Volume 2 - CH 37.1

With Missiontakers present right now, Xü Beijin cannot speak, but thankfully, the detective dalao saves him from awkwardness by typing his own conclusions on the screen.

“In this Nightmare, time has always been a critical factor.

In the dark bedroom, there was one minute exactly between each number; in the best-case scenario, it takes exactly three minutes to reach the service area driving from the car park outside the corridor; after the Nightmare begins crumbling, the mass slaughter of the man in black causes the first death, and subsequently a restart, in exactly five minutes…

These pieces of information are all signs that Missiontakers must pay very careful attention to time, with the tolerance for this time lower and lower as the Nightmare continues to crumble.

I thought that noticing the Difficulty with time would be enough to successfully resolve this Nightmare, but it seems that this is far too insufficient for a True End from current circumstances!

That is because, as the Nightmare crumbles, the Nightmare’s time flows forward!

In other words, the Nightmare should have reverted to its most original state in restarts; since the fifth run, however, the scenes and events no longer remained the same, they are also changing!

The killer who was at large, was issued a warrant later. ‘Now,’ the police have isolated him and are proceeding to capture… These are all because the Nightmare’s time has passed.

I believe that this is the change that the fifth run of the Nightmare and its crumbling brought.

However, we notice an interesting question arise from all this.

Why is it that the man in black began his mass murder in the fifth run? I thought this was the crumbling itself, which would have brought unpredictable changes.

Yet, if I combine that with the fact that the time in the Nightmare is now flowing, then now, with the man in black being a killer at large at this point in the timeline… It makes me suspect, whether he would have escaped to this service area at this time too, and began murdering?

What I am saying, is that, not just the fixed scenes and information have changed, but this flow of time is also affecting the action patterns of the NPCs (Actors?)! Their modus operandis also change!

If so, then I suspect that the change to occur next may be the police surrounding this service area, ready to apprehend the killer, while the man in black continues to resist and slaughter people en masse.

We know that as the Nightmare starts over again and again, changes must come more rapidly and more substantially. Therefore, the next run of the Nightmare may also carry changes beyond that as well. The situation is in jeopardy.

Also, one more thing to note is that these changes happen after the Nightmare began crumbling… In other words, if the crumbling did not occur, the Missiontakers would not have been able to learn about all these or even achieve a True End on top of that!

Even for those who enter this Nightmare a second time, I am highly doubtful that a True End can be achieved in its normal status with static, frozen time.

… That’s about everything I’ve got.”

The detective dalao’s analysis has shocked all the viewers present.

“holy, i can feel the evil intent coming from the scriptwriter”

“so basically it means true ends are only possible after at least run #5? isn’t this no different to that nightmare of the dollmaker where that utility card was necessary to achieve a true end? no one could have guessed any of these requirements!”

“so it all comes down to luck…”

“i just wanna ask if these changes also affect actors, then why is our Bei not doing anything different?”

Xü Beijin “…”

… Because he’s just an extra!

The cashier and the man in black are clearly important side characters in this Nightmare, compared to Xü Beijin, the insignificant extra, who oversees the newspapers and, like a good tool-person, presents them to Missiontakers when needed.

Xü Beijin is sure that there are also extras similar to him over at the gas station, whose role solely consists of watching the TV the whole time so that the Missiontakers would notice the news playing on-screen.

They are all just means utilised by the Server to the end that Missiontakers would notice such clues.

Xü Beijin, a highly experienced slacker, long-time extra, knows such things by heart already.

Though that said, when the viewers in the stream mention it that way, he still can’t help but feel a little embarrassed and rubs his nose in response.

The viewers are happily teasing him again when they notice.

Though the comment earlier and this reaction from Xü Beijin seems to have been enough for the detective dalao, who replies with an uncertain tone, “Yeah… Why is Beibei unchanging? Perhaps Actors are also subdivided? There are different categories?”

Xü Beijin thinks, bingo.

Because the detective dalao insists on figuring out the settings of the game by himself or herself, so the other viewers have also been led astray, now all of them are locked in a discussion of the game setting of ‘Escape,’ mainly surrounding the topic of what kind of role their Bei would play in this game as a whole.

Xü Beijin does not participate in their discussion, but instead raises his head to look at the two Missiontakers in front of him.

Mu Jiashi mutters, “… time.”

He also notices the problem, and further, manages to connect another fact to it.

“But this is a Nightmare,” murmuring, he continues, “time flows in this Nightmare, but it can never play something from beyond reality’s own timeline… So whatever is happening in this Nightmare right now, is still in the past.”

He ponders in silence.

Selfish suddenly interjects, asking, “what do you think the ending is?”

Mu Jiashi asks, “what?”

“The man in black; that brat’s father,” Selfish shrugs and asks, “the police are trying to arrest him, so would he be successfully captured?”

Mu Jiashi pauses. A hypothesis is emerging.

That is when they can hear ruckus play out from the central plaza – most notably, there is the scream of a little boy.

Mu Jiashi quickly puts his thoughts aside to leave the bookstore——Laosan and co. must be here with the boy!

The boy was screaming because he saw the man in black, yet the moment he did, the man in black disappears out of nowhere. This strange, impossible scene cuts the boy’s scream short; he looks lost.

Laosan’s eyes seem to glimmer as he murmurs, “eleven minutes!”

Back in run four, when the boy appeared in the service area, the man in black was also gone; it took him twelve minutes or so to arrive at the supermarket in the far back of the service area.

Laosan believes the man in black must now be back in the bedroom, restarting his eight minutes of numbering off, before hurrying here in three minutes, which adds up to eleven minutes.

He took another minute or so in run four to reach the supermarket walking, which explains the extra time.

Since they are at the central plaza right now, they should consider the time they have to be eleven minutes to be safer.

In this Nightmare, where time is measured so precisely, Laosan wants to play it safe.