“You’re planning to draw the dungeon boss’s attention all by yourself?”
The girl with the bun hairstyle fell silent for a moment before asking in disbelief. Her gaze swept over You Li’s legs, which rested on the wheelchair, the red marks left behind by the restraint straps that were still faintly visible beneath his hospital gown and even the traces of torment that lingered across his face.
She slowly crouched down in front of him.
Looking into the young man’s eyes, she could not find even the slightest possibility that he would be able to resist the Clown. Even his mental state seemed terribly fragile.
It was precisely because of this that she and the other players had struggled to determine whether You Li was an NPC or another player.
If he truly was a player, then there was only one explanation, they believed he must suffer from a severe mental illness in the real world as well, which was why the instance had manifested such intense psychosomatic symptoms on his body.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
The plan was undoubtedly feasible.
Anyone with eyes could see that You Li was somehow special to the dungeon boss. Using him as bait to draw the boss’s attention would greatly increase everyone else’s chances of staying alive.
In fact, before this, she and the twin-tailed girl had coldly considered using this player, someone outside their small group, as a sacrifice to test the situation.
You Li nodded.
“I am.”
His voice was soft but his tone remained unwavering.
“But one thing is one thing. You saved me. I can’t repay your kindness by returning it with betrayal.”
“My name is Chen Shuang.”
The girl with the bun hairstyle fell quiet for a brief moment. Then she seemed to take something out and pressed it against You Li’s leg.
“…Forget it. You can have this.”
“I bought this item with the last of my remaining points. It’ll let you stand for a while. It can support you as you walk and help you keep your balance.”
She paused before saying,
“Let’s go.”
“I’ve never thought being treated specially by the boss was a good thing.”
“No one can guarantee that it isn’t simply another form of suffering.”
“To everyone else, it’s just another kind of pain.”
It was obvious.
This was never something You Li had wanted.
Chen Shuang continued, “We’ll go separately. There are NPC corpses all over the ground. We’ll regroup with the others after we get out through the hospital’s main entrance.”
She hesitated for a moment before adding,
“But if the Clown catches up to us…”
You Li looked at her with eyes filled with excitement and gratitude.
“I’ll hold him back!”
He already had experience with it.
He was certain he could do it.
Chen Shuang helped You Li to his feet.
She watched as the beautiful young man slowly steadied himself against the wall, carefully getting used to the item’s effects.
The look in her eyes gradually softened into something almost motherly, carrying an oddly inexplicable feeling of watching a child finally grow up.
Especially when she remembered that he was using her item.
Honestly, she couldn’t even blame the dungeon boss anymore.
Who could possibly resist something like this?
Being supported forward by the item’s power was a strangely wonderful sensation.
You Li couldn’t see how the item worked but it felt as though an exoskeleton had been fitted over his legs, something invisible supporting his body and lifting him to his feet.
The moment he leaned forward ever so slightly, the item automatically guided his limp, powerless legs into motion, carrying him ahead.
Nearly all of the monsters on this floor had already been cleared away by the Clown. Searching for clues here with Chen Shuang was, if anything, safer than staying with the other players.
Before long, they found the body of a nurse.
Her eyes had closed forever.
For a moment, You Li searched through his hazy memories but couldn’t remember whether she was one of the nurses he had known. Taking a slow, steady breath, he reached down and found the nurse’s identification badge.
Originally, Chen Shuang had intended to follow the twin-tailed girl’s suggestion and cut off the corpse’s head and hands.
However, the nurse had clearly been dead for a long time.
Her body had already gone completely cold, making the task impossible.
In the end, she had no choice but to give up.
The two of them headed toward the elevator together.
Only a nurse’s ID badge could grant them access to the first-floor lobby but operating the elevator also carried the risk of attracting the Clown.
Standing inside the elevator, You Li nervously watched the floor numbers descend one by one toward the first floor. Unable to hold back any longer, he asked,
“How much longer until the instance ends?”
He had assumed that other players’ system panels displayed a countdown timer.
Chen Shuang shook her head.
“There’s no clock. I don’t know exactly how long it is until midnight but it can’t be more than two hours.”
She let out a quiet breath.
