Upon mentioning this, a faint smile appeared on Merlin's face, "But at least it's not you."

"Why?"

Scarlet was taken aback, "You should know I'm good at lying, right?"

Of course, this was a more polite way of putting it.

The law would typically label someone like her a fraudster.

"Intuition."

This was a lie.

Someone as cautious to the point of being paranoid as Merlin would never trust someone purely based on intuition. Moments later, Scarlet had an answer, "You've investigated me."

She was, of course, referring to her identity before coming to this world. Everyone was connected to the company due to some illegal activities, and she was no exception. However, the target she selected this time was somewhat special, leading to her inadvertently learning some things she really didn't want to know during their interaction.

He was a technical person who buried himself in academic work. Since graduating from college, he had locked himself in the lab, dealing only with research equipment every day. She could easily imagine the lifestyle of this kind of person: they had very little experience interacting with others and were easy to deceive.

In fact, she only wanted money.

She had no interest in academic issues, in distinguishing concepts of the body, consciousness, and soul. She absolutely didn't want to understand the concept of a "brain in a vat," discussing what happens when using some tool to extract a person's consciousness into a virtual world.

She swore that she was willing to listen to the other party's endless talks on these topics she wasn't interested in, just because he was easy to rob of Gold Coin, and the project's boss must have been very generous to offer him such a high salary in such a tough job market.

"You could think of it like that."

Merlin smiled knowingly, "As far as I know, your 'boyfriend' disappeared before we got in here, and he wasn't in our team either."

They all knew what it meant to disappear in a place like this company.

"In fact, I've heard the whole project team was cut, which means there might not be anyone else coming in here in the future either."

"They really just wanted to make a game, right?"

Scarlet asked knowingly.

However, if measured by game standards, this world had epoch-making significance. Everything they experienced here made it hard to tell truth from falsehood, and everyone they encountered on their adventure exceeded the scope of today's AI. Both in terms of dialogue and behavior, there was no difference from real humans.

Even after understanding the nature of this world, it was hard for them to believe they were only facing false data.

If this game could be successfully launched, it would provide people with a "second life."

But this game had many significant issues.

For example, it had no option to log out.

"I heard the company leader had a daughter who experienced an accident in her teens. After that, she needed many sophisticated machines to sustain her life signs. Of course, it only kept her from dying... She couldn't move, couldn't communicate with others, and her physical condition deteriorated every moment."

"Vegetative state."

Scarlet summarized with concise words.

Merlin neither confirmed nor denied, continuing, "Until one day, a group proposed an entirely new treatment plan—perhaps they could create a world to house her consciousness, where she could live freely."

"Initially, the project progressed well, even her physical condition improved, giving hope to the girl's father. He increased funding and recruited more staff. He built a facility dedicated to the project team, eagerly hoping for further breakthroughs, for he wasn't satisfied with this alone."

"Soon after, he made a new demand of the project team. He wanted this world to accommodate more people's consciousnesses, allowing others to enter as well... The project team faced an enormous challenge because, from the outset, the world was created for her consciousness, meaning it was destined to be unstable. A slight notion from her could cause the world to collapse and be destroyed."

"The project team disagreed on this matter. The earliest researchers intended to commercialize this technology, believing once the project bore fruit, it would bring unimaginable wealth. However, the project's state then clearly couldn't achieve their goals."

Merlin responded to Scarlet's inquiry, "If it were a game, no player could accept their in-game wealth, abilities, and equipment being nullified because of someone's whim. They also couldn't bear the world staying in chaos for long periods."

Even if it could offer unprecedented experiences, its poor playability would result in an overwhelming tide of negative reviews.

"For a long time, the project was stuck there."

Merlin said, "Until someone came up with an idea."

"What idea?"

This topic successfully piqued Scarlet's interest. She sat up straight, listening attentively.

"Perhaps they could implant an idea in the girl's mind, making her forget her 'god' identity and become one of the project team members instead."

"...So that's why there are abandoned cases without any clear purpose here."