Ch 1: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Thingyan (translator-extraordinaire) : Finally, a novel that has ever translated on the website before. It is infinite flow with a few ghosts here and there, but they are not scary at all. The vibe is more chill, relaxing, and comforting rather than horror.

Just a reminder: there is no CP, and the story stays lighthearted overall. Hope you enjoy!

…

The Locked Classroom (1)

Yi Han jolted awake from his sleep and realized he was lying in an unfamiliar room.

The surroundings were deathly quiet. There were no windows, only a bed and four walls. The place was so barebones it was worse than a twenty-yuan-a-night basement rental.

“How did I end up here…?”

“Wait… wasn’t I dead???”

He looked down. The shard of glass that had killed him was still lodged in his chest. Blood had soaked through his shirt in a spreading stain that still carried warmth.

Confused, he fumbled for his phone and turned it on.

The screen displayed:

“September 25, 2020, 19:45.”

It had not even been an hour since his death…

At the top of the screen were several unread text messages from earlier that same day:

“You little bastard, just you wait!”

“You dare mess with me without even asking who Master Jin is?”

“You’ve got the guts to piss me off? I’ll make sure you can’t survive in H City…”

All the messages were signed “Stupid Client Jin,” the latest idiotic client Yi Han had encountered while working a part-time job outside class.

That afternoon, right after finishing his major course, his manager had sent him to collect an overdue payment from the guy. The client had acted like an unreasonable thug, and when pressured too hard, even tried to get physical…

Unfortunately for him, Yi Han was much better at fighting.

Acting in self-defense, Yi Han beat the man into the hospital within a few moves. Then immediately got reported for “assaulting a client.”

Of course, the manager was no saint either.

The tiny company only hired fourth-year interns. Every day he barked orders, forced overtime, nitpicked endlessly, and docked wages whenever he pleased. Once an internship period ended, he would find an excuse to fire the intern and replace them with a new batch of cheap labor.

Yi Han had always been smart enough to avoid getting exploited. He originally planned to finish out the month, collect his pay, and quit.

But the manager had already set his sights on him.

Near the end of the month, he deliberately sent a mere part-time employee like Yi Han to deal with a scumbag client. And after receiving the complaint, the manager immediately decided to fire him without hearing any explanation. Not only would Yi Han receive none of his wages, he was also expected to personally cover the client’s medical expenses.

So after typing several question marks in disbelief…

Yi Han beat the manager up too.

The stupid client and the stupid manager ended up lying side by side in the same hospital ward, screaming insults at each other with passionate intensity. Right then, some machine being pushed down the hallway malfunctioned for reasons unknown. Several razor-sharp glass panels exploded outward straight toward them.

At the time, Yi Han had one foot planted on the stupid manager while fully focused on demanding his unpaid wages. He reacted just a second too slowly.

And so, together with the two idiots, he died.

The time then had been around 7 PM.

Yi Han remembered it clearly because after class he had immediately gotten into two separate fights and never even had time to eat dinner…

So what exactly was going on now?

As Yi Han reflected on whether some mysterious force had rescued him for “courageously fighting evil and promoting justice,” a cold mechanical voice suddenly sounded.

[Welcome to the Real Escape Game.]

A flood of information was instantly shoved into his mind.

Participate in escape game stages. Earn points…

Points could be exchanged for all kinds of absurdly overpowered items, treasures, and abilities…

The most expensive reward cost 100,000,000 points:

A chance to defy fate itself.

Obtain that opportunity, and one could return to the human world to begin an entirely new life, customized exactly as desired.

But if one failed midway, both body and soul would remain forever trapped in the game, never to find release.

This was a gamble with one’s life on the line.

The voice gave him little time to process before issuing another notification.

[3 minutes until the official start of the game.]

[The first teleportation will begin in 3 minutes. Friendly reminder: this process will be forcibly carried out by the system. Meaningless resistance and struggling are not recommended.]

“…Resistance?”

After enduring the wave of headache, Yi Han wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, yet could not help letting out a laugh.

Why would he resist?

This game felt practically tailor-made for him.

Ever since his parents died when he was ten, Yi Han had struggled alone to survive in this world. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Over the past decade, he had experienced countless hardships that children from ordinary families would never encounter. He had already mastered every possible survival skill imaginable… along with an absurdly strong mental tolerance.

Parkour escape games? Physical puzzles?

He was built for this.

