Volume 1 - CH 16

Runs 1, 2 – A certain missing player caused them to be wasted entirely.

Run 3 – Glasses went to the second floor alone and discovered a diary; his eyes were scoured before he could even read it.

Run 4 – Cooperation established. Wu Shen’s diary revealed; the doll of the little girl killed them again.

Run 5 – The trio learned information from Xü Beijin and discovered the letters between Wu Shen and his friend in the study on the second floor, but then they ran into Wu Shen who was now awake. A miscommunication caused them to be chased out. After hearing some more information from Xü Beijin, dolls rushed at them and killed them.

Run 6 – They split up after the first wave of dolls. Ponytail discovered a news report on xiao-Chun’s disappearance in Xü Beijin’s bookstore; Glasses and Quarrelsome discovered torn pieces of paper in the second-floor workshop, before being discovered by Wu Shen again and being chased out. They organised information in the bookstore and then ended up swarmed by an army of dolls that crashed through the storefront.

And now, they’re at the seventh run of this Nightmare.

Just like the previous run, the moment they are conscious again, the dolls are already starting their chase.

The four Missiontakers dodge the doll’s chase without much difficulty, but Ponytail realises in the meantime that Lin Qin is clearly looking impatient now.

The endless chase has irritated him.

After the first wave is over, Lin Qin didn’t even pause for breath before rushing right for the bookstore and, gritting his teeth, he says to Xü Beijin, “let’s fight!”

Not just Xü Beijin, but even the viewers are spooked by this terrifying Lin Qin who is exuding a killing intent already.

“? i thot this babyface was harmless, but hes scary right now”

“holy shit, i thought the guy was going to kill our host!”

“the host is kind inside despite his gloomy appearance; this guy is scary despite his gentle appearance, so theyre both gap moe [emoji]”

“Oi, rather than moe, this kind of personality is clearly an unstable factor in a mystery-solving game that needs cooperation!”

“the dalao is still the dalao, of course, but i just wanna know why he wants to fight the host?”

“That’s right… Could it be…”

“the host is sus?”

Xü Beijin “…”

You’re still not over that suspect hostism thing?! Enough, oi!

Faced with yet another invitation to fight, Xü Beijin replies, “sorry, I can’t possibly win in a fight against you. You can really let the matter go.”

Lin Qin glares at him with narrowed eyes for a short while. Then, he says, “no, I’m still not sure.”

Xü Beijin sighs. He really does have a good temperament in spite of his appearance. He continues to patiently explain, “but even so, why must we fight?”

“Because only you are special,” Lin Qin says matter-of-factly, “no one else can win against me.”

‘He even sounds a little bit proud of that…?’ Thinks Xü Beijin, who then continues with ‘And that includes me, you know!’

Why would Lin Qin think that he could possibly win in a fight against him?

And more importantly, is he unaware of how his clinginess is more than slightly annoying at this point?

Though that said… From Tower residents to these outsiders, almost everyone has developed quirks at some point. Xü Beijin has become used to them by this point.

Xü Beijin once met someone in the Tower that was also an Actor, but the person inside seems to have gone mad. The moment they see each other, his arm would be grabbed tightly and he’d be bombarded with “the apocalypse is coming!” and loud cries and screams that could burst his eardrums.

There is also a woman he knew that’d always be crouching on the floor, trembling. And if anyone touches her, or just was plain noisy walking by her, she’d go mad and begin biting and tearing at the person’s face and arms with her teeth, not stopping until blood begins gushing out.

Really, compared to those, this quirkiness of Lin Qin can even be said to be harmless.

Especially when his invitation to fight is refused by Xü Beijin, he would do nothing against the person himself but just sulk himself.

The only thing that makes this specifically annoying for Xü Beijin is that Lin Qin only ever wants to fight him. Really, can’t he just relieve some of that bursting ball of fight inside with some other battle maniac?

Xü Beijin – The man who, if he can fight with words, will never move his finger one inch.

And thus, Lin Qin, yet again refused from fighting, can only take a seat on the side while gripping his fists, looking awfully pissed off. The man is now trying to come up with ways to get Xü Beijin to fight him for good.

… Can he perhaps anger him as much as possible?

Lin Qin looks around and starts to imagine if he demolished Xü Beijin’s bookstore in the Tower, would he be angry enough to fight with him?

After carefully, seriously considering this possibility… He concludes, it’s both too childish and too over-the-top. He thinks he is someone far more reasonable than that.

But then how can he force Xü Beijin to fight him?

He is wrapping his head in frustration.

He does not want his simple, black and white——That’s not right, more like completely black right now, given no one can win against him——, neatly divided world to have a jarring spark of brightness that is Xü Beijin.

Meanwhile, Xü Beijin, blissfully unaware of his bookstore narrowly avoiding a dreadful fate, glances at Lin Qin who is sitting all sulking and pouting, feels like chuckling at the scene.

Really, he looks so cute and well-behaved when he’s quieted down.

Too bad that he is, fundamentally, an unpredictable, out-of-control piece of blade.

Xü Beijin sighs again, and instead decides to divert his attention to the three Missiontakers instead.

It seems they’re also worried about Lin Qin’s state of mind. Is he going to go berserk?

Ponytail is curiously pondering, that while Lin Qin certainly is powerful enough to deal with these weak dolls, but the numbers are massive. How will be individually immobiliser all of them?

Of course, her curiosity is definitely not enough to make her want to see it happen. She is sure they’re very, very close to the truth.

Therefore, she tells Glasses and Quarrelsome after Lin Qin has headed off to the bookstore, “we must work harder. The dalao seems impatient.”

