Chapter 288: CH 1

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

For Xü Beijin, this should have been a normal workday.

By habit, he calls acting out a certain role in a Nightmare, as a workday.

A Nightmare, is what the Missiontakers call these instances.

Nobody knows when it began, but one day, humans were suddenly all made players of the game ‘Escape.’ Yet, this is a realistic escape game, where players can feel pain and die.

Even though nothing is over when someone dies. All players can revive, and the Nightmare restarts, until… either they escape, or, they end up succumbing to the Collapsed – that is to say, endlessly repeating – Nightmare.

Therefore, they ended up disliking the term ‘player’ more and more. Instead, they branded themselves the Missiontakers. They undergo missions inside these game instances called Nightmares.

In the setting of the game, a Nightmare is very simply, a nightmare come true. The main scene in this game is a narrow building that is so tall it pierces into the sky. It is called the Tower. The residents of the Tower are the owners of the Nightmares.

Most of the Tower residents look dozy all the time. They are extremely hostile and uncooperative towards all the Missiontakers. It seems that they see the Missiontakers as a group of outsiders who have barged right into the Tower.

These outsiders move about during the day, trying to gather hints on the nightmares from residents. When night falls, they scuttle about outside the residents’ houses, entering the residents’ nightmares to challenge them.

It sounds like the residents are understandably hostile to the outsiders in this case.

Yet, what the Missiontakers are unaware, is that, in fact, the residents of the Tower are also humans struggling in their Nightmares.

They take on different roles in both Nightmares and in the Tower. Without busting their own covers, they will secretly provide the outsiders with clues in the Nightmares to push the plot along——That is their mission.

… Most of the residents are career-oriented, but that does not include Xü Beijin.

In the Tower, Xü Beijin is the owner of a bookstore; in the Nightmares, he’s often assigned similar roles——It’s just that, in the Nightmares, he’s usually just a nondescript extra.

Extras might occasionally need to provide clues to Missiontakers in the Nightmares or chat a little, but that’s it.

Xü Beijin has already been the unidentified corpse on the ground many times. As a Nightmare restarts over and over, the lying Xü Beijin really feels like he’s becoming a cold corpse soon…

On this workday, the situation isn’t that bad, though. He’s himself – the owner of a bookstore.

And he’s been playing a role in this Nightmare many times already. The owner of the Nightmare is the owner of the Dollmaker’s next door.

The owner is one of the career-oriented types. He often lets Missiontakers into his Nightmare and try to supply them with clues as much as he can, wishing they could eventually solve his Nightmare for good.

The moment a Nightmare is completely resolved, the outsiders can then go up a floor in the Tower; and when the owner of the Nightmare succeeds in their secret manoeuvring for the outsiders to resolve their Nightmare, they can also ascend.

Yet, he has failed time and time again, and started his Nightmare up time and time again.

Though, a good side effect of this is that every time the dollmaker opens the Nightmare, Xü Beijin can end up dragged in and spend his time idling inside.

For example, like this time.

Xü Beijin slowly pours himself a glass of water——The Tower isn’t exactly abundant in resources, and this is also the case in the Nightmares——Then, he yawns. There are really, really prominent eyebags beneath his eyes. He looks deprived of sleep.

And in fact, as far as those outsiders are aware of, this bookstore owner of the Tower really is simply a monster that never sleeps.

Plenty of outsiders have tried to get into his Nightmare, but whether it’s talking to him by day, or dawdling outside his bookstore at night, not a single person has managed to elicit useful information from him at all.

In the end, it is simply the piece of rumour that Xü Beijin never sleeps that became widespread.

Since then, most of the more utilitarian outsiders ended up ignoring the strange bookstore owner. And naturally, some were still bugging him incessantly.

Xü Beijin thought it was really troublesome, but he also couldn’t find a way to both politely and resolutely convince the outsiders for good; it became a stalemate.

So, when he gets to act in Nightmares, it becomes easier for him.

No matter how many days passed in the Nightmare, only a single night will have passed in the Tower still. And, as an extra that is always just hanging out by the sidelines and adept at lazing about, Xü Beijin is having a good, relaxing time.

He casually extends his hand forward to grab the glass of water.

The next second, the scene in front of him flashes and he fails to grab anything, and his jaws drop to the ground.

The bookstore is unchanged, but the glass of water he poured is gone.

… What the heck! Is the nightmare restarting already?! How noob are this batch of outsiders!

He didn’t even manage to drink his water!

For the gaming streamer, Olai, today is a day of testing his fortune.

As a newcomer streamer, he promised his audience that, he will pick a random game off the entire database of all games and stream that. When the name of the game popped up, his heart skipped a beat.

[Escape]

It, it looks utterly evil!

Olai is, without a question, a cowardly streamer that doesn’t dare challenge any horror/thriller type of games.

But that’s what most audience likes. Especially when they get to see the streamer scream in horror or even end up crying altogether. So, in Olai’s streams, what little audience he had all persuaded him to make good on his promise; no backing out.

