Ch 2: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

The Locked Classroom (2)

The boy crouched on the floor clutching his head, looking utterly wronged.

“Why did you hit me…?”

Yi Han replied, “Are you human or a ghost?”

“I’m human! We’re teammates!”

“Then why were you holding a knife?”

The boy froze.

He quickly hid the fruit knife in his hand before awkwardly explaining, “…This is a tool I got inside the classroom. I was just too excited after suddenly seeing another person…”

He probably knew that explanation was not very convincing, so he hurriedly raised his phone and showed Yi Han his escape game app.

“I was suddenly dragged into the game too. I had food poisoning before this, so you can’t tell from my appearance…” he said cautiously.

Yi Han lowered his eyes to glance at the phone screen, then looked at the boy still crouched on the ground, apparently frightened by him.

Only then did he lower the chair leg slightly.

“Fine, get up first… Sorry about that. You came at me holding a knife. You really didn’t look trustworthy.”

Boy: ……

Rubbing his forehead as he stood up, the boy watched Yi Han’s gaze fall onto the fruit knife again.

“…What did you mean earlier by ‘tool’?”

Yi Han still had not stepped out of the classroom. He remained standing behind the doorway, speaking through the open door.

The boy looked surprised.

“It said so in the app. Didn’t you get the system message?”

He tapped around on his phone and showed Yi Han.

“For a new player’s first game, you can choose one item you like inside the stage. The system uses it as a reference to generate a beginner-exclusive item for survival. I found a box cutter in the classroom earlier, so the system gave me this knife.”

The boy swiped again and displayed the weapon information.

[Sharp Fruit Knife]

[Quality: C Rank]

[Condition: Brand New]

[Description: Slightly sharper than an ordinary fruit knife. Other than that, nothing special.]

“Even if the quality isn’t great, we don’t have any points right now. At least this gives us some self-defense…” he explained.

Yi Han nodded.

Earlier he had been too focused on finding the key and missed the system notification. Still, if all beginner weapons were this mediocre, then it hardly mattered. Honestly, the chair leg in his hand already felt pretty useful.

“So you trust me now, right?” the boy asked eagerly.

Yi Han gave no clear answer.

“Let’s go downstairs.”

Although he still did not fully trust this “teammate,” the guy was blocking the doorway. Yi Han could not stay inside forever, so after only a brief hesitation, he lifted his leg and stepped into the hallway.

Fortunately, nothing strange happened after he emerged.

The other party also did not suddenly transform into an evil ghost and attack him.

“Should we exchange names? You can call me…”

Yi Han waved a hand, looking entirely uninterested in learning his name, forcibly cutting him off mid-sentence.

The boy paused awkwardly before dejectedly following behind.

The layout of the teaching building was very similar to Yi Han’s university.

One long corridor stretched left and right. Classrooms lined both sides, while the restrooms sat at the ends of the hall. To go downstairs, however, they would need to enter the stairwell located in the middle of the corridor.

The iron stairwell door was positioned between two classrooms and was currently tightly locked.

Yi Han tested the handle before saying,

“Looks like the next thing we need to find is the key to this door.”

Normally, a teaching building like this would not have only one staircase. There should also be emergency exits.

But perhaps because this was an escape game, the system had removed every unnecessary section and left only the path it wanted players to take.

“Earlier we were looking for the classroom key, so naturally it was hidden inside the classroom. Now we’re looking for the stairwell key, so theoretically there’s a higher chance it’s hidden somewhere in the hallway… But we can’t be certain. We still need to search the classrooms too,” Yi Han said.

After roughly counting, there were at least twenty classrooms on this floor alone.

The boy hesitated.

“If we search all of them carefully, we probably won’t have enough time.”

The stage had started at 8 PM. Only a little over half an hour had passed so far. Although there were still three and a half hours before the time limit, nobody knew how many locked doors remained ahead. Time was not especially plentiful.

Yi Han said, “I’ll search the classrooms. You search the hallway. If there’s nothing there, come help me search the remaining classrooms afterward. Splitting up will be faster.”

The boy nodded, and the two began moving.

Even though he still did not trust this “teammate,” Yi Han already had some ideas regarding the key, so he was not worried about the other man tampering with things.

And honestly, even if the guy dared hide the key, Yi Han could always beat him up afterward.

The main reason Yi Han volunteered to search the classrooms was because he wanted to raise the exploration percentage and earn as many points as possible.