“Today’s the final day. If we can’t get out before then, the instance will close.”
She glanced sideways at You Li.
“If you could remember how you managed to remain inside the instance after it closed, all the way until the next cycle began, then we’d have practically unlimited chances to make mistakes.”
“Even if your memory resets and you repeat the exact same actions every time, the players entering the instance are different with each run.”
“Eventually, there’ll be someone capable of clearing it.”
You Li quietly watched the elevator continue descending floor by floor.
“But I…”
Chen Shuang spoke before he could finish.
“But that would be miserable too.”
She looked at him with a complicated expression.
“You must’ve suffered a lot before.”
“Believing you weren’t mentally ill, while everything you perceived contradicted the entire world around you.”
She gave a bitter smile.
“If someone offered me an opportunity like that, something that sounds incredible but is actually nothing but endless torment, I’d rather let the instance erase me later.”
The elevator doors slowly slid open.
As the item steadily propelled him forward, You Li lowered his gaze to watch his steps, though he seemed lost in thought as he quietly replied,
“You said before that this instance is unreasonable.”
“The boss is far too powerful.”
The surroundings were bleak.
Silent.
The walls had aged and cracked. Dark bloodstains had long since dried upon the floor and walls.
The outdated medical equipment looked as though it belonged to another era.
It perfectly matched what one would imagine after the hospital had undergone corruption, making it feel like an entirely different place from the brightly renovated hospital they had seen before.
It was the middle of the night.
Unlike the lively first-floor lobby one would expect during the daytime, crowded with patients coming and going, the entire hall was utterly deserted.
No one was there.
Only a lone female nurse sat silently behind the reception desk with her back facing them.
Far down the corridor on the right, the crimson glow of the Emergency sign illuminated the darkness.
The dim white fluorescent lights cast an eerie, sickly green hue against the gray-white walls, making the entire place feel faintly nauseating.
Directly before them stood the grimy glass entrance doors, silent and motionless within the endless darkness of the night.
Beyond those doors,
Nothing.
They couldn’t see a single thing on the other side.
Chen Shuang instinctively lowered her voice.
“That’s right.”
“This entire instance is bizarre.”
“There are almost no clues and the NPCs are overwhelmingly stronger than the players. Their strength isn’t even on the same level.”
“It’s practically an unsolvable instance.”
You Li’s voice became quieter as well.
“But…”
“This is only a beginner instance.”
“You said beginner instances are supposed to be easy.”
“It shouldn’t be like this.”
Frowning slightly, You Li hunched over as he carefully hugged the bag stuffed with restraint straps and medicine close to his chest while keeping to the wall.
Since he had been confined to a wheelchair, he hadn’t been wearing shoes at all.
Only a thin pair of white socks covered his feet and several places had already been stained crimson after soaking up the blood scattered across the floor.
As he walked, he spoke softly,
“So… the key to breaking this deadlock must be hidden somewhere incredibly inconspicuous.”
“The imbalance in strength also means the NPCs are expected to torture the players until they’re too weak to fight back.”
“The key must be something every player can accomplish with ease.”
“It has to be something that’s completely fair to everyone.”
He paused for a moment before continuing softly,
“I think… the path we’re taking to reach the hospital’s main entrance isn’t the right one.”
“It’s far too dangerous.”
Chen Shuang couldn’t help but follow his train of thought.
After pondering it for a while, she found herself staring at the back of the nurse seated behind the reception desk. A chill inexplicably crept over her spine.
The more she thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed that You Li had repeated this beginner instance ten times without ever clearing it.
Unable to stop herself, she asked instinctively,
“Just how did you end up trapped inside this instance for so long?”
You Li looked troubled.
He opened his mouth, hesitating for a long moment before finally saying,
“I…”
Before another word could leave his lips,
A deafening crash suddenly echoed through the hallway.
Both of them immediately turned toward the sound.
A middle-aged woman stumbled out from the corridor on the opposite side, collapsing onto the floor.
Even from where he stood, You Li caught sight of a hand withdrawing back behind her.
The nurse behind the reception desk snapped her head around in an instant.
Her gaze landed upon the woman, cold and sinister.
