Ch 5: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

The Locked Classroom (5)

【Now calculating rewards…】

【Stage cleared, base points: +100】

【Exploration rate 99%, bonus points: +49】

【NPCs eliminated: 4, bonus points: +40】

【Advanced borrowed points: -10】

【Total points earned this stage: 179】

【Clear evaluation: S】

When Yi Han opened his eyes again, he discovered he had returned to the little room from the beginning.

The room still contained only a bed and four walls. The only difference from before was that the wound on Yi Han’s chest had already been healed inside the stage.

Opening the app, he noticed a new tab labeled “Clear Log.”

After tapping it, he could see records of previously cleared stages.

Under the first subcategory labeled “Beginner Level,” the name of the stage he had just completed was displayed:

“The Locked Classroom”

Behind the title was a golden “S.”

Further down were subcategories like “One-Star Stage,” “Two-Star Stage,” “Three-Star Stage”…

But all of them were currently grayed out and inactive, with empty contents.

【Requirement to activate One-Star stages: Clear a Beginner stage with at least a C-rank evaluation. You already meet the requirement. Please wait patiently for 24 hours while the system activates it automatically!】

【This period also serves as your rest time. After each game ends, players receive a basic 24-hour rest period. Once the time expires, the system will automatically draw the next stage.】

【If you wish to extend your rest time, you may use points to purchase it in the system store.】

After hearing the three consecutive system notifications, Yi Han’s eyes shifted slightly.

Then he swiped open the store interface.

Earlier inside the stage, he had already purchased ingredients for braised pork from the store. At the time, however, only the ingredient section had been unlocked for him.

Now that he was outside the stage, Yi Han finally saw the system store in its entirety.

Weapons. Magical treasures. Bloodlines. Servants…

Even ordinary daily necessities like clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

And the thing that shocked him most was a category called:

“Main God Space Housing.”

Players could spend points renovating their rooms, upgrading the original four-wall basement into apartments, luxury suites, seaside villas, massive estates…

Even the location could be selected.

Among the filter options, Yi Han actually saw the words:

“Main God Space School District Housing.”

Which caused Yi Han, whose first reaction had been “Who the hell would waste points on something like this?”, to fall into deep thought.

Originally, he had assumed his little room was merely a tiny dimensional space.

That was why there were no doors or windows, and nothing existed beyond the walls except perhaps other players’ rooms.

But after seeing this entire lineup of housing-related products in the store, Yi Han suddenly felt that beyond these walls might exist an entire parallel world no different from reality…

Residential districts. Schools. Commercial streets.

The only difference was that every resident in this world was a player of the escape game, struggling every day to gather enough points to reach that impossible 100 million.

Yi Han thought about many things for a while.

But his current points were far too few. He did not even have enough to add a door to his room.

So he quickly calmed down again.

Past the housing category, the most expensive items in the store were the special bloodlines and bizarre abilities.

There were also some special-effect items with absurdly high prices, each followed by terrifying rows of zeroes.

After browsing around, Yi Han realized the only things he could currently afford were ordinary daily necessities and food.

Since he had only eaten a tiny serving of braised pork inside the stage, now that he finally relaxed, his stomach began feeling empty again.

So he first ordered a giant grilled meat rice bowl from the food section.

The result:

One meal cost him 20 points.

He only had 179 total.

At this rate, if he spent money on absolutely nothing else and only paid for meals, he could survive merely three days…

And among beginner players, his situation was already considered good.

Most newcomers only earned around 120 or 130 points after clearing their first stage.

Of those, 100 points would usually be spent healing the injuries they carried over from the real world.

The remainder, even if used to buy the cheapest plain rice and pickled vegetables, would only last about one day.

If players wanted to survive, they had to continuously clear stages.

And if they wanted extra points to purchase abilities and items…

Heh.

As for the 100 million points required to leave the game…

Who knew how many lifetimes that would take to save up?

After finishing the 20-point meal, Yi Han finally felt tired.

He originally intended to sleep for a bit, but could not fall asleep.

Not having enough points gave him an enormous sense of urgency.

Yet even if he skipped extending rest periods and rushed nonstop from stage to stage every single day, gathering 100 million points would still be unimaginably difficult.

Clearing stages could maximize point gains.

But no matter how much he earned, there was a limit.

It was like being an overworked office worker earning fixed wages.

Working for others would never make anyone truly rich.

If one wanted fast money, one had to become the boss.

Lying on the bed, Yi Han thought quietly for a while before taking out his phone again.

That bankrupt shop still sat in the corner of his inventory.

Opening the shop management interface, Yi Han asked the former owner’s resentful spirit:

“Where was your previous store located? And if we wanted to rent it again, how many points would it cost?”

“In… the commercial district.”

The former owner seemed flattered that Yi Han suddenly initiated conversation, but still answered honestly.

“However, it’s not just a matter of points… Reopening requires many other conditions too. We can’t do it right now.”

Yi Han roughly understood.

It was probably all kinds of annoying permit procedures.

Even opening a store in the real world was a bureaucratic nightmare, let alone inside the Main God Space of an escape game.

“If we don’t open a physical shop,” Yi Han said thoughtfully, changing direction entirely, “what about an online store?”