After temporarily separating from his teammate, he began searching the classrooms one by one in sequence.

This time, however, he could not inspect every room as thoroughly as before. It took too much time. He could only perform rough searches, grab the exploration progress, and move on.

The system also responded to his request by displaying the exploration percentage numerically inside the app. As he continued entering new classrooms, the number steadily rose.

Not all classroom doors were open.

Some were locked, though obviously not for the purpose of stopping player progress. They were probably just part of the game scenery, arranged alongside open rooms to make the environment appear more natural.

Whenever Yi Han encountered those rooms, he simply smashed the door open with the chair leg.

If that failed, he kicked it.

The door always opened eventually.

By the time he finished searching the floor, Yi Han had discovered several classrooms that seemed genuinely haunted. Yet after he violently broke the doors open, the strange noises immediately stopped.

After several encounters, he figured out the pattern:

It seemed that during the first hour of the game, ghosts could only scare players with sounds. Their actual bodies could not truly appear yet.

After one full sweep, the exploration percentage had already reached 11.5%.

Once he finished searching the restroom at the end of the hallway, it would probably rise to around 12%.

By estimating proportionally, the teaching building should have about eight floors total. Yi Han was likely on either the seventh or eighth floor.

At that moment, his “teammate” had also finished searching the hallway and was now standing beside him in front of the restroom entrance.

Because of all the noise Yi Han had made smashing doors open, the motion-sensor light in the men’s restroom on the left had already turned on, though it seemed to have poor wiring and flickered occasionally.

The women’s restroom on the right, however, clearly had broken lights. Beyond the doorway lay complete darkness, looking extremely unsettling.

“Bro… this is terrifying…” the “teammate” said shakily, though it was hard to tell whether he was genuinely scared or pretending.

Yi Han glanced at him and noticed the boy guiltily turning his head away, avoiding eye contact.

“If you’re scared, stand here and wait for me. Use your phone to light the way.”

“Mhm, mhm, mhm.” The boy nodded rapidly, visibly relieved.

Pretending not to notice his suspicious behavior, Yi Han walked directly into the men’s restroom on the left.

The flickering lights gave the space an eerie atmosphere.

Fortunately, the restroom itself was not dirty.

Yi Han casually inspected the surroundings, then opened a few stall doors and glanced inside.

Since he already felt the key was unlikely to be here, he only performed a quick check. Once he gained enough exploration percentage, he retreated outside.

Seeing him emerge, the “teammate” turned on his phone flashlight and shined it toward the women’s restroom.

However, due to the restroom’s layout, the beam could only illuminate the short hallway near the entrance. Beyond the corner, the light could not reach.

Seeing this, Yi Han also took out his own phone and turned on its flashlight.

“Bro, it’s almost 9 PM.”
For some reason, the “teammate” reminded him in a strangely airy tone.

Yi Han nodded to show he understood and walked in expressionlessly.

The women’s restroom was clean as well.

After turning the first corner, there was a row of sinks and a long mirror.

Without even glancing at the mirror, Yi Han walked straight toward the innermost stalls.

Because there were no lights and only flashlights for illumination, the place looked far more terrifying than the men’s restroom despite having an almost identical layout.

Yi Han pushed open the first stall door.

Empty.

Spotless.

He had absolutely no interest in spending extra time looking around a bathroom, so after a brief glance, he shut the door.

Then the second stall.

Then the third.

Soon, he reached the second-to-last stall.

The moment Yi Han pushed the door open this time, his sharp eyes caught sight of something black beneath the neighboring stall through the flashlight beam.

His expression did not change.

Following the same rhythm as before, he casually swept the flashlight back and forth, checked the floor, then quietly closed the stall door again.

Even if someone had been standing beside him, they probably would not have noticed that while the flashlight passed beneath the partition, Yi Han had secretly and swiftly pressed the camera shutter on his phone.

As he walked toward the final stall, he rapidly opened his photo gallery.

The environment had been too dark, making the picture blurry.

But after looking carefully, one could make out that in the darkness beneath the neighboring stall partition, there appeared to be two thin ankles bruised purple and blue.

The owner of those feet had been hiding inside the last stall this whole time. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Who knew what nasty thing it had been waiting to do?

Without saying a word, Yi Han placed one hand on the stall door as though preparing to push it open.

Meanwhile, his other hand casually tapped through the app and opened the interface for claiming a beginner-exclusive item.