“The hospital does not permit patients to leave their rooms after eight o’clock in the evening.”
She slowly rose to her feet.
“Why are you here?”
She enunciated each word with chilling clarity.
“You have violated the hospital’s regulations.”
“This hospital has no need for patients like you.”
Almost in the blink of an eye, the nurse vanished from behind the reception desk and appeared directly in front of the middle-aged woman.
The woman let out a terrified scream.
“My item! My item!”
The very instant the nurse bent down to seize her,
The twin-tailed girl suddenly dashed out from behind them, sprinting straight toward the hospital’s entrance.
“Run, !”
Chen Shuang reacted without the slightest hesitation.
Before You Li even understood what had happened, an overwhelming force pulled him forward, dragging him into a run.
Unable to stop himself, he glanced back over his shoulder.
For some unknown reason, the nurse had failed to catch the middle-aged woman.
The woman desperately scrambled backward across the floor, crawling away in panic.
There wasn’t a single lock on the entrance doors.
Yet the glass was unnaturally resilient.
No matter how hard the twin-tailed girl smashed against it, it refused to shatter.
At the critical moment, something occurred to her.
She hurriedly pulled out the nurse’s identification badge she had been carrying.
Ding,
The glass doors slid open automatically.
Following her example, Chen Shuang dragged You Li, who was still looking back over his shoulder and rushed through the entrance before the nurse could turn around.
The two of them plunged headfirst into the endless darkness beyond the hospital.
The doors slid shut behind them.
The female nurse appeared before the entrance in the very next instant.
Yet she merely stood behind the glass doors, silently watching their figures outside without making any attempt to pursue them.
After several seconds, she slowly turned around.
Then she headed back inside the hospital to continue chasing the middle-aged woman.
Both the twin-tailed girl and Chen Shuang finally let out long sighs of relief.
You Li looked around at the endless darkness surrounding them.
The unfamiliar unknown was even more terrifying than what they had left behind.
Instinctively, he hesitated.
Inside his mind, he quietly asked,
“Has the discharge condition been fulfilled?”
The system was so silent it seemed almost dead.
Ever since he had followed the other players out of the hospital, it hadn’t spoken a single word.
Unable to figure out its attitude, You Li cautiously asked again in a small voice,
“Are you still there?”
The system responded only with a string of distorted mechanical noises, every word drowned beneath censorship.
“…”
Almost instinctively, You Li fell silent.
After a moment, he murmured,
“…I think this route might be wrong.”
“Should we really keep walking into the darkness?”
The twin-tailed girl let out a cold laugh.
“And how would you know that?”
You Li had no idea how to explain that his system seemed to have been rendered speechless by his stupidity, leading him to suspect this path was incorrect.
In the end, he could only ask,
“Then… has the instance been cleared?”
Chen Shuang manipulated her system panel in midair.
A moment later, she frowned.
“Nothing.”
“There hasn’t been any response at all.”
The twin-tailed girl pointed toward the clock hanging inside the hospital lobby.
“There’s still half an hour until midnight.”
She looked at the two of them.
“So?”
“Are you coming or not?”
You Li silently shook his head at Chen Shuang.
In the end, Chen Shuang chose to trust him.
The twin-tailed girl didn’t even bother looking back.
“If you’re not coming, then I am.”
With that, she strode into the darkness alone.
Several minutes later, she walked back out of the darkness.
For a brief moment, her expression turned extremely unpleasant before she immediately turned around and headed back into the darkness once more. Her figure gradually disappeared into the mist-like blackness.
Not long afterward, she emerged again,
This time, she was walking directly back toward the hospital entrance.
It was as though something deeply unnatural had happened.
Only when she reached the glass doors did she suddenly seem to regain her senses.
No matter what she did, she simply couldn’t find the correct path leading away from the hospital.
Meanwhile, You Li had already crouched down against the wall with his medicine bag hugged tightly in his arms.
Curled into a tiny ball like a little mushroom, he was trying to conserve the remaining energy of the item supporting his legs.
Without caring about her appearance in the slightest, Chen Shuang simply sat down on the ground beside him.
The two of them silently thought about a way to clear the instance.
The situation couldn’t have been any clearer.
