“The game’s setting?” Xie Zhijin chimes in from the side, “can I ask what that is?”

Fei explains, “we don’t have a detailed explanation either, but… we guess that the game involves humans entering a final shelter named the Tower after the Apocalypse.
The management of the Tower is handled by an artificial intelligence. These humans who entered all have Nightmares, which are based on what they experienced in the Apocalypse themselves; the AI itself also has its own Nightmare…
Then other outsiders——Missiontakers, enter the Tower, and help the survivors overcome the trauma of the Apocalypse.
Yes, that’s basically it.”

Xie Zhijin furrows his brows, and says, “but this information doesn’t tell us at all what this Ultimate Nightmare level would have or what the ending looks like.”

Fei and Wu Jian seem slightly embarrassed.

They were busy preparing to enter the Ultimate Nightmare and fantasising about their freedom at long last, that they didn’t remember to ask at all.

And they’ve also already assumed the Apocalypse on Earth in the past is this Apocalypse in the game’s setting here.

So by that logic, escaping from the Tower is the ending they wish to achieve in this game.

But wait…

Fei stops her thoughts for a second, mumbling, “we assumed, the Earth’s Apocalypse… was the Apocalypse in this game?”

The rest of the people are looking at her.

“Humans leaving the Tower… is our ending? Is the game’s ending?” She starts getting excited, “yes, that is the game’s ending! That must be the plot of the game implied to us!”

“What do you mean?” Wu Jian can’t help but ask, “you mean, we’re supposed to leave the Tower?”

Ye Lan also wonders, “leaving the Tower is the canon ending of this game?!”

“Wait wait, what’s going on?” Xie Zhijin looks confused, “what do you mean that leaving the Tower is canonical? Are we supposed to just ignore that manager of the Tower and leave the Tower?”

And the other four people’s eyes say that, “and I’m right?”

Fei says, “we’ve always assumed the Earth’s Apocalypse and the game’s Apocalypse as one and the same, but they can’t be the same;
Humanity’s plight in reality is different from the survivors in the Tower, too,
But, there are similarities we can reference, like it is trying to tell us… that the plot of this game itself, is trying to depict humanity’s actual fate.
The survivors of the game have experienced the Apocalypse, so did we; the survivors are trapped in the Tower, and so are we; so, now that we are trying to escape the Tower…
We can also say that this is what the game’s survivors must experience. They also want to leave the Tower. That must be the only logical ending left for this game.
And think about it… the game’s name is ‘Escape,’ it’s exactly what it says. We must escape from the Tower. To leave.”

Wu Jian, thinking that logic through, asks, “so that means, NE isn’t actually on our side… but it is going to stop us.”

“I don’t get NE’s stance anymore,” Fei cusses, “I don’t get it at all… It is helping us, but that analysis meant that that can’t be the case… shit!”

If ‘escaping from the Tower’ is the only plausible good ending for this game, then going back, it’ll force the conclusion that human survivors in the Tower are supposed to run into direct conflict with the AI in the Tower.

So that must make NE a hindrance.

Fei and Wu Jian are immediately nervous; it was reassuring mentally when they thought NE was helping them, since——Since NE is like, the whole system running this game!

It manages everything and can do everything in this game, so if they want out from the Tower, its help was pivotal.

And they really did think NE must be on their side.

But now, according to their own analysis, NE can only be on their opposing side.

“No, wait…” Wu Jian tries to come up with something, “it could be… it could be that, the AI in the Tower also wants to escape from the Tower…? Right?”

“That can’t be…” retorts Ye Lan, “if it is the Tower’s management that is also an AI, then unless its developer directly reprograms its core directive…”

But then, Ye Lan goes quiet.

Fei suddenly yells out, “developer!” She wonders, “that’s right… so, in the game’s plot, who developed this AI?!”

NE is, obviously, from beyond the game itself, but what about the AI in the game’s own setting?

There has to be someone, or even a whole group who have developed the AI. Can they change NE’s programming?”

Wu Jian is gripping his head with a sour smile, saying, “this is just so convoluted…”

Jiang Shuangmei also wonders, “can we even find the ones who developed it? Where do we even begin in this big scene? The grey fog also has so many places completely covered up… We can’t see a thing in there…”

Xie Zhijin also notes their situation, “regardless, what you’re discussing does not directly help our situation——Should we be leaving this place?”

The discussions die down.

Looking around at the grey fog outside, still rolling, possibly headed for them, which, even if not now, will be an eventuality, Ye Lan suddenly says, “the grey fog… If we enter the Ultimate Nightmare, it must signify the last showdown between the survivors of the Tower and the AI. If we think of it that way, the grey fog must be what the AI is using in retaliation, mustn’t it?”

“But then, why in the Ultimate Nightmare and not in the Tower?” Asks Fei, and explaining, “the Ultimate Nightmare is the Nightmare of all of the human survivors, of the Apocalypse they’ve been through… Why can they defeat the AI that is stopping them from leaving the Tower here?
Why now?”

“Because, by the game’s plot, this is the time when the AI should still be in development?”

Wu Jian once again strikes gold with his thought tangents.

They are looking at each other now, and Ye Lan concludes, “so it ought to be some place where the grey fog is covering, that the AI wants to keep hidden. We are supposed to head over and stop the AI from developing?”

Jiang Shuangmei says, though, “the Nightmare isn’t equivalent to travelling to the past, though…”

Meanwhile, Xie Zhijin is rubbing the bridge of his nose.

He doesn’t understand natch of what they’re talking about but he still has to stay here with them. It makes him feel a little helpless.

He just says, “then can we at least find the developers and ask them how to shut down that AI you’re talking about?”

A moment of silence follows.

“Holy, that’s right!”

The others are exclaiming.

They’ve always assumed NE can’t just be shut down, being the game’s Server.

But the AI of the Tower, that is to say, also NE, has a pretty special role in the game itself.

So, what if, NE’s identity in this game is ‘shut down.’ What would happen to NE?

Whatever the case, that seems to be the only good option they have of what to do next.