Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

Mu Jiashi is not the only one to notice the problem with the door. The only woman present has also quietly approached to test the handle. Then, she gasps in silence.

Mu Jiashi glances at her.

Her appearance is fine, but what is most striking about her is her blue-green hair. Mu Jiashi is suddenly reminded of something and reflexively says, you must be

The woman nods and says softly, sorry, but please keep my identity secret.

Mu Jiashi nods.

He knows this woman withgruehair. Her name is Ding Yi.

She is a famous Necessities Merchant of the bottom floor, known as the Billionaire.

Mu Jiashi knew her because long ago, when he was still in the carrying business, she introduced customers to him. They didnt interact much beyond that, but she left a deep impression on him.

Especially because of the grue hair. It is rare enough on its own, and rumours say that Ding Yi once had black hair, but because of a special utility card, her hair became this mystical blue-green colour.

Though a utility card?

Besides the Modification cards and Fusion cards, what other utility cards can even affect appearances? Yet, if it were one of those two types, isnt it lasting way too long?

While curious, Mu Jiashi couldnt just ask Ding Yi outright, either.

Her appearance aside, another reason she is well known may be because of the contrast between her personality and her role. She is a Necessities Merchant, but for some reason, she is extremely introverted in her daily life. She never speaks much. It is hard to imagine what led her to becoming a merchant.

Though Later, Mu Jiashi speculated that it was perhaps because Ding Yi came to know many Tower residents.

The Necessities Merchants had to acquire their goods from the Tower residents. As outsiders, the Missiontakers quality of life is directly affected by their relationship with the Tower residents.

And especially so for the Necessities Merchants.

In the Tower, most of the Missiontakers treat Tower residents like the three men treated X Beijin a few days ago ignoring them entirely.

Some Necessities Merchants, and other Missiontakers who came to assume special roles, would instead need to establish a good relationship with the residents.

The Tower is filled with an endless grey fog and hopeless black Nightmares, but the occasional special career and role is able to brighten up the daily lives on the bottom floor of the Tower a little with some colour.

Mu Jiashi and Ding Yis conversation, and the twos checking of the door handle lasted but a moment, and nobody paid any attention but Lin Qin.

He narrows his eyes to examine those two a little.

She has secrets Who is she?

Though after a second of curiosity, it has faded already and Lin Qin looks away already, disinterested. He is the Crownless King of the Tower, and he is often disinterested in many things.

Many would even question his humanity, too. Other than seeing him occasionally leave the house to wander aimlessly or go into Nightmares, hes practically unseen anywhere else.

Though he does possess that enviable fighting strength.

Many Missiontakers wanted to take advantage of that, but could never manage to align themselves with his thought processes. In general, Lin Qin isnt exactly temperamental, even too lazy to respond to people provoking him on purpose sometimes.

That said, sometimes the well-tempered baby-face Lin Qin would go berserk and go completely mad.

Nobody has managed to stop him when he is mad all the way up to this point.

Missiontakers ending up in a Nightmare alongside Lin Qin often both revere and fear him.

Not that Lin Qin himself cares. He is leaning on the wall right now while the argument between the three men is playing out right beside his ears. He cant help but wonder how this bunch of Missiontakers can be so dumb.

Even he could figure out that this Nightmare probably requires some cooperationOr rather, all Nightmares on the bottom floor require Missiontakers cooperation, just perhaps up to different degrees.

And now, theyre arguing?

Lin Qin is a little irritated already.

He usually treats Nightmares as a way to kill time. Therefore, the performance of the Missiontakers in the Nightmares naturally plays a role in that. He treats the Nightmares as something akin to interesting novels, or TV dramas, or movies.

And now, he can only see a bunch of terrible third-rate actors displaying their incompetence in all their inglorious form.

In this sense, Lin Qin would certainly be nodding along the viewers of the stream if he could see them.

slowly typing a question mark.jpg

what r they doing? srsly???

Perhaps this is just human nature

no wait wheres the psycho murderer in black? where is he?

That is when Erge coldly, impatiently orders, shut the fuck up you all!

Selfish, Scapegoat and Laoda all turn towards him with the last of them shutting up. The other two still want to keep going when Erge slams them to the wall with his legs, one by one.

He didnt use enough force to cause injuries, and the Server doesnt go so far as to ban even something as mild as that. Though it was enough to intimidate.

Scapegoat couldnt say anything before Selfish is already about to cuss with his red steaming face while getting up from the ground.

I suggest you wake up, Erge coldly says, tching, and adding, and take a good look around.

