Ch 19: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Hot Spring Bathhouse (7)

After waiting several seconds, sure enough, no one responded.

Yi Han sighed.

Of course, he had never expected one casual, painless sentence to provoke them into coming out. After all, even the male ghost he had once tricked the same way in the beginner stage should have learned his lesson by now.

After thinking for a moment, he picked up a stone from beside the path, aimed at the place where the fork in the road had originally vanished, and threw it.

The stone sank into the withered grass and disappeared.

Yi Han frowned slightly.

Although he knew this place was an illusion created by ghosts, and theoretically, if he closed his eyes and walked according to the route in his memory, he could break through it, those three ghosts were definitely nearby right now.

If he really did that, he might instead fall straight into their trap.

While paying attention to his surroundings, he pretended to walk toward a pine tree.

After thinking for a long while, he still rolled up the sleeves of his bathrobe, looking as though he really intended to start smashing trees.

Then he heard movement ahead.

Sure enough, the moment he made that move, someone immediately lost patience.

The scene before his eyes seemed like a lake surface disturbed by a stone. It blurred and shifted.

Then Yi Han discovered that around the trunk of the pine tree before him, which was only about as thick as an arm, there was suddenly coiled a venomous snake almost as thick as the tree itself, head raised and tongue flicking.

“Hiss…”

It hissed lowly. Then its mouth opened, revealing venomous fangs as it stared directly at Yi Han.

The next instant, without any warning, it shot straight toward his face.

Yi Han had long been prepared. He raised the pot in his hand at lightning speed to block it.

The snake head curved around and charged straight toward the exposed side of his neck instead.

Yi Han stretched out his left hand and clenched hard, precisely gripping its vital point just before it touched him.

However, the struggling sensation in his hand lasted only half a second before the snake vanished.

Turning his head, he saw that his hand was empty. In reality, there was nothing there at all.

…This illusion-creating ability really was a little troublesome.

Yi Han found it rather difficult to deal with. He lowered the iron pot from before him, still not having thought of a countermeasure, when he suddenly heard many faint movements around him.

Earlier, when he had explored this garden, there had been no extra sounds in the environment besides wind and flowing water, as though there were no living creatures nearby at all.

But now, many things seemed to have suddenly appeared around him.

Those things crawled slowly through the dry grass, rubbing against dead branches and grass blades, producing faint rustling noises.

Yi Han took several steps back onto the stone path.

The next instant, several snake heads of various sizes poked out from the grass on either side of the road.

He tightened his grip on the pot handle, his gaze darkening.

Then he heard an unusual sound of water from the pool beside him…

Yi Han slowly turned.

In the two or three small hot spring pools closest to where he now stood, something long and strip-like seemed to be crawling out of the water.

The pool water was very hot.

Those things broke through the surface, passed through the grass, still carrying a hint of warmth, and twined around Yi Han’s ankles in twos and threes.

They were things like octopus tentacles, smooth and soft, covered with suckers…

Disgusting.

They slowly climbed upward along his calves.

At the same time, the venomous snakes in the grass also slowly surrounded him.

Yi Han tried moving and found that his legs had already been fixed in place by the tentacles, leaving him unable to move.

The venomous snakes also crawled up his legs onto his body, hissing provocatively.

And those tentacle-like things tightly bound his movements. The ones that had climbed up first had already slipped into his bathrobe, trying to bind his upper arms too.

Yi Han experienced this sensation for a moment, yet somehow felt…

These things were no different from the crawling water he had encountered in the restaurant and in the hot spring.

In that instant, he knew exactly what trick they were playing.

Yi Han calmed himself, trying not to rely on sight or hearing, but only to follow his instinct.

Then he felt those tentacles wrap around his wrist and apply slight pressure, seemingly trying to force him to let go of the pot handle.

“Here.”

Yi Han suddenly opened his eyes and stretched out his other hand, reaching back to grab.

The tentacles wrapped around his wrist instantly vanished, and the person truly holding his wrist revealed her real form:

That female ghost with disheveled hair.

Both her hands were gripping Yi Han’s hand tightly, trying to force him to release the pot handle.

“So it really is you.”

Yi Han raised an eyebrow. He abruptly exerted force and flung her away. Then, with a casual reverse elbow, he struck hard against the back of her neck.

The female ghost fell face-first to the ground, and the restraints on both of Yi Han’s hands disappeared.

Without hesitating, Yi Han immediately locked onto another direction not far away. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Turning slightly, just as he had done in the hot spring hall earlier, he resisted all the resistance on his body and threw the pot with full force.

“Ah!”

