Chapter 85
Chapter 85
When Wei Sen returned to the room, it was pitch-black inside.
The light switches were on either side of the two beds. There wasn’t one by the door.
Wei Sen turned on her phone’s flashlight and entered the room, then pressed the switch at the head of the bed on the left.
The tungsten bulb hanging from the ceiling lit up. Perhaps because it was old, the light it gave off was a dim, yellowish glow.
It was nearly 7:00 p.m., and the forest outside had long since fallen into complete darkness.
Wei Sen checked the glass door leading to the balcony and discovered that it couldn’t be locked from the inside. The instant she opened it, a cold wind swept in, carrying snowflakes with it.
Wei Sen wrapped herself in a thick scarf and stepped out onto the balcony, raising her head to look at the night sky.
The pitch-black sky held neither stars nor moon, nor the slightest trace of light resembling the Aurora.
Her gaze shifted toward the forest. The light from the hotel shone across the accumulated snow, while snowflakes continued to rage through the air.
After standing outside for only a few minutes, Wei Sen’s hands and feet were already about to freeze stiff. She was just about to turn back into the room when something moving rapidly appeared in her field of vision.
Her eyes locked onto the forest, but because the light could not reach very far, Wei Sen could only see some crawling thing vanish swiftly into the woods, leaving four messy rows of tracks across the snow within the reach of the light.
During the day, they had seen no living creatures at all on the way from the forest to the hotel. Not even a single bird.
Why had something come out to move around at night?
Could that thing only be active after dark?
And those four strange rows of tracks… Wei Sen truly couldn’t think of what kind of animal could leave marks like that when it walked.
Before the tracks could be covered by the wind and snow, she quickly took a photo with her phone.
Although the photo was rather blurry because of the poor lighting, the marks in the snow could still vaguely be made out.
Wei Sen closed the balcony door and returned to the room. There was no fireplace or air conditioner inside, but compared to the frozen world outside, it was still much warmer.
Bzzzt. Her watch vibrated.
[Chen Lin: Our balcony door doesn’t have a lock. What about yours?
Lin Xiaoxue: (panicking) Ours doesn’t either!
Huang Xinze: They probably all don’t. Same here.
Lin Xiaoxue: Something won’t come in from outside at night, right…
Xia Susu: Don’t jinx it! We’re on the second floor, okay? That’s dangerous!
He Xu: Everyone, don’t panic. As long as we strictly follow the Guest Room Rules, the danger will be greatly reduced.
Xia Susu: Sister Xu, what do you mean by greatly reduced? Isn’t following the rules supposed to make us absolutely safe?
He Xu: Instances above A-Rank have too many hidden Killing Rules that we don’t know about.
Guo Lan: The Eerie Entities in an S-Rank Instance may initiate Random Killing.
Xu You: How is that any different from one-sided hunting???
Guo Lan: Eerie Entities won’t kill everyone all at once. Right now, their killing logic isn’t completely clear, but in the Instances I’ve experienced, Eerie Entities only hunt freely when the Red Door appears.
He Xu: Another reminder for everyone: Eerie Entities have the ability to think, just like us. Generally speaking, when they kill, they’ll choose the easiest targets first.]
Wei Sen looked at the messages on her watch and sank into thought.
Random Killing by S-Rank Eerie Entities…
Just like in the S-Rank Instance Dark Fairy Tale, the Wolf in the Misty Forest, the Hunter in the wooden cabin, and the Witch could all kill participants regardless of whether they had broken the rules!
Meanwhile, in C-rank Instances like Zhihui Primary School and Infinite Airlines, the Eerie Entities could only exhaust every method to tempt them into breaking the rules, then kill them afterward.
So this was the true horror of S-Rank. If they hadn’t personally experienced an S-Rank Instance, no one would have told them these things in advance.
What Wei Sen cared about even more was why there was a limit to how many people Eerie Entities could kill, and why they could begin hunting without restraint once the Red Door appeared.
Was it because Eerie Entities didn’t want to kill everyone at once and lose the pleasure of the hunt?
Or… was the act of Eerie Entities killing people itself restricted by some kind of rule or force?
[Xia Susu: Then if we run into an Eerie Entity’s Random Killing, doesn’t that mean we newcomers can only gamble on luck?!
