Chapter 6#
Chapter 6#
Mask
Mi Xiaobai woke up inside of Yu Qing yet again. He had expected to see the opulent crystal chandelier in the Painted Skin’s room, yet found himself ambushed by a pack of ‘hungry ghosts’. “Such a grand reception the moment I open my eyes?” he muttered and grabbed the chalk-white neck, yanking it closer.
The ghost was stunned. It had only meant to poke him to test whether it could make contact, never expecting the tables to turn.
“Hello, mind showing me your pupils and teeth? I’d like to confirm whether you’re a deformed human or a spirit form,” Mi Xiaobai reasoned with it, his tone almost cordial—were it not for the hand clamped around its neck.
The ghost finally snapped out of it, letting out a growl and swinging its twisted arms to slap him. Its claws, gleaming and reeking of blood, extended towards his eyes, determined to dig the eyeballs out of their sockets.
“Guess you do mind,” Mi Xiaobai said ruefully.
He dodged the claws with unimaginable speed and, in the blink of an eye, circled behind it. He gripped the ghost’s flailing arms, planted his foot against its lower back, and stamped down hard.Crack!The ghost flailed on the floor as he fisted its dripping hair and jerked it back.
It was forced to tip its head up, revealing black cavities for eyes and needle-like fangs for teeth.
“Excellent.” It wasn’t human at all. “I’ve never been good at dealing with mortals.” Mi Xiaobai smiled at the ghost pinned underfoot. “I’m far more adept at dealing with you lot. I just need…” he drawled, his gaze sweeping the room before landing on the pen on the table. His eyes crinkled.
The kitten on the bed caught on at once. It darted over, picked up the pen in its mouth, and hopped over to Mi Xiaobai’s side.
“Good kitty.” Mi Xiaobai gave it a headpat. He took the pen, bit off the cap, and mumbled around it to the ghost, “Gotta make do with this pen. Don’t scream too loudly. I’ll make it quick.” The sharp pen nib landed on the ghost’s face. When he drew the first stroke, sparks flew from the tip.
His handwriting was as elegant and sweeping as the one on the notes he’d left for Yu Qing, except it contained much more force, every stroke carving itself into flesh. The ghost began to howl. For a moment, the shrieking wind outside the window grew twice as shrill, making all the ghosts in the room baulk.
Even the skeletal kitten that had hissed at him a good few times held its tail high, watching wide-eyed to see what would unfold.
Fifteen seconds passed…
By the time Mi Xiaobai had finished writing, the ghost was no longer howling. A deathly silence blanketed the room.
Nothing happened.
The kitten: “?”
The ghosts: “?”
Mi Xiaobai: “…?”
The anticipatedannihilation(idiom; scattering of ashes)didn’t come. Save for thesquiggles(ghost drawing talisman)imprinted on its face, not a hair on the ghost’s head was harmed. The result fell far short of the build-up, leaving the room full of ghosts and one cat baffled.
“One moment. Let me check.” Mi Xiaobai grabbed the phone from the bed. He tapped the ID on the screen and slid down to the second page of his character sheet.
Alias: ^^
Level: 1
Health:Abnormal
Agility:Abnormal
Might:Abnormal
Mana:Abnormal
Abnormal player stats detected and flagged as a bug. All stats have been reset and will scale with your level within the dungeon.
Level 1???
Mi Xiaobai: “…”
Dungeon monsters usually out-levelled players. Players had to complete quests and level up first, and only in the later stages of a dungeon would they stand a fighting chance. Trying to brute-force a kill whilst stuck at level 1 was ludicrous.
Mi Xiaobai put away the phone, looked at the little skeleton crouching on the floor, and blinked. “Oops.”
The kitten: “…”
“Only one option left now,” Mi Xiaobai muttered. “Hang on tight. I’ll have a hard time explaining myself to him if I lose you.” Then he scooped up the skeleton and took to his heels.
