MMORPG: Crowd Control

A few minutes had passed by, and Lei Zhen had finished inquiring about the parents of the other two patients regarding their Magnolia information.

And although the parents were somewhat clueless about the game, they were still able to provide the sufficient knowledge that Lei Zhen needed.

All three patients were players that had boasted about being unique with their play style and different from the average players in Magnolia, essentially meaning that they are probably holders of a Unique Class.

Of course, that was just the basic deduction, so Lei Zhen also asked if they knew about their in-game name. And unfortunately, only one of the patient's parents was able to provide this information.

'DarthSlayer, this is the only player's name I was able to extract.' Lei Zhen exclaimed inwardly, feeling a bit lucky that he was able to get one out of three patients' in-game names.

After all, having one in-game name allowed him to continue his investigation. Otherwise, he would have hit a roadblock and would need to spend a lot of time tracking their in-game name.

Sometime later, Lei Zhen returned to Samantha's office with a grave expression.

"Based on your grave expression, I guessed my initial suspicion was correct?" Samantha asked.

Lei Zhen nodded his head and took a seat.

"Yeah, I enquired about some of the patients' parents and although they aren't familiar with Magnolia, they were able to provide some crucial information that we needed to confirm our suspicions." He said and proceeded to relay what he figured out so far.

Once he finished relaying the information, Samantha took a deep breath and sighed softly.

"It seems like we need to figure this out fast." She said, shifting her monitor slightly to the right side for Lei Zhen to see.

"We have 5 more patients of the same condition that were just admitted to the hospital. It's increasing at an alarming rate."

"Let me check on the Magnolia forum." Lei Zhen said and went online, only to realize that players had long started a forum regarding some of the players' disappearances.

[Disappearance Players

Hey, does anyone know where the player, Tried My Best went? I haven't been able to contact him in Magnolia or the real world.

Same here, I've been trying to contact my friend to join us for a dungeon expedition but still no response. I knew him for a while and he had never ghosted me.

I heard a rumor that some of the missing players are stuck in the MagnoPod, unable to log out.]

As Lei Zhen read on a specific forum called Disappearance Players, he realized this problem had actually occurred three weeks ago. It was just that the problem wasn't large scale or attracted enough attention to cause awareness to others.

However, now that the supposed patients have been admitted to the hospital, the problem just increased by a large margin and attention is focused on this.

"I think I'll have to put aside my assistant work for now and hop into Magnolia to investigate this matter." Lei Zhen said in a dreadful tone.

Samantha nodded her head.

"There's no other choice but to have you investigate the game itself. I doubt other doctors are playing the game much either so they won't be able to gather much intel."

"Yep, I'm going to utilize the members of my guild to work this action and request someone else as well…"

As Lei Zhen said, his words were kind of trailing off, seemingly unwilling to contact "someone else" for assistance.

But before Samantha could enquire about it, Lei Zhen swiftly changed the topic and warned her not to log in for Magnolia.

"Since we still don't know the culprit behind this and that you have been ambushed before, I suggest you refrain from logging back in for the time being."

"I understand, if ever I happened to be in the same condition as them, then I won't be able to figure out a cure."

Lei Zhen nodded his head in agreement. "I shall deal with the matter within the game while you stay in the real world to preserve the patient's condition."

His suggestion was quickly approved by Samantha, and without wasting any time, Lei Zhen decided to leave work first.

Since the hospital was quite near the convenience store he used to quit, Lei Zhen decided to hand over his car key to Samantha while he would take the train.

Naturally, Samantha wasn't going to act humble and readily accepted the car key.

Sometime later, Lei Zhen arrived at the convenience store, only to see Tie Longkun scanning some of the customer's items.

And when Tie Longkun saw Lei Zhen's appearance, he was slightly surprised but didn't let it affect his work.

Lei Zhen was also patient and went ahead to grab a teriyaki chicken onigiri, eating it in the process. He might have resigned from the job, but he could still enjoy some privileges that other common customers could not enjoy.

