Mo Yi and Yu Ran looked at each other, turned and ran into the corridor.
The whistling wind poured into their ears with the fast pace, and the dim and twisted walls blurred into a phantom in the peripheral light.
As Mo Yi ran, he counted the number of remaining players in his heart. The more he thought about it, the heavier he felt, as if a massive lead weight fell on his heart and slowly sank in it.
A total of seventeen people entered the instance, and up to now, including him and Yu Ran, six people had survived.
Mo Yi’s heart was mixed– although the number of people meant a decrease in effective strength, he had to admit that it was easier to manage when the number of people was small, especially in the current situation.
Before they could continue to think about it, the two had already returned to the hall.
Mo Yi stopped his steps on the uneven ground and looked around the whole room.
In the silent room, the harsh and monotonous nursery rhyme became louder and louder, repeating the same melody over and over again. The children’s voice with its changing tone sounded strange, terrifying and creepy.
The whole room was empty, without the slightest population, as if… the other players had disappeared into thin air.
At first, the two thought that the other players would be hiding because they were afraid, but they soon found out that something was wrong.
Yu Ran walked out of the room beside him and shook her head at Mo Yi helplessly.
It seemed there were only two of them left in the whole house.
Only the weird nursery rhyme still kept for a moment, lingering in the shadows, the vague lyrics intermittent, but still singing persistently.
Yu Ran’s face was pale, and a look of uneasiness flashed in her calm eyes. She swallowed a mouthful of saliva with some difficulty, and then said, “You said… shouldn’t they…?”
Mo Yi’s expression was not very good. He closed his eyes and thought about it carefully, then answered flatly:
“impossible.”
He raised his eyes and searched the whole room carefully, with a faint coldness in his pupils:
“Every step must be followed strictly to complete the sacrifice, and killing everyone now is digging one’s own grave.”
Mo Yi paused, narrowed his eyes slightly, and continued:
“As for Ivy…even for her it is very difficult to kill everyone in such a short period of time without leaving any bloodstained corpses and traces of struggle. Besides, she has no need to lie to us. She didn’t attack us when she had the absolute advantage just now, even less now.”
His voice was cold, the pace of his speech was neither hasty nor slow, and he analyzed one by one rationally and calmly.
Yu Ran stared into Mo Yi’s calm eyes. He was indifferent but deep like the sea with a cold heaviness, which convinced people.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
It inexplicably calmed her nervous nerves– even her irritable and frightened mood became calm.
Zb Tl ogbkcfv jcv aegcfv tlr fsfr ab ibbx ja Te Ejc, tlr qjif mbwqifzlbc kjr rajlcfv klat j ilaaif kbggs:
“Mbg atf meggfca rlaejalbc, P bcis tjnf rbwf ecobgwfv uefrrfr lc ws tfjga…”
Te Ejc lcafggeqafv tlw j ilaaif jczlberis:
“Pa vbfrc’a wjaafg. Gbc’a kbggs jybea uefrrlcu bg cba. Qtfatfg atfgf lr fnlvfcmf bg cba, sbe mjc rjs la olgra jcv P klii ilrafc.”
Mo Yi took a deep look at her and said:
“After the start of the side quest, the difficulty of the entire instance will be greatly increased. For Ivy, she regained her extreme and paranoid rational thinking, so she decided to kill all players once and for all. Since this is the case, will the house be prepared to follow the same path?”
Yu Ran was stunned: “What do you mean?”
“……Yes.”
Mo Yi glanced at her, nodded slightly, and then said:
“My guess is that this house also wants to be done once and for all. Ivy’s method is to cut the grass and remove the roots, then the house’s method should be to raise its sacrifices, and then kill a few every hour, which is the safest, isn’t it?”
He gave a low smile: “If it were me, I would do the same.”
Yu Ran looked at Mo Yi’s indifferent profile, and couldn’t help shivering, a coldness spreading up her back:
Please don’t make dangerous speeches in this atmosphere! Very scary!
But… she had to say that Mo Yi’s guess was very logical and reasonable, and the more she thought about it, the more likely it was.
Suddenly a bell rang in Yu Ran, and her face became ugly: “Wait, but this hour’s nursery rhyme has already sounded… If this room has successfully raised other players, doesn’t it mean that someone is likely to have died here?”
Mo Yi raised his eyebrows and said unsurprisingly, “It’s true that the nursery rhyme started, but it hasn’t stopped, hasn’t it?”
Yu Ran was stunned.
He didn’t care about Yu Ran’s changing expression, and just continued:
“The nursery rhyme will stop only after successfully killing people, and now the nursery rhyme is still playing. Ivy has not jumped out to kill us, which means that the sacrifice at this hour has not been yet completed. That is to say, there have been no new deaths.”
