to see what the monster looks like."
Chachai: [Then hurry up and stop. She's almost turned into mush.]
Li Nuo halted his fingers, and text immediately appeared on the screen: [Four supernatural incidents resolved. Mission complete. Please wait three minutes for extraction.]
The mission was complete, and the difficulty truly wasn't high. The mission trigger location was revealed right from the start, the map space was compressed to a very small area, and there were no life-or-death crises. Even with the horror theme, the pixel-art style made it impossible to feel scared at all.
"Still, it feels like there's more to this."
He stared curiously at the screen.
From the perspective of the screen, the monster killed by Chachai with the meat cleaver had a pixelated head resembling a medieval witch.
"Didn't they say the hospital was haunted...? Why would a medieval witch show up here?"
Li Nuo was somewhat puzzled.
He pulled his memories back and reorganized his thoughts.
Everything had started with that infant, whose appearance closely resembled the botchling from *The Witcher 3*. This detail had surprised Li Nuo a little, but he hadn't dwelled on it much.
Until Chachai was actually able to make the pursuing female "ghost" bleed from being hacked.
Do ghosts bleed?
Well... maybe.
But from the perspective of an Asian cultural background, ghosts are aggregations of lingering resentment; if they bleed, it is a spontaneous occurrence rather than a triggered one.
Setting aside the unfinished elevator ghost mission for the moment.
Among the four completed missions.
The bespectacled middle-aged woman and the anatomical mannequin were standard Japanese urban legend-style supernatural events.
The botchling and the final two monsters killed by Chachai clearly belonged to Western-style gore-horror creatures.
That was where the strangeness lay: why would a single urban legend-style scenario generate two entirely different styles of supernatural events?
Nothing ever happens by coincidence.
However, more clues were needed.
Li Nuo thought for a moment and entered a command into the special instructions: [Store the monster's head in the "inventory grid"]
Chachai crouched down according to the instructions, picked up the head, and placed it into the player's inventory slot.
Li Nuo: "Chachai, can you see the item data panel for the head?"
Chachai: [It's called Head of an Evil Witch.]
Li Nuo frowned. That sounded familiar... generic names like "Evil Witch" appeared in countless anthology shows or video games and manga.
Among them, a creature named "Evil Witch" also appeared in a famous novel series.
That novel series was *The Witcher*.
Li Nuo was slightly bewildered. In his last real-world scenario, he had obtained the YoRHa marker, which unlocked the "key" connected to *NieR: Automata*.
And this time, it was *The Witcher*.
An idea struck him.
Could the *Kairo Game World* he was currently in be interconnected with all those other games?
Then, muttering to himself, he said, "So... this real-world scenario is actually related to *The Witcher*?"
As his words fell, system text lit up on the screen:
[Detected intrusion from scenario "The Witcher", unlocked eligibility for special item rewards]
Li Nuo stared at the text, deducing a more credible truth in his mind: the world of *NieR* and the *Kairo Game World* where he resided belonged to the same universe, which was why seeing the "YoRHa" mark allowed him to directly enter *NieR: Automata*-related scenarios.
However, the world of *The Witcher* did not belong to the same universe, so it was judged as an "intrusion" by the system. Viewed this way, the appearances of the botchling and the evil witch could be fully explained.
They were special entities, and the energy brought along after intruding into the *Kairo Game World* had triggered the hidden supernatural events lurking here as well.
Yet, not everything integrated seamlessly.
"This scenario must have a hidden plot or worldview too, right?"
As Li Nuo pondered this, a new line of text appeared on the screen: [Hidden plot triggered, please wait for the cutscene to end]
Sure enough, there was one... Li Nuo picked up his cup, ready to watch the show.
Chachai warned: [Something is coming!]
At the same time, another line of text lit up on the screen: [Due to the attraction of the "Focuser" trait, the mastermind wreaking havoc in the subspace has been lured out]
"The aggro-drawing trait of the [Focuser] has activated..." Li Nuo widened his eyes, watching as something emerged from the darkness in front of Chachai on the screen... The reason he called it a "thing" was because it didn't even possess the appearance of a monster.
To be precise, it was a pretty cute gadget from a pixel-art perspective.
Even if the perspective shifted to the hospital space where Chachai was, that thing still looked rather cute...
It had a human-like physique, but its head was a horizontal yellow rectangle.
To describe it more simply: take a human, and replace their head with SpongeBob SquarePants.
Upon seeing the meat cleaver in Chachai's hand and the pools of blood all over the ground, that fellow's expression shifted from (￣︶￣) to (⊙﹏⊙).
For some reason, Li Nuo felt like this guy was a character who had wandered straight out of a comedy manga.
Chachai: [Li Nuo, my tactical goggles show its data is very strange... vitality is practically infinite, but it possesses no aggressive intent.]
However, before Chachai and Li Nuo could make their next move, that fellow spoke up.
"Um... I'm really sorry. I found something that can traverse space on another planet and accidentally triggered it... But I have no idea why I ended up in a hospital, nor do I have any idea what's going on right now... I'll give you the item, can you... please don't kill me?"
"Actually, I didn't want to come out either. I've been hiding in the pipes, very scared, but somehow... Miss, you... ah... you seemed to have some kind of magic that went 'poof' and dragged me right over here... I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry!"
As it spoke, the creature was bowing and apologizing.
A voice echoed in Li Nuo's ears: [Cutscene ended. Hidden ending achieved: The truth regarding Kairo-kun will be delivered to your mission list. You can view it after logging into the "Endless Corridor"]
"Kairo-kun?"
Chachai: [Do you want me to chop it up first?]
Li Nuo: "No... It's best not to mess with characters from gag games."
That cute-looking fellow spoke up again: "Ah... well, regarding the losses caused to everyone, I will find a way to erase your memories through peaceful means... We often do this during planetary exploration, so you don't need to worry about aftereffects. To show my sincerity, I will present suitable currency as compensation."
The very instant those words fell, a column of pixel-art trains suddenly burst out of the screen right before Li Nuo's eyes, ramming him right inside.
...
[Real-World Scenario Mission: Pixel Hospital Horror Legend]
[Mission Completed]
[Mission Rating: A]
...
Hidden Plot:
[Kairo Hospital in K City was once a burial ground before its construction. The nights in the hospital are chillingly silent. Elevators, wards, operating rooms, restrooms, morgues... People always assume the urban legends of these places are mere fiction, but in reality, is there perhaps a possibility that they are all true?]
[However, prior to the night of the supernatural outbreak, an exploration team from outer space landed in the nearby zoo. This strange exploration team attempted to capture the animals in the zoo, causing a wolf and its cubs to escape.]
[The members of the exploration team were overly kind-hearted yet cowardly. Feeling that they had done wrong but lacking the courage to admit it, they sought a safe place to hide. That place was the underground morgue of Kairo Hospital in K City.]
[On this night, the research substance "Conjunction of the Spheres Energy Source" in the hands of one of the exploration team members suddenly fluctuated, causing otherworldly entities to descend upon the hospital.]
[The otherworldly energy activated the paranormal phenomena already present within the hospital, while simultaneously bringing bizarre entities from another spacetime realm, causing a subspace distortion that decomposed and transported an entire floor into an isolated space.]
[And now, you have resolved the crisis.]
[Presumably, "Kairo-kun", the one who caused the mistake, will also thank you.]
...
[Mission Reward: Gold Coins 900 (Focuser trait gold coin reward increased by 30%)]
[Hidden Plot Reward: Kairo World Jigsaw Puzzle Fragment (Kairo's Star Story)]
[Special Item Reward: Conjunction of the Spheres Energy Source * 1]