Honestly, dying together with those two idiots already felt like a loss to him. If he could clear the game and return loaded with overpowered abilities, those two scumbags would probably be so furious they’d resurrect on the spot.

Besides, he had nothing left to lose. He had already died once. There was truly nothing left to fear.

“The only problem now… is what to do about this wound in my chest.”

Strangely, it did not hurt much, nor did it interfere too heavily with movement. But from the blood loss, Yi Han still felt weak.

However, the system informed him that healing injuries required 100 points.

Yi Han’s current points: 0.

Looks like he would have to clear the first stage while still injured.

Three minutes passed in a flash.

[Now selecting the first stage.]

[Selection complete.]

[Stage Name: The Locked Classroom (Beginner Level)]

[Number of Players: 2]

[Stage Description: You have been locked inside an empty school building. Find the key and escape before midnight.]

[Clear Reward: 100 points (base reward). If exploration exceeds the minimum completion standard, additional points will be awarded during settlement.]

[Failure Penalty: Remain forever inside the school building, accompanied by vengeful ghosts.]

His vision went black.

When he could see again, Yi Han found himself standing inside a classroom.

The system explained that to avoid sudden notification sounds disrupting gameplay, all stage information would now be delivered through a mobile app.

Yi Han pulled out his phone.

Sure enough, an app called “Real Escape Game” had been automatically installed.

On the homepage was a cartoon avatar of himself, dressed in a white shirt and black pants. Even the glass shard stuck in his chest and the bloodstains on his clothes had been faithfully recreated.

Scrolling down revealed his personal information.

Player ID: *****01047

Name: Yi Han

Age: 20

Race: Human

Abilities: None

Current Status: Hungry, Severely Injured
(Stamina, recovery ability, reaction speed, etc. reduced by 50%)

Yi Han touched the weapon still lodged in his chest and frowned.

Hunger was manageable.

But he had not expected this fatal injury to apply such a severe debuff inside the stage. Healing required 100 points, yet the base reward for clearing the stage was also only 100 points.

Anyone entering this game was probably someone who had just died. Naturally, they would all be carrying illnesses or injuries. To remove the severe injury debuff, most players would surely spend their first 100 points on healing after clearing the beginner stage.

And this was only the first stage.

Later stages would obviously become harder, and injuries would be unavoidable. That meant more points spent on healing. And to survive more effectively, buying items, abilities, and bloodlines would also become necessary.

Clearly, the game was not going to let players accumulate enough points to escape so easily.

If one wanted to gather points quickly, they would need to maximize exploration and earn as many extra points as possible within each stage.

Yi Han quickly settled on his strategy:

Don’t chicken out. Grind everything.

Putting away his phone, he first surveyed the surroundings.

This was an utterly ordinary university classroom, almost identical to the one he attended during the day. The blackboard was covered in advanced calculus formulas. The desks and chairs were scattered loosely around. Fluorescent lights cast a sickly pale glow overhead.

Yi Han was alone in the room.

According to the mission information, there were supposed to be two players in this stage.

Since the other player was nowhere in sight, they were probably locked in another classroom just like him. Most likely, only after both escaped their individual rooms could they meet up.

Yi Han did not spend much time thinking about his unseen teammate.

He immediately began checking the classroom doors and windows.

Click.

As expected, both the front and back doors were locked. A key was required to open them.

Pulling aside the curtains, he found the windows tightly shut as well. Yi Han briefly considered smashing the glass, but quickly gave up on the idea.

The classroom was located on a very high floor. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Outside, the night was pitch black, making it impossible to judge the exact height, but one glance downward was enough to tell him that even if he broke the window, there was no way he could safely climb down.

The classroom truly was just an ordinary university classroom.

Blackboard. Podium. More than forty sets of desks and chairs.

Nothing else.

Yi Han started by searching the teacher’s desk, then systematically checked every student desk drawer. After finding nothing, he moved on to the curtains and ripped them straight off the window with one hard pull. He even checked above the curtain rings, but still found no hidden key.

In less than twenty minutes, he had searched the entire room.

The key should have been an ordinary door key. Unless it had literally been sealed inside the walls, there was no way it could completely disappear…

So what had he missed?

Leaning both arms against the podium, Yi Han scanned the room thoughtfully, brows furrowed in concentration.

Just then, a woman’s scream filled with overwhelming terror suddenly pierced through the walls and stabbed into his ears.