Look around what? Selfish retorts, saying, look at how safe we are?

Erge then says, hoh. YeahSo, where is that man in black, who you said were chasing you before?

Selfish goes quiet. His head has finally cooled enough to allow him to realise the strange mood in the corridor. He hesitates for a bit before shutting up entirely.

Laosan says with a worried tone, were locked out of the bedroom, he also tested the handle already, and concludes, this means we might be trapped in this run of the Nightmare.

Trapped?

Laosan says, we we could go to the end of the corridor. I suspect We cant get out anymore.

A minute later, theyre at the end of the corridor, and the door that was supposed to lead them to the car park outside is inexplicably gone, leaving only the empty wall blocking them out entirely.

Laoda is widening his eyes, going, fuck, this means were just gonna wait and die here?!

Not exactly, Erge might not be as smart as Laosan, but he could make simple deductions too, with that man in black they said would chase them also goneWe cant even wait for something to kill us.

Laoda

He kicks the wall out of spite.

Selfish speaks up with a bleak smirk, why did you even run outside, if you didnt

Erge turns to him and says with a frigid tone, what about, if you blabber a single sentence more, then go kill yourself and restart the Nightmare for us?

Selfish retorts, Im not the only one speaking, even!

Laoda gives him a good hard kick.

Selfish falls down, wailing.

Erge praises his Laoda, nice kick.

Although Laoda isnt much better than a reckless pile of temperamental muscles, but at least he listens to people.

Umm Laosan suddenly asks, about the man in black that was chasing you Did he have a weapon?

Scapegoat is gloating over Selfishs misfortune while answering, yes, a big machete.

Laosans eyes seem to glow as he murmurs, a big machete The man that was slashing us was using something similar

Mu Jiashi is the only one to immediately realise what hes getting at, and restates, when the man in black was chasing us on the road, he suddenly disappeared once.

And the two of them look at each other to say, so he can only ever appear in one place at a time!

Erge doesnt exactly understand why theyre talking about that, and asks, can we use that somehow?

If he can only appear in one scene at a time, we can cooperate, Mu Jiashi says, matter-of-factly, according to you, the man in black appears in the bedroom for exactly one minute. This means that if we can somehow force the man in black to stay with us for a minute, then the bedroom would be safe. You would have time to try out more numbers.

After saying all that, the man suddenly pauses and gives an awkward smile when everyone is looking at him, and adds, but, you dont have to listen to me. Im just a piece of trash, a loser He sighs as he says it.

Laosan and Ding Yi both look at him with strange gazes.

The two of them are possibly the only people present who fully realise the value of Mu Jiashi here.

From what he spoke of, they can see that Mu Jiashi is someone who puts teamwork above all else.

In Nightmares, because only one person needs to achieve a True End for all of them to be offered to ascend to higher floors, theoretically, if the Missiontakers were all selfless and cooperative, then it would not be too hard to achieve a True End for any Nightmare.

For example, this one, where if they did as Mu Jiashi just said, with the corridor team focusing on keeping the man in black occupied without letting him teleport to the bedroom, then the bedroom group could ignore the penalties for a wrong number and keep trying. No matter how many times it took, they could eventually stumble on the correct sequence.

This is definitely one piece of key information in this Nightmare guaranteed.

So the problem lies on the corridor team. Mu Jiashi, who proposed it, and Lin Qin, whose physical prowess is unparalleled, might agree, but what about Selfish and Scapegoat?

And as expected, almost as soon as Mu Jiashi said his laments ago Selfish has climbed back up from the ground to yell, youre kidding me! Keeping the man in black here? Youre mad! You cant be so selfish! You can be a flowery saint all you want, but dont involve me in this!

Mu Jiashi responds to the criticism with silence.

Laosan and Ding Yi both look like they have something to say, but the two rather shy persons ends up staying silent as well.

Erge is much more straightforward though, cracking his knuckles to say, so, you ready to die?

Selfishs expression immediately changes. He loudly chastises everyone and says spitefully, die? Why me?! You bunch of uncaring, miserly miscreants!

Laoda rolls his eyes, feeling like giving him another kick again. He is mentally exhausted at this point.

How did he even spend so long arguing with someone like him? He must have been out of his mind, or just trying to loosen himself after that terrifying, suffocating experience being slaughtered to death by the man in black in the bedroom.

They are at a standstill.

This run of the Nightmare is ground to a halt in the corridor now, but what should they do to start the next run?

And in theory, the Server never arranges a true dead end no matter what, right?