My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 176 Darkened Elementary School Students, Assemble! (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
The blond, blue-eyed boy stood at the door of the cell, head down, intently playing with a game console.

From the palm-sized PSP in his hand, a jazzy battle theme rang out in the detention room.

"You're ignoring me, huh? Then I'll ignore you too."

Ji Minghuan muttered softly, rested his elbow on the table, and yawned while resting his chin on his right hand.

He could tell from the background music that Mario was playing the fourth installment of the Persona series.

After a while, Mario finally looked up from his PSP.

He glanced at Ji Minghuan with the same look he gave an NPC at the village entrance when playing an online game, then walked over and unceremoniously pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Is this my house or your house?" Ji Minghuan frowned. "Where's your manners? At least let me play the game console for a bit. You have no class at all."

"...So your name is Sun Changkong?" Mario suddenly said.

He paused, mimicking Ji Minghuan's provocative tone, and whispered in response, "Did you pay the copyright fee to the author of 'Journey to the West' for choosing this name?"

"No, my name is actually 'Kong Youling'."

Ji Minghuan shook his head and explained in a serious tone, "Besides, Journey to the West is from so many years ago, it's long past the age when copyright fees need to be paid. Even if you're a netizen, you should still have some common sense, right?"

“Oh,” Mario said, “Kong Youling, your name sounds like a woman’s.”

"What are you saying? Doesn't 'Sun Changkong' sound like a woman's name?"

"Like a monkey."

“Well said! I will relay this evaluation to her verbatim later.”

Ji Minghuan clapped and smiled, then glanced at the handheld console screen. Sure enough, Mario was playing Persona 4 Golden.

He thought for a moment, then asked, "Why is your name Mario, but you play Sony's PSP? How can you do this to Nintendo after all the investment they've put in?"

At this point, Ji Minghuan suddenly slammed his hand on the table like a lawyer in court, and then said with a serious expression:
"Stop pretending to be a kid and get your Switch out of here! We can play Mario Party together; I can barely accept Kirby; and if we're really into third-party games, we can play something like Two-Player.

"I love playing PSP." Mario said expressionlessly. "Nintendo games aren't fun, they're too childish, 4399 is better."

"The Legend of Zelda is the best."

"Not even a hair on a P5R."

Ji Minghuan sighed and tilted her head. "Fine, I won't argue with you. Actually, I've never played any games. I'm a poor kid; there were no game consoles in the orphanage."

"I can tell."

Upon hearing this, Ji Minghuan was first taken aback, and then black lines immediately appeared on his forehead.

He said, "What are you so smug about? When I destroy the world, I'll smash all your beloved Sony factories first, leaving only Nintendo's factories, so that Nintendo game consoles can dominate the earth!"

As soon as the words were spoken, the instructor's serious voice slowly rang out from the penguin-shaped loudspeaker on the ceiling:
“Ji Minghuan, watch your words. This is the second warning you’ve received. There’s no third time… If you make a similar statement again, we will punish you by confining you to your room for five days. During this time, you will not be allowed to meet or have any contact with other children.”

"Tch... I was just joking, why are you making such a big deal out of it? You Salvation Society people are really something."

As he spoke, Ji Minghuan clicked his tongue nonchalantly, rested his chin on his hand, and looked away.

"Then destroy it! I can't wait for the world to end!" Mario suddenly said.

Ji Minghuan was slightly taken aback, thinking to himself that internet addicts are indeed world-weary.

After a long silence, he spoke: "Actually, my name is 'Ji Minghuan'. And you? Mario isn't your real name, is it?"

"What are you talking about? My real name is 'Mario'."

The blond, blue-eyed boy rubbed his dark circles and said dismissively. His reactions always seemed to be a beat too slow.

"I've heard you're an exorcist?"

"Correct."

"Wait a minute, is that PSP you're holding your SkyDrive?"

"No."

"Oh, and what about your Sky Chaser?"

"Don't even think about it..." Mario said without looking up. "It's unusable now, and even if it were, you'd get electrocuted."

Hearing this, Ji Minghuan couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, thinking to himself, "Not only superhumans, but the Salvation Society even has a method to suppress exorcists from summoning 'Sky Drive'?"

He then asked, "How did you get here?"

"What about you?"

"I took a nap at the orphanage, and when I woke up I found myself here," Ji Minghuan shrugged. "The Salvation Society, isn't that amazing?"

