Volume 5 - CH 85.3

The Cannibals treated the 14th floor as their canteen, perhaps because they once worked here, so they decided to revamp the place to how it was, so that they could act like it was before whatever it was that happened. They could keep eating, working, resting and chatting here.

But because the situation continued deteriorated, so the Cannibals finally understood that they didn’t need to keep doing what they were doing. Something has fundamentally changed.

Finally, they left the floor behind, heading to floors below this one, and stopping there, even painting the windows red with blood.

The Cannibals have completely abandoned their original ways.

… And this, was the Apocalypse? Something has altered their minds? They were all normal people, doing normal work, but one day, they turned into the Cannibals.

Their criminality doesn’t change the fact that their motivations are weird.

Fei continues listening to the ‘Mushroom’ in silence.

According to him, he quietly sneaked here after the Cannibals left. Because everyone recognised this as ex-Cannibal turf, nobody dared come here.

He used this to his advantage to hide, until now, when Fei and Lin Qin found him out.

And that’s all he knows about what happened to this floor.

Fei can’t help but ask, “if you’re hiding here alone, then where do you get food? Are you not thirsty or hungry?”

The man looks at Fei oddly and explains, “I’m a ‘Mushroom.’”

Fei takes a moment and finally realises why, according to Xü Beijin, these Mushrooms have also been classified as part of the insanity.

Because they do not hunger or thirst. Like their namesake, they stake out some dark, damp corner, and has no more senses of normal humans. All they have left are fear of and apprehension towards others.

Fei is wondering if this is also the effect of whatever ‘thing’ happened outside that nobody knew the details of.

Without warning, humans had their brains fundamentally altered. Their lives took a turn off Main Street and Bananas, and they do not at all seem alarmed by it, as if they are convinced they made this choice themselves.

… Fei is now recalling the Tower, recalling the memories they have lost.

And, more particularly, she is now thinking of the ‘price’ associated with the utility cards.

She knows many Missiontakers on the higher floors who are reluctant to use any.

Beyond that pretty justification of how using utility cards affected the prize pool after the endings, the more pragmatic reason would be, that they fear the price of activating utility cards.

Nobody wants to end up like Mystic, who herself is merely one example of the many that have used utility cards.

Utility cards produce… particular effects on one’s psyche without any awareness from the person in question at all. The Missiontakers would find it completely justifiable, even. This is exactly how they should be thinking and acting.

But any outside observer would see how obvious the effects are.

It is immensely difficult for the Missiontakers to realise it themselves, though. No human would ever suspect their own brain. How could the brain ever doubt itself?

Like this man in front of Fei, who firmly believes he no longer feels hunger or thirst. or the need to sleep. The meaning of his life is to curl up in a corner and cry.

If it were not for the fear, he wouldn’t even have stood up and answered Fei’s questions. He probably would have continued rotting his life away in the corner there, forever.

Fei cannot fathom such a mindset, but what can she say when the man is so thoroughly convinced of his beliefs?

In the stream, the viewers also seem taken aback by how the Mushroom reacted.

“you know, the nightmare never really showed the apocalypse or let the missiontakers experience it, but…”

“this feels as bleak as any real apocalypse would probably be like”

“so this nightmare had this kind of apocalypse? the last one had one, but it was more… different”

“(whispers) this kinda effect on the brain itself is horrifying I think”

“well… but you know…

… eh nevermind”

Xü Beijin is somewhat surprised reading the viewers’ rather timid discussions.

Usually, they’re few in number, and so familiar with each other, that talking openly in the comments is nothing new. They are extremely straightforward as well, seeing how many times they’ve teased Lin Qin and Xü Beijin’s ‘thing.’

Those viewers, would go ‘never mind’?

Xü Beijin is suspecting this might have something to do with that… real world situation, which caused the detective dalao to disappear for a long time. The viewers back then remarked ‘… with how the “situation” is…’

… It should be safe to assume these viewers are normal people, right? What could ever happen to them?

Xü Beijin is feeling somewhat down thinking about this.

Even more frustratingly, even if he wants to know more, he doesn’t dare asking about it directly.

So all Xü Beijin can do is pretend he didn’t see what the viewers were talking about at all. Instead, he turns his attention to the video feeds on display.

Here, he sees Jiang Shuangmei and Wu Jian arriving on the 22nd floor by stairs.

This is probably the floor with the sea of blood. Xü Beijin switches the main camera over to them.

Looking through the glass window is pretty unhelpful here. The sea of blood can’t be seen at all. However, the last run of the Nightmare, Jiang Shuangmei, Fei and Shen Yünjü definitely had their entire bodies drenched in blood from the blood rushing in from outside the elevator.

Pushing the door without resistance, they enter the 22nd floor.

Then, confusingly, Jiang Shuangmei confirms that not a drop of blood is to be seen anywhere on this floor.

Was it the 23rd floor, then?

It’s not impossible, so does that mean this floor is just normal?

Jiang Shuangmei and Wu Jian explore the floor thoroughly to no avail.

Wu Jian still seems doubtful, asking, “could this floor have nothing?”

Jiang Shuangmei replies, “I don’t know either,” she pauses, and adds, “but I feel like this wouldn’t possibly be as simple as that.”

She’s not sure what she is feeling exactly, either.

This floor seemed to be no different to the other floors, save for a rather faint smell. Well, faint, but getting stronger, and stronger, to the point that Jiang Shuangmei is sniffling and rubbing her nose now.

She asks, “do you smell…”

“… Blood?” Wu Jian finishes the question, with a hesitant tone.

The two of them look at each other, and then immediately look all around them.

The next second, there it is. A trickle of some dark-coloured liquid. Coming down from the vents of the central heating. Soon enough, all the vents begin discharging liquid.

It smells thickly of rusted iron now. Blood, blood is spewing forth from the air conditioning… or rather, from the airducts, via the shafts above them?

No matter what, soon enough, there is already a thin layer of blood on the ground.

Jiang Shuangmei, feeling a chill down her spine, quickly yells out to Wu Jian, “run!”

They quickly retreat to the stairs, and squeeze their heads at the small window of the door. They watch, with widened eyes, how the blood first turns into a stream, then into a waterfall that smashes the plating of the conditioning units right open, until they flood the entire floor.

Somehow, the blood is remaining within the floor. It doesn’t even spill over the windows whose glass is long gone.

The entire 22nd floor is like some kind of airtight container, filling up with obscene quantities of blood.

Finally, the rising blood floods over the window on the door to the 22nd floor. They can no longer see what is happening inside.

… Looking at the scene, Jiang Shuangmei is rubbing the goosebumps on her arms while muttering, “what a Nightmare this is…”