With a scream filled with both pain and anger, the female ghost with bruises on her hands and feet appeared at the exact spot Yi Han had been staring at.

Her figure only appeared for an instant before she vanished on the spot, just like the female ghost beside Yi Han’s feet.

【NPC eliminated *1. +15 points at settlement.】

【NPC eliminated *1. +15 points at settlement.】

Two system notifications arrived one after another.

Then all the tentacles restricting Yi Han’s movements and the snakes with glowing fangs and tongues vanished.

The small path in front of the pavilion reappeared.

Like a lake surface disturbed by stones finally calming again, the garden returned to its true appearance.

The “ghost wall” was broken.

But out of the three ghosts, only two had been eliminated.

There was still one left.

Yi Han did not immediately go pick up his pot. Instead, he strode straight toward the door leading to the corridor.

The male ghost who controlled the water to scare people was indeed fleeing in that direction.

Yi Han caught up to him in just a few steps. It took only a couple of moves before he twisted the ghost’s arm and pinned him to the ground.

“You… Hmph. You win this round. If you want to hit me, then beat me to death. Just you wait. I’ll definitely come after you again!”

At first, the male ghost still struggled hard. But he was truly too weak and could not even break free from one of Yi Han’s hands.

In the end, he could only twist his neck and angrily throw out such a fierce line.

“…”

Yi Han paused and did not speak for a moment.

This was exactly why he had not immediately knocked the ghost offline.

Even if he eliminated him again, the ghost probably still would not give up harassing him.

Those two little female ghosts were clearly just his lackeys.

He was the true ultimate grudge-holding master.

Yi Han knew why he kept chasing him.

Being defeated by Yi Han in the beginner stage was one part of it. More importantly, Yi Han had also played with his feelings…

This male ghost was clearly the kind of personality that was easy to deceive, overly serious, easily emotionally invested, and genuinely prone to exploding in anger.

Back then, in order to clear the stage, Yi Han had deliberately said things to make him feel guilty. Then at the end, he said it had all been a lie, lured him out, smashed him in the head with a pot, and exchanged him for 10 points.

Being teased back and forth like that had clearly made this kid absolutely furious.

This situation was like provoking a stubborn, infuriated elementary schooler.

He could not beat you, but because he was too angry, he might follow you mysteriously all the way and throw stones at you from time to time…

Yi Han believed that if he did not resolve this properly now, this ghost might truly fight his way through the workplace and continue appearing even when Yi Han reached three-star, four-star, and five-star instances, still throwing stones at him from behind.

“I’m not going to hit you. I have something I want to say to you.”

Yi Han lowered his eyes and looked at him. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Facing the other party’s gritted-teeth expression, he adjusted his tone into something gentle.

Generally speaking, whenever he started talking in this tone, there was basically no need to listen to or believe anything that followed…

But this ghost clearly did not understand him well enough. Even though he was still pinned to the ground with his arm twisted, he actually believed Yi Han’s nonsense. He froze slightly, and his struggling weakened.

“…W-What do you want to say?”

“What happened last time was my fault. Back then, I treated you as a companion I could trust. Who knew I would be betrayed? I was so disappointed at the end that I deliberately said things I did not mean just to spite you… But after leaving the instance, I thought it through. We were on opposite sides to begin with. It was unreasonable for me to be angry. I’m sorry. It’s only natural that you hate me. I hope after this time, you can let go of your anger…”

Before this deeply emotional speech was even finished, Yi Han himself got goosebumps all over.

But on the surface, he really looked like someone pitifully betrayed by a heartless teammate, filled with melancholy and loss.

The male ghost twisted his neck and stared at him blankly for a long while before awkwardly shifting his gaze away and asking uneasily,

“Are you telling the truth?”

Yi Han: “The truth.”

His tone was incomparably sincere and serious.

“…Then… then I misunderstood you… It was clearly all my fault… You don’t need to hit me. I-I’ll admit defeat myself this time.”

The male ghost NPC, whose scar had healed and immediately forgotten the pain, actually fell for it again and had his fur smoothed down…

The moment he finished speaking, he disappeared on the spot.

Yi Han’s hands were suddenly empty, and he received another system notification.

【NPC eliminated *1. +15 points at settlement.】

…Alright.

Triple kill achieved.

Yi Han stood up expressionlessly and was just about to retrieve his pot when he noticed that on the ground where the male ghost had disappeared, there was an item giving off faint light.

It was not a recipe.

It looked more like some kind of special item.

---

Yi Han: A monster farmed with mouth cannon actually dropped equipment…

── ⋆⋅🖤⋅⋆ ──

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