Volume 2 - CH 36.1

Compared to the Missiontakers are who just shocked seeing Lin Qin suppress the man in black so quickly, the audience, who were in full view of how he completely dominated the man, have their jaws on the floor instead.

Xü Beijin has made up his mind of not fighting Lin Qin ever even more after a brief silence.

They have no idea how to describe how Lin Qin did it. They just saw Lin Qin stroll over casually, and then just take that big machete out of the man’s hands, then he just extended his foot to kick the murderous man over.

Lin Qin is looking down at the guy, and, impatient, applies more and more force through his feet gradually.

He is quite annoyed at him.

The man in black, lying on the ground struggling, soon gives up all resistance after a few hard tramples as he begins yelling in pain, though really, it isn’t particularly notable among all the other screams and wails of the other terribly wounded Tower residents.

The Missiontakers ignore his suffering directly.

Mu Jiashi is heaving a sigh of relief and relaxes a little.

After forcing the man in black down, the only thing they need to do now is wait until Laosan’s team finishes numbering off in the dark bedroom and take the boy over here.

As for whether they should finish up with a Normal End first or try their luck at a True End, Mu Jiashi isn’t sure either.

He falls into thought.

In the stream, after a brief ruckus, the audience comes around to discussing the endings of the Nightmare too.

Not that they have many thoughts either, instead expecting the dalao and Xü Beijin to help, and before then, they’re aimlessly talking about everything.

“weird, making the father realise his misunderstanding is only a normal ending”

“dont really understand, the last nightmare was a true end when the dollmaker acknowledged the truth and repented, exchanging eyes with xiao chun, wasnt it? whys it different this time?”

“uh… maybe because this time the nightmare owner is the victim and not the perpetrator?”

“kinda hard to think from the boys perspective tho”

“it’s still kind of hard to guess, wasn’t there supposed to be particular clues for the purpose of leading to a true end? but this nightmare didn’t have anything special like that”

“yeah, like that utility card last nightmare, without that then they have no eyes or xiao-chun or means to a true ending”

“so… what about this nightmare?”

Mu Jiashi, of course, is also aware of what even the viewers could notice, however, the Difficulty discovered doesn’t mean they can necessarily resolve it.

He works through the information acquired in the Nightmare again.

The boy’s father thought his wife had cheated on him, so he killed her, forcing the boy to number off as he did so.

… Yes, the summary is that simple.

So why isn’t the True End just resolving the original misunderstanding?

Mu Jiashi is also keenly aware that True Ends also don’t come without some luck. They either need some special tools, run into some special scenes, or come across some special, rare clues. Something they can’t expect to do in just one mere attempt at this Nightmare.

Why Golddiggers could keep their reputation is because, they would first achieve Normal Ends in Nightmares to ensure they have a means to leave safely, before taking it on over and over again to look for clues within.

Naturally, there are risks. Over countless attempts at a single Nightmare, many Golddiggers have come to realise that as they enter a Nightmare again and again, changes become more and more likely, independent of reruns inside. These changes will also be different each time.

It may be the dangers within increasing and becoming more omnipresent. It may be that the location of an important clue has changed. It may be that the terrain of the Nightmare becomes less traversable… In summary, just entering the same Nightmare again and again is already a risk.

A risk that is necessary to achieve a True End.

Simply because, very few of them human Missiontakers really are willing to stay at the bottom floor forever.

Of course, a lot of them have already given up, but that is because they believe there is no hope. If some Golddigger suddenly told them, though, that they are willing to take them to a higher floor for free, would anyone be completely disinterested in the offer?

Perhaps the door to where they could sign up would be broken down, even.

The difficulty in achieving a True End is that, it demands utmost attention from the Missiontakers for the most minute details——In fact, oftentimes, the key to the True End might lie outside of the Nightmare, and is in the Tower instead.

… In the Tower instead?

Mu Jiashi suddenly recalls that Laoda, Erge and Laosan said they had encounters with the boy back in the Tower.

They said they didn’t dig up anything useful from him.

However, it may be equally possible they just haven’t realised the value of the information they obtained from him!

Mu Jiashi has made up his mind now. When Laosan brings the boy here later, he’ll ask them to recount their entire encounter with the boy.

After this, he focuses back on the scene at hand. His subconsciousness has kept counting in the meantime to keep track of time.

Right now, six minutes have passed in this run of the Nightmare. If all is well, then they should almost be done already by the dark bedroom. Then they’ll bring the boy over.

So, they’ll be at the service area in about four or five minutes.

Before then…

Mu Jiashi’s gaze lands on the man in black.

He walks over, and hesitantly leans down to remove the mask of the man.

… Shockingly, beneath the mask, is another mask.

The man in black makes a hoarse chuckle, mocking Mu Jiashi’s actions, perhaps.