Yi Han froze in alarm.

…The other player?

Was there already danger in the very first room?

What had she encountered inside?

Or had she already found the key to her room, escaped the classroom, and then run into something in the hallway?

The scream had been so terrified and miserable that even Yi Han felt physically uncomfortable after hearing it. At the same time, a sense of urgency began creeping in.

But where else in this room had not been searched?

Yi Han stared at the wooden podium desk and the blackboard, thinking for a moment. Then his gaze shifted toward the curtain he had violently ripped down earlier.

Looks like destruction of stage facilities was allowed.

He searched around for a bit, finally picked up a chair, tested its weight, then carried it back in front of the podium and swung it down hard.

With a loud crash, the wooden desk collapsed.

No hidden compartment. No key.

Holding the wound on his chest, Yi Han caught his breath, then turned and smashed the chair into the blackboard.

After several blows, the blackboard cracked apart as well, revealing the white wall behind it.

Yi Han brushed aside the broken pieces and carefully inspected the area, but still found nothing.

“They really hid it well…”

Time passed second by second.

The woman’s scream did not return, but from another direction came the intermittent sound of a small child crying weakly.

…Looks like his earlier guess had been wrong.

There were clearly many things inside this building, and the screaming woman might not even be the other player…

Ignoring the eerie, unsettling noises, Yi Han focused his attention back on his own classroom.

But after scanning the room again, he felt genuinely stumped.

Until suddenly, his eyes lit up at the sight of one particular object.

He stepped down from the platform, dragged over another chair, and smashed it apart in a few hits. Then he selected the longest chair leg and held it in his hand.

After judging the position overhead, he moved a desk beneath it and climbed up.

Yi Han was already tall to begin with, so now the ceiling was very close above him.

And directly in front of him hung the fluorescent light fixture from the ceiling.

Yi Han weighed the chair leg in his hand, then struck upward hard.

The light tube shattered instantly.

Glass fragments rained onto the floor, and the classroom immediately grew dimmer.

There were four fluorescent tubes in total.

Everywhere else had already been searched with no results.

This was the only thing left.

After eliminating all the wrong answers, Yi Han was almost certain the key had to be hidden inside one of the lights.

Honestly, it was a pretty devious hiding spot.

Because even if ordinary players suspected the lights, they would not dare smash them casually.

The system had definitely tampered with them somehow. There was no way to tell from the outside which tube contained the key. It was pure guesswork.

And if luck was bad, one might smash three lights and still not find it.

At that point, only the final light would remain in the darkened classroom. Smash that too, and the entire room would plunge into complete darkness. Meanwhile, who knew what else was hidden nearby? Strange noises kept appearing at random, and there was no guarantee the key would even be in the last tube.

So then the question became:

Smash it, or not?

Humans naturally feared darkness.

Especially in a real escape game like this.

Any player with even the slightest uncertainty in their judgment would hesitate at that moment.

But Yi Han would not.

He moved the desks and smashed the fluorescent lights one after another.

As expected, the first three contained nothing.

Until the last one.

Without hesitation, Yi Han swung the club down one final time.

The last trace of light vanished, and the classroom fell completely into darkness.

Amid the sound of shattering glass came the crisp clink of metal hitting the floor.

Yi Han held his chest wound and jumped down from the desk.

Turning on his phone flashlight, he brushed aside the glass shards and, unsurprised, picked up the key from among them.

The recent exertion had reopened his wound a bit. Blood began seeping out continuously. It did not hurt, but visually it was pretty horrifying.

Yi Han inserted the key into the lock.

Click.

The door opened.

The hallway lights were on as well, though the pale glow remained unsettling.

He did not step out immediately.

Instead, gripping the chair leg tightly, he carefully scanned both sides of the corridor, staying alert.

At that moment, the door of the neighboring classroom creaked open too.

Soft footsteps cautiously approached along the hallway.

Soon, a pale and skinny young man entered Yi Han’s field of vision.

“Ah! You must be the other player! Thank god, I’m finally not alone… This horrible place is terrifying without a companion…”

The boy looked deeply moved, like he had just found family. He squeezed out a smile that somehow looked creepy no matter how one viewed it and walked straight toward Yi Han.

Yi Han raised a brow.

Without another word, he lifted the chair leg.

Bonk.

The boy clutched his head.

“…QAQ?”

── ⋆⋅🖤⋅⋆ ──