Something was wrong—very, extremely wrong.
What exactly was this monster after?
Chen couldn’t figure it out for the moment, but he sensed the scent of a conspiracy.
Clinging to a slight suspicion, Chen returned directly to the Stairwell.
The familiar pain washed over him, but Chen ignored it.
“Warning: Assimilation level has reached 70%.”
He didn’t care.
Chen turned into a cleaning robot, obsessively counting the stairs upon reaching a new area.
Sure enough, there was no meat.
He couldn’t even find food anymore, and at this moment, the theory forming in Chen’s mind began to take shape.
The monster’s voice came again.
Instead of rushing into the safety door, Chen just sat quietly on the stairs, waiting for the monster to approach.
The monster’s footsteps grew increasingly rapid, but Chen felt not a ripple of emotion; he even wanted to laugh.
As he expected, the monster had been running for ages but hadn’t reached this level yet.
Trying to pull open a corner of the safety door, Chen immediately saw a dark shadow at the corner, trying to come up.
Heh.
Chen threw the door wide open, and the monster just stood there, frozen.
The atmosphere became incredibly awkward for a moment.
He took the initiative to go down and stare at the monster.
It opened its mouth wide, making a gesture to bite Chen.
Chen laughed, “Hah, ptooey!”
He spat a mouthful of saliva directly into the monster’s mouth.
To his surprise, Chen saw a look of utter confusion on the monster’s face.
Still unsatisfied, Chen spat again.
“So, you’re the one called Charlotte, huh?”
The monster, embarrassed and angry, tried to claw at Chen.
Hah!
Chen didn’t waste any time talking.
He pulled out the knife he had acquired in Level 11 and slashed hard at the monster’s body.
He only heard the monster’s pained cry.
Its body shrank slightly, and a piece of meat covered in yellow grease was miraculously stripped away.
Chen slashed away fiercely, each strike landing perfectly, his blade seemingly on fire as he hacked at the monster, nearly carving it up like a large piece of meat.
“Stop, stop, stop! I surrender!” When Chen went for the fourth slash, the monster couldn’t take it anymore and begged for mercy.
“You can talk? Come on, report your Entity number.” Chen raised an eyebrow.
“Uh, I don’t understand what you mean,” the monster said, confused.
“I see. Then you are already courting death.” With a grim expression, Chen pulled out the compression cube, preparing to contain this thing.
Seeing Chen pull out a mysterious object, the monster felt a sense of dread and immediately cowered: “Sir, don’t kill me! I know how to get out. I’ll take you there.”
“Heh, I have fourteen pieces of meat in hand now. Do you think I’m afraid of not getting out?” Chen crossed his arms and smiled slightly.
“No, don’t get scammed, brother. If you really enter the safety door with these pieces of meat, you’ll just drop dead instantly,” the monster said, spreading its hands.
Ignoring the latter part of the monster’s words, Chen’s expression tightened: “Are you also Dawn? Dawn, take a slash from me!”
(Original word for Dawn is Huang Xiao; I tried to figure out whether it was an object name or a person name because I kept reading. It made me more confused, so I just replaced it as a name called Dawn)
“Wow, can you stop focusing on such unimportant things? It’s really exhausting,” the monster said helplessly.
“Fine. Then, Dawn, obey my command: tell me exactly what the situation is here.”
For nearly twenty minutes, the monster explained the situation here to Chen in detail.
First of all, the note Chen had picked up contained nine truths and one lie.
The false pieces of information were that the monster was invincible and that bringing 14 pieces of meat into the safety door would allow one to leave.
This monster turned out to be the previous Wanderer who had arrived here.
It seemed there were other entry points into this Stairwell.
According to the monster, it had come here from Level C-550, Monsoon Port.
Someone from the C-Level cluster fell here?
Chen silently noted this in his mind.
Back then, it had also found thirteen pieces of meat, and in the end, it gritted its teeth and cut a piece of meat from its own body.
It entered the safety room with those fourteen pieces of meat, and the result was that it turned into the current monster.
