Volume 1 - CH 20

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

The eighth run of the Nightmare has begun.

The moment it did, they are again faced with a terrifying chase from the dolls. Lin Qin is getting more impatient as well.

He is about to make a move when Ponytail suddenly yells out in the middle of their running, “dalao! Please give us another chance!”

Lin Qin narrows his eyes and quietly stares at her.

To be perfectly honest, Lin Qin really is looking rather unsettling by this point. He is still a smiling baby-face with lips perking up, but his smile has a rather cold and merciless feel to it.

Lin Qin is never one that is easy to converse with. When Xü Beijin refuses him, he only quietly sulks because he isn’t sure whether he can win against him in a fight.

Yet when it comes to those trash that can’t win against him in a fight, and yet still dares to impose on him… Then his temper only turns for the worse.

In this Nightmare, he might have helped the Missiontakers, because he didn’t care——He might not even recall those trivialities anymore by now.

If it comes to someone begging for mercy when he’s about to blow…

There are two possibilities. Either he does not relent at all, or… He is even more ruthless.

Which is why Lin Qin’s life is so utterly boring in the first place. Those that cannot win against him are but mere dust beneath his notice; however, his entire world ends up therefore being an empty void.

And so he has come to accept his world being entirely dark, with him being the lone wanderer aimlessly toiling inside. He has the fighting strength but no target to lash out against. His past, his present, and his future are all the same.

Xü Beijin’s appearance is both a good thing and a bad thing. While he did at least make Lin Qin, the high-maintenance dalao, properly see someone exists for once, but Xü Beijin is quite possibly annoyed by this attention on the contrary.

At the same time, this attention is quite noticeable for the others as well, like the quick-witted Ponytail.

While the Missiontakers have focused on the Dollmaker’s this whole time, and they do not dare question where Lin Qin is heading off to, but their frequently sighting Lin Qin in the bookstore is undoubtedly significant.

Therefore, Ponytail has a sudden spark of inspiration, shouting, “dalao! I know something about the bookstore owner!”

Lin Qin furrows his brows slightly. His facial expression changes rather rapidly, before asking, “what about him?”

They’re, of course, still in the middle of the first wave of the dolls’ chase. Lin Qin is dealing with it effortlessly, contrasting with the gasping Missiontakers about him. This inhuman physical prowess really does make them jealous.

“Dalao… Please, after this wave, first,” Ponytail says, all gasping for breath as she continues, “I’ll tell you in detail then!”

Lin Qin is slightly irritated, but he decides to tolerate it anyhow.

He is even considering just dragging the girl who is slow on her feet along with him.

Then he looks down at his hand and back at Ponytail… And decides against it. He doesn’t want to touch her, in case he might accidentally cripple her. She’ll have to endure.

A few minutes later, finally free of the dolls and back outside the Dollmaker’s, the Missiontakers are so tired they could faint at any time. Sweat is raining down from them while they lean against the wall. Their visions are already out of focus.

Lin Qin, wholly unfazed, is looking at Ponytail.

The girl takes a deep breath before explaining, “dalao, I once heard about this bookstore owner back in the Tower – He never sleeps, therefore no one has ever entered his Nightmare.”

Lin Qin nods and says, “I know that.”

Ponytail continues her explanation, “I know a secret…” She then glances at Glasses and falls into a brief thought. She does not avoid him in the end when she directly says, “while the bookstore owner does not let anyone into his Nightmare, but if you bring him drinks he likes, then he’ll give you clues about Nightmares of other Tower residents.”

Glasses seems shocked as he blurts out, “drinks?!”

Ponytail nods to confirm, saying, “this is what the dalao Mu Jiashi told me.”

Glasses looks downright astonished by this point, “you know Mu-dalao?! He should already really high up the Tower already…”

Quarrelsome sniggers, remarking, “you’re like a sentient piece of congealed surprise.”

Glasses “…”

Lin Qin has no interest in their argument, and just nods to confirm, “so, he likes drinks?”

“That’s right.”

“I see,” Lin Qin nods again, telling them, “you can keep going.”

Then he leaves them.

Their conversation is also captured in its entirety by the viewers in the stream.

Naturally… That includes Xü Beijin himself.

… How did the fact that he likes drinks get out?!

And also… that guy with the glasses. Why the astonishment?! What problem does he have with liking drinks? Sure, water works, but does he think water is tasty?!

In the Tower, with its abysmal quality of life, it is such a blessing to be able to enjoy tasty, refreshing drinks!

The man looks like he doesn’t understand simple joys in life at all!

It is tragic he can no longer enjoy bubble tea like he once did on Earth…

Xü Beijin so laments.

Liking various drinks is a small quirk of Xü Beijin, which, when compared with the multitude of strange quirks of the Tower residents, could surely be said to be wholly harmless.

Given that Xü Beijin is a good person at heart, when one time, a dejected Missiontaker who kept trying and failed to enter his Nightmare ended up leaving the drinks he collected with Xü Beijin. Feeling slightly guilty, Xü Beijin told him a hint from a Nightmare of some resident he knew.