The conditions for being discharged from the hospital were obviously not as simple or straightforward as merely walking through the entrance.
This route was unmistakably the wrong one.
The twin-tailed girl, however, refused to give up.
There were only thirty minutes left.
Time was running out.
Again and again, she attempted to leave through the darkness.
She even used a navigation item to guide her way.
It accomplished absolutely nothing.
With every failed attempt, her expression became increasingly grim.
Eventually, even she wore the look of someone waiting for death itself.
“Could it be…”
You Li spoke cautiously.
“…that we need to obtain a discharge certificate from a doctor?”
He frowned slightly.
“But… can we even find a normal doctor anymore?”
Chen Shuang slowly shook her head.
“Impossible.”
“From the moment we entered this instance until now, the doctors have only ever issued discharge certificates to the dead.”
The twin-tailed girl laughed bitterly.
“Don’t tell me we actually have to die before we’re allowed to leave the hospital.”
Chen Shuang sighed in resignation.
“It won’t be much longer now.”
“There are only five minutes left.”
You Li quietly remained in the corner, silently counting down the remaining time in his heart.
Without drawing attention to it, he shifted a little farther away from the twin-tailed girl, who had only joined them midway through.
She immediately noticed the movement.
With a sinister smile, she asked,
“How exactly did you survive after the instance closed without being erased by it?”
You Li simply shook his head, pressing his lips tightly together.
A friendly smile suddenly appeared on the twin-tailed girl’s face.
“Tell me.”
“I’ll give you every item I have.”
“And if I discover the method to clear the instance, I promise I’ll come back and help you clear it too.”
You Li hadn’t forgotten what had happened earlier.
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t remember.”
The twin-tailed girl suddenly reached out to grab him.
“How could you possibly not know?!”
“You’ve been trapped here for over two months!”
Chen Shuang immediately stepped between them.
“I’ve put up with you for long enough.”
Her voice turned cold.
“So what if you’re an experienced player?”
“That doesn’t mean you get to treat other people’s lives as worthless.”
She looked at her speechlessly.
“Just get lost.”
“You’re acting like you’ve got something seriously wrong with you.”
“You’re insane.”
The veins on the twin-tailed girl’s forehead bulged instantly.
Her face twisted with fury as she was just about to lash out,
Only to be interrupted by You Li.
“It’s here.”
“The five minutes are up.”
He slowly stood.
“It’s already midnight.”
He looked around at the completely unchanged surroundings.
“The instance hasn’t ended.”
Both Chen Shuang and the twin-tailed girl froze upon hearing that.
Almost immediately, they opened their system panels.
Chen Shuang’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“It really didn’t end?”
The twin-tailed girl shouted,
“Impossible!”
“The system panel can’t be wrong!”
“If it says seven days, then it’s seven days!”
Chen Shuang suddenly spoke.
“How do we know this is actually the seventh day?”
“What if it isn’t?”
She looked between the two of them.
“What if our perception is wrong?”
“What if the flow of time shown by that clock is incorrect?”
“What if the hospital’s day and night are both being artificially controlled?”
She spoke rapidly, throwing out one possibility after another, listing countless examples.
You Li murmured quietly,
“That’s impossible…”
The twin-tailed girl immediately shot back,
“How do you know it’s impossible?”
Looking dazed, You Li answered,
“My sys…”
His voice abruptly stopped.
He suddenly changed his wording.
“…Someone told me.”
In a trance, those familiar words echoed through his mind once more.
“You have remained inside this instance for sixty-six days.”
…
“Have I been here for sixty-seven days now?”
“Yes.”
…
You Li’s breathing grew rapid.
Then, all at once, a thought struck him.
Why hadn’t the system’s voice been censored back then?
Why was it that whenever the system spoke to him about other instances, its words would be drowned out by static,
Yet those two conversations had remained perfectly audible?
The twin-tailed girl continued pressing him relentlessly.
“Who?”
“Who told you that?”
You Li abruptly snapped back to reality.
Flustered, he hurriedly answered,
“The hospital… the hospital told me.”
“The doctor wrote it in my medical record.”
“It said I’d already been hospitalized for sixty-six days.”