"I was in the classroom at the time."

"classroom?"

“A few classmates were kicking my head; they wanted to smash my game console,” Mario said slowly. “My Sky Drive awakened, and I had a game console in my hand. I was playing a shooting game at the time, so I dragged them all into a shooting game and headshot them one by one.”

Ji Minghuan was stunned for a while, then said, "You're really good. Well, don't be playing the game and suddenly pull me into Persona, yell 'Persona,' and beat me up with your Persona."

"I can't do such a thing."

"why?"

"I can only get people involved in some simple games."

"Have you ever thought about bringing your mentor into shooting games too?"

Mario remained silent.

The mentor's voice rang out again from the penguin-head device: "Ji Minghuan..."

Ji Minghuan shrugged and interrupted him, "What's your hurry? I meant for you to fight zombies with Mario, not for him to blow your head off."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "It's like a father and son playing VR games together, isn't that great? Parent-child time helps strengthen the bond, don't you think, Shigeru Miyamoto?"

Shigeru Miyamoto is the real-life name of the "father of Mario".

Upon hearing this, the tutor fell silent.

After a moment of silence, Mario suddenly said, "Your mentor said you don't like it here, so he wants me to accompany you to London for a visit, and also to carry out a mission."

"Do you like it here?" Ji Minghuan asked back.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with this place. There's food and drinks, and people help with cleaning. You can lie in bed and play games 24 hours a day, and sleep when you're tired. It's like paradise."

"I get it. Only kids who don't do well outside would like this place. Someone like me, a little tyrant in an orphanage, has never experienced such a stifling life since I was a child."

“No matter how good you are in the orphanage, you’ll still have to find a job later,” Mario said. “Once you start working, you’ll realize that it’s better to just freeload in the Salvation Society.”

Ji Minghuan sighed, thinking to himself, "Could you be any more down?"

As expected, the Salvation Society only captures self-loathing and self-destructive children. Sun Changkong accidentally massacred a village, Fiorio ate his mother, and Mario killed his classmates as if playing a shooting game when he first awakened his Skyward Drive.

However, judging from Mario's experience, he was the one being bullied at school, so killing his classmate shouldn't have made him feel guilty.

"Is it just my personality, or do I simply like the environment here?"

As he was thinking this, the metal door rumbled open, and three blurry figures walked out from the blinding light curtain.

Before the person arrived, the voice preceded them. "You bumped into me!" a somewhat arrogant voice said.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." a voice even weaker than a girl's said.

"Be more careful next time, or you'll be in big trouble if you bump into Little Ling."

"But... she stepped on my tail."

"Little Ling stepping on your tail is a reward for you, don't be ungrateful."

"oh oh."

The sounds of their conversation grew closer, and eventually all three entered with their eyes closed. The blinding white light emanating from the ceiling was too intense for any of them to bear.

As the last white-haired girl crossed the threshold, the metal door behind them slowly closed.

Mario turned his head, glanced at them, then looked away and continued playing the game.

The three of them slightly opened their eyelids, adjusted to the sudden light for a moment, and then looked curiously at Mario, who had his back to them.

"Ji Minghuan, we're here," Filio said with a smile.

Kong Youling wrote in her notebook, then held it up to face Ji Minghuan: "Here it comes, here it comes."

Upon seeing a stranger in the cell, Sun Changkong raised an eyebrow, then put on his baseball cap and walked over to ask:

"Is he Mario the Cat?"

"It's Mario, not Cat Mario," Mario said. He seemed to understand Chinese as well; his tutor must have taught him quite a bit.

“Oh, I am Sun Changkong,” Sun Changkong said.

Mario suddenly stopped talking, seemingly too lazy to pay attention to her.

"Big Sister, he just said your name sounds like a monkey," Ji Minghuan complained quietly.

"What?" Sun Changkong was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at Mario angrily, pouting and showing his little tiger teeth, "You bastard, who are you calling a monkey?!"

“The first thing that comes to mind with this name is a monkey,” Mario said. “Do you expect me to lie? How ridiculous.”

Seeing that the two were about to start fighting, Kong Youling stepped between them, wrote something in her notebook with a pencil, showed it to Sun Changkong first, and then turned to show it to Mario:
"Don't argue, NO arguing!"

She puffed out her cheeks, her red eyes intently scanning the two of them from her notebook.

