No One Told Me That This Isn’t a Game (Patreon)

Chapter 1: My Start Are Quite Different From The Rest

-114514!

Critical hit.

On the screen, the last follower of Zuo Chang hit rock bottom in terms of health, and with his defeat, the character began to utter his lines of defeat: "Is this my limit? General Tianwang, I’m sorry, it seems I'm too incompetent to accompany you further..."

Looking at his defeated army, Zuo Chang closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

"Becoming Zero"

It’s the name of the game that he is playing right now. This game with the interesting yet bizarre name is a turn-based strategy game. In this game, the players would take on the role of a grand general, they would collect and nurture their character followers, and in their base, they would be constructing and upgrading buildings.

The goal of the game is to elevate the player base from the "five-digit" community to the "single-digit" community, ultimately defeating the Celestial God and becoming the ultimate "0."

Starting from the lowest community, the "99999," Zuo Chang spent the last five years playing the game to raise his character community to "1," and began the final boss battle three hours ago.

And the result was...

He didn't win.

Unlike most players, Zuo Chang was a player with absolute advocate for strength.

All his followers were powerful demon creatures with robust values; he didn't need any flashy female followers, no matter how revealing their attire or how charming their personality are.

For this ultimate showdown, he spent half a year preparing, from July of last year to March of this year.

He refined his weapons and equipment to perfection, recasting if the stats were even slightly off, discarding if the attributes weren't suitable, striving for flawlessness.

To secure enough auxiliary potions, he ordered all the farmlands in the community to be converted into herb fields, disregarding the life and death of in-game subjects, taking militarism to the extreme.

His lineup was the strongest, his equipment was perfect, his potions were abundant – Zuo Chang believed that no player could surpass him; he was the ceiling.

But even so—

He didn't achieve victory!

The Celestial God probably had about 10% of her health left, a slight gap from being defeated.

"Is it a problem with my tactics? I feel like I've done my best."

Zuo Chang clicked on the battle log, wanting to review his actions each turn, but what appeared on the log wasn't the combat records.

【A Worthy Opponent! A Talented Encounter! The Celestial God acknowledges your skill. She hasn't enjoyed such an exhilarating battle in a long time. Now, she invites you to the game world of "Becoming Zero" for a true life-and-death fight. Will you accept?】

This is...

What?

A bizarre invitation that no normal person would accept.

Without thinking too much about it, he pressed the ‘No’ button, his mind still thinking if there is any flaw that he could fix in his tactic.

【The opinion of a loser is worthless. The Celestial God naturally disregards your thoughts and still intends to take you to the game world, with or without your agreement.】

"Oh? What is this?."

Zuo Chang looked at the information on the screen and laughed: "Interesting, is this an Easter egg that the developer came up with to console the losers? How kind of them."

【First Option: Survive for a full twenty years in the game world, and when the time is up, you can choose to return back to your world.】

【Second Option: Defeat the Celestial God, and when you able to achieve that, you can choose to return back to your world.】

【Third Option: No matter how long you've lived in the game world, it's just a snap of the fingers on Earth. More precisely, twenty years in the game world is equivalent to a blink of your eye now.】

【Fourth Option: Death remains cruel. If you die in the game world, everything turns to ashes, and your real-world self will also die.】

【Fifth Option: Transmigration is underway, an irreversible and unchangeable process. Please, enjoy.】

Looking at the ‘Options’ that are laid bare before him, Zuo Chang blinked his eyes in confusion, before he let out a smirk.

This developer, do they really think anyone would fall for this kind of troll at this day and age? Not even a kid would fall for it.

After checking the clock, Zuo Chan's hand left the keyboard, and at that time he began to notice something wrong.

His widened eyes trembled slightly, his face showing an expression of disbelief as the room he was in began to shake.

He closed his eyes in fright, and after three seconds had passed, the shake began to dim. Zuo Chang looked around and found that he was still in his own room, the keyboard was still a keyboard, the screen was still a screen, nothing had changed.

