IWOL Chapter 259: Toaster

He had become a bamboo pole, and someone else became him. Right now, all the five people in this room must not be in their own body, right?

For the time being, he would name them according to their physical characteristics, namely: Female Doctor, Fat Otaku, Fake Dong Zheng, Old Man, and his current shell, Bamboo Pole.

There was a small, four-centimeters-high silver hand bell in the center of the table, where anyone could reach.

Dong Zheng sat down on the only chair that was still empty, and he and the other people watched each other. The mirrors exposed everyone’s slightest movements, and for a long time, no one spoke.

Finally, Fat Otaku shifted uncomfortably, cleared his throat, and said, “What then, can the assessment begin?”

Female Doctor nodded. “I’m ready…”

Once everyone expressed their opinions, Fat Otaku picked up the bell and rang it. Dong Zheng increased the data to his visual port and saw that on the inner ring of the bell was an engraved line that read: Forever Mine. —J.W.S.

He realized what this meant.

As the bell rang, echoing sharply in all directions, a short person appeared out of nowhere. Despite all the mirrors on three sides of the room, no one noticed how he appeared.

He was short in stature, only about 1.5 meters tall, and was well-dressed like a perfect British gentleman. His Caucasian wrinkled face was engraved with the passage of time. He stood facing them and gave a gentlemanly bow.

He looked at Fat Otaku who was shaking the bell and asked in a refined and courteous manner, “My dear ladies and gentlemen, I am the butler here. You can call me Mr. Deeds. May I ask this gentleman, how can I serve you?”

“Uh…I think we’re ready to start now,” Fat Otaku told the butler as he put down the little bell that seemed delicate enough to break.

The steward nodded. The gentle smile on his face lacked malice.

This was SCP-662-Bell Butler, who would meet almost all of the bell holder’s requests so long as they were reasonable. If the request was deemed unreasonable or impossible, he will politely decline and persuade the holder to change his request to a more reasonable one.

“Now that you are all ready, the assessment will officially begin. I am honored to be the moderator of this selection. I will be responsible for the entire process. If you have any needs during the selection, you can ask me.”

The Bell Butler walked to the other side of the long table and sat within their line of sight, faced in the same direction they were. He continued, “Everyone should have discovered a problem with their identities. Your body and soul have been separated and redistributed. As such, none of you are using your own body. However, among all of you, there is someone with an identity different from the others. This person is the ‘ghost.’ When you enter this room, you should already know your own identity, but what you all need to find is the ‘ghost’.”

“In every round, I will put forward corresponding questions. Once the questions are answered, you will have the opportunity to use the answers as a basis and vote by secret ballot on the identity of the ‘ghost.’ The person with the highest number of votes will be eliminated. If there is only one ordinary player left, the ghost wins. If the ghost is eliminated before then, the remaining players will enter the next stage of evaluation until there is a final winner.”

“During the entire process, if one person can correctly guess everyone’s identity, including the identity of the ghost, that person wins and the assessment will be over. But each person will only have this opportunity once. If you make a mistake, you will be directly eliminated.”

The Bell Butler explained the rules very clearly. Seeing that no one raised any questions, Mr. Deeds continued, “Since you have no questions, please introduce yourself before the first round officially begins. Please note that the introduction cannot contain any information that will reveal or imply your true identity. I suggest you follow your current status and proceed like this so that more people can remember.”

All five of them sat side by side the long table, all of them facing a mirrored wall that allowed them to observe each other directly.

Soon after Mr. Deeds was done speaking, the No. 1 light board in front of Female Doctor came on, indicating that it was time for her to introduce herself.

Female Doctor frowned and sat upright. She cleared her throat and said, “I am an actuary. I’m 24 years old and, like everyone else here, I’m a brain developer. Before I was selected to enter here, I never knew that there was a library like this.”

She spoke very simply, not providing much information. It may be assumed that this information had nothing to do with her actual body, which made it difficult for others to guess her true identity.

When the No. 2 light came on for Fat Otaku, he spread out on his chair, not moving, and lazily said, “Everyone should also be able to tell. I’m a two-dimensional fan. I used to work as an artist for a gaming company. Once I came here, I don’t know why I became a brain developer, but I still like drawing more than using my brain.”

The No. 3 in front of Fake Dong Zheng lit up. Fake Dong Zheng looked at it, used the tip of his index finger to lightly tap on the table, muttered to himself for a moment, and finally said, “I’m just a rich man living a simple and boring life. I’m Sword Girl’s husband, Night Hunter’s lover, and Morgana’s boyfriend. Even when I do nothing, I’ll always be considered a girl’s dream lover for some reason.”

Dong Zheng:……….

He didn’t know who this person was or what this person had against him, but Dong Zheng instantly guessed that the person in his body wasn’t female. This was because the above remarks were full of sourness, carrying the attitude of someone who had a hard time getting along with women.

It also shouldn’t be Chen Jianguo.

Dong Zheng’s knowledge of gaming wasn’t too good. But he knew that Sword Girl, Night Hunter, and Morgana were heroines from League of Legends. The reason he knew this was because, for a while, he often heard Dong Linhai muttering about some dog scheme to cut down Sword Girl. From this, he could determine that the person residing in his body was very likely to be the fat two-dimensional fan.

