Ch 12: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Endless Stairway (7)

This single door nearly emptied what little money Yi Han had left.

Although he was trying to squeeze every single point possible out of instances to save up that 100 million, he also knew very well that money was earned, not saved.

Secretly doing business in the system’s surveillance blind spot was ultimately not a long-term plan. If the outside world really was a complete, real parallel world like reality, then sooner or later, he would need to rent back the original physical storefront of the restaurant.

Only by running both the physical shop and the online shop together could he truly grow the business.

The “door” leading to the outside world really did look like an actual door.

After Yi Han bought it, a door icon appeared in his inventory, and a prompt indicated that the “door” had to be installed on a flat, unobstructed wall.

Yi Han installed it, and the countdown began.

【This product’s duration is: 10 minutes. Please pay attention to the time and return to your room promptly. If the player has not returned before the next instance draw, the player will be judged to have failed the “Real Escape Game” challenge.】

Ten minutes was not long.

Yi Han wasted no more time. He set an alarm on his phone, opened the door, and walked through.

Outside the door was a mass of chaotic fog.

After passing through it, a small road appeared before him, the kind most commonly seen inside residential communities.

It was just past 2 AM. The sky was still very dark, with no stars and no moon. Dim streetlights stood along the roadside. Trees were planted beside the road, their leaves rustling in the breeze.

Yi Han turned back and saw the place he had just exited from: an ordinary-looking high-rise residential building.

The building looked like a Rubik’s cube, probably twenty or thirty floors tall. Many rooms with exterior windows were lit.

In front of and behind this building stood many similar buildings, arranged neatly with reasonable spacing between them.

In the real world, this would already be time to sleep.

But in this infinite world, players had just finished their daily instances, and many, like Yi Han, had not rested yet.

There were scattered groups of players walking along the road. Some were heading out from the buildings, while others had just returned from outside.

And the place they were going to, or had just returned from, seemed to be in the same direction.

Yi Han controlled his expression, trying his best not to look like a newcomer. At the same time, he remained secretly vigilant and silently chose two girls who had just come out of a nearby building, following behind them.

The two girls were also heading in that direction. Yi Han had thought that perhaps the community gate was over there, and that outside it would be special facilities such as a “mission release center” or “special item auction house.”

Unexpectedly, the breeze lightly carried their conversation to Yi Han’s ears, and he vaguely heard words like “stinky tofu” and “roast lamb leg”…

This suddenly gave him a very unreliable guess…

The two girls passed between two buildings and turned a corner.

Yi Han followed behind them.

Before he even got close, he seemed to hear lively human voices coming from that direction.

It sounded like many people were shouting and selling things.

But what they were selling clearly was not “some powerful weapon” or “some heaven-defying ability,” but “some grilled cold noodles” and “some giant lamb skewers”…

Yi Han’s feelings instantly became extremely complicated.

Turning the corner, what suddenly appeared before him was…

A bustling snack street, so lively it resembled a vegetable market…

Just like in the real world, rows of vendors were sweating as they grilled skewers. Lines formed in front of every stall. The small roadside tables were all filled with people as well. On the tables were the players’ ordered meat skewers, beer, and stinky tofu.

The only difference was that everyone was using system points for transactions.

In just those few seconds, the two girls he had been following had already blended into the ordering crowd and vanished from sight.

“…” Yi Han suddenly felt a little lost.

“Hey, young brother, are you a newbie who bought a door to come out?” Suddenly, a boss selling teppanyaki squid called out to him.

Yi Han was startled.

Seeing that the man really was speaking to him, he inwardly thought this was bad.

That split second of surprise earlier must have made his expression slip, exposing his newcomer status. Revealing that identity in a gathering place of players was not a good thing.

He immediately slipped his hand into his inventory and gripped the handle of his pot.

Unexpectedly, the squid boss noticed his guarded look again and burst out laughing.

“Don’t be nervous, young brother. Everyone’s like that the first time. Don’t worry, security here is very good. No one’s going to attack each other.”

He had just finished making several portions of grilled squid for customers. Those players took the squid and left. Although they heard the boss’s words, they did not even glance at Yi Han.

“You’re a newbie, so you probably don’t have many points, right? Here, take this. No charge.”

The squid boss seemed to have made one extra order by mistake and very generously handed it straight to Yi Han.

