Ch 8: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Endless Staircase (3)

“How are you?” Yi Han asked, putting away the pot.

“I’m fine. He didn’t cut me.”

Jian Lin held his hand, clearly still shaken. It was hard to tell whether he had been scared by the male ghost NPC or by Yi Han.

Behind him, the cutting board had overturned onto the floor. The table and floor were a complete mess.

Yi Han glanced over and immediately understood.

Jian Lin’s dough-making must have been so terrible that the NPC became dissatisfied enough to try chopping him up…

But now that the NPC had been smashed offline, the forced task had been interrupted before completion. Not only could they no longer ask for clues, the door to room -1801 was now completely impossible to open.

So how were the two of them supposed to get out?

Yi Han stepped forward and tried it.

He discovered that the thin security door had been locked solid by system rules. Whether he pushed it by hand or kicked it, it did not move at all, as though it had been fixed directly into the wall.

After thinking briefly, Yi Han turned and went back into the master bedroom.

“Are you looking for… the key?” Jian Lin followed him dazedly.

But the moment he finished speaking, Yi Han came out of the bedroom again holding a huge fire axe.

When Yi Han had briefly searched the master bedroom earlier, he had seen a hardware toolbox in the cabinet. This axe had been standing behind the box. Because it was especially large, he had noticed it at the time.

He had not expected it would actually come in handy now.

“It might not work. I’ll try first,” he said, waving for his teammate to step back.

And so Jian Lin backed aside helplessly and blankly, then watched as Yi Han raised the huge axe high and swung it down hard at the door.

A thunderous clang rang out, shaking even the air around them.

But when they looked carefully, not even a scratch appeared on the seemingly flimsy door.

“As expected. If the task isn’t completed, the door can’t be destroyed.” Yi Han sighed, unsurprised.

“Then… I’ll go finish making the dumplings,” Jian Lin said.

“No need.”

Yi Han rejected the suggestion without even turning his head.

Neither of them knew how to make dumplings. And now the NPC was gone, so who would judge whether the task qualified?

At a time like this, wasting time obediently following the task procedure would be idiotic.

Yi Han took two steps back and stared thoughtfully at the old security door.

As he looked, his gaze suddenly shifted elsewhere.

“…What are you going to do?” Jian Lin’s face turned pale.

“I’ll try again,” Yi Han said, raising the axe once more.

Only this time, his target was not the security door.

It was the white wall to the left of the door, the wall connecting room -1801 to the neighboring -1802.

“…”

Under his teammate’s terrified gaze, the massive axe swung down again.

Another thunderous crash followed.

This time, one corner of the axe bit into the wall. The paint peeled away, revealing faint gray filler inside, sand, cement, and other materials. Dusty fragments scattered all over the floor.

Sure enough, he had guessed right.

When the system built these game scenes, the unimportant sections had been glossed over.

To put it plainly, it selectively cut corners.

In the real world, the structure of a residential building could almost never be split open with an axe.

But the game system had probably never considered that a player would try to smash the walls of an escape game, especially the wall of a room with a ghost.

So it only put effort into the surface. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. The inside was not made with real-world construction-standard materials.

As a result, when it encountered a violent player like him, of course it got chopped open.

Seeing that he had truly found a breakthrough point, Yi Han pressed on. He rolled his shoulders, lifted the axe with force, and swung again.

Although this wall was not as solid as C25 or C30 concrete in the real world, chopping it open completely was still difficult.

Yi Han struck again and again, finally breaking a crack into the wall.

He tossed down the axe and turned back into the bedroom.

A moment later, he came out carrying an iron wedge.

“Took it off the guardrail of the iron bed,” he explained.

Jian Lin: …………

“Hold this for me,” Yi Han said.

Turning around, he suddenly realized the other party was still petrified.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“…………Nothing…”

Jian Lin had not recovered yet, but he unconsciously obeyed Yi Han and reached out to hold the object inserted into the crack in the wall.

Then Yi Han switched to his own S-rank iron pot and aimed at the end of the wedge…

Jian Lin vaguely remembered that during this wall-demolition operation, they changed tools several times.

By the time he came back to himself again, the wall in front of him had already been broken open into a hole large enough for a person to pass through.

“Let’s go.”

After that burst of exercise, Yi Han had a thin layer of sweat on his body, but not to the point where he needed rest.

He climbed through the hole first into room -1802.

Jian Lin hurriedly followed.

By the time he made it through as well, Yi Han had already turned on the lights.

Unexpectedly, Yi Han was not the only person in this room.

A girl of about thirteen or fourteen stood face-to-face with Yi Han in the narrow entry hall. She wore a school uniform stained red with blood. Her face was also an ashen blue, though it was hard to tell whether that was how she normally looked or whether she was angry.

“…You’re the third NPC in the building?” Yi Han asked calmly, without the slightest shame over smashing through someone else’s wall.

He had originally worried that entering through the wall would waste one of their room-entry slots.