Seeing her like this, Mario remained silent for a moment, then turned to look at Ji Minghuan: "Can't she speak?"

As Ji Minghuan walked toward the television in the corner, she explained, "Her name is Kong Youling. She is a penguin alien from the M78 Nebula. When she gets angry, she can use her Spark Lens to transform into a giant penguin and fight monsters."

He paused for a moment: "Penguin people usually communicate with others using brainwaves, but because her magic wand was sealed by her mentor, she has no choice but to communicate with inferior humans like you by writing!"

Mario paused for a moment, then looked at Kong Youling again: "Are you from Penguin Alien?"

Kong Youling was also taken aback. She buried her head in her notebook, scribbling away, then turned to Mario. On the notebook was a drawing of a goofy little penguin, next to which was a line of onomatopoeia:

"Gugu gugu gugu!"

“You really are a penguin alien… First time seeing you like this,” Mario murmured.

"Don't try to change the subject. Say it again, whose name sounds like a monkey?" Sun Changkong frowned, his fiery red eyebrows furrowing as he relentlessly pursued the question.

Mario looked at her expressionlessly and said sarcastically, "Looking at it this way, the real person is more like a monkey than the name suggests."

As he spoke, he glanced at Filio again, "I thought I was in a zoo... Penguins, monkeys, wolves, are there any humans here?"

After saying that, he continued playing the video game without looking up.

Philo rushed over, hugged Sun Changkong who was about to explode in anger, and advised, "Don't fight!"

"Big sister, let's ignore him and watch TV," Ji Minghuan advised.

He sat cross-legged in front of the television, head down, intently selecting discs.

"What are we looking at today?" Kong Youling asked, sitting next to him and writing in a small notebook.

"Spider-Man: Into the Universe," Ji Minghuan said. "Because we have to go to London for a mission tomorrow, we can only watch half of it at most, and we'll watch the rest another day."

Sun Changkong finally calmed down, but the tickling of Frio's wolf ears almost made her burst out laughing. She puffed out her cheeks, snorted, and then ignored Mario, striding towards the television.

Filio breathed a sigh of relief, touched his heart, and turned to Mario to introduce himself:

"My name is Filio."

Mario didn't answer, his blue eyes reflecting the image on the handheld screen. Philo, not wanting to make a fool of himself, didn't want to be rebuffed.

The three children sat down in front of the television, watching obediently as Ji Minghuan selected from the mountain of movie DVDs.

Kong Youling put down her notebook and clapped her hands expectantly.

Sun Changkong was taken aback, thinking it was some kind of trendy ceremony where you had to clap before the movie started. So, not wanting to look like a country bumpkin, he clapped along with him.

Philo wagged his tail, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Mario sat quietly in the back chair playing his PSP, without saying a word.

As Ji Minghuan picked out the discs, he thought, "Speaking of which... if the Salvation Society were to arrest Caesar as well, wouldn't they be able to form a seven-member group of corrupted elementary school students?"

He shook his head, dismissing the jumbled thoughts.

"We're going to London tomorrow, are you nervous?" he suddenly asked.

"It's alright." Sun Changkong scratched the tip of his nose absentmindedly.

“A little bit.” Philio nodded.

"I don't feel nervous when you're here." Kong Youling wrote, holding up her small notebook.

“I see…then let’s come up with an inspiring slogan,” Ji Minghuan suggested earnestly. “It will boost morale.”

"What slogan?" Sun Changkong was taken aback.

“Think about it, Ji Minghuan,” Filio said.

"Darkened elementary school students..." Ji Minghuan said with dramatic emphasis, "Assemble!"

Sun Changkong and Filio stared at him speechlessly. For a moment, the cell was completely silent, except for the sound of Mario hitting the game console.

So Ji Minghuan pursed her lips, looked away from their faces, and silently looked at Kong Youling.

His eyes seemed to say, "You don't even support me, do you? No way, you can't possibly not?"

Kong Youling was stunned. She turned her head to look at Sun Changkong's expression, and then glanced at Filio's expression.

Under Ji Minghuan's piercing gaze, Kong Youling buried her head behind her notebook, tilted her head slightly, and her white hair swayed gently.

The notebook contained a drawing of a goofy-looking penguin, with the words "..." written next to it.

"Goo-goo-ga?"

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(End of this chapter)