According to its description, after becoming a monster, it learned a lot of information about this level.
For example, this Stairwell was actually a sub-level of the Field Hospital.
Furthermore, this Stairwell not only had numerous entrances but also seemed to have many parallel Stairwells where this chase game was happening simultaneously.
There was only one way for a monster to leave: wait for a Wanderer to successfully bring fourteen pieces of meat into the safety door and become the next monster.
It sounded simple, but it was actually quite difficult.
Because the backpack provided to the Wanderer was actually a trap.
When it detected that there were 13 pieces of meat inside the backpack, the entire Stairwell would stop spawning meat.
If one wanted to collect the full amount, they would have to cut a piece from themselves or cut a piece from someone else.
Many people didn’t think of this.
Furthermore, before the 14 pieces of meat were collected, the monster had to try its best to play the role of The Chaser and avoid letting the Wanderer discover any clues; this was a mandatory control command in the monster’s brain.
Unfortunately, this level had a very twisted sense of humor and didn’t give these monsters any offensive capabilities, so success relied entirely on acting.
The rule on that note, “The monster is invincible,” was their greatest reliance.
Because the other conditions were fulfilled one by one, most people would be predisposed to believe this rule was true.
At least Chen had truly believed it.
If the monster’s performance hadn’t been so over-the-top later on, he really wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss.
As for the assimilation level value, the monster stated that it was a special value of the level.
After you left the Stairwell, the level of this value might have some indescribable effects on you.
Chen already knew this; most of his body was now skeletal, and he could totally blend into a skeleton gold-farming outfit as a hired thug.
But strangely, when this was mentioned, the monster stated that in its eyes, Chen was a complete human, and it didn’t see any so-called skeletal features.
Oh?
Chen silently recorded this information in his mind.
As for the exit, there was actually only one true exit, located on the second floor of the Stairwell.
However, to reach this second floor, one needed to place the fourteen pieces of meat on the stairs in sequence.
If one did this, the Wanderer would find themselves on the first-floor stairs; climbing up one level and entering the door on the second floor would allow them to leave the Stairwell.
Having roughly figured out the situation, Chen suddenly flew into a rage: “Trying to trick me? If I lay out the fourteen chunks of meat, you’ll eat them all, evolve into an Agumon, and slap me to death!”
“…Seriously, what an idiot. Truly brain-dead,” the monster said, speechless.
“Then why are you helping me?”
“It’s just that I haven’t met a Dawn in a long time. I really couldn’t bear to see a Huang Xiao die here.”
“Speak like a human.”
“Actually, I have a favor to ask of you.” The monster suddenly became serious, and Chen couldn’t help but straighten up.
“During the time I’ve been a monster, not a single Wanderer has successfully collected fourteen pieces of meat.” The monster looked at its own hands and then added: “Also, I don’t believe that once I successfully make a Wanderer become the new monster with fourteen pieces of meat, I will be able to escape.”
“Is there some hidden truth?”
“There really is.” The monster smiled bitterly.
It looked at Chen.
“Didn’t I just tell you that there might be many parallel Stairwell spaces here? Actually, I discovered this by accident. I was sleeping, and when I woke up, I found that the Stairwell seemed to have some details that were different from before.”
After a pause, the monster continued: “Then I met another monster in the Stairwell, and we just stared at each other blankly.”
“Later, I was bragging to that monster, and it told me that this situation had happened before. Then, the predecessor it met told it that the predecessor had succeeded in making someone turn into a monster to replace them, but they didn’t turn back into a human.”
“Instead, a note fell, which said: ‘You were just a little bit away from leaving successfully!’ Then, the note also wrote about some people who successfully left and some who lost their qualification for resurrection.”
Speaking to this point, it swallowed its saliva, “The most ridiculous part is, the note said: ‘You only need to succeed at least once to leave successfully! This time, you must go back!'”
Chen understood.
This was a Pinduoduo-style scam.
(Pinduoduo is a Chinese shopping app similar to Temu that is under investigation by the FBI due to containing Malware)