Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

Beyond Expectations

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

Xiang Cheny

The current top ace of the Missiontakers, that everyone has largely forgotten about. She alone has lived by herself for who knows how long on the highest floor players have ever reached.

When X Beijin found her, she was largely unknown to the wider community already. She was also in the Ultimate Nightmare.

Defying all expectations, shes found the people X Beijin needed found.

The people who set Iro up as the manager of the Tower.

They areIn the games plot, the most powerful cabal of people left in humanity.

Why they would choose for such an AI to manage humanitys shelter is quite the mystery.

Whats so hard to understand? A man says, derisively, lazily, you cant trust humans, period.

Xiang Cheny looks slightly dense and unresponsive in front of this man. The female Missiontaker must have had no need to use her brain for quite a while. Her rusty nerves and senses are coming up short to her thinking, perhaps.

In any case, she appears to be quite a slow, lackadaisical woman.

Although the words she shoots still very well live up to her status as the highest achieving Missiontaker.

She says, you find humans untrustworthy. I believe that is grounds for saying the same of artificial intelligence?

The man gives her an odd look.

This is a little mansion in the countryside. Despite the Apocalypse, this is basically like some Shangri-La. These people are survivingliving, in such an environment.

The woman besides the man gently explains, in fact, we do not plan to enter that shelter.

Which means, they, or, at least, she, is not going to consider any issues arising from setting the AI up as the manager of the Tower.

Xiang Cheny shifts her gaze to the woman slowly, before pulling a sarcastic smile.

She probably hasnt smiled for years, so it looks quite forced and stiff indeed.

The woman seems taken aback and offended by this, with her brows creasing somewhat.

There are actually also a few others nearby, sitting or standing around. Only this man and woman here are willing to communicate with Xiang Cheny, however.

Its quite simple for Xiang Cheny to find this place, because she has been to this Nightmare

The very last Nightmare she went through, set in this countryside mansion.

It is through this Nightmare that she went to the very highest floor which inadvertently became her prison.

She went up, alone.

Because the Nightmares owner, and all other Missiontakers and Actors there, succumbed in the Nightmare. Only Xiang Cheny successfully made it to the Ending.

Although sometimes, Xiang Cheny also questions her own sanity.

Because she can identify an inexplicable irritation in her, which makes her reconsider and doubt. She can no longer think rationally and effectively.

That is why she didnt do anything while trapped on that floorThe highest floor known to humanity then.

All because of that Nightmare.

Before she went into that Nightmare, she also had trusted, reliable companions; she even knew several Actors

Yes, for those at the forefront of the Missiontaking business, Actors are practically an open secret.

They scheduled it up to enter the Nightmare alone, and despite what is largely a success, she has, also, in a sense, lost everything. Now, shes trapped inside that floor, unable to ascend or descend.

When X Beijin found her, she had a brief chat with him. Then they talked about their current situation.

Xiang Cheny was able to deduce that X Beijin is also trapped on his respective floor; theyre somewhat alike

Now, theyre both here, working to free humanity from the game.

Though the actual content of their conversation was rather shallow, having an unspoken coordination to avoid certain topics.

For example, who trapped humanity in the first place?

They had their thoughts, but there was no way to talk in the open.

Xiang Cheny had conviction that X Beijin had an answer; she also knew X Beijin would wonder whether she knew.

But they still had to avoid the topic entirely, as if it was something they both understood already.

Xiang Cheny already knows far more than the Missiontakers on the bottom floor, of course, having been through countless Nightmares, enough for her to piece together a story.

The conclusions drawn have also revealed to her what happened on Earth to humanity is actually different from what the plot of this game entails.

The timeline splits as soon as humanity, their civilisation and their planet ended up as ruins after the Raining Hellfire, and humanity tried to save itself.

Xiang Cheny did not know what the humans back on Earth decided, as she hasnt been to X Beijins Nightmare and enter the labyrinth to figure that fact out.

But she was able to draw a timeline for the humans in the plot of this game.

They built a shelter.

The people of this mansion here spared no effort to construct a building as tall as the skies somewhere on this planet.

They were going to treat it as a sort of Noahs Ark to help humans escape the harm brought on by the Apocalypse.

But they were not planning to enter themselves, nor were they planning to have humans manage the building.

Its really arrogance on their part; theyre going to save humans, even though they actually really see humans as beneath them.

Its like rescuing ants building an ant farm for them, and then just telling someone to keep an eye on them. They themselves, of course, are not going to enter the nest either.

But the mansion

Xiang Cheny sighs after a bit.

She is moving quite slow doing everything right now. Besides her dulled nerves, there is also the reason that she thinks it helps quell the emotional swings in her mind.

Shes just wondering. These people built a shelter for humans but havent thought at all that, a shelter protects people, from the danger outsideFrom uninhabitability.

For that same reason,

The AI will also forcefully exile anyone, including madmen among the survivors in the Tower, from the Tower.

Over time, the AI did throw away countless insane people.

That grey fog did end up being a good barrier, which prevents human survivors from knowing what the world outside the grey fog has become, because it has all been taken over by insane people.

So what would have happened to the people who thought theyve done a good job and are now retiring in this little mansion?

Theyll be facing thousands upon thousands of insane people putting them under siege soon enough.

Xiang Cheny really would rather not recall her experience in the Nightmare. Suffice it to say, she felt first-hand that the old movies human shot on Earth featuring zombies surrounding and putting cities under siege, is actually quite plausible.

As long as there are dumbasses who trap themselves inside a lone building.

Like these people right here.

Theyve decided to put an AI out to manage the shelter, and thoughtlessly set the AI to prioritise keeping the Tower in order over even the Three Laws of Robotics.

So the AI is of course going to ignore the insane peoples safety when it throws them out.

What these people have done led to their own downfall. Its quite incongruous, really, they were somehow convinced theyre saving humanity, but they placed zero trust in the people theyre saving.

Its almost farcical, but it also feels like a natural development.

Xiang Cheny has been so slow to response that the woman has already left, impatient.

So only the man that talked with her in the beginning remains in front of Xiang Cheny.

The manWell, Xiang Cheny thinks he had a name; at least, she knew it when she was in that Nightmare. She cant remember, however.

His vivid personality, though, did leave a deep impression on her.

Because he is the one who proposed to get an AI to manage the shelter, and suggested that the AI should prioritise the Tower over all else.

In other words, he was the one who helped save countless humans in the games plot, but also caused both himself and all his friends to die under the onslaught of countless madmen.

Xiang Cheny can still remember when the man screamed his last in terror inside that Nightmare.

The twisted expression is quite a stark contrast to this rather casual and energetic man here. It almost makes Xiang Cheny feel like shes dreaming.

The man also seems somewhat impatient; Xiang Cheny has been an unexpected and possible source of entertainment, but her irresponsiveness is thinning his patience.

Xiang Cheny finally speaks, though, have you not considered what would happen to humans in that shelter should the AI go wrong?

Why should we consider that? The man shrugs and says, were outside the Tower, and theyre the ones inside. What happens to them is not our responsibility. Its not like we can go help them if something were to happen anyway.

Xiang Cheny

She cant help but heave another weary sigh.

Well, fine, fine. Even in that Nightmare, the man was like this to his last. He only realised his own laughable folly at the very bitter end, when he was going to die.

It was all too late by the time the implications dawned on him.