“I also lost my memory three days before that…”
He lowered his gaze.
“…which happened to be when all of you entered the instance.”
Chen Shuang frowned.
“The hospital isn’t the system.”
“They can fake records whenever they want.”
You Li wanted to argue.
Yet he couldn’t reveal the existence of the thing inside his mind.
Suddenly, something occurred to him.
Nervously, he called out in his thoughts.
“…Are you there? Zero-Four?”
The system answered as calmly as ever.
“I’m here.”
The deep male voice, however, sounded inexplicably eerie at this moment.
“What do you want to ask?”
You Li swallowed.
“How many days have I stayed inside this instance?”
“…”
Silence.
And yet…
Noise.
The answer was swallowed by distorted static.
It had been censored.
You Li murmured to himself,
“It’s wrong…”
“It’s wrong.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“The flow of time…”
“The passage of time we’ve been perceiving is wrong.”
“It isn’t real.”
“It’s fake.”
Fake.
In an instant, it felt as though You Li had returned to that very day.
Back to the consultation room.
Back to sitting across from the doctor.
“Then who do you think wants to kill you?”
“The world.”
“I think… this world wants to kill me.”
“I want to leave.”
“How do you plan to leave?”
How do I leave?
How am I supposed to leave?
How can I possibly get out?
“You Li? You Li!”
Who…
Who’s speaking?
Someone grabbed him and shook him several times.
Only then did You Li suddenly regain his senses.
It was only afterward that he realized his entire body had become drenched in cold sweat without him noticing.
His body reacted before his mind could.
Instinctively, he staggered toward the wall, bending over as he covered his mouth and nose.
He gasped desperately for air, each breath rapid and ragged.
He was afraid.
But…
Afraid of what?
What exactly was he terrified of?
Was it the answer he had begun to suspect deep down?
His body entered a stress response before his conscious mind even understood why.
Chen Shuang hadn’t expected his stress disorder to flare up so violently.
Fortunately…
For the moment, they were still safe.
There was still enough time for You Li to calm himself.
The lifeless look on the twin-tailed girl’s face suddenly disappeared.
“We’re running out of time.”
“We don’t know how many days are actually left before the instance ends.”
“We have to obtain the hospital’s discharge certificate as quickly as possible.”
She glanced at You Li, who was still caught in the middle of a severe psychosomatic episode and smiled faintly.
“What you said just now was right.”
“We can’t find a normal doctor anymore.”
“But…”
“So long as we discover a way to leave this corrupted world and return to the normal hospital…”
“…we’ll still be able to find a normal doctor to issue our discharge certificates.”
Without another word, she turned around and walked back through the hospital’s entrance.
Supporting You Li by the arm, Chen Shuang immediately followed after her.
The lobby was deathly silent.
Both the middle-aged woman and the nurse who had been chasing her were nowhere to be seen.
The twin-tailed girl walked at a brisk pace, clearly wary that the nurse might return after finishing her kill.
Gradually, You Li’s breathing steadied.
He gently pulled his arm free from Chen Shuang’s support and began walking on his own.
“Tha, “
Before he could finish speaking,
Chen Shuang suddenly shoved him hard.
“Run!”
The hospital had two separate elevator lobbies.
Without warning, the nurse appeared from the elevator on the left.
Every inch of her body was drenched in blood.
The instant her eyes landed on the escaping patients, they turned a terrifying crimson.
The twin-tailed girl reached the elevator on the right before either of them.
She had absolutely no intention of waiting.
The moment the elevator doors opened, she darted inside and repeatedly pressed the Close Door button.
The force of Chen Shuang’s shove had sent You Li ahead of her.
Reacting instantly, he rushed forward and grabbed the twin-tailed girl’s hand, pressing the Open Door button instead.
The elevator doors had almost shut completely,
Only to slide open once again.
Behind Chen Shuang…
The nurse was right there.
The twin-tailed girl cursed viciously.
She immediately shoved You Li aside and slammed the Close Door button again, fully intending to kick Chen Shuang out and use her as a sacrifice.
Forced to avoid the obstruction, Chen Shuang twisted sideways.
The nurse’s razor-sharp fingers shot forward, violently seizing Chen Shuang’s arm.