But this may not necessarily be true. Everyone here were crafty brain developers who might seize the moment to divulge subtle information with the intention of misleading them. Therefore, this person might just be trying to guide them into thinking that he was Fat Otaku.

Although he really wanted to roll his eyes at Fake Dong Zheng’s remarks, Dong Zheng didn’t show any signs of it on his face. However, Chen Jianguo frowned very slightly, though it was difficult to notice.

The No. 4 light board came on. Old Man laughed and said, “I’m not as good as you guys. I’m just an ordinary old man, and now I’m very nervous to compete with these young people. Everyone, I hope you’ll all be merciful.”

Although Dong Zheng and Chen Jianguo knew each other, their understanding of one another was limited to one meeting. For the time being, they had no plans to join forces, because they weren’t certain whether the other party was a ghost or not.

Now it was Dong Zheng’s turn to introduce himself as Bamboo Pole.

“Hello everyone, I am an ordinary toaster. I can bake bread slices after powering on. But when other humans mention me, they will refer to me in the first person. Now matter how hard they try, they can only use the first person to talk about me. After I’ve appeared for two months, these people will even begin to think that they’re a toaster. And unless they’re prevented by external forces, they will eventually try to imitate my abilities and end up hurting themselves.”

Dong Zheng spoke with a little accent, making his “self-introduction” more interesting. Everyone, including Mr. Deeds, couldn’t help smiling. Obviously, they all understood what Dong Zheng was talking about.

Dong Zheng even asked Fat Otaku, “Have you seen my screws?”

Fat Otaku shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where your screws are, maybe in 914.”

Dong Zheng’s peculiar self-introduction came from SCP-426-I Am a Toaster, which had characteristics included in his self-introduction. The biggest highlight from this project was that, in any test regarding its characteristics, the Foundation would eventually implement the usage of the first person narrative in its report. Even Dr. Clef, one of the top four Foundation apocalypse doctors, wasn’t spared.

As for what Fat Otaku said, it was an scp easter egg. In the test log 0017, the research once put a screw from 426 into the SCP-914-Universal Converter, and once it was processed, the display showed 1:1 processing “I am a screw.” But when it was actually exported, the name became “You are a screw.”

“Now that everyone has introduced themselves, please remain patient while I draw the first round of the test.” Mr. Deeds produced a box covered in black velvet. His right hand reached underneath the velvet cloth and pulled out a note.

“Number 5.” Mr. Deeds showed the note to everyone and continued to draw more numbers, in the order of 3, 2, 1, 4.

“In the first round of this knowledge contest, everyone can select a subject to answer. Mr. 5, you can take the lead in choosing the multiple-choice questions.”

Light blue particles appear from all sides and gather in the center of the room, forming a translucent screen that read:

Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Theology, History, Literature, Geography, Biology, Computer Science, Industrial Technology, Aerospace, Political Law, Military Affairs, Economics, Art, Agriculture and Environmental Science.

These were very basic disciplinary classifications, covering a wide range of subjects. Dong Zheng frowned. After thinking about it, he chose computer science.

Although he studied economics and management as well as mathematics for his undergraduate and master’s degrees, Dong Zheng had been away from campus for a long time so he didn’t think he could recall these knowledge so clearly anymore. However, he had been studying computer science and so he was still fairly confident of his knowledge in this area.

“No. 5 chose computer science.” Mr. Deeds tapped the screen and a countdown appeared. “We have prepared 100 questions in total. If you answer a question wrong, your assessment will end. Please think carefully and answer carefully.”

The countdown ended and the first question appeared on the screen.

Question 1: The internet’s foundation and core are:

Dong Zheng: “TPC/IP protocol.”

Question 2: According to von Neumann’s principle, the basic components of computer hardware are:

Dong Zheng: “Input mechanism, output mechanism, arithmetic unit, control unit, memory.”

Question 3: In the CacheAddress mapping, if any block in the main memory can be mapped to any block in the Cache, it will be called:

“Fully Associative Mapping.”


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crimson
crimson
4 years ago

Thank you for the chapter~

This is getting exciting~ And Dong Zheng’s introduction seemed so random to me and it turns out it was related to SCP XD This author seems to really like their SCP and computer terminology. I wonder who the ghost is~

Sword
Sword
3 years ago

Wait a minute!! I need to save this chapter, so I can use it review for my midterms and finals. Though it might not help at all, at the very least when I get a question I don’t know or know very little about I can at least make bunch of stuff up and write in😅😅 (boi that was how I passed my classes when the prof. screwed us up by the fake study guide which only had subject titles, that barely matched my notes!!)

Last edited 3 years ago by Sword
thatonecat
thatonecat
1 year ago
Reply to  Sword

I know your post is ancient, but I have to say that I once got an A on a final exam that was only a very long essay we had to write. I studied the wrong chapter and had like a 5-15% idea of the real topic, but through the power of BS I was saved. Also, fucking amazed it worked. I had to try -so hard- not to start cackling with uncontrollable laughter. Like, really really hard.

Last edited 1 year ago by thatonecat
theeggmonger
theeggmonger
2 years ago

Whoa so many computer terms lol
Thank you for the chapter!

Guest
Guest
1 month ago

Is the author also a fellow unemployed computer science graduate?

Last edited 1 month ago by Guest