He pretended to be at ease and laughed, "What the fuck am I scare of? There is no way It's real, the shaking is probably just from an earthquake or something. Transferring into a game world is scientifically impossible—"

Just as his body relaxed, he noticed that everything before him suddenly changed!

Zuo Chang was taken aback, suddenly smelling the scent of dust. In the next instant, intense sunlight and a surging crowd came rushing at him. He realized he was standing in the center of a bustling street!

"Welcome to 96511!"

"Dear immigrant! If you need help, please come inside the shop! Whether it's renting a house or finding a job, we can provide anything that would be of use to you!"

The language that he was hearing from the other party was Mandarin.

From the look of it, even the people in the game world speak Mandarin.

Zuo Chang closed his eyes, his breathing trembling.

His mind was dizzy, a mix of emotions flooding his heart.

"Sir! Do you need to rent a place? Shared rooms, partitioned spaces, or single apartments, we can introduce them all to you."

"Hiring laborers! Two hundred a day, daily wages, meals included!"

People kept brushing against Zuo Chang's shoulder and moving forward, like a river flowing irreversibly.

The brokers were enthusiastically hawking their services, trying to squeeze benefits from the newcomers who had just arrived in "96511."

Amid this vexing environment, Zuo Chang opened his eyes and his gaze was surprisingly calm.

Well, since I'm already here…

According to his experience that he had gained from years of playing games, he should now be in the position of a "new immigrant" arriving in the community 96511—a five-digit community, still in the nine-thousands.

The place where he started is that of the weaker one.

The fewer digits in a community number, the stronger its power.

The combat prowess of a single-digit community is extremely exaggerated. Even a newborn baby from that community has at least a cultivation level of Five Realms. And the community resources are various, abundant, and excellent.

Citizens of a five-digit community can't earn the recognition of the Celestial God. No matter how talented they are, they can only reach the "Seventh Realm" at most.

Only when a community reaches the three-digit level can one break through the limitations and achieve the full cultivation of the "Fifteenth Realm."

In "Becoming Zero," class differences are plainly visible. Citizens of lower-level communities can't ascend to godhood.

If the five-digit communities are so undesirable, why would anyone immigrate here?

Going directly to a single-digit community means that children are born as experts with Five Realms' cultivation, and there's hope to become a top-tier individual. Isn't that good?

Indeed, it's good.

However, the single-digit lords won't accept that—bothering to see what this place is like, begging at my doorstep, huh?

Most people can only choose "parallel immigration," selecting a same-level community with potential and waiting for it to level up to become a lord.

Every time Zuo Chang tries to increase his population by absorbing immigrants from "lower-level communities," his subjects inevitably erupt in large-scale protests.

Of course.

Zuo Chang couldn't care less about protests.

Population is the most important resource, and who cares about the feelings of the masses in a game?

Becoming stronger comes first.

After forcibly implementing the immigration decree, the population skyrockets, but the stability of the community plummets, national discontent increases dramatically, and he must prepare his followers to suppress riots, or else there's a risk of being overthrown.

Under Zuo Chang's command is a captivating, enchanting female follower with curves in all the right places, her beauty unparalleled. Her name is "Xue Qiangwei."

Her stats aren't strong enough to make it into the main lineup.

However, her talents are quite interesting, something Zuo Chang values greatly and likes the most among his followers, and due to that, her favorability rating is already maxed out:

"Gestapo": Xue Qiangwei excels at fabricating evidence and manufacturing false accusations, able to frame anyone as a reactionary. Once this skill is activated successfully, you can choose to use the skill "Public Execution."

"Public Execution": Xue Qiangwei publicly tortures and kills the target, instilling fear in all citizens. This skill has a chance to fail (depending on the situation, the failure rate fluctuates between 0% to 50%).

"Public Execution (Success)": The stability of your community rises, the obedience of ministers increases, and citizen dissatisfaction decreases. You receive a "Tyrant" marker.

"Public Execution (Failure)": You will face impeachment.