Rip,
Blood burst into the air.
Ignoring the pain, Chen Shuang spun around and kicked the nurse away.
At the very last second, she accelerated forward, slipping into the elevator just as,
The doors slammed shut.
Clutching the wound on her arm, deep enough to expose the bone, she collapsed onto the elevator floor.
You Li’s breathing stopped.
He immediately dropped to his knees beside her, supporting her body.
“The pharmacy is right here.”
“I…”
“I’ll take you there.”
Chen Shuang cried out in agony.
“I…”
“I can’t go with you.”
“The noise…”
“…will attract the NPCs.”
The elevator came to a stop on the second floor.
The twin-tailed girl didn’t spare the two of them so much as a glance. She was about to turn and leave when her footsteps abruptly halted.
Her gaze landed on the middle-aged woman lying beside the elevator lobby.
“You… you’re still alive?”
Supporting Chen Shuang, You Li stepped out of the elevator.
The horrific scene in the hallway startled him so badly that he instinctively staggered back two steps.
Chen Shuang also looked over, discomfort flickering across her face.
It seemed the middle-aged woman had crawled here from the other elevator lobby.
A long trail of blood stretched behind her across the floor.
She was already on the verge of death.
“I… heard…”
“…the noise… from the first floor.”
“I knew… you’d come back…”
“Save… save me…”
She was hanging on by nothing more than her final breath.
One of her arms and one of her legs had been severed.
“The nurse… didn’t… kill me…”
“I…”
“I have information…”
“We can… trade…”
The twin-tailed girl’s interest was immediately piqued.
She crouched down in front of the woman.
“I do have some items.”
“But how am I supposed to believe the nurse didn’t abandon you, someone who was practically dead already, because she heard us return and came after us instead?”
She failed to notice the strange expression in the middle-aged woman’s eyes.
“I…”
“I took… the medicine…”
“The medicine… the hospital prescribed us…”
“Right now…”
“…aside from my injuries…”
“…the hospital looks normal.”
“No corruption…”
“No monsters…”
“…no blood…”
Her plea for help grew weaker and weaker.
The expression in the twin-tailed girl’s eyes shifted.
A moment later, she smiled.
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“I don’t have a single healing item.”
Without the slightest trace of emotion, she watched as the middle-aged woman breathed her last.
Only then did she stand and walk away.
Chen Shuang gently snapped the stunned You Li out of his daze.
“Let’s go.”
“There’s nothing we can do for her.”
“We can’t even avenge her.”
Suppressing the nausea rising in his throat, You Li helped Chen Shuang move away from the corpse.
“The doctor pushed me through a lot of places before.”
“I know somewhere that’s fairly soundproof.”
“I’ll take you to the recreation room on this floor.”
“It’s nearby.”
Chen Shuang clutched her arm, the wound still bleeding freely.
Suppressing a groan of pain, she nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Inside the recreation room, they tore a strip from You Li’s hospital gown.
Imitating what little he knew, You Li wrapped it tightly above her wound, managing to stop the bleeding for the time being.
Keeping his voice low, he said,
“Even though I’ve lost my memory…”
“…my common sense is still there.”
“I must have known a lot about medicine before.”
“I’m sure it’ll come back soon.”
As he carefully tied the knot, he continued,
“The nurse on night duty usually doesn’t bother checking the recreation room since there’s nothing inside.”
“As long as we keep quiet…”
“…the NPCs shouldn’t discover you tonight.”
“And if the Clown comes after anyone…”
“…he’ll come after me first.”
“So don’t worry.”
Chen Shuang was already hovering on the edge of unconsciousness.
After finishing the bandage, You Li carefully shut the recreation room door before immediately heading toward the pharmacy according to what little his memory still retained.
The corridor was eerily quiet.
Blood stained nearly every stretch of the floor.
When he passed the elevator lobby, the middle-aged woman’s corpse had already taken on an unnatural bluish-gray pallor.
Supporting himself against the wall, You Li’s face turned pale.
He deliberately looked away, doing his best not to stare at the body.
Earlier, when he hadn’t been alone, the fear inside him hadn’t fully surfaced.