Once the customer finished purchasing the items, Tie Longkun finally stared at Lei Zhen with a somewhat angry expression.

"Lei Zhen, how could you be so heartless and just resign without giving us any warning? Even Simon Chen was enraged at your conduct and told me to punch you in the face for being so heartless." Tie Longkun grumbled coldly, crossing his arms and giving him a glare.

Lei Zhen chuckled softly, not paying his grumbling to mind as he continued to eat his onigiri.

"Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that today, but something serious regarding Magnolia." He suddenly said, his expression turning solemn.

Seeing his solemn expression, Tie Longkun stopped grumbling and was ready to pay attention to what Lei Zhen had to say.

Although they might not be colleagues for a long time, Tie Longkun knew Lei Zhen wasn't the type to joke around once he was serious.

With Tie Longkun paying attention, Lei Zhen proceeded to tell him about the situation of Magnolia and how some players are unable to log out of the MagnoPod.

And by the time he finished, Tie Longkun's mouth was wide open, almost as if he couldn't believe such a thing was possible. After all, there had never been an incident that revolved around the MagnoPod malfunctioning at all.

Not to mention, the thought of it ever malfunctioning was unheard of until now.

"Holy hell, this isn't some kind of news, but a horrifying event." Tie Longkun slammed his palm at the counter and exclaimed in shock, clearly unable to comprehend how drastic the situation would be if it were to spread.

Suddenly, Tie Longkun paused for a moment as he recalled Lei Zhen was never the type to do things without getting something in return.

"Wait a minute… Why are you telling me this, Lei Zhen?" He then asked suspiciously.

"Wow, you are clever for the first time." Lei Zhen praised sincerely.

"Obviously, I would need your help to investigate some stuff for me."

"Tsk, I just knew you are after something. Otherwise, you would have never revealed such information to me."

Lei Zhen shrugged his shoulders.

What could he do?

He was trained to be a businessman at an early age, and doing something without profit was just not his personality.

"Come on, the righteous swordsman Tie Longkun would be willing to watch injustice happen in front of him even if he's capable of preventing any more tragedy from occurring?" Lei Zhen snickered, prompting Tie Longkun to twitch his mouth.

"Ugh, you always knew my weakness. Fine, tell me who do I have to investigate or look for."

"A player that goes by the name DarthSlayer. He was the first patient admitted to our hospital and it has been 3 weeks already. The only thing that we can be grateful about is that DarthSlayer seemed to be a ranker, so you should be able to find some news about him."

Tie Longkun nodded his head. "DarthSlayer… just leave it to me when I'm done with my shift. I'll text Simon Chen first about it so he could also keep an eye on it."

"That's fine by me," Lei Zhen smiled before leaving the store, not even bothering to pay for the onigiri he had eaten.

Thus, the charges for the onigiri were naturally going to be paid by Tie Longkun, causing him to curse Lei Zhen in fury.

While Tie Longkun cursed the heck out of Lei Zhen, he was already on his way to make a call.

The call connected after a few seconds and Lei Zhen took a deep breath before speaking.

"Qiaolian, are you able to set up a meeting with the Aries Guild on my behalf? There's a serious matter that's happening in our region and I might need the Aries Guild's assistance as well."

"Is it regarding the player's disappearing incident?" Tang Qiaolian's worried tone resounded from the phone, seemingly knowing about this matter already.

"So the guilds have noticed it already?"

"Well, it wasn't serious at first because there were only a few players. However, recently, the disappearance of players has surged to a new height and guilds are alarmed by now."

"I see, so is it possible to set up a meeting?"

"Even if you didn't ask, I was going to inform you later tonight anyway. Multiple guilds have temporarily placed a truce to resolve this matter first, so we'll have a big meeting within the game at the neutral city, Yelan." Tang Qiaolian said and formally invited Lei Zhen to join them for the meeting.

"Alright, then we'll meet in the game. I'll also have some other people join as well." Lei Zhen said, putting his phone away as he sighed exhaustedly.