Fantasy Game: Infinite City

"Wow! I didn't expect this place to be so clean. These hay bales look like they were just processed not long ago. Mm, they even smell like sunshine."

Walking into the barn, I saw mostly neatly arranged hay bales and some half-filled bags of grain. The grain inside looked very new and must have been loaded in recently.

"There is a cowshed on the other side of the barn. The cows inside look well-fed, with shiny hair and strong bodies. But in my opinion, they are fed a little too well."

Han Zu turned his head and saw Garcia wearing a very old-fashioned pair of black-framed glasses, looking at the cowshed not far away across the barn through a window.

"I remember your myopia was cured, right? Why do you want to wear glasses again?"

"This is a piece of equipment that can display the basic data and camp of creatures. I don't know if it is useful to players, but the introduction says it is. It's really strange that the camps of these cows are displayed as "same". I thought they would be neutral creatures. There is also a small house over there, which should be the residence of the farm owner. Let's go and take a look?"

"Let's go."

Leaving the barn, Han Zu and Garcia walked towards the small house. When they got closer, they found that there were some colorful flowers planted around the small house, which was very warm. The door was not locked. Garcia gently pushed the door open, and a faint fragrance came to his face. The house was simply decorated and warm, with some tools hanging on the wall at the door and some sundries on the table.

"Hello?" Han Zu called out, but no one responded. Garcia looked around and found several packs of unopened cigarettes, a cheap one-dollar lighter, and several photo frames on the table. Garcia picked up the photo frame and looked at it. He discovered something weird and strange.

"Han Zu! I think you should come over and take a look at these photos!"

"what happened?"

"See for yourself."

Han Zu walked over and Garcia handed the photo frame to Han Zu. After taking a look, he found that the photo was of Han Zu himself. Han Zu in the photo looked exactly like him except for the different clothes. In the photo, Han Zu was wearing farmer's clothes and leaning against the railing of the cowshed.

Picking up another photo frame, the photo inside made the two feel even more weird. The photo was of Garcia, feeding cows with hay. Similarly, except for the different clothes, also a farm cowboy suit, everything else was exactly the same as Garcia.

The third photo frame was a group photo of Han Zu and Garcia sitting on a tractor. In the tractor's cargo box were two large Caucasians, which were exactly the appearance of the Death Realm Hound. If Han Zu and Garcia were not sure that they had never taken such a photo, or even had never been here, they might have thought that the photo in the frame was of themselves.

“Is this a composite photo?”

"It doesn't look like it. Although composite photos are much simpler, I think this should be a normal photo."

"But neither you nor I have..."

"I know. This must be the work of Infinite Company. They may have found some people who look and have similar figures to us, or they may have used some special abilities."

"It's similar to the previous copy? But what's the purpose of this? Why did they go to so much trouble to impersonate the two of us? Even the hounds had to impersonate us?"

“Click. Hiss…”

Garcia glanced at Han Zu, who, with a cigarette in his mouth, once again entered a trance state. Perhaps he thought of something, and taking advantage of this time, Garcia quickly searched the small house. It was normal, and there was nothing strange. However, in the small garage on the side of the house, he found a lot of car parts. Although there was a damaged pickup truck parked outside the side of the barn facing the cornfield, even Garcia, who didn't know much about cars, could understand that given the extent of the car's scrapping, these parts could not be used to repair it.

"There are enough parts here to rebuild a car, and they're pretty sturdy ones."

"What did you think of just now?"

Han Zu walked into the garage with a cigarette in his mouth, playing with the parts, while Garcia asked questions.

"I seem to have figured out what Infinity is doing. When I saw these photo frames, I remembered that I had seen similar photos in the office of Albert Industries. At that time, I just thought they were similar, but now it seems that this is not the case."

"You mean, these scenes are about you?"

"It's related to us. I don't know if you've noticed that since I signed that temporary employment contract, the matching copies show that our identities are different from before."

"You mean, we replaced the original... Boss?"

"At first I thought it was a replacement, but now it seems that these copies are tailor-made for us. Do you want to make a bet? I guess no one else has ever been matched with these copies before us."