So Olai could only agree and is now getting ready to go. Yet, before he actually streams, he plans to first play it in private and be mentally prepared.

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Yet, as soon as he logged into the game, he can feel his throat constricting.

The character he is controlling, is standing right inside a small, cramped space. According to the information provided when he was logging on, this should be a Dollmaker’s shop.

Yet, this dim, damp, rundown little store, looks nothing like a warm doll store with its childish glamour.

Under what amount of light there was, he can see all the cabinets, boxes all stacked up all the way to the ceiling shakily, with the gaps all filled up with dirty little dolls.

The sheer amount could surely trigger someone’s anxiety reaction.

Besides Olai are some other people, but he takes no notice of them at all. He is just staring dead at those… dolls, that are staring right back at him.

They really do look lifelike. Their dark, soulless beads for eyes are staring straight at you. And the higher quality ones, could even potentially show a reflection——The reflection of a silhouette. Your silhouette. Like a real eye.

The rest of the people seem to be talking, as Olai is nervously taking in his creepy surroundings. His intense fear makes him unable to even think about greeting the rest of the people.

Suddenly, his eyes lock onto a certain doll.

A certain doll inside a glass cabinet. This Dollmaker’s, right next to the street, has a display cabinet——It was probably once really beautiful, but now, it is full of dust and cobwebs.

In one of the cabinets, someone has decorated it in the style of a princess’ room. Although the materials have yellowed or even gone mouldy, it is still possible to imagine how beautiful it must once have been. There, a doll, is staring right at Olai.

She is sitting besides the mini bed. She is about 50 cm (TL: ~1’8″) tall. Her hair is tidy, and she is wearing a red dress, like a pretty, timid little girl. Her head is even slightly tilted to the side.

Olai is staring at her, almost looking possessed.

He really did want to move his body, but his fear, and an inexplicable sense of anxiety, means that he is simply staring dead at the female doll, not even daring to blink.

He is anxiously commanding his body to move his gaze away. Why must he keep looking at that doll! That doll… Is weird, and worn, why is he looking at her!

… Then the doll suddenly blinks.

She was staring at him, then, she makes a naughty wink.

Olai “…”

When he wanted to scream, someone pats him on the shoulder from behind him.

“Hey, you…”

Olai’s body begins trembling, as a strange gurgling sound comes out from his throat, before going limp and collapses to the ground.

The character he used has stopped breathing immediately, because he was so scared, that when his gaming equipment detected his overly agitated nervous system, for safety reasons, it forcefully cut him off from the game.

… And this, certainly, also spooks the person who patted his shoulder.

The person, who is a human Missiontaker, is now looking at his own hand with a suspicious gaze. Was he that scary? He scared someone to death?!

Not that he has time to think; as soon as someone has died in the nightmare, it will soon restart. In three seconds at most, their scene flashes, back into how it originally looked.

Olai, outside of the game right now, is also slightly angry from embarrassment. Sure, he’s bad at games, but he doesn’t think so! How could he possibly have just been so scared he got kicked out of the game because a doll blinked and someone patted him on the shoulder!

That’s way, way too lame!

So, after a short moment of respite, he immediately logs back in——And then turns around to run outside with his eyes closed directly.

He can’t see it, but at least he can run away!

The moment Olai’s foot steps onto the Dollmaker’s doorframe, someone suddenly yells out angrily behind him.

He reflexively takes a look behind, and then sees——All the dolls in the doll store, have stood up, and are extending their furry, or plastic little feet, chasing after him!

Olai could almost feel his soul spooked out of him from the scene. He begins yelling madly, without listening to any of the anxious, or frustrated yells from the Missiontakers, and runs right outside of the doll store.

Without a sense of direction, he just instinctively heads for the closest building to shelter.

It’s a bookstore with its door ajar, so Olai rushes right inside the door, while saying, “there… there’s——!”

His voice is stuck.

Inside the door, is someone sitting behind the counter with white skin and heavy eyebags. He is exceptionally handsome. His deep brown hair is slightly dishevelled. Behind him is the dim, dark shelves, where mysterious, well-worn books are haphazardly placed.

When the man hears him and raises his head, he is staring right at the person with a soulless expression. Just like a demon straight out of Hell; a demon that, because Olai has interrupted his casual time alone, is staring quietly at him.

The pale white skin, the crimson red lips, the features so handsome it is downright inhuman, and the dark pupils… Almost seem to superimpose with the eyes of the dolls that shocked him senseless just now.

Olai “!!!”

His eyes roll up as he faints——And his form disappears entirely. He has again, been forcefully ejected from the game.

Yet, after he has left, an area on the ground is flashing, like a pixelated censor. A few seconds later, the Nightmare restarts again, but the distorted ground, now has an inexplicable spot of light on it.

… Xü Beijin, sitting alone in the bookstore, is looking at this scene with a stupefied look. He blinks.

What just happened?

He turns to the spot of light on the ground.

What is this?

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