Ch 25: I Run a Food Shop in an Escape Game

Mental Hospital (1)

After the darkness of entering the stage faded, Yi Han opened his eyes to find himself already inside a softly colored three-person hospital room.

There were only three beds in the room. The bedframes had rounded corners, and the sheets were warm-toned. The room came with a tiny bathroom, but the door was locked.

Other than that, there was no extra furnishing, and no extra people.

【Stage Name: Mental Hospital (Two-Star Special)】

【Number of Players: Variable】

【Stage Description: This scenario was specially created for infamous players who have murdered teammates in previous games. It is a punishment instance used to imprison players whose morality value is too low. Please survive among players as wicked as yourself and under the hands of vengeful ghosts, while actively accepting treatment and reform. Only by raising your morality value back into the positives may you obtain a discharge certificate.】

【Clear Reward: Discharge】

【Failure Penalty: Continue Treatment】

This was the information for the current stage, “Mental Hospital.”

After Yi Han guessed that his former teammate was already dead, he temporarily stopped matchmaking and instead went to the forum to search for the instance “Mental Hospital.” Due to the system’s restrictions on player speech, he already knew it would be impossible to obtain overly detailed information this way. Still, even a few scattered clues would be enough for him to roughly analyze what kind of instance this was.

Jian Lin’s ability was probably related to luck value. At first, Yi Han’s guess for why he would match into this instance was that it might be an extremely dangerous but highly rewarding high-risk stage. Yet after typing the three words “Mental Hospital,” he discovered that the entire forum contained almost no information about the place. Hardly anyone even mentioned it.

The only thing that appeared in the search results was an old post offering a 1000-point bounty for companions to clear the stage together, posted three days ago.

The poster claimed this was a stage overflowing with rewards. He had obtained entrance tickets himself, but lacked the ability to clear it and only had one companion who could accompany him, so he hoped to find three more teammates to go together with them.

The bounty was as high as 1000 points, and the wording constantly used the clear rewards as temptation. Any slightly sharp player could tell something was wrong. As a result, the post had hung there for several days without a single response. At the bottom of the post were what appeared to be replicated “Mental Hospital” entrance tickets created with some kind of item. There were three in total. Three days had passed, and all three still remained.

“No one claimed the entrance tickets. Looks like the ‘companion’ the poster mentioned, the one willing to accompany him for free, was Jian Lin.” Combining that with his guess that Jian Lin was dead, as well as the poster’s excessive attempts at temptation, Yi Han immediately reached a conclusion: that foolish kid had definitely been tricked by the poster.

The forum’s bounty mission system functioned much like online shopping in the real world. The system first deducted the points from the poster and held them in escrow. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Only after the recipient completed the task would the points be transferred over. In other words, this person definitely knew from the start that “Mental Hospital” was extremely dangerous, most likely a one-way trip. So first he persuaded the gullible goody-two-shoes Jian Lin to agree to go with him, then casually made a forum post afterward. If he really managed to lure some expert players into helping clear the stage, great. Even if he failed, he would lose nothing, and could still drag a few extra people along as cannon fodder.

Yi Han thought for a moment. In the end, because he was confident enough in his own strength, and because he had a few other ideas in mind… he clicked three times in succession and claimed all the entrance tickets.

Three entrance tickets for a total of 1000 points.

At this point, three days had already passed since the post was made, yet the bounty still had not been automatically destroyed. That meant the poster was still alive. Yi Han immediately decided that before prying both the 1000 points and Jian Lin’s whereabouts out of his mouth, even if the man had only one breath left, he absolutely could not be allowed to die so easily.

His thoughts returned to the present scene.

Because Yi Han had joined the game three days later than the others, he essentially counted as a queue-jumping player. Combined with the fact that his own morality value was not negative, he did not encounter the kind of scenario he had expected, where he would immediately be tied to a bed upon arrival and forced to take medicine, injections, electroshock treatment, and the like.

The room was empty. The door was locked from the outside. Yi Han twisted the handle forcefully and immediately realized the lock could only be opened externally.

There was no fire axe in the room, nor was the door wooden. Yi Han carefully inspected the room once more and found no conditions suitable for breaking the door down violently.

Only when he placed his hand against the door panel again and carefully felt along the surface did he discover a nearly invisible little hatch slightly below head height.

He pried it open forcefully. Behind the hatch were rows of metal bars, and behind those bars was yet another small hatch.

Opening the second hatch allowed him to see a dimly lit corridor.