“The players in the escape game all use the app inside stages. If we secretly leave our menu inside the app, then whenever players need something, couldn’t they just place orders directly…?”

The former owner seemed completely stunned by the suggestion.

After a long while, he weakly replied,

“An online store… We actually used to have one. But not the kind you’re describing. Wouldn’t that count as violating rules right under the system’s nose…? Besides, we no longer have a business license now…”

“Just tell me whether it can be done,” Yi Han asked.

“I… I’ll try…”

Clearly persuaded, the former owner immediately ran off to operate the store backend.

Not long afterward, he returned with exciting news.

“It works! Our online store can secretly bind itself to the system app. Probably no player ever dared attempt something like this before, so the app has zero protection against it! As long as the stage level has been fully unlocked by you, we can now distribute menus there!”

“What does ‘fully unlocked’ mean?”

“It means perfectly clearing stages of that rank and reaching the requirements to activate higher-level stages. For example, since you can now activate One-Star stages, all Beginner-level stages are within our operational range now!!”

There were countless players in the escape game.

Naturally, there were countless stages as well.

“The Locked Classroom” Yi Han had just cleared was only one among many Beginner-level stages.

But because he had fully unlocked Beginner-level content, he could now secretly distribute menus to all players currently inside Beginner stages.

“Good. Then open ordering permissions immediately.”

At present, Yi Han’s recipe book contained only one dish:

Braised Pork.

After consumption, it healed injuries and restored players to healthy condition.

However, according to the former owner, the dishes only achieved maximum effectiveness when made and eaten personally by the owner.

If served to customers, the effect weakened to roughly 50%.

Even so, Yi Han believed this dish would still have tremendous market value.

Every player in Beginner stages desperately wanted to heal their injuries.

After setting up the menu, Yi Han priced the braised pork at:

50 points.

The system charged 100 points for healing.

His braised pork only had half the effectiveness.

Therefore 50 points was perfectly reasonable.

As for what customers needed to mortgage in order to borrow those 50 points, that was no longer Yi Han’s concern.

Just as expected, shortly after the menu went live, orders immediately began appearing.

Yi Han first spent 50 points purchasing a small batch of ingredients and cooked five servings of braised pork.

They sold out almost instantly.

Because the online shop was secretly integrated into the system app, customers received meals exactly the same way as system-purchased items.

Yi Han did not need to worry about delivery at all.

He simply repeated three steps over and over:

“Insert ingredients” → “Wait 1 minute” → “Retrieve dish.”

The moment food was finished, it automatically appeared in the customer’s hands.

And so, after repeating this process several times…

Yi Han became tired.

In one hour, he produced a total of 50 servings of braised pork.

Each serving cost 10 points in ingredients and sold for 50.

Net profit:

40 points per serving.

50 servings meant:

2000 points total profit!

Equivalent to clearing more than ten Beginner stages within a single hour!

Knowing when to stop, Yi Han closed the ordering channel after delivering the 50th serving and hid the menu interface inside the app again.

Counting money was enjoyable.

But this was still essentially causing trouble directly under the system’s nose.

He could not be too reckless.

Besides, money could never truly be exhausted.

As long as this shop remained operational, and as long as he stayed careful enough not to get caught by the system, Yi Han probably would never need to worry about points again.

Still, even though business earned money faster, he could not abandon the game side entirely.

Yi Han’s next objective was to clear higher-level stages as quickly as possible, collect the remaining recipes, and unlock higher-level business territories!

In the end, Yi Han did not spend points extending his rest time.

After resting one night and waiting for the weakened status to disappear, he drew the next stage.

【Stage Name: Endless Staircase (One-Star)】

【Number of Players: 2】

【Stage Description: Late at night, you leave a coworker’s home. But after descending to the first floor, you discover that where the main entrance should be… there is only another staircase leading downward. Please find the exit before midnight.】

【Clear Reward: 200 points (base reward)】

【Failure Penalty: Become a resident of the ghost building and remain there forever.】

…The moment Yi Han saw “Number of Players: 2” again, his face darkened instantly.

Thus, during the countdown before entering the stage, he decisively spent nearly all his savings purchasing a special item.

【Malice Detector】

【Quality: B Rank】

【Condition: Brand New】

【Description: Detects malicious intent from companions nearby. Becomes ineffective after one warning.】

During the previous stage, Yi Han had already grasped some of the system’s patterns.

There were many things he could guard against.

But the one thing he could not defend against was the system’s fake player count information.

That part was absolutely insane!

The fake teammate from the previous stage had probably been a newbie too, which was why Yi Han detected him so easily.

But future stages might contain truly skilled actors.

Yi Han had to prepare for that.

Soon the countdown ended.

Darkness swallowed his vision.

Then after sight returned, before he even had time to inspect his surroundings, another system notification suddenly sounded.

【Because you caused excessive destruction to the game environment during the previous stage, increasing the staff workload by tenfold, this stage will randomly assign you one debuff that does not affect combat ability as punishment. Duration: from now until stage completion.】

【Selection complete. Debuff obtained: Delicate and Adorably Feminine Crossdressing Illusion.】

【Have fun playing :-）】

Yi Han: ????????????????

── ⋆⋅🖤⋅⋆ ──

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