Horror Escape: The NPC Awakens and Slaughters Its Way Through the Game

Shen Qing recently discovered that the whole world was fake. At midnight, the System updated, and a code window popped up above her mother's head. Her melting roommate kept muttering beside the bed that she was going to die. In places Shen Qing couldn't see, the Creator couldn't be bothered to render anything, and life was riddled with bugs. It wasn't until the game launched and players logged in, slaughtering NPCs everywhere, that Shen Qing learned the truth. Her roommate had been killed, and her mother had vanished without a trace. She was only an NPC who had awakened inside a horror game. NPCs existed for players' amusement. Killing one could earn a reward, and to players, their lives didn't count as lives at all. But Shen Qing refused to accept that. The world might be code, but her memories held warmth. She refused to believe everything was fake. Taking her grandmother's dagger in hand, she exacted revenge on the players for the people around her. As the players' lives faded at Shen Qing's hands, a message rang out in her mind: [Congratulations! You have plundered a player's talent skill...] Awakened NPCs could make players drop their gear, too. Shen Qing smiled. She would make the players pay for everything they'd done. She would drive them out of her home. But the deeper she ventured into the dungeons, the more she saw the numbness in the players' eyes. As one player lay dying, they apologized to her. Another curled up in a corner and said they wanted to go home. Standing beside the corpses, Shen Qing suddenly understood: the players weren't her enemies. She stopped attacking them, fought her way through the dungeons, and went straight to the System's lair. The Creator sat right before her. Shen Qing smiled, her eyes cold as she stared at it. You think the line between reality and illusion can confuse me? You think a few lines of rules can decide who counts as an enemy? You're wrong. You're the only one who deserves to die.