"Damn it!"

In the game company's upper-floor meeting room, voices buzzed noisily, with research staff rushing about everywhere.

Li Changqing slammed the table in fury, sending a small mountain of paper documents cascading down.

He pointed at the nose of the Safety Department Director and roared, "I've said again and again to handle this strictly, handle this strictly! Why was the school's security team so lax! Why… why, were at least a dozen students were pulled into the game!" He hammered the table twice more. This time, documents flew across the floor.

The director he was pointing at was around fifty, senior both in seniority and rank to Manager Li.

The director merely took a light sip of tea and slowly put his cup down. "It's just a game. Why is Manager Li making such a big deal of it?"

"Just a game?" Li Changqing was furious to the point of laughter. "Have you not read Lu Lin's report?"

The ice cocoon that enveloped the entire login pool in Lu Lin's room and turned a man into a woman—all of it was recorded in the company's data. Yet the safety director before him was choosing to turn a blind eye.

The director adjusted his glasses. "Of course I have. But what does a single case prove? The passages at Mount Tai, the passage at Capital City Square—everyone pulled in returned safely."

"That's different!" Li Changqing argued vehemently. "Those passages were only white, representing the lowest-grade 'Secret Realms'. But this one was red, red like we've never seen before—dangerous red! And," Li Changqing added, "company reports show that citizens who entered the game through those portals still have phantom pain from wounds sustained in the game even after returning to reality."

The conference table wasn't just Li Changqing and the director; colleagues from other departments were present too. One of them snapped his fingers, and on the holographic projection screen at the center of the table, the medical records of many individuals appeared.

"Calm down." This colleague patted Li Changqing on the shoulder.

He then began to analyze, "Based on medical diagnoses, the phantom pain those citizens feel is nothing more than imaginary—likely phantom pain brought on by overly realistic game scenes. And," the colleague got to the key point, "even if injuries sustained in the game really were brought into reality, they wouldn't be in danger, because before death, we'd force them out of the game through the backend system. No matter how much those Western techies try to shake our foundation, the entire game system ultimately remains under the company's control."

The director chose this moment to end the topic: "Exactly. Manager Li, treating the situation as overly serious will cause unnecessary panic among the public. That would be playing right into the enemy's hands. Go take a rest." The director stood, ready to leave.

"Besides," the director added, "that Lu Lin you've taken a liking to has already been flagged by the company as a top player. System detected that she's entered the game as well. Given her strength, she should be able to bring everyone back out unscathed."

"What!?" Li Changqing was shocked. He suddenly leapt up, rushed forward, and grabbed the director by the collar. "You bastard, Old Wang! You did this on purpose, didn't you! You know perfectly well that in the system's annotation she's flagged as an anomaly, and there's a high chance she'll be treated as a bug and patched out!"

"Hmph!" Director Wang tore Manager Li's hand away and mocked, "What, I've heard you tried to recruit her. So only you get to use people, and I, as Director, can't? Do you even see me, this Director Wang, as your superior?"

"Bullshit! It's not the same! I absolutely didn't want her entering the game again!"

"Oh, Li Changqing, she went in of her own accord."

"You!"

"Relax. If the system could really delete her, wouldn't it have done so long ago?"

The director threw out those words and left the meeting room.

* * *

[Frozen Remains (Corroded by Black Mist), Suggested Level 20, Free Zone]

[Within Free Zones, red-name players may act freely. Non-red-name players may enable Free Mode.]

Lu Lin had returned to the game world once more.

‘Frozen Remains... So this was the name of the dungeon. Why hadn't the giant forest from last time displayed a name? This name was certainly fitting.’

Before her eyes stretched a vast, pure white expanse. An ordinary person staying in such a place would likely develop snow blindness in just a few minutes.

[Frigid Blizzard Environment: Deals 50 points of fixed damage per second. Each instance of damage taken has a chance to inflict the Frozen effect. Fixed damage may be mitigated.]

[Environmental effects can be avoided through various means.]

[Sluggish: Debuff, stacks up to three times. Each stack reduces the player's Agility by 10%.]

Fortunately, Lu Lin was a player at the version's level cap. Such high stats made her five senses far beyond ordinary. Not only was she unaffected, but the Frozen Heart in her chest even gave her an inexplicable affinity for the blizzard.

[Frozen Heart is drawing power from the environment. In snowy environments, all of the player's stats are increased by 20%.]

Beyond the white, about fifty meters ahead in an open area, she saw a group of over twenty people divided into two parties. The larger group, led by Feng Lingyue, was arguing intensely with the tall leader of the opposing five-man party. The atmosphere was tense.

Lu Lin moved towards the crowd. Before she could even get close, a lean man with a bow on his back from the tall man's party raised his left hand high to wave at her while he blew a whistle with his other hand.

Thanks to the values granted by her game levels, Lu Lin heard their party's discussion from far away.

"Matsushita, is she your type too?"

"Hah, you fickle fool. Give that up now. Always remember—mission first."

The man called Matsushita, the target of the mockery, instead put a hand to his forehead. "Hey, are you idiots? She's walking through this blizzard. She must be our reinforcements."

"Oh, true. Well that is interesting, but reinforcements she definitely is not."

But Lu Lin was clearly more concerned about what was happening on Feng Lingyue's side.

She watched as Feng Lingyue stood with hands on her hips, speaking angrily to the man before her. "Captain Jack, why can't you bring all of us along? Doesn't every player start as a newbie?"

The tall leader's face showed no expression; only the golden hair atop his head, dotted with snowflakes, quivered with the movement of his mouth muscles. "Feng Lingyue, guild leader of the Lunar Shadow Guild in Fate Divine Realm—we've run dungeons together before. You, of course, you can join my party, because you possess value. But those people behind you—some of them haven't even touched an online game. In other words, once they return to reality from this place, whether they'll ever touch a game again is an unknown. What benefit would my party get from bringing them along? But..."

Hearing this answer, Feng Lingyue pursed her lips, looking deeply conflicted.

After a few seconds, having seemingly steeled her resolve, she finally said, "But there's no log out button in my game settings! And the pain sensory setting is actually at 100%! We just entered the game; we're all at level one. Just the blizzard environment alone is enough to freeze every newcomer to death!"

Feng Lingyue's gaze was fixed on something at the center of the field. Following her line of sight, Lu Lin saw it: a cluster of flames.

[Placeable Item: Everburning Kindling]

[Quality: Rare]

[Effect: Negates all 'Blizzard Environment' series negative effects within a ten-meter radius.]

Feng Lingyue was extremely anxious. "Captain Jack, are you really going to watch my dozen-plus schoolmates freeze to death here? Even if this is a game, this kind of pain is no joke!"

"What!?" As soon as Feng Lingyue spoke, chaos broke out among the crowd behind her.

"What do you mean?" someone pressed. "Classmate, are you saying we can actually feel the cold in this game world?"

"The reason we don't feel cold right now is because of that campfire item?"

Outside, it was summer. Everyone was dressed in thin clothing, having been teleported into this snowy place within the game out of curiosity. Hearing Feng Lingyue's words, chills crept through all their hearts.