Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

With Ding Yi already having moved on to a different floor, Thin and the teenage girl, and some others as well, after figuring out some facts, will also be departing the bottom floor of the Tower to head upwards.

Knowing how the Tower is, even if they established a successful business here so what? Its almost like playing house. Its Its just fucking playing house!

Yes, many people in real life dedicate absurd amount of their attention and wealth into games, but that is because it is something extra for their real livesThe real lives that they have! However, humans in the Tower do not have the luxury of reality; what, you expect them to look for reality in the virtual simulation?

It is solely something that demotivates people.

Thin became a subordinate of Ding Yi about a year or two back, when he was tired of his life of moving up and down the bottom rung of the floors of the Tower. He chose to stop.

Unlike other Missiontakers, though, he didnt let himself sink to the depths of the apocalyptic raves. Instead, he applied to be a subordinate, to become employed?

Its quite the laughable word to use, but Thin was dedicated to his new craft. He had some passion in his work. Therefore, he didnt exactly have time to comprehend the changes in his emotional state back then.

Though he heard in passing from his companionsincluding, but also not limited to the teenage girlthat, recently, the Tower itself has become a more and more dreary place. Even people like them are increasingly desperate; rotten.

Cue the people having orgies and raves, for example. When in the past, after a night of debauchery, they would head home for a sound sleep, now they would just lie flat exactly where they were in the grounds of the partying itself.

It has become hard to even tell the dancing floor from a final resting place.

Under the circumstances, that piece of rumour coming down here from on high, is like a sudden adrenaline shot for the Missiontakers of the bottom floor. Whether that is actually more terminal lucidity than being actually alive

Who knows.

Humans are only living when there are goals and hopes to look forward to. Living without aspiration is no living at all. It is merely being biologically alive.

Thin at least had some motivation to dedicate himself, but some others some others he know, are more walking corpses.

Anyway, whether someone managed to leave the Tower for good, and whether that success can be replicated are questions that will require more time to be answered and verified.

Thin only hopes that time will give closure to these questions, unlike other rumours that frequently circulate in the Tower that end up dispersing into the fog outside the Tower, never to be heard about again.

Thin just sighs, stopping his thoughts from digressing further, to ask, did you know that using an Infocard?

Yes Yes

Jiang Shuangmei still seems to be out of it when answering.

She is recalling how it was just now. Almost immediately when she heard the female voice, she used an Infocard. She cant even explain what she was thinking to just use it without the slightest bit of thought

She saw the result, which robbed her of her breath.

Item: Elevator (Jiang Shuangjie)

Note: Permanent effect; cannot be dispelled

Cannot be dispelled? What How?!

When Thin was downstairs and saw Jiang Shuangmei crying like mad, she has already futilely wasted a Split card, which failed to fire.

Cannot be dispelled.

Sorrow overtook her immediately.

Although the elevator accompanied her quietly, this older sister, trapped in an elevator forever, dead, would not say anything.

Now, perhaps, Jiang Shuangmeis wish will finally come true.

She will mature, as is her wish, to become a grown, dependable adult, only for the price of her guardian forever disappearing.

She feels like a little animal being abandoned into the wild. She has become used to warm surroundings with a dedicated caretaker and caring family. She cannot even fathom How?! Why?!

This is just one Nightmare, just, the first Nightmare after they made up their mind to fight through Nightmares, once again?!

In the very first Nightmare, her older sister has left her behind.

No, no This must be a bad joke, it cant be

Jiang Shuangmei is shaking. Besides despair, there is also an anger and frustration built up in her chest, that she does not know to whom she should direct.

Herself, perhaps. She should have been angry at her despicable self But she only finds herself hating this world, this Tower, these Missiontakers in the Nightmare, and even

Even her older sister.

Death Ha, death. Your death absolved you of all your responsibility. Death has allowed you to detach, to become wholly innocent.

Death, rather than the end, it was a means.

When Jiang Shuangmei was younger, she even saw death as her only means to defy this shitty world they find themselves trapped in, but now, she finds herself being that world that was left behind

She is inconsolably wailing on the floor, but a moment later, she suddenly raises her head at Thin and the teenage girl, revealing a sharpness, and an unreasonable vibe, that has never once appeared on her before, as he yells out, you you, and you, are useless! Arent you Planners under Ding Yi?! Arent you guarantees for resolving Nightmares?! Ha Useless! All of you are useless

She goes back to crying again.

Shen Ynj turns his poker face towards Thin and the teenage girl for a glance.

Planners?

That is not something Missiontakers often talk about.

Planners are part of the Merchants, and they are the ones that sell methods, or Plans, in the Tower, that allows one to achieve the Ending they want in the Nightmares. Compared to Golddiggers like Mu Jiashi, Planners obviously have it easier, but they also shoulder an additional risk.

If a Missiontaker failed after buying a Plan, that associated Planners career would be ruined.

Customers take the Plan provided as the gold standard, the standard answer. Instead of the Golddiggers being able to largely direct the flow of the Nightmare personally, Planners and their customers would be seen as lazy.

There is more profit in play, though, because Golddiggers have to expend much more effort and time leading customers.

Planners were on the rise generally after the gold standard among Golddiggers, Mu Jiashi, left, and became a kind of substitute replacement. Their Plans are cheaper, of course, but they still didnt find mainstream appeal.

There is no guarantee either whether the Plan they bought was even real. The only way of verifying is through practical testing.

If someone with a grudge arranged for someone to pretend to be a Planner and sell you a fake Plan that would actually succumb you to a Nightmare instead, itll be all over.

Only wealthy, trusted, reputable Necessities Merchants like Ding Yi could possibly keep and supervise Planners openly, not just because time and money was needed to build them up in the first place, but also because the Planners would then be able to borrow reputation from the Merchants themselves.

That still doesnt help Planners to become a trustworthy or popular career in general, of course.

In some sense, they are like people offering walkthroughs in real life. However this is the Tower. These are Nightmares.

Somehow, Shen Ynj can feel a fire in his chest for once. He asks, grimly, anything is for sale is it?