Only now did it finally catch up with him.
The hospital was dangerous from top to bottom.
Threats could appear at any moment.
The Clown was probably still conducting a room-by-room search for him.
Moving with extreme caution, You Li held his breath.
The pharmacy always had a nurse on duty.
He quietly peeked around the corner.
Inside the pharmacy, the female nurse stood perfectly still.
Motionless.
She stared straight ahead without moving an inch.
You Li immediately shrank back behind the wall.
Squatting on the floor, he desperately tried to think of a solution.
Perhaps…
He could somehow distract the nurse.
If he could lure her away, even briefly, he might be able to sneak inside.
Silently, he asked in his mind,
“System… do you think that’ll work?”
The system answered mercilessly.
“If you’re looking to get yourself killed, don’t bother asking me.”
You Li…
Well…
He could only think of another plan.
There were only three players left alive now.
Even if there had been more, he could never bring himself to sacrifice someone else to distract an NPC.
So…
What else could possibly keep the nurse from noticing him?
You Li remained crouched there for a very long time.
Eventually, he spoke again.
“…Am I actually pretty stupid?”
The system replied,
“How could you be?”
“Aren’t you being quite clever right now?”
You Li lowered his head.
He shuffled a little farther away before opening the bag in his hands.
Carefully, as quietly as possible, he removed the restraint straps.
The bag contained an enormous amount of medicine.
So much medicine that he would normally need an entire cup of water just to swallow it all.
His voice was tiny.
Almost inaudible.
“…I’m a coward too.”
“I’ve always been afraid.”
He began opening the medicine boxes one by one.
Then…
He heard movement.
The nurse inside the pharmacy seemed to have sensed his presence.
Step by step…
She was walking toward him.
You Li curled himself into an even smaller ball in the hallway.
He was terrified.
Truly terrified.
Yet he still followed the prescribed dosage, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he stuffed the pills into his mouth one after another.
They were unbearably bitter.
Astringent.
Without any water, swallowing them dry scraped painfully against his throat.
Each mouthful required repeated efforts to force down.
The nausea was far worse than before.
Far, far worse than when he had water.
“But I really…”
“…really want to go back to the normal world.”
“The doctor was always angry because I wouldn’t take my medicine.”
“Because I refused to cooperate with my treatment.”
“I know…”
“…that I really am mentally ill.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A wild translator appears! Their weakness: coffee. ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
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ChaptersChapter 1 · I have amnesia (1)Chapter 2 · I have amnesia (2)Chapter 3 · I have amnesia (3)Chapter 4 · I have amnesia (4)Chapter 5 · I have amnesia (5)Chapter 6 · I have amnesia (6)Chapter 7 · I have amnesia (7)Chapter 8 · I have amnesia (8)Chapter 9 · I have amnesia (9)Chapter 10 · I have amnesia (10)Chapter 11 · I have amnesia (11)Chapter 12 · I have amnesia (12)Chapter 13 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 14 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 15 · I have amnesia (15)Chapter 16 · I have amnesia (16)Chapter 17 · I have amnesia (17)Chapter 18 · I have amnesia (18)Chapter 19 · I have amnesia (19)Chapter 20 · I have amnesia (20)Chapter 21 · I have amnesia (21)Chapter 22 · I have amnesia (22)Chapter 23 · I have amnesia (23)Chapter 24 · I have amnesia (24)Chapter 25 · I have amnesia (25)Chapter 26 · I have amnesia (26)Chapter 27 · I have amnesia (27)Chapter 28 · I have amnesia (28)Chapter 29 · Desert Highway (1)Chapter 30 · Desert Highway (2)Chapter 31 · Desert Highway (3)Chapter 32 · Desert Highway (4)Chapter 33 · Desert Highway (5)Chapter 34 · Desert Highway (6)Chapter 35 · Desert Highway (7)Chapter 36 · Desert Highway (8)Chapter 37 · Desert Highway (9)Chapter 38 · Desert Highway (10)Chapter 39 · Desert Highway (11)Chapter 40 · Desert Highway (12)Chapter 41 · Desert Highway (13)Chapter 42 · Desert Highway (14)Chapter 43 · Desert Highway (15)