Ch 13: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Hot Spring Bathhouse (1)

Considering that in the previous round, he had not only wrecked the room but also demolished a wall, conservatively speaking, he had probably increased the staff’s workload by thirtyfold.

So after being teleported into the stage, Yi Han waited to see what insane debuff the system would give him this time.

Unexpectedly, after waiting several seconds, no notification came.

Yi Han suddenly formed a reasonable suspicion: could it be that because he had demolished the wall and exposed the system’s shoddy construction, the system had suddenly become too ashamed to retaliate against him…

Even so, Yi Han did not let his guard down. This game was extremely cunning. Who knew what other traps might be waiting later?

Yi Han was currently in what should be the front hall of the hot spring bathhouse.

The lights were bright, and the space was broad and clean. A red carpet covered the floor. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Beside them was the front desk registration area, where a female NPC stood behind the counter, smiling and waiting.

There were several people beside Yi Han as well. They should all be players in this round. Apart from them, there were no other customers in the hall.

After briefly scanning the room, Yi Han silently memorized the identities of the other seven people: a family of three, a pair of female friends, and a couple.

These identities probably had not been assigned by the system, because with one glance, Yi Han could tell that they must have teamed up beforehand. It seemed that aside from him, everyone had already unlocked the friend and party-queue functions. They had all found fixed teammates they considered reliable before challenging Hard Mode together.

As the only single dog, Yi Han immediately felt everyone’s admiring gazes.

Apparently, none of them had imagined that someone could accumulate enough points to open Hard Mode after clearing only one One-Star instance. Thus, they all unanimously believed this person must be confident in his own abilities to dare come challenge it alone.

“Guests, please register your information here,” the female NPC behind the reception desk gently urged, clearly not intending to leave the players time to exchange information.

But this round should still have plenty of time later. Everyone would probably still be together for a while. They exchanged glances, then stepped forward one by one to speak with the NPC.

Yi Han was last in line.

By the time it was his turn, everyone else had already finished registering.

“May I ask for your name or code name?” the NPC asked while operating the computer.

…Code name?

Yi Han paused slightly.

If the NPC asked this, then either one of the previous players had hidden their true personal information, forcing the NPC to ask everyone like this…

Or she was hinting to them that there was something significant about “true names” in this game.

Yi Han had seen movies like that before. Once ghosts or monsters knew one’s true name, they would lock on and relentlessly hunt that person down.

Maybe this round also had a game mechanism that judged things based on names.

For caution’s sake, Yi Han also did not give his true name. He casually gave the initial of his surname instead.

“Y.”

The NPC receptionist operated the computer for a while, then said,

“Very well, Mr. Y. Your information has been registered. This is your wristband. Everyone may now go over there to change shoes. The bathing area and changing rooms are farther inside. We hope you all enjoy yourselves.”

She handed Yi Han a numbered wristband and a clip for his shoes.

When Yi Han turned around, he discovered the other players were still waiting behind him.

“Did you register your real name?” one player quietly asked him.

“What do you mean?” Yi Han did not trust them, so he did not answer and instead casually asked back.

“We all avoided using our real names, because the way she asked… it gave this feeling that we shouldn’t say our real names. But just now, this older brother shared a piece of information.”

Another player spoke with a complicated expression and pointed at the roughly thirty-year-old father with the child.

“He said he previously had two different instance experiences involving similar registration procedures, but the judgment methods in those two instances were completely opposite.”

“The first time, I wrote my real information. Then the NPC used that to assign me a high-difficulty forced task targeting my personal weakness. That round almost failed. The second time I encountered a similar situation, I gave false information instead. Later, the NPC actually used ‘lying’ as the reason to cancel one of my chances to obtain a reward.”

The young father helplessly took over the conversation and recounted his tragic experience again.

“…” Yi Han suddenly understood.

That extra line from the NPC earlier had not been a hint.

It was only maliciously muddying the waters.

And this “information registration” game process was not testing the players’ caution or judgment. It was probably just an excuse to tease players.

Whether one wrote the truth or a lie, the system could always find a reason to bully them a little.

“Then what did you fill in this time?” Yi Han asked helplessly.

“A fake name…” the young father sighed heavily, probably still grieving over the treasure he had missed because of “lying.” “What about you?”

Yi Han spread his hands.

Then the other players all sighed together again.

“Looks like all of us filled in fake names this time.”

“If this ends up like that instance you mentioned, then the system just saved itself eight rewards in one go…”

“This is too damn cunning. Stingy and cunning.”

It seemed Yi Han was not the only one. The other players had also long been full of complaints about this game system.

While chatting quietly, the group changed their shoes at the edge of the hall. Then, following the signs, they each entered the changing rooms.

“I wonder if there are staff NPCs in the bathroom. That little room of ours doesn’t even have a shower. My whole family hasn’t bathed in days…” the young father casually complained to his teammates.

“Right? Same here. I feel filthy,” another male teammate immediately chimed in.

“Ugh… and every time we finish a stage, we’re covered in sweat,” the young father said. Then he turned to his own child. His child was a five-year-old boy, so he followed him into the men’s bath area. “Son, let’s scrub properly later. After that, Dad will get you a milk essential oil treatment.”

The five-year-old probably had no idea what milk essential oil was, but when he heard they could bathe, he immediately said happily,

“Okay, okay! I want a bath! I want milk!”

The two adults and one child chatted happily, stripped at lightning speed, locked their lockers, and rushed off to the bathing area.

At that moment, Yi Han had not even started taking off his shirt…

“Young brother, we’ll go first. When you come later, we’ll scrub your back!” the young father called out.

The three immediately vanished from sight.

Yi Han: “…”

It truly took great effort to hold back his comments.

Yi Han had already found the locker matching his wristband number, but he had not hurried to change because he still wanted to search the changing room.

As the first scene after entering the bathhouse, his intuition told him there should be some useful information here.

After walking several circles around the rows of lockers, he indeed discovered a small stack of promotional brochures in the corner of a counter by the wall.

Yi Han picked one up and flipped through it, immediately finding the floor plan of the hot spring bathhouse.

This bathhouse was built near a hot spring source in the suburbs and occupied a very large area.

Yi Han’s current location was the first area entered from the main hall: the bathing area plus changing rooms.

After washing in this area and exiting, the dining area was on the left. Next to that were the indoor hot spring area and sauna rooms. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Going out through the door on the right would lead to the outdoor hot spring area.

Behind all these areas, occupying the largest space, was the water park. It included recreational facilities such as water slides and a wave pool, as well as resting areas.

According to the brochure, this hot spring bathhouse could receive up to 3,000 guests per day.

Items inside this kind of game scene could not be placed into the system inventory. Yi Han could not take the brochure with him, so he had to firmly memorize the information.

The changing room was quite large, but after walking around earlier, he had already claimed the exploration percentage for this room. Aside from the floor plan, there did not seem to be any other information.

So Yi Han returned to his locker and prepared to change clothes.

“Bro, does your area have any bath loofahs? Bring us one!”

“And a scrubbing towel!”

“Yeah! Bro, hurry up and come over. The water’s really warm. They actually have milk essential oil! Too bad there’s no NPC to do the scrubbing. Come here, we’ll scrub your back!”

Hearing the two loud voices coming from the neighboring shower area entrance, Yi Han’s hand, which had been in the middle of removing his shirt, instantly stopped.

Hmm, how exactly should one describe this feeling?

Yi Han: …I often feel out of place among you players because I am not relaxed or carefree enough. ：-）

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