Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

At that moment, Fei was feeling really odd.

Like how sometimes, when you stand up, youd forget about what you were going to do entirely, or you open a drawer and forget about what you were going to retrieve, or you open your mouth and forget what you wanted to say

The memory has been cut off.

After the momentary blanking, her next thought becomes, huh? Was she even thinking just now?

She stands there in a daze.

Then, she starts wondering, why is the fog gone?

No one is paying attention to the drastic changes on Feis face, because they are still too absorbed in the world beyond where the fog was.

Mu Jiashi mumbled to himself for a bit before asking, so, where is that mans home?

He looks around, and notices that most of them look more confused than not, and chuckles bitterly. True, maybe theyve already forgotten their meeting with the man who walked in the fog from before.

This makes him lose motivation somewhat.

But hey, look at it this way at least the Missiontakers are much more cooperative now, as they know they are going to forget stuff, so they are keeping their mouths shut, and listening well to Mu Jiashi, who still has his memories intact, it seems.

Even Collector, who still looks largely beset by doubt, is not raising any objections Or, maybe, he just simply doesnt care much about this Nightmare.

If the Missiontakers were more uncooperative ones, they would probably have been complaining, arguing or fighting by now. People always hold their opinions up as truths rather than opinions, so if others told them something that fundamentally contradicted with what they believed was reality, they would probably be outraged.

Mu Jiashi is feeling relieved, but also troubled.

In the end, he turns to Baldie.

This Missiontaker was thede factoleader in the beginning, now hes almost managing to fade into the background. Seeing Mu Jiashi stare at him, Baldie furrows his brow to ask, what?

Do you still remember any clues? About where the persons home is.

Baldie asks, with an odd tone, have you forgotten?

Mu Jiashi is surprised, asking, huh?

Earlier, the man said, his home is a bit further out from this road, Baldie points to the west, saying, there was still the fog there, but it should still be to our west.

Mu Jiashi says, you sure have good memory.

Baldie just replies, thanks to a utility card, but then he hesitantly asks, do you seriously not recall?

Mu Jiashi furrows his brows, scouring his memories, and says, I dont think I have heard such a thing at all.

He and Baldie share a glance, and then Mu Jiashi exclaims in shock, Im starting to forget already?! But this is just the second run!

Fei says, could it possibly be related to the fog having dissipated?

But if thats the case Collector almost looks excited to say the next part, then wed have even less time left.

He really sounds like hes savouring the conundrum facing them.

Mu Jiashi is feeling really ominous inside. He then says, if weve all started forgetting, other than you with the utility card, pointing to Baldie first, he speaks up again, then we should keep going forward while telling each other what we still know.

They keep heading west while reporting on what they remember, one by one.

Soon enough, Mu Jiashi realises that they are in dire straits.

Neither Collector nor Wu Jian can remember a thing about their first run. Their memories of the second run is also severely deficient.

Fei and Biceps have largely forgotten about everything that happened during the second run, and they starting to lose those about their first runs.

Mu Jiashi himself has started to forget about things in the second run. Only minute details so far, that doesnt affect his ability to analyse the Nightmare broadly.

Baldie, thanks to his utility card, still has the most complete, intact memories, but that said, because of how he kept information to he and his ilk in the beginning, Mu Jiashi cannot trust him at all!

While still maintaining a calm demeanour, Mu Jiashi is almost panicking inside.

Shit How did he end up being in the leadership position in the Nightmare, again?!

He takes a deep breath, and is about to say something when his gaze suddenly falls on a certain intersection in the ruins of the road;

With the background being a dreary grey all over, it should be difficult to find a specific hiding spot, but they have all subconsciously turned their heads over to that area.

Because there is a rolling shutter there, in remarkably pristine condition, as if

Fei asks, the warehouse where he stored food?

Fei has already forgotten about their entire interaction with the bookstore owner earlier, but Mu Jiashi spent some time briefly recounting what happened.

They wasted a slight bit of time like that, but they were also doing it while still moving along, so it wasnt that bad.

They continue heading in the direction, and realise the atmosphere seems to have changed for the worse. They can see more and more unfriendly-looking survivors assembling here.

Those survivors, perhaps seeing the six of them without a single piece of food, or perhaps because they look like theyre in too big of a group to hunt down, ends up giving up, fortunately.

However, if the Missiontakers didnt head this way with all six of them present, the situation might have gone down differently. They might have come to face with another attack by the survivors, like what happened at the Treasure Trove earlier.

Mu Jiashi cant help but feel relieved that they seem to have dodged a devious bullet fired by the Nightmare here.

This larger area of ruins revealed by the dissipated fog seems to be a riskier and more dangerous place as a whole than the original limits of the Nightmare.

More strangely, here, where there seems to be judgmental gazes coming from every hole in the walls, and eyes hidden in every corner, there is not a single survivor who seems to show the slightest bit of suspicion or malicious interest in the pristine rolling shutter and the massive space there must be behind it.

They all seem to be tacitly ignoring the area, whether the man who walks into the fog is here or not. They just do not seem to register its existence at all.

The Missiontakers arrive in front of the shutter.

Mu Jiashi can feel as if the entirety of the survivors in the ruins are staring straight at them. It is a heavy, shapeless, suppressive pressure. It feels like even the sky is sinking on them, merely because they are approaching this place.

Approaching this place, where the man is suspected to hide his stock of food.

Collector looks around and suddenly asks with a smile, eh, that place, he points over to a nearby location that is formed out of several large pieces of rubble, which looks like it could provide some minimal protection from the elements, where some pieces of clothing and blankets can be seen, and continues, thats the home of that man, right?

His home isnt behind the shutter, behind where there looks to be sufficient safety and warmth. Instead, he sleeps where the wind howls, where the dust can be seen settling down on the ground right in front of their very eyes.

Mu Jiashi murmurs to himself, is this the revenge towards that enemy of the author?

Somehow, he cant help but recall the Tower resident he met, with a pen in his hand, looking inexplicably cheerful while lying on the ground.

Suddenly, he is wondering, what kind of revenge even is this? Indulging themselves in a fantasy world where they could, like, disgust that person in question?

A grudge What kind of grudge does the author actually hold towards that enemy?

He turns his gaze over to the novel on his hand, but decides to give up on the thought. Perhaps the backstory wouldnt be evident from the novel itself.

Maybe there are other Tower residents in this Nightmare that know about this?

He puts his hand on the handle of the shutter, and is about to open it.

That is when suddenly, the grey, overcast sky is suddenly lit up by a streak of lightning, followed by a rumble from the thunder, spooking Mu Jiashi.

A lightning?

He subconsciously stopped his actions for a few seconds there, when suddenly, he realises his vision has gone out.

When he comes back to, he finds himself right back where the Nightmare began, and he can see the fog surrounding the edges of the ruins roiling and boiling where they were, as if they have never been gone.

Mu Jiashi looks around him, confused, and tries to confirm the memories of all Missiontakers present.

Nobody has lost their memories of the past entirely.

However, the Nightmare still restarted.