This behavior might seem like a desperate move, but in reality, it was the result of Lu Yuan's careful deliberation.
First, when he opened this door, he had already seen that the inside of the door was covered in impact marks and scratches from fingernails. These were clearly caused by that agile fellow villager. However, after such prolonged attacks, the door only had a few cracks, which meant it was much sturdier than it looked. At the very least, the fellow villager's brute force could not break it open in a short amount of time.
As for the lock on the door, although Lu Yuan had already smashed it so that it would open with a twist, he was not panicked at all because he was certain that the fellow villager would not know how to turn a doorknob.
He had observed that all the damage inside the door was on the "lower half," while the upper half showed no signs of being attacked at all. Even the doorknob had a layer of dust on it. Therefore, Lu Yuan felt that this fellow villager likely only knew the "routine" of "crawling on the ground and ramming the door." Regardless of whether it was a lack of intelligence or if its skeletal structure simply could not perform the action of "turning a doorknob," as long as the door was closed, the opponent would most likely have no way to deal with it.
Taking a step back, even if Lu Yuan's conjecture was wrong, it would just turn a "living room chase" into a "bedroom chase," which was still better than waiting outside to die.
Enough talk. The moment Lu Yuan closed the door, a muffled sound of "thud" came from outside. It seemed the monster had rammed straight into the door. Immediately after, a series of harsh sounds of sharp objects scraping against the door panel followed. Clearly, the fellow villager had started scratching at the door from the outside again.
This naughty behavior, similar to that of a "house cat," seemed quite cute in Lu Yuan's eyes. It would be even better if the fellow villager didn't also pounce and scratch him whenever he opened the door.
After about a few minutes, the sound of scratching at the door stopped. It seemed the fellow villager also knew it couldn't open the door. Lu Yuan lay against the door and listened for a while, but he didn't hear any sound from outside. Perhaps the opponent had left, or perhaps it was still lying at the door waiting for him, but that didn't matter anymore.
Subsequently, Lu Yuan stuck the paper strip, which had already burned more than halfway, onto the door. He didn't want an awkward scene where a beautiful fellow villager floated over, kindly helped the other fellow villager open the door, and then the two of them rushed in together to tear him to pieces.
After finishing all this, Lu Yuan finally felt at ease. He first pressed the light switch next to the door, and after flickering a few times, the bedroom lit up.
Using the light, Lu Yuan immediately took out the only item in his backpack besides the Resurrection Cross—a bandage—and quickly wrapped it around his shoulder.
Just moments ago, his shoulder had been torn open by the fellow villager, making it difficult for him to even move. If he didn't bandage it in time, he probably wouldn't even have a chance to fight back the next time they met.
The bandage indeed had an excellent effect. Despite being the lowest-level healing item, the pain subsided significantly after applying it, and as a bonus, his movements seemed much smoother.
Lu Yuan was very satisfied with this item and secretly calculated whether he should buy more of these when he had money. While thinking, he also carefully observed his surroundings.
Because he had only taken a quick glance from outside the door using the light earlier and hadn't seen clearly, now that he was deep inside the bedroom, he realized it was even creepier than it looked from the outside.
Due to the long period without any visitors, the place had long been covered in all kinds of dust, excrement, and blood. Taking a careful sniff, there was also a strange, dizzying odor. Lu Yuan felt his Life was already starting to drop bit by bit.
That wasn't all; due to the long-term accumulation of various filthy things, all kinds of insects and mold had bred here.
They were much larger than those in reality. For example, the wall Lu Yuan was facing was more than half covered by wriggling white insects as thick as a finger. Based on their shape, they might be a type of maggot, but if one looked closely, one could see a row of spiral-shaped teeth at one end. They gathered together slowly, as if intentionally trying to drive a person with trypophobia to death, secreting disgusting mucus on their bodies and smearing it on the wall, almost turning that area into some kind of nest.
At the other end of the nest, connected to it, was a large patch of creepy mold. It grew wantonly, looking like internal organs covered in blood vessels, and pulsed with a rhythm.
In any case, these things occupied eighty percent of the walls in this room, and their terrifying appearance was telling the Player that there would be no good outcome if they got close.
Lu Yuan sighed awkwardly. He had originally wanted to use this room to avoid the two fellow villagers outside, but who would have thought that this room wouldn't be a good place to stay either.
"How can a Normal Instance be this difficult?" he muttered to himself.
Little did he know, he was probably the only person in decades who could make a Normal Instance this difficult to play.
If following the normal routine, this instance was actually very simple. After the Tutorial Stage, the Player should have successfully leveled up to level 2 and had some Gold Coins to purchase a piece of primary Equipment.
The long-haired beautiful fellow villager first encountered in this instance was not to be feared at all with the help of the mysterious paper strip. And once the Player triggered the other fellow villager in the bedroom, they could just carry a Weapon and trade blows with the Minion. Even though the Minion was fast, its Life was very low, and it could be taken down after a few attacks.
As for our Lu Yuan, although it's a bit hard to say, his Tutorial Stage was truly too miserable to look at—so miserable that since the "Ark" game was founded, they had never seen anyone so useless. This led to him having neither a level nor Equipment when he arrived at this instance, and his only baseball bat had been broken by his own door-smashing.
This forced him to deal with the two fellow villagers empty-handed, coupled with his various abnormal psychological tendencies, such as always liking to actively get close to the fellow villagers. In any case, his current situation was extremely passive.
However, things had reached this point, and there was no turning back. Lu Yuan could only bite the bullet and walk toward the only piece of furniture in the bedroom.
It was called the only piece of furniture because the rest of the furniture had long been eroded by all kinds of things to the point where they were unrecognizable. Only this one remained; although it was also covered in insects and mold, one could still vaguely distinguish from its shape that it was a small desk.
It was the kind of small desk that was advertised everywhere in the early 21st Century under the banner of preventing a Child from becoming hunchbacked and protecting their eyesight.
Lu Yuan carefully avoided the insects underfoot and moved toward the desk.
Then, in a small drawer under the desk.
He found a Child's graffiti.
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