Ch 17: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Hot Spring Bathhouse (5)

This forced mission had a time limit. After the system assigned everyone a pool, the countdown began.

Whether intentionally making things difficult or not, Yi Han was assigned a very remote pool. When he went over, he saw it was a high-temperature pool.

The family of three was still struggling nearby. The two adults had already changed their tune. While preparing to enter the water, they kept repeatedly warning the child:

“Absolutely do not pee in the water. Hold it a little longer! Be good!”

Although it was a sad and awkward story… they had been the first to attempt uncivilized behavior and were now being taught a lesson by the system, so no player expressed sympathy.

The countdown soon ended. Yi Han entered the pool right on time. As his body sank into the water, he immediately felt the heat.

This pool was 42 degrees. By hot spring temperature standards, that was already very hot. Pools this hot usually had warning signs advising guests not to soak too long, or the body would easily become uncomfortable.

Yi Han knew this might have been arranged by the system on purpose. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. After all, for a thorny player like him who increased staff workload dozens of times every round, the system had probably long found him annoying…

But forced missions had to be completed, so he could only endure for now.

Yi Han quietly leaned against the edge of the pool and observed the other players from afar.

The family of three was in the same pool the child had nearly peed in earlier. The couple was not far from them. Only the pair of best friends was farther away, because one of them had fainted in the sauna room. When the forced mission was issued, the other girl had been near her, so now she was supporting her slightly recovered companion as they sat properly in the pool assigned to them.

Everything seemed calm enough.

But Yi Han guessed this situation would not last long.

After all, during these ten minutes, players had to stay inside the pools and could not leave. There was no way the ghosts would ignore such a good opportunity.

Sure enough, when the mission reached the third minute, one player spoke up fearfully.

“A-Are you all okay? Why do I… feel like there’s something in the water?”

The speaker was the girl from the best-friend pair who had not fainted.

Her companion “Yanyan” was still weakly leaning against her and could not discuss it with her, so she could only ask the others.

Hearing her question, everyone started panicking again.

But the pool water was actually very clean, clear enough to see the bottom. Even the girl who had asked the question stared into the water for a long while before finally confirming that there was nothing unusual in her pool.

But…

She had clearly felt something touch her foot under the water earlier.

Frightened, she pulled her feet back slightly and held her friend tighter.

Time passed second by second.

Soon, they reached the fifth minute.

The five-minute mark seemed to be a signal. Suddenly, the players all began to stir uneasily.

“Why do I also feel like there’s something in the water?”

“Me too… Something seemed to grab my calf just now. I moved, and then it disappeared.”

Everyone exchanged panicked words, and the atmosphere abruptly became even more tense.

As a single dog with no one to duo queue with, Yi Han stayed alone in the high-temperature pool far from the group, listening to them talk.

He had originally thought that with his isolated location, he would be the ghosts’ main target. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Unexpectedly, five minutes had already passed. Everyone else’s pools had become abnormal, yet nothing at all had happened on his side.

Yi Han’s skin had already reddened from the heat, and the steam made breathing a little difficult, but his expression remained unchanged.

Calm and composed, he simply waited to see what tricks these ghosts could come up with.

Sure enough, he did not wait too long.

A faint touch began at his ankle, slowly extending up toward his calf.

…It felt exactly like what he had experienced in the restaurant.

At that time, he had been in the darkness, and after his hand touched that strange water, something had felt around his hand for quite a while.

But because he had been focused on opening the door and catching the person outside, he had not paid it much attention. By the time the person outside fled, whatever had been on his hand was gone too. So even afterward, he still did not know what it had been.

Yi Han felt the sensation crawling along his calf and lowered his head.

Sure enough, just as the others had said, the pool only contained perfectly clear hot spring water with nothing abnormal visible.

“I-I got touched by that thing again. What do I do? It feels like it’s still there…” Almost at the exact moment Yi Han was touched near the knee, another scream came from the direction of the couple.

“I can’t take this. I’m getting out.”

The one who had cried out just now was the woman, but these words came from her boyfriend. The man seemed even more terrified than she was. Both their voices shook with fear, instantly making everyone else panic even more.

“Don’t act rashly, you two. If the forced mission fails, this round fails,” the father with the son spoke up.

But the moment he finished, his wife suddenly screamed too. Then the five-year-old child started crying.

Clearly, they were almost unable to endure it either.

The splashing sounds mixed with everyone’s screams and the child’s crying. The entire indoor hot spring hall fell into chaos.

“It, it, it touched my chest! No, I have to get out…” the child’s mother screamed.

Her husband held her with one hand and pressed down their son with the other, yet somehow still had the energy to shout to the other teammates,

“I think this thing is just scaring people! It’s nothing! Everyone, absolutely do not leave the pools!”

“How do you know it won’t hurt us?! What if it crawls up to our throats, to our mouths and noses?!” the man from the couple shouted.

Both of their guesses sounded possible.

But clearly, continuing to hold out for the full ten minutes was the only possible path to clearing this mission successfully.

Yi Han sat calmly in the pool, listening to his teammates scream and panic. From beginning to end, he said nothing.

He had experienced this before, so he leaned more toward the child’s father’s view.

But knowing that was one thing. Even if one knew its goal was to make people panic and leave the water, causing the mission to fail…

To keep sitting there while an invisible thing kept groping and harassing them still required considerable composure.

Human instinct was to seek benefit and avoid harm.

At this point, there were two minutes left before the forced mission ended. Aside from Yi Han, every other player was almost unable to suppress their instinct to flee.

“Could it crawl into our noses and ears? Waaah…” someone said.

The description was so horrifying that the players instantly fell into fresh chaos.

Yi Han felt the unseen thing crawl up his waist, then slowly to his back, chest, collarbone…

Very soon, it reached the most fragile part of the human body: the throat.

That thing lingered near his Adam’s apple, as though searching for the best place to break through the skin and burrow inside.

Yi Han lowered his eyes and listened to the countdown.

【Forced Mission 1: Complete.】

The instant the system notification sounded, Yi Han stood up from the water.

Scalding hot spring water slid down his already reddened skin. The strange sensation around his neck vanished instantly.

A black iron pot appeared in his hand.

Yi Han ignored the sudden rise in screams from his teammates’ side and turned toward the only door in the hall.

Without waiting to see clearly, he shifted sideways, raised his arm, and hurled the pot with force.

Clang!

It happened to smash into a figure.

When he threw the pot, that person had not even reached the door yet. But while fleeing at high speed, braking was extremely difficult.

The person had only just managed to touch the door handle when the pot struck the back of his head perfectly.

“Ow!”

The skinny male NPC clutched his head with a groan of pain, but did not dare stop. He pulled open the glass door and fled at top speed.

Yi Han stepped out of the pool to chase him, but it was already too late.

Even though his assigned hot spring pool was the closest to the entrance among all the players, he still could not catch up in the end.

Standing at the doorway, Yi Han memorized the direction the man escaped.

Then he could not help touching his neck. The water-formed thing had lingered there for quite a while earlier, and even now he still felt uncomfortable.

He turned and went back into the hot spring hall.

Then he discovered the teammates had all gathered around one pool deeper inside…

Someone in the crowd seemed to be crying.

Yi Han walked over and saw that inside the hot spring pool assigned to the family of three, a woman floated on the water with her eyes tightly shut.

She seemed already dead.

Her child and the child’s father stood outside the pool, crying.

“The child and his mother couldn’t hold back and tried to get out just now. The father was holding both of them at the same time, but couldn’t keep his grip for a moment, and then…” a female teammate said pale-faced, arms wrapped around herself.

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