The ghosts went on a rampage, their rage sharpened by the humiliation of being toyed with, and they burst out of the room, writhing. Never before had the corridors rung with such shrill howls as they scuttled forward, their wet hair creeping wildly along the walls, ceiling, and carpet.
With them in hot pursuit, Mi Xiaobai made his way through the hotel. His pretty friend’s expensive suit jacket was too form-fitting, so he took it off and draped it over his arm, which conveniently fell over the kitten’s skull.
The white masks lining the corridor high and low, along with wide stretches of reflective glass window, added to the haunted atmosphere.
Mi Xiaobai glimpsed his current face in one such window. The dungeon had tweaked his features into something much more ordinary that looked misplaced on Yu Qing’s tall, lithe figure. He turned his face left and right, but unable to stand the sight, he covered it up with a white mask he took off the wall.
With a laugh, he caught the handrail, swung sharply around it, and descended to the next floor, unperturbed by the chase. He even had the time to whip the phone out and drop a few voice messages in the party chat.
^^ : Quick question, did you guys run into any monsters in the hotel?
ThreeKings: …Oh, loads.
^^ : I just woke up and am unfamiliar with the gameplay. How do you kill monsters when you encounter them? By that I mean are there any handy weapons for level 1?
ThreeKings: …
JustRude: Listen to yourself.
^^ : Could you elaborate? It’s a bit too noisy on my end for me to puzzle this out.
It wasn’t just a little noise, but a cacophony of howling and wailing behind him. Fortunately, the phone’s microphone was good enough that when the messages reached the group, most of the chaos was filtered out.
ThreeKings didn’t see what relevance noise had with understanding, but he still replied: Have you also encountered monsters? Stay put in your room! You haven’t finished the other tutorial quests, so you might not know, but the room is the absolute safest place.
JustRude: Don’t count on weapons. Our level is too low for them to be of any use right now. Do you actually want to fight them head-on???
Mi Xiaobai skimmed the two messages, considered it, then replied: Not at all. I’m a coward.
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Thankfully, the dungeon mechanics were reasonable enough not to reset his character intelligence to level 1 as well. Prompted by ThreeKings, Mi Xiaobai checked the system notifications and saw the messages that Yu Qing hadn’t opened.
A line in quest completion message < Tutorial Quest 1: Check in at the hotel’s front desk > did stress that the room was the only safehouse. On the other hand, the error message < Error code: 00986716. Player’s accommodation did not cost any credits > told him why their room wasn’t actually safe. Then there was also a notification for a quest that Yu Qing hadn’t completed yet.
< Tutorial Quest 2: Midnight is approaching. Remember to buy a weapon to defend yourself. >
Mi Xiaobai was jumping down the stairs three at a time and happened to read this just as he reached the ground floor.
The front desk was unattended, and the floor was stained with blood. Whatever happened earlier had been far from peaceful. Behind him, the shrieking horde of ghosts descended like a flood.
Mi Xiaobai held the hotel door, stopping briefly. Nearby were three poorly lit shops, from which the three shopkeepers poked their heads out despite the ghastly cacophony, seemingly unafraid of a monster invasion.
Rapidly processing this, he made up his mind and sprinted to the weapon shop. Sure enough, the moment he stepped in, the shopkeeper pressed a remote that slammed the door shut.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.The hostile ghosts were stuck outside no matter how much they pounded on the door. It appeared that as long as the door was kept shut, this place was safe.
So why did the system notification state that their room was the only safehouse? Unless the safety here was short-lived. Maybe… it was only safe while buying weapons.
Holding that thought, Mi Xiaobai stared at the shopkeeper through the curved eyes of his mask. The shopkeeper got down to business. “Why are you so late? Pick your weapon and pay up.”
Mi Xiaobai had undone the top two buttons of his shirt and rolled his sleeves up during the chase. He carried an air of insouciance, showing no signs of fluster, as he leisurely surveyed the shop. “How much?”
“For what?”