Selfish comes along and takes a peek, then yells out, “still another mask? What in the world? Isn’t he supposed to be the wanted guy?!”

Mu Jiashi also falls into thought.

He was already wondering earlier why the boy’s father had such an image in the boy’s own Nightmare.

A mask still beneath a mask… perhaps, because, in the boy’s mind, his father has already become a devil through and through?

Before he could think about it more deeply, someone suddenly asks, “what’s happening… here?”

All the Missiontakers present turn to look to see it’s the supermarket cashier, standing at the supermarket entrance and looking at the bloody scene in the plaza with his mouth agape.

Only Mu Jiashi is really invested in the Nightmare among the four present, so only he replies, “this man in black… was killing people here.”

“He?” The cashier’s gaze lands on the man in black, staring at him for a while, before gulping and asking, “this is the man in black you said were trying to kill you guys earlier?”

Mu Jiashi is stunned.

First thought, the Nightmare has crumbled so much that the NPCs are recalling what happened the last few runs already?

Mu Jiashi is also familiar with this kind of change. There’s both advantages and disadvantages. Some NPCs would recall how badly the Missiontakers treated them and would take revenge; others would sometimes provide unexpectedly useful information after recalling everything.

It’s a pretty common type of change to occur as Nightmares crumble, especially for someone as experienced as Mu Jiashi.

Besides that, what is attracting Mu Jiashi’s attention as well is the use of the word ‘kill’ by Dai Wu.

Did they tell Dai Wu about the man in black trying to kill… no, wait.

In the third run of the Nightmare, Selfish and Scapegoat went to the service area, when later as the fourth run started, Selfish said that he told Dai Wu a man in black was after them and trying to kill them in his angry tirade. The Nightmare restarted when Dai Wu was about to talk about who the man in black was.

Mu Jiashi thought it was part of the story Selfish and Scapegoat concocted as a lie.

Though it seems…

He turns towards Scapegoat reflexively.

The man is pale and his lips are trembling. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting the Tower resident to recover memories from the previous runs right now.

Selfish goes ‘hmph’ and says, “what. That’s how it was. We didn’t say a false thing at all.”

Mu Jiashi knits his brows reflexively.

Though it… could very well be true.

Selfish said he knew all the information because he has been here before.

If so, then whether they did, and what information they dug out of Dai Wu becomes unimportant.

Well… Not exactly; Selfish did look terribly strange when Dai Wu told them he didn’t know the boy’s whereabouts. Dai Wu must have told them something back then.

The man in black… The little boy…

Mu Jiashi suddenly realises something, asking, “how many questions did you ask in total?”

None of them thought about the possibility that Selfish and Scapegoat could have asked the cashier more than one question.

“Well, with how it is, there’s no point in hiding anything,” Selfish splays his hands and shows a fiendish smile, telling him, “we asked two things. One, where was the boy when the crime took place; two, who the man in black was. Before the cashier could reply to the second question, the Nightmare restarted.”

Mu Jiashi furrows his brows as he finally understands.

In the fourth run, when they asked Dai Wu if he knew anything about the boy, he didn’t specify whether it was about the boy during the crime or after the crime.

Dai Wu assumed they were asking where the boy was right that instant, and replied the boy was missing, so he didn’t know; Scapegoat, whose memories from his experience the last run still fresh in his mind, naturally understood it as the cashier replying he didn’t know where the boy was when the murder happened.

So, to him, it became a case of Dai Wu knowing where the boy was during the crime, but replied that he didn’t know where he was.

That contradictory information would certainly have made a bad actor like Scapegoat show an expression of surprise.

However, while Scapegoat tried to hide the fact that he was working with Selfish and also the fact that the boy was at the scene when his father killed his mother, everything else was true.

They did tell him a man in black was chasing after them. Dai Wu did tell them he might know who that man was; they did die before they could hear Dai Wu’s answer.

Which all played into their argument with everyone else the start of the next run.

Selfish shrugs to say, “I told you I never lied.”

He didn’t. He just kept some facts to himself.

When he asked those questions, he wanted to work with Scapegoat, so he was proving what he knew to him.

He told Scapegoat the boy was in the bedroom, but Scapegoat didn’t believe him immediately; he asked Dai Wu where the boy was when the murder took place——The boy was at the scene. So Scapegoat agreed to work with him.

It was too bad they couldn’t confirm the second answer, but fortunately, Scapegoat was willing to trust him with that one answer.

The moment the Nightmare restarted, the two of them quickly made an arrangement; Selfish didn’t believe in Scapegoat’s acting, so he said, “tell them we didn’t hear an answer in time!”

The quick sentence was enough for Scapegoat to figure out what he should say and shouldn’t.

And with that, finally, all the misunderstandings between the Missiontakers have been resolved.