The instructions clearly stated:

The player chooses an object they like and submits it. The system will automatically generate an item with similar properties.

If someone chose a knife like the “teammate” had, they would receive an offensive weapon-type item.

If they chose clothing, perhaps they would receive armor.

At this moment, however, Yi Han became curious.

If he selected “this bathroom stall containing a ghost,” what exactly would the system generate for him…?

It was almost 9 PM.

Based on standard game logic, once the clock passed the hour mark, the restrictions on ghosts would probably loosen to some degree.

If he still refused to open the door by then, whatever was inside might simply burst out and attack him itself.

Yi Han lowered his gaze slightly.

He seemed to see the shadow beneath the stall shift.

Probably because the ghost had been standing there too long and was growing impatient, its feet subtly moving in place.

Unable to resist raising a brow, Yi Han stopped hesitating.

Inside the app, he tapped:

“Select” → “Confirm” → “Generate.”

All in one smooth motion.

Meanwhile, outside the restroom, the “teammate” watched the time on his phone turn to 21:00.

After hearing no sounds from inside the restroom for quite a while, he cautiously called out,

“Bro, are you okay?”

But there was no reply.

Staring into the pitch-black women’s restroom, he waited a bit longer before calling again.

Still no answer.

So he turned off his flashlight.

He did not seem frightened, nor did he enter to look for Yi Han.

Instead, he pulled out his phone, opened a group chat, and began typing a message.

“What are you doing?”

Yet before he could finish typing even a few words, Yi Han’s voice suddenly sounded right beside his ear.

The boy jerked violently in fright and almost dropped his phone.

Fortunately, a pale, slender hand caught it first.

Yi Han’s expression revealed nothing unusual. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. He merely glanced at him before returning the phone.

The boy awkwardly hid it away and stammered,

“B-Bro, you’re okay… that’s great… I called for you so many times earlier, I thought…”

“You thought a ghost ate me?” Yi Han asked.

“N-No, no… Ah, well… it’s good you’re fine. Did you find the key?”

“No.”

“Then… why were you inside so long?”

“I got a beginner item.”

Boy: ?

Yi Han stared at him expressionlessly for a while, long enough to make the boy’s scalp tingle.

For some reason, it felt like this guy was in an especially bad mood right now.

“Let’s go back and check around the stairwell for the key again.”

Without dwelling further on the subject, Yi Han turned and started walking away first.

It was as though he had not noticed anything suspicious about this “teammate” at all, nor cared about exposing his back to him…

The boy wiped away cold sweat and hurriedly pulled out his phone again.

Only to discover that the “person” he had been trying to contact earlier now displayed:

[Forced Offline]

“Wasn’t it still on bathroom duty just now? Why’d it leave the instance?”

He looked baffled, but did not dare delay too long. Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, he quickly chased after Yi Han.

Meanwhile, Yi Han walked with one hand in his pocket, unconsciously touching his phone.

Because after extracting the item he wanted earlier…

The pair of feet inside the stall had immediately vanished.

Then the app froze.

The screen shook violently while colors scrambled chaotically everywhere.

And after Yi Han employed his usual method of forcefully closing and restarting the app…

A new item had appeared in his inventory.

[A Shop Haunted by the Resentment of Its Former Owner]

[Quality: S Rank]

[Condition: Well… how should we put this…]

[Description: A special item obtained by sacrificing “a bathroom stall containing a ghost” — “A Shop Haunted by the Resentment of Its Former Owner.” Due to poor business management, the shop has already gone bankrupt and was sold off cheaply. Therefore… the entirety of the shop’s current assets consists of: Iron Pot ×1, Recipe Book ×1. These items have already been placed into your inventory.]

[Iron Pot]

[Quality: S Rank]

[Condition: Long unused, battered and broken]

[Description: Probably still usable after a good scrub]

[Recipe Book]

[Quality: S Rank]

[Condition: Accidentally thrown into a washing machine. Contents lost.]

[Description: Completely blank. No reference value. May be disposed of in recyclable trash.]

Yi Han: ……

A weak voice, seemingly belonging to the “resentment of the former owner,” timidly said:

“…Actually, it can still be saved, as long as…”

Yi Han’s face darkened slightly.

Before the voice could finish speaking, he shut the app off completely.

---

Yi Han: “I’m this good at fighting and you want me to run a business? Even if I starve to death, I will never work for some shop I pulled out of a haunted toilet stall.”

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