“I have decision paralysis. Why don’t you list them all?”
The shopkeeper: “…”
He was impatient to clock off, but he suppressed his irritation and went through the switchblade, crossbow, and talismans one by one.
“Are talismans that expensive?” Mi Xiaobai wondered.
“Obviously! These talismans were once offered to the deities, specifically for sending the dead off. They’re out of print now. So what if they’re a bit pricey?”
Mi Xiaobai roguishly flashed him a thumbs-up. “Touché.”
It set his teeth on edge; the shopkeeper felt like he was being mocked.
Mi Xiaobai picked out a pair of black gloves from the counter and tried them on without a word. Then, pointing to a paring knife, he asked, “What about these odds and ends? Why didn’t you quote me the price for them?”
The shopkeeper took out the knife and rapped his knuckles against the counter. “Don’t be ungrateful! Everything I recommend is value for money and easy to handle. Or do you want this puny knife? Whatever for? Peeling apples?”
“What if the small stuff are free?”
Mi Xiaobai’s tone was mirthful, but to the shopkeeper it just sounded shameless. “You’re dreaming. No way. Even a knife like that costs three hundred! Are you getting it?”
“Nope,” said Mi Xiaobai. “I’m broke.”
The shopkeeper thought his ears were deceiving him. “You’rewhat???”
Mi Xiaobai spread his hands. “I’m flat broke.”
The shopkeeper nearly blew a fuse. “What are you doing here if you’ve got no money?!”
“Nothing much. Just had some theories to test.”
“What theories?”
“For example…” Mi Xiaobai smiled, his voice a soft drawl, “whether this shop stays safe as long as I don’t go through with buying a weapon.”
“Wh-what?”
“Or, for example, suppose this shop becomes unsafe, is it because the monsters outside got in? Or… is there a monster inside?”
The shopkeeper gave a start.
“I’ve got another question for you,” Mi Xiaobai continued. “Boss, your level must be about the same as the monsters outside, right? Both in might and mana? Though mana is the important bit here, naturally.”
The shopkeeper couldn’t keep up with the rapid-fire questions. By the time he recovered from his shock, the man wearing a white smiling face mask was already behind him, hitting the remote.
Bang!The tightly shut door of the weapon shop burst open, and the frantic ghosts outside surged in.
“So much wasted potential in manning the counter instead of fighting monsters at your level. Why not lend me your support for a bit? How about it?”
The outrageous statement caused the shopkeeper to pale. Immediately, the customer’s left hand shot past him to grab a ghost by its neck and yank it over.
His gloved right hand seized the shopkeeper’s hand, holding it around the dagger, and guided him to carve a row of sigils into the ghost’s skin, digging into flesh.
The shopkeeper couldn’t shake the sense of familiarity that grew the more he looked at the flamboyant script—in fact, some of the strokes were identical to the absolution talismans sold in his shop.
Just as recognition hit, sparks flew from the knife.
Outside, the shrieking wind was now ten times shriller than before, adding to the ghosts’ desolate howls. The ghost, gripped by the customer, let out a screech the moment the final stroke was made before vanishing into thin air.
Five minutes later, the floor of the weapon shop was covered in ashes.
The shopkeeper stood at the counter, looking dishevelled and depressed. Since the customer hadn’t spent a single credit, no transaction had gone through. The shopkeeper hadn’t mutated, nor had the shop vanished.
Meanwhile, Mi Xiaobai, wearing a spotless suit jacket, leaned against the door with his phone in hand, shooting off a message to someone.
Looking closely, you’d find that he had opened the private chat on the messaging app. He tapped on his own blank avatar and left a message:
Dear pretty friend, my apologies.
It was because of me that you were accidentally dragged into this dungeon. Ah, hope you understand what ‘dungeon’ means.
If you don’t right now, that’s all right.
Just think of it as a brief adventure.
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Escape From Rose Island(Chapter 6)
Translated by 🎏luckykoi
Please do not repost or re-translate.