"If what you said is true, then I guess these copies should also be unique. After all, as the copy "Boss", you, or we, should never enter the same copy again."

"Theoretically yes."

"In other words, Infinite Company wants to... win you over to their side?"

"Almost. At least some people think so."

"Then what do you decide to do?"

"Getting information from the inside is definitely the fastest and most accurate way."

"But if someone is 'lucky' enough and has seen the same 'boss' enough times, won't they recognize you? That's not a good thing."

"Remember what I said before, Infinite Company has a device that can distort the cognitive abilities of living things?"

"understood."

Han Zu suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Garcia. "Are you not going to stop me? Ask me not to get involved with a company that seems wrong in every way and is plotting something behind the scenes?"

Garcia did not answer directly, but told Han Zu a story from her childhood: "When I was a child, there lived a policeman across the street. He was forty years old. He was a very good person during the day and never abused his power. Both ordinary people and other policemen liked him very much. But after he got off work, he became an avenger at night, killing criminals in the city with guns without mercy. These things were not investigated until he died of illness before I left my hometown and went to the island of the rat removal company. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Power is not good or bad, it is the people who use it that are good or bad. This is a simple and easy to understand truth, and I understand it."

"I hope you won't betray my trust in the future."

"Ha! I'll try my best. Who knows? Maybe I'm a bad guy who's hiding very deeply." Han Zu joked.

"Maybe. At least I don't think so now."

"hahahahahahahahaha!"

"What's going on?"

Continuous, shrill clown laughter suddenly came from Garcia's waist. While Han Zu was confused, Garcia took out a children's flip-top toy folding phone and pressed the answer button.

"No, this is fucking..."

"Stop arguing!"

The toy phone looked just like a real toy, but a sharp clown laugh came out of it, and then the voice inside spoke a few words.

"Hahaha! On the left, there are five of them, hahaha!"

After repeating it several times, the sound disappeared and Garcia put away the toy phone.

"Item name: Mr. Big Shoes' phone number"

"Item effect: A warning will be issued when a hostile unit enters the attack range of yourself and your teammates"

“Equipment requirements: No fear of clowns”

"Equipment description: Hahaha! Hahaha!"

"I'm not armed, so I can confirm that someone has entered the range of the gun on your back. How far can this thing shoot?"

"The effective range is 500 meters, and the maximum range is 1,200 meters. Can you provide more precise information about that item?"

"No, this thing only works the first time."

"Let's go to the barn. The view will be better from up there."

Han Zu quickly reached the top of the barn and looked around. Due to the cover of the cornfield, Han Zu did not find the location of the intruder, and his perception ability seemed to be offset by another force and he could not use it.

"My glasses only have a range of fifty meters, and I can't find it either... Wait, look at the far left side of the farm, is there a car outside the fence?"

Following the direction of Garcia's finger, Han Zu did see a car parked outside the farm, but it looked like there was nothing wrong with the car. Han Zu thought about it and realized that he had not seen any fuel such as gasoline in the buildings on the farm. The only thing he was uncertain about was a tractor parked on the side of the barn. There might be some residual diesel in it.

"You can't really see the inside of the car from here, so maybe it does need some parts replaced, or even some gas."

"Although I don't know much about cars, it doesn't look like a diesel car, does it?"

"It's not certain after the parts are replaced. Besides, this is the Infinite City after all. Even if the difference between this and the real world is not that big, there will still be some differences."

"What do we do next? Go find them?"

"Wait a little longer, don't be in a hurry, I guess you will receive a task from the system soon."

"Mission objective: Eliminate the thieves"

"Mission description: A group of thieves' vehicle broke down next to Frank's farm. In order to repair the vehicle, they need to find some necessary repair parts. The fastest way is to steal from Frank's farm. As a diligent and hard-working farmer, Frank doesn't want this to happen. After all, everything on the farm was bought by Frank, right?"

"Look, isn't it coming?"

As the system sent a task prompt, Han Zu picked up the rifle on his back. After checking it, he began to carefully search the cornfield in front of him, seeing that the guy was more reckless.

But they were also very smart. Apart from the occasional breeze, there was no sound in the cornfield.