And that Missiontaker really did achieve a True End thanks to his hint, and ascended to a higher floor.

That Missiontaker’s name… Was Mu Jiashi, probably?

Xü Beijin can’t remember well either. It was probably a really long time ago.

No wonder there was a short period of time back then when he kept receiving drinks every so often. Mu Jiashi must have spread the news of that transaction.

Yes, for Xü Beijin, it is solely a transaction.

While he is absorbed in his recollection of the past, the audience of the stream are also asking, curious.

“bookstore owner… it means the host, right?”

“The host’s character trait is enjoying drinks… Is this a role-playing game? Or is it a real-life preference of the host? And you can craft your own character from scratch in this game?”

“i want it to be the latter, sounds more interesting”

Xü Beijin gives the audience as simple an explanation as he can, “a Nightmare is the instance, and the Tower is the main hub world of the game. As for the characters each player uses… You could say they built it themselves, yeah, but the different roles they employ are randomly assigned.”

This is the best of what Xü Beijin could say under the strict supervision of the Server, though it is enough to make the viewers all satisfied for now.

“got it! just like the detective dalao said, diff players use diff identities and get diff info”

“host really is lucky to end up with some amazing role in the beginning!”

Xü Beijin almost wants to smile helplessly at that remark.

An amazing role, huh?

Actors might know more than the Missiontakers do, but they are also much more severely hampered. All they can do is to Act out their assigned scripts as much as possible.”

If this streaming system ended up with a Missiontaker, then the audience might have immediately been informed that, oh, this isn’t really a traditional ‘game,’ per se, but a real Nightmare in the guise of an escape game. Humans are trapped inside this game, struggling against succumbing to eternal damnation.

Xü Beijin, meanwhile, cannot possibly divulge such information.

Of course, Missiontakers might just as well be worried and suspicious of such a streaming system suddenly spawning out of nowhere.

All this time Xü Beijin has been telling half-truths precisely for this reason. He does not know how the outside world is and therefore does not even dare hinting at it.

Though he won’t be able to keep up the informational blackout on the Tower forever. Xü Beijin is mentally prepared for when that day is to come.

After this long period of interaction with the four viewers, Xü Beijin is also confident he knows them a little better now.

They really are just normal viewers in a gaming stream. Nothing stands out about them in particular. Their usage of words and their way of talking are no different from their own language use in the game ‘Escape.’

Of course, this may also be attributed to a robust translating system, since there are players of all the diverse nationalities in-game but there is no obstacle to their communication at all.

The only special phrase so far is likely the ‘host-only game’ that Xü Beijin saw way back.

Though the phrase has only ever popped up once, and Xü Beijin doesn’t really have a chance to reference it indirectly or probe it. He can only keep this question to himself for now.

Compared to grander problems like the streaming system or humanity’s predicament, he is much more concerned about the crisis in action.

Lin Qin has learned about the fact that he likes drinks…

He probably, wouldn’t end up, doing anything serious, right?

Xü Beijin is rather uneasy thinking about it.

He glances at Lin Qin’s location through the streaming system, which shows him still firmly under the category of ‘Abandoned Street;’ either he’s walking towards Xü Beijin, or taking a stroll like when he was bored earlier.

He stops thinking about it, because in the stream, the three Missiontakers are finally talking about something important.

“Earlier, I said that I found a utility card in the doll store inside the Tower,” Glasses explains, “it was an Infocard.”

An Infocard is one of the more common cards in the Tower. It is used to examine basic information about other things (including Tower residents, outsiders, other utility cards, etc.).

One Infocard can reveal information about one entity, and is single-use.

Each Tower resident and each outsider has their own information panel. They are able to check their own physical status and Mission progress (TL: This is probably an oversight on the author’s part, because nowhere does this really useful-sounding feature ever come up again) on them.

Of course, for the others, especially Missiontakers, Infocards are sometimes particularly useful, as every so often, certain resident’s panel would reveal their Nightmare’s secret.

Naturally, the Infocard does not reveal the fact that the Tower residents are Actors nor do they show everything these Actors know. The information panel displays only basic character stats and information.

The same way that, if one such card is used on a Missiontaker, only up to how many cards the person holds would be revealed, but not the actual cards possessed.

Therefore, the well-supplied Infocards do still end up called ‘filler’ material every so often. Every Missiontaker would have one or two stored on them.

And clearly, Ponytail also knows what Glasses wanted to express by saying it was an Infocard——He meant that, given it’s not exactly a valuable utility card, it’s not worth it for you to eye it for yourself. The information in his hands is more important.

She nods; she gets it.

Quarrelsome, clearly unable to grasp such fine subtleties, just asks impatiently while the two of them are making knowing nods at each other, “so? What about that Infocard?”

Glasses takes a deep breath, barely suppressing his urge to beat the hell out of Quarrelsome, and spills the beans entirely in one go, “the name of the card is, ‘A Daughter Killed By Her Father.'”