Yi Han had not planned to accept it, but the boss was probably also a player working part-time as a vendor. Who knew what special item he had?

By the time Yi Han reacted, the skewer was already in his hand.

Very soon, another wave of customers surged forward. The boss paid him no further attention and continued working hard.

“The squid from this place is super delicious,” a girl passing by Yi Han turned to her best friend and said. “It’s better than that second-to-last place inside, and it’s 1 point cheaper. Let’s line up here.”

The best friend beside her immediately said, “Okay, okay.”

Yi Han had originally planned to keep walking forward and look around.

But just as he took a step, he suddenly heard the two casually sigh behind him:

“Ugh, if we’re talking about delicious food, the best was still that braised pork in the beginner stage…”

Yi Han immediately slowed his step and pricked up his ears.

“Yeah… But the forum says that shop appears and disappears unpredictably.”

“Players like us who’ve already passed the beginner stage can only go back through newcomer assistance missions. But this week’s slots are already used up. If we want to eat it again, we probably have to wait until next week, and who knows if we’ll even catch it open…”

The two sighed for a moment, but only said those few lines before happily chatting about other foods again.

Yi Han had not expected to encounter his own customers the very first time he came out. Thoughtful, he continued down the snack street for a while.

Unexpectedly, after passing several tables of players eating and chatting, he actually heard people mention his shop’s HP-restoring braised pork again.

Everyone’s opinion was remarkably consistent.

They all praised it as especially delicious.

The door only lasted ten minutes. Yi Han had barely walked around for a short while before time was almost up.

To avoid tragedy, he had no choice but to leave first.

……

Even after returning to his own room, Yi Han still felt somewhat confused.

The ecosystem of the Main God World was similar to the real world. He had already guessed that.

But the mental state of the players temporarily living in this Main God World was something he had not expected…

In his previous imagination, players who had died violently and then been dragged into this kind of real escape game…

Shouldn’t they all be bitter, vengeful, and miserable?

But from Jian Lin in the previous game, to the shop boss he had just met outside, to the ordinary players sitting on the snack street drinking beer, eating skewers, and chatting, why did they all seem so…

Relaxed, friendly, and Buddhist?

Although the game itself also felt somewhat Buddhist, neither cruel and bloody nor dark and treacherous, and sometimes even seemed like it was teasing the players for fun, there was still danger and pressure.

Yet the players outside his door were Buddhist to this degree.

And compared to the “healing” ability of his braised pork, everyone was actually more focused on how delicious it tasted.

This even made Yi Han feel like perhaps he was the only person in the game seriously trying to clear stages and desperately save up that 100 million points…

Fortunately, this trip outside had yielded other gains as well.

“What are the ‘forum’ and ‘newcomer assistance missions’?” Yi Han directly asked the system.

He had heard those two terms from the passing girls, but these functions were clearly not yet available in his system.

【The forum is a communication community provided by the game system for players. It requires clearing at least two One-Star instances before being unlocked together with social functions such as “Add Friend” and “Invite Duo Queue.”】

【Newcomer assistance missions refer to veteran players returning to low-level instances to help new players clear them. They can only be unlocked after successfully unlocking Two-Star instances.】

As expected, neither of these could currently be unlocked by him.

But these functions, filled with a friendly atmosphere, once again made Yi Han feel confused about this game that should logically have been full of open and hidden conflict, mutual slaughter, and scheming.

Speaking of which, based on what those passersby said, his online shop’s reputation seemed to have already spread through the forum.

Yi Han did not know whether this was good or bad.

After all, the more famous it became, the more likely his rule-breaking shop would be discovered by the game company.

“I need to unlock the forum as soon as possible and see what’s going on.”

Thinking this, Yi Han immediately decided:

“I’ll sleep first. Once Hard Mode officially activates, I’ll immediately enter and clear the next stage.”

…

After one night of rest, the new instance was now displayed as available to enter.

【Stage Name: Hot Spring Bathhouse (One-Star Hard)】

【Number of Players: 8】

【Stage Description: You and your company coworkers are participating in a departmental team-building event, only to end up locked inside a haunted hot spring bathhouse. Please find the path to survival and the key, and escape before midnight.】

【Clear Reward: 200 points (base reward)】

【Failure Penalty: Remain forever in the hot spring bathhouse, accompanied by vengeful ghosts.】

── ⋆⋅🖤⋅⋆ ──