There was no one in the corridor, but faint wails and screams seemed to drift over from somewhere far away, bringing to mind the kinds of institutions from a century ago that were called hospitals but were really prisons used to confine criminals and subject them to abusive “treatment.”

At that moment, he also understood why in previous stages he had never encountered teammates or NPCs with extreme malice. The system clearly possessed a method of judgment. Once players with poor morality committed evil acts for the first time, they would be diverted into punishment instances specifically designed for them, no longer clearing stages together with normal players.

And the place Yi Han currently occupied was probably exactly such a “prison,” one imprisoning countless evil people and evil ghosts.

Yi Han focused and listened for a while, confirming there was indeed no one nearby. Then he took out the newly upgraded chain from his inventory.

Now this chain was connected to Yi Han’s consciousness. It could basically move according to his will, as natural to use as an extra finger. Yi Han released his hand, and the finger-thick iron chain shot out between the bars of the door under his control, rapidly wrapping itself around the lock from the outside before pulling hard.

With a sharp crack, the lock broke apart instantly. Yi Han twisted lightly from inside the room, and the door opened.

The sound of the metal lock being destroyed echoed through the empty corridor. If there were NPCs on this floor, they had surely already heard it.

Yi Han picked up his iron wok and scanned his surroundings. Not only did he not intend to hide quickly, he instead rapidly locked onto the direction from which the screams had come earlier.

Under the dim lighting stretched a long corridor before him. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Iron wok in one hand and chain in the other, he walked slowly and cautiously. The cold chain dragged across the ground, scraping out an inexplicably chilling sound.

……

At this moment, inside a patient room at the other end of the corridor.

Jian Lin, covered in wounds, sat curled in a corner hugging his knees, eyes vacant and mind muddled.

Of the two “patients” sharing his room, one had been taken next door to the electroshock treatment room, while the other had been dragged away somewhere unknown. Yet the screams still seemed to echo endlessly beside his ears.

Ever since he had unfortunately been captured by the NPC “supervisors” and died under various “treatment” methods, two days had already passed. But in this instance, becoming a ghost was no better than being a player. Death had not earned him any mercy.

Those imprisoned here were all people and ghosts carrying infamy value. When evil people died, they became evil ghosts. Unable to defeat the older, more experienced evil ghosts, and lacking the ability to catch the humans constantly hiding and fleeing, they instead found entertainment tormenting newly dead ghosts like him.

Because he was forced every day to swallow medicine and receive injections, his mind had already become somewhat unclear. He barely remembered how he had entered this instance in the first place. The oldest remaining memory from when he was still human was of him hiding in a patient room together with a “companion” with whom he seemed to have once had a fierce argument. In order to escape, that person had deliberately lured the NPCs over to capture him… but as for why they had argued in the first place, he could no longer remember at all.

If this continued, he felt that before long, even the last memories from his time as a human would disappear. In the end, the only things left in his mind would be pain and despair.

He curled tighter into himself and buried his head in his arms. Then he suddenly realized that at some unknown point, the wailing next door had stopped.

Normally, when this happened, it meant the “patient” who had just been dragged out had already fainted from pain.

Which meant it would soon be his turn…

He shrank even tighter into the corner. His body had already developed a conditioned reflex and begun trembling uncontrollably. There was not a single place on him that did not hurt.

It was not as though he had never considered escaping. But even if he fled, there was no truly safe corner in this madhouse filled with lunatics. Every time he spent several terrifying hours hiding in fear, he would still eventually be caught by the “supervisors” or “patients,” after which a fresh round of even more painful injuries would be added to his body.

This place was a paradise for villains and lunatics. Everyone here was bullied and abused, and after gritting their teeth and growing stronger, they would turn around and do the same thing to people weaker than themselves. He did not understand why he had been trapped here… but after struggling countless times and continuously trying to find ways out, he still ultimately lacked the power to resist.

The sounds next door suddenly seemed a little strange. It sounded like someone was fighting…

After a burst of chaotic noises, a voice vaguely asked, “…………Where?”

Although even his hearing had been somewhat affected, he still felt that voice sounded faintly familiar… unfortunately, his mind, controlled by medication, could no longer recall very much.

The calm, unhurried sound of footsteps gradually approached, and then the patient room door opened.

Unable to help himself, he curled into a tighter ball and helplessly hid deeper within the shadows of the corner.

Then he saw a figure holding weapons in both hands approach.

Not a “doctor” carrying ropes to tie him up.

Nor one of the dying “patients” whose malice still had not faded.

…Then who was it?

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