He had not expected the last ghost to happen to be waiting next door…

Praise the luck emperor.

“You two are way too bold,” the girl NPC said gloomily, her voice eerie.

When Yi Han had been smashing the wall next door, she had probably been waiting on the other side the whole time. Who knew how she felt about that? So it was normal for her tone to be bad.

“Oh, so?” Yi Han said carelessly while rapidly scanning the room from the corner of his eye.

Room -1802 had exactly the same layout as -1801, only mirrored.

Both bedroom doors were slightly ajar, and the kitchen door happened to be blocked by the girl, making it impossible to see the interior layout.

For the moment, he could not guess what forced task she might propose.

But then again, they had not knocked when entering.

Would that still trigger a forced task?

If he went forward right now and directly gagged, tied up, and kidnapped the girl NPC in one smooth chain of action, could he avoid the task?

Yi Han’s fingers twitched slightly.

But before he could act, the system notification appeared at lightning speed.

【System Notification: Due to knocking on the wrong door, Forced Task 3 has been triggered. Play 2 rounds of Truth or Dare with the owner of room -1802. If the game ends abnormally, this game will be judged as failed. After the game is completed, you may return to the stairwell and continue clearing the stage.】

…Fine.

Because in the previous round, Yi Han had knocked out the NPC before completing the task, the system had directly and temporarily changed the rules this time, refusing to let him exploit another loophole.

Yi Han could only temporarily release the handle of the iron pot in his inventory.

“Truth or Dare is simple. We’ll play rock-paper-scissors. One round per person. Which of you goes first?” the girl NPC said while extending a hand and lightly making a fist.

“I’ll go,” Yi Han said.

The previous two forced tasks had both been handled by Jian Lin.

This time it was one round per person, so both of them had to participate. It did not matter who went first.

Listening to the girl count down, “3, 2, 1,” the two reached out at the same time.

The NPC threw paper.

Yi Han threw rock.

“Truth or dare?” The girl grinned like her scheme had succeeded.

“…Dare.”

Knowing his luck was bad, Yi Han fell silent for a long moment before choosing.

“Go open the bedroom curtains.”

The girl quickly chose the dare task.

…That simple?

Yi Han followed the girl’s finger and looked toward the apartment’s master bedroom.

But the next instant, he reacted.

The room he was currently in was on the negative eighteenth floor.

Thinking back to the previous two rooms, the curtains had all been tightly closed.

At the time, because he subconsciously remembered that the game took place late at night, he had not found anything strange about the curtains being drawn.

But now that he thought about it…

What would be outside the window on the negative eighteenth floor?

Seeing the NPC girl’s malicious smile, Yi Han had no doubt there was definitely nothing good outside.

Maybe seeing it would mean death.

Even if it did not kill him, getting badly frightened was basically guaranteed.

“I’ll go in alone. You wait here,” Yi Han told his teammate before turning and leaving.

The master bedroom of -1802 was not very different from the one next door, aside from different furniture styles.

The overall feel was still old and shabby.

The curtains were tightly closed, not leaving even a sliver of a gap.

The NPC girl followed him but did not enter. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. She merely stood by the door and watched him with a smile.

Yi Han roughly scanned the room, then stood in front of the window.

The instant his hand touched the curtain, his heart inexplicably jolted.

It felt as though he were standing face-to-face with something extremely dangerous. Every hair on his body rose at once.

Yi Han frowned.

After thinking briefly, he closed his eyes.

Then, without much hesitation, he pulled hard and drew the curtains open to both sides.

When a person has their eyes closed, they can still sense changes in light.

The master bedroom lights had been on. He had turned them on when he entered. Although they were dim, after he opened the curtains, Yi Han felt through his eyelids that every trace of light had been swallowed by whatever stood outside the window.

The area around him became pitch black.

It seemed as though countless malicious gazes were staring at him from within the darkness.

His body temperature dropped sharply.

Breathing became difficult.

Yi Han did not open his eyes.

After completing the task, he turned around directly. Recalling the positions of the bedroom furniture, he walked steadily out of the room.

Only once he felt light again did he open his eyes.

Before him stood the NPC girl, whose expression did not look very good.

Yi Han passed by her without changing expression.

After both of them were completely out of the room, Yi Han even shut the door behind him.

“Hmph.”

The girl NPC gave a cold snort. Although reluctant, Yi Han had already completed the curtain-opening task, so she had no choice but to let him off.

“Next round. Your turn.”

She turned to look at Jian Lin.

Because Yi Han had told him not to follow, Jian Lin had been waiting in the small entry hall.

Now, seeing Yi Han come out as if nothing had happened, he sighed in relief.

Then he and the NPC extended their hands together.

“3, 2, 1,” the girl counted.

But after Jian Lin threw “paper,” Yi Han watched helplessly as the girl’s hand, which had originally been about to throw “rock,” swiftly extended two fingers and turned into “scissors.”

Yi Han: ?

Yi Han, whose practical ability was extremely strong, felt his hands itch again.

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