Quarrelsome says nothing but Glasses seem slightly tense.

He is also confident they’ll get a True End eventually, and naturally, Lin Qin interfering would be undesirable.

Ponytail takes a deep breath before continuing, “therefore, if you happen to have any appropriate utility cards, it’s time to start thinking about using them.”

She’s speaking specifically to Glasses; Quarrelsome would listen to Ponytail regardless anyway.

The man is silent for a while before solemnly nodding.

They wouldn’t reveal their trump cards, of course – a very normal wariness for everyone to have in the Tower, when it comes to the utility cards.

Most importantly, because… they can be stolen or robbed.

It’s simple to do so too – by touching someone’s body.

The Nightmare restarts as soon as a Missiontaker dies, of course, but before that happens, there’s always up to a few seconds of free movement time. If someone was quick-witted, or well-prepared, they can just simply move their hands all over the body, and there will be a more-than-average chance they’d end up with whatever utility card the corpse possesses.

Like some real game, where after a player has died, their items would drop.

Of course, if no one ends up touching the card the entire time the player is dead, the card continues to follow to the next run of the Nightmare; if someone touched it, though… Congratulations, your entire possession is now theirs.

This is mainly because these utility cards are physical cards that cannot be bounded. And while moving the hands all over a corpse in hopes of making physical contact with the card is one way, even during regular gameplay, it’s possible for utility cards carried on the body to be pickpocketed.

In fact, that’s how the ‘profession’ known as Carddealers come to be. Both merchants and thieves, they either target other people’s utility cards or go after dead players in Nightmares to acquire them and then resell them in the Tower.

On the surface, everyone bashes Carddealers; in private… Who could confidently state they have never secretly made excursions to browse the utility card catalogue of the Carddealers?

And the utility card being a physical card even gave birth to a special career in the Tower. They’re the Tailors, professionals who would help sew unseen hidden pockets on clothes to store utility cards.

Of course, there are rumours that the Carddealers and Tailors are secretly working in tandem; the Tailors sew hidden pockets and tell the Carddealers where they are, then the Carddealers can steal their customer’s cards.

Therefore, Missiontakers often visit multiple Tailors for one piece of clothing to create lots of diversions, or ends up sewing a hidden pocket themselves besides all that. It’s an arms race to ensure the Carddealers can never tell where their utility cards are.

Under all these environmental factors, unspoken rules gradually emerged in the Tower.

For example, do not bring all of your utility cards with you, but instead, pick what you think is useful only so that you do not end up with all your eggs in one basket.

And in addition, the optimal number of utility cards would be two or three, so that they do not become obvious by volume. Only those who are seriously cowardly or afraid they would end up completely succumbing to a Nightmare would bring as many as they can.

Another example of the rules is that no one will ever ask anyone else about their utility cards under any circumstances whatsoever. Whether it’s what cards they brought, or how many, or even if they brought cards at all, are all entirely taboo.

What is also taboo is everyone’s clothing. Even including shoes and hats. They must not be asked about or touched casually; when someone is going to die, they must all distance themselves from the person’s body as they await the Nightmare restarting. Otherwise, anyone witnessing would automatically assume the person breaking these rules to be a Carddealer.

Therefore, Ponytail can only indirectly and vaguely tell Glasses that, because their time is running out, he should use his utility card if he has them.

Unless he wants to see the dalao go berserk.

Right now, Lin Qin is the heaviest weight in their minds, even more so than those dolls that are out for their lives.

Glasses understands, and thus they reach a consensus. Then, they head back for the store.

They all take a deep breath and quickly walk inside, heading right for the second floor, going to Wu Shen’s bedroom. The girl doll slowly follows along——Quarrelsome, who is in charge of opening the hatch this time.

Upstairs, they push the bedroom door open, looking at Wu Shen who is lying on his side.

The air really is awfully bad in this dimly lit room. It makes them reflexively hold their breaths. Treading as lightly possible, they look about the room but doesn’t discover anything out of place.

Finally, the trio——And Xü Beijin and his viewers who are observing them in the stream from afar, all cast their gaze at the man sleeping with his back to them.

The three of them are looking at each other, but none would take that first step.

Finally, Ponytail, after giving the two men death glares, takes a shaky first step.

In the stream, meanwhile, the viewers are already impatient. They’re urging Xü Beijin.

“host host, just move the camera over!”

“We have a God’s eye view! We don’t need to wait for the players.”

“quick quick quick, i want spoilers spoilers spoilers!”

Xü Beijin hesitates as he looks at the man lying on his side on the stream.

That is the neighbour he knows well. When they meet every so often, they would greet each other. Even in the Nightmare, he seems normal enough, crying in pain for his missing daughter.

It should be fine, just… moving the video source over, right?

The comment barrage is still ongoing about ‘spoilers plz,’ but Xü Beijin really isn’t optimistic because he has already seen countless Nightmare owners who behave as if they’re seriously mad. They were all much more terrifying than Wu Shen has ever been.

Still, since the audience wants it, then Xü Beijin steels himself and, after glancing at Lin Qin who is still sitting nearby, he changes the camera to focus directly on Wu Shen without warning.

And then, even Xü Beijin, who was mentally preparing himself already, still can’t help but feel a suffocating blanket of terror overtaking him for that moment.

Wu Shen’s eyes are wide open!

The man, with his back to them, with regular, rhythmic breathing, looking like he’s sound asleep, has always had his eyes wide open, just staring blankly at the air in front of him!

It is almost as if he has somehow noticed the stream camera that is pointed right at him, as the next second, his lips suddenly part, to reveal a silent, malicious smile.