Players, Please Board the Train-Chapter 261: The Hot Hat

"The amusement park only sells travel guides with route maps, but the upgraded versions include both route maps and trigger locations for quiz games. Both are essential to clear the game." One of them took out two paper bags of different colors. "The silver version adds quiz game trigger locations, while the gold version includes both quiz games and clearance reminders. Absolutely genuine and reliable, all verified by other players."
"Take a look, the silver version only costs five hundred White Bills, and comes with a bonus small hat. The gold version costs one thousand White Bills and includes two small hats."
The players in the amusement park seemed accustomed to this scene, glancing briefly before looking away.
Xu Huo showed a hesitant expression and was just about to say something when someone nearby suddenly sneered, "Scamming new players again? Can't you try some other tricks? Aren't you afraid of getting beaten to death?"
Xu Huo turned to see a young man covered from chest to back with small hats sitting atop a small shop, his expression full of disdain.
The two players immediately changed their expressions, pointing at the speaker, "Tang Xiao, are you looking for death?!"
Tang Xiao jumped down and walked straight up to them, patting the several strings of small hats on his chest, "Come on then, if you dare."
The two men looked at the densely packed small hats, their faces falling as if they'd swallowed flies, and eventually spat before walking away.
Tang Xiao approached Xu Huo and extended his hand, "Hello, I'm Tang Xiao. Those two are regular scammers who specifically target newcomers. Actually, the upgraded travel guides aren't very useful. If you stay in the dungeon for a few days, you'll naturally learn everything you need to know."
Xu Huo shook his hand, introduced himself, and asked, "With so many small hats, haven't you been able to clear the level yet?"
Tang Xiao nodded to Yan Jiayu as a greeting, gestured for them to walk further in, and said, "Although clearing requires a certain number of small hats, it's not entirely about quantity. Besides the ten games in the travel guide, you also need to get small hats from five additional quiz points to clear."
He pointed to the tent ahead, "This Mirror Tent is one of the quiz game locations."
"If you've read the travel guide, you should know that answering questions correctly doesn't guarantee you'll get a small hat."
"But there are so many people here," Yan Jiayu said, "Even if you try repeatedly, you should be able to collect all the small hats."
Tang Xiao shook his head, "If it were that simple, it would be great. The travel guide only marks ten game points, right? These game points are fixed—you can find them with a map. But the trigger locations for quiz games aren't fixed; they can appear anywhere in the dungeon. As far as I know, no one has found all five quiz games yet."
"And even if you find them all and get these fifteen small hats, you still can't clear the level."
"How so?" Xu Huo asked.
"Because of the extra hats." Tang Xiao pointed to the hats on himself, "It's easy to get hats at game points, but each extra hat requires completing another fifteen-piece set. Otherwise, you still can't clear."
"Can't players exchange hats?" Yan Jiayu asked, "Those with extras could share with others."
"That doesn't work. The hats have no markings, so no one knows which game point they came from." Tang Xiao said, "The result of exchanging might not only fail to get the hat you want, but you might end up with even more extra hats."
"So the difficulty of clearing this dungeon isn't about whether you can get small hats, but whether you can get the corresponding small hats." Xu Huo summarized.
"Exactly." Tang Xiao nodded, "So you'd better not accept hats from others. The safest way is to go find them yourself one by one."
"How did you get all these hats on you?" Yan Jiayu pointed at him, "Have you been in this dungeon for a long time?"
"Not exactly..." Tang Xiao paused mid-sentence, then gestured with his mouth for them to look behind.
The commotion came from the tent where multiple players were queuing. The front curtain suddenly burst open as a player rolled out while grappling with a Plush Bear, pressing a knife against the bear's neck with a ferocious expression, "Give me the small hat, or I'll kill you!"
"You answered the question wrong, Bear Bear can't give you a small hat." Although the Plush Bear was pinned and couldn't move, its tone remained unchanged, while reminding, "Please step back, player. Harming staff will result in punishment."
"Trying to fool me?" The player snorted coldly, "Don't think I don't know—game time doesn't count!"
After saying this, he sliced off the Plush Bear's head. The bear's eyes lost their luster, and fluffy stuffing poured out from the severed neck. Then small Pink Hats started popping out one after another, more than ten of them jumping out and scattering across the ground.
The player's face turned green. Just as he was about to stand up, a small hat somehow appeared under his foot. With a crisp cracking sound, the small hat shattered, and the player seemed to be crushed too, with cracks appearing on his body surface before he burst into flesh chunks of varying sizes!
Some of the bystanders maintained calm expressions, while others looked surprised but quickly concealed it. Someone even sneered and muttered "idiot."
Before the spectators dispersed, several plush animals ran from different directions, quickly cleaning up the traces on the ground. Then one of the plush monkeys picked up all the small hats from the blood pool, cleaned them, and hopped over to a female player who had been watching, "These are yours now!"
The female player was stunned at first, then quickly understood, her face turning ashen as she accepted the items.
"Why did the plush animal give the small hats to her?" someone nearby whispered in discussion.
"I never expected it to be like this." Yan Jiayu said thankfully, "Fortunately, we didn't kill that rabbit earlier."
Xu Huo didn't speak. Just like the rabbit giving them extra small hats before, the loopholes in the game rules were traps. If someone thought killing plush animals during game time wasn't against the rules, they would end up like the previous player—getting a large handful of small hats and falling into the matching trap.
And damaging hats or intentionally making others damage hats didn't work either. The former would get killed by the game, while the latter would inherit the small hats of players killed by the rules, like the female player who secretly placed small hats under someone else's feet when they weren't looking.
"As you saw, this is how I got my hats." Tang Xiao said helplessly, "You can't damage hats, you can't deliberately make others damage your hats, and throwing them away is even worse. First, if you can't find them, you can't complete sets. Second, if someone accidentally damages a hat, you'll just end up with even more hats."
"However, the best part of this game is that others can't force you to take their small hats. Plus, carrying more hats with you provides better personal safety. Since you just arrived, you can buy a hat from the plush animals' shops to wear, so players won't see that you have few hats and intentionally make you damage hats to reduce their own numbers."