Volume 3 - CH 50.2

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

Similarly trembling right now is Shen Yünjü, the contrast being, Muscular was trembling from anger, but Shen Yünjü from fear.

He is sitting there with a poker face but trembling hands and legs. His gaze is actually unfocused, rather similar to the immediate expression of Jiang Shuangmei after her death. It is because they have both perished under something they were not expecting.

Jiang Shuangmei died in the bathroom;

Shen Yünjü died on an escalator.

An escalator.

After separating with Thin and the teenage girl, he took the escalator down to the underground floor. After a look around, rather than finding some clues, he found his mouth watering at all the smell of delicious food drifting through the air.

Too bad he had no money. He could only watch the delicious food from afar.

Then, he sauntered towards the escalator, to head to the second floor underground.

The escalators are the stairs kind, instead of the smooth but much longer flat escalator they build in big shopping malls as usual, so Shen Yünjü had to be more careful and watch his step so that he didn’t tumble.

Yet, when he was sure he was correctly walking onto the escalator, he could feel an utterly hateful gaze aimed straight at him. The cold, dark feeling embedded within made him shake even in the warm air.

Right as it happened, he saw with his own two eyes, the step he was going to take, suddenly shift forward; he was supposed to get on safely; he was careful, but, seemingly unwilling to let him board, the whole escalator nudged forward.

It was too late for him to take his step back, so he tumbled, head-first, rolling down the escalator.

He was bleeding all over already, rolling towards the glass door installed after the escalator, which should have opened when it detected weight coming its way, but it didn’t. He crashed into it, the glass door shattered, and its shards stabbed right into his hands, his legs, his torso, and his head.

Then, he bled to death.

The vomit-inducing tumble, the suffocation, the taste of blood, the pain of what must have been his spine snapping, the dizziness as he crashed into the glass door, the pain of glass shards stabbing into his flesh, the way his consciousness drifted and numbed while drenched in a puddle of his own blood…

Basically, the moment the Nightmare restarted, he coughed and nearly threw up.

Death… Some Missiontakers may be used to dying already; some can never get used to it.

He sits on the sofa for a while with a pale face until he could calm back down – it has been half an hour since the Nightmare restarted already. He is finally able to think again.

There is a problem with the escalator. This means that the commercial complex isn’t safe either.

The apartment complex and the commercial complex next to it. The sentient electronics. An excessive, oozing malice… Shen Yünjü falls into thought. However, he is unable to continue thinking soon enough, because another gaze has locked onto him.

He almost reflexively shudders again; he tries to clam himself down as much as he could, however, to check each and every corner of his apartment unit… No. No… Not here, everything is normal.

Finally, he turns towards the peephole on the door.

In the first run of the Nightmare, he thought that there was someone leaning on the door, using the peephole to stare at him with this twisted, evil gaze.

Now he knows better.

The peephole, is the eye.

He stares right back at the peephole, until… for some reason, the gaze suddenly goes away, as suddenly as it came.

Shen Yünjü exasperatedly exhales in relief. Then, he furrows his brows again, nonplussed.

What the heck… why did the peephole glare at him fiercely with that evil intent, and then, just go away? Why did it just give up?

If Shen Yünjü is able to share his feelings right now, he would probably find a sympathetic companion in Jiang Shuangmei, because she also just met with the same conundrum.

In the first run of the Nightmare, the bathtub killed her; in the second run, she almost froze to death in her own bedroom by a coordinated effort from the bedroom door smart lock and the central heating.

She knew that all the sentient pieces of furniture in her apartment holds nothing but contempt and intent to kill for her, so she took in her surroundings immediately when the Nightmare restarted.

She left the bedroom almost immediately, then quickly runs for the door and crouches down by its side, leaning on the wall, burying her head in her legs and was ready to wait out the first hour of the Nightmare.

Half an hour later, she moved her stiff and numb legs a little, when she suddenly realises, that half an hour has passed, but nothing in her apartment unit is acting up.

Shocked, she begins pondering why.

Not just the furniture is quiet, but she doesn’t even sense any malicious gazes.

She can’t help but wishfully wonder – did the furniture, finally let her off the leash?

She might not have thought anything of it if this was the first time something like this has happened, but it’s already the second time. The last run of the Nightmare, the central heating and the bedroom door let her go inexplicably; the elevator playfully closed its doors on her, but wasn’t doing anything to threaten her life.

This time, the apartment unit is so quiet that, it feels there is no danger around at all.

She may not be as smart, but now, she has also made the possible connection in her head, that could it be that after having died in the Nightmare already, the sentient electronic devices will no longer target her?

Jiang Shuangmei’s mood improves almost immediately. She really isn’t good with these faux-supernatural things. If you ask her to fight with some murderer, sure; dealing with these weird sentient ghost-like things? No way.

She is even thinking if this is really the case, then perhaps she can also convince her older sister to die once…? It’ll be painful, but then, they’ll be safe for a few runs at least.

Though… she immediately dissuades herself from the thought. This is not yet certain, so of course she shouldn’t tell her older sister to take the risk.

It is still, death. They resurrect, of course, but they still die before that. Not in the same sense that a character you control in a video game dies and, well, you can’t feel it anyway, but rather… A death that they experience personally.

So Jiang Shuangmei gives up on the thought.

Her mood has lightened, so she stops crouching by the door. The trauma from before means she would still rather avoid the bathroom and bedroom, though, and she just blanks out daydreaming by the door instead.