He Xu: Take out your Anomalous Artifact and fight it. Either it dies, or you do.
Xia Susu: But doesn’t killing an Eerie Entity deduct Merit Points?
He Xu: Yes.
Xia Susu: Isn’t that a dead end?]
After Xia Susu sent that message, everyone in the group fell silent.
In Room 201, even the usually carefree Lin Xiaoxue realized something was wrong.
“Sister Lan.”
Guo Lan, who was sitting on the other bed, looked up. “What is it?”
Lin Xiaoxue’s eyes trembled slightly. “Newcomers aren’t suited to entering an S-Rank Instance at all. But before we came in, Sister Xu, Brother Jie, Brother Shuang, and you all knew that. Yet not one of you stopped us…”
They had not stopped them because they themselves had the ability to clear an S-Rank Instance. They also needed more fools to act as cannon fodder and draw the Eerie Entity’s fire!
Even more terrifying when she thought about it was that the first person to suggest they enter an S-Rank Instance had been Sister CC!
Sister CC had clearly known everything! But she had only told them that clearing an S-Rank Instance would let them join The Organization. She had never told them that, for newcomers, an S-Rank Instance was practically a death sentence!
A flicker of doubt crossed Guo Lan’s face. “I thought you all knew?”
Lin Xiaoxue shook her head slightly. “No one ever told us…”
Guo Lan fell silent. Only after a long while did she say, “He Xu and Zhou Jie are obviously planning to use you as cannon fodder. Because the Eerie Entity can trigger Random Killing, killing newcomers like you is definitely much easier than killing people like them, who have an Anomalous Artifact on them. But I truly didn’t know you dared to come into an S-Rank Instance without understanding anything.”
Lin Xiaoxue lowered her head. In the end, they had been tricked into coming here by CC!
There were so many hidden dangers in an S-Rank Instance, yet CC had glossed over the important parts and never warned them at all. If she had revealed even a little of the danger beforehand, there was no way all of them would have stupidly come here as cannon fodder with only one Anomalous Artifact and a few hundred Merit Points each.
But they were already here now. All they could do was think of every possible way to survive.
“Don’t worry. You’re my employer. I’ll protect you,” Guo Lan said.
Lin Xiaoxue kept her head lowered and said quietly, “No one can protect me forever. And I can’t… keep relying on other people.”
Back at The Organization’s secret meeting, she had been the first one to suggest entering an S-Rank Instance. Sister Sen and Sister You had only followed because her attitude had been so firm.
So she could not get them killed! Even more than that, she could not drag them down!
In Room 310, Wei Sen looked at the new messages in the group.
[He Xu: With us veterans here, we’ll definitely take care of you newcomers first, so don’t worry too much! Besides, I heard you all have an Anomalous Artifact on you too. Even if you run into the Eerie Entity’s Random Killing, your odds of winning are still pretty high.
Xia Susu: Hearing that from Sister Xu makes me feel much better!
He Xu: Tonight, find something to block the balcony door and lock the door from the inside. Most importantly, remember not to violate any of the known rules.
Xia Susu: Okay!]
Wei Sen glanced at the chair in the room. Using that thing to block the balcony-if something really wanted to get in, it would be nothing but self-deception.
She had not expected an S-Rank Instance to have so much hidden information, while that woman CC had avoided the crucial points and given them not even half a warning.
What exactly was that woman’s purpose in deliberately using the Merit Points bonus to lure them into entering an S-Rank Instance early?
Even if all of them died inside the Instance, what good would that do her?
Wei Sen could not figure it out, so she simply stopped thinking about it and got up to wash.
In any case, as Guo Lan had said, even if the Eerie Entity activated Random Killing, first, there was a limit to the number of victims; second, it depended on Aggro Value; and third, it depended on difficulty.
No matter how she looked at it, her turn would not come tonight.
After Wei Sen finished washing up, she climbed into bed and lay down.
Early to bed, early to rise. The next day, she would have more time to search for clues and look for the conditions for a Perfect Clearance.
But just as she reached out to turn off the light, she realized that no matter how many times she pressed the switch, the light would not go out.
The Guest Room Rules stated that after 11:00 p.m., the room lights had to be turned off, or they would attract things from the forest!
But now her switch had stopped working, and the light could not be turned off at all!