Yu Ran frowned and asked inexplicably, “Then why did it drag on for so long, without starting?”
The nursery rhyme in the background sounded terrifying and eerie, and the vague and distorted children’s voice sang the same melody over and over, replaying monotonously and harshly in the quiet and empty room.
Mo Yi listened attentively, and was a little distracted for a while. He turned to look at Yu Ran and said:
“I think it may be a constraint on them in the instance, just like Ivy’s locket, it can prevent such monsters from directly abusing players in the instance after the difficulty increases. After all, this game will never put players into such a deadly instance.”
…it just killed you in the long term.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and suppressed the deep resentment for this game in his heart.
Yu Ran also thought of this, sighed wearily, and then continued to ask, “What shall we do next?”
Mo Yi was still a little distracted. He was recalled to reality by Yu Ran’s words, but his mind still seemed to wander.
He didn’t answer Yu Ran’s question, but hesitated for a moment, frowned and changed the subject:
“Do you remember how these nursery rhymes… usually appear?”
Yu Ran didn’t expect him to ask this question, and couldn’t help but be stunned: “What do you mean?”
Mo Yi glanced at her quickly, and his speed of speech also accelerated:
“The first nursery rhyme was ‘crooked man’, which was sung by the crooked man himself. The second nursery rhyme and the third nursery rhyme were both played upstairs, and those monsters also climbed down from upstairs. The fourth nursery rhyme, ‘a very untidy man’, was sung by the man who was torn apart.”
Yu Ran’s eyes lit up: “So, the source of this nursery rhyme should be the monster’s location!”
Mo Yi nodded and added with a smile: “The worst is also the source of the monsters. In short, it is a starting point.”
He raised his head, listened carefully to the indistinct voice of the nursery rhyme, and then took a few steps towards the source of the voice.
In front of the twisted and narrow stairs, Mo Yi’s steps stopped. He narrowed his eyes and looked straight into the deep darkness above the stairs.
The hoarse and monotonous tune of the nursery rhyme came from upstairs.
Mo Yi tightened his fingers slightly, his cool fingertips curled up in the palm of his hand, and a cold dull pain came from his peripheral nerves.
The terrifying scene upstairs was still vivid in his mind. Should he go upstairs where the nursery rhyme sounded at this time, then he was afraid that it would be even more dangerous.
Yu Ran also walked to his side, raised her head and looked at the stairs in a complicated way, as if she wanted to break the heavy atmosphere in front of her. She joked a little stiffly:
“Thank you for your experience of going downstairs alive, otherwise I wouldn’t dare to go up.”
Mo Yi shook his head heavily and replied, “That’s what I’m worried about.”
He paused, didn’t look at Yu Ran’s surprised eyes, and continued:
“When I came back from outside the house, I didn’t have time to stress the danger above, so I went straight to the kitchen.
The other players have basically searched the first floor, and the area upstairs will naturally be the place they want to explore next. ”
When they were in the kitchen just now, they ran out as soon as they heard the nursery rhyme, and it took no more than a minute before and after. In such a short time, the monster could never come down from upstairs and take everyone away.
The only explanation was… the players were not downstairs, but upstairs.
And wrongly underestimated the danger there.
Mo Yi turned to look at Yu Ran, his eyebrows were dyed with rare seriousness and caution:
“I was almost killed upstairs, don’t take it lightly.”
At this moment, he suddenly remembered something, and said to Ran very quickly: “Do you remember that kitchen knife you got in the kitchen? It’s better to bring it with you.”
That kitchen knife once cut off the blind mouse’s tail, proving that it can hurt the monsters in this instance, and it was beneficial to bring it with them.
Yu Ran didn’t ask him why, just nodded hastily, turned and ran back to the kitchen. When she appeared again, there was already a rusty blade in her palm.
Although it may not be usable, the weapon was at least reassuring in her hand.
Mo Yi glanced subtly at the kitchen knife that looked extremely heavy in her hand. Yu Ran’s face did not change her color and looked relaxed. Then he secretly pinched his thin arm that could touch the bone.
Fitness will pay off one day.
The two no longer delayed, and walked up the stairs one after the other.
The beam of the flashlight swayed in the cramped and narrow stairwell, and the monotonous nursery rhyme became clearer and louder.
The crooked stairs and the deep darkness in front of them were almost unnerving, and the wooden stairs underfoot made slight creaking sounds.
They stepped on the second floor, and the smell of rotting wood and dust wafted toward them. Besides that… there seemed to be a subtle, strange smell of dampness.
The sound of the nursery rhyme grew louder.
The two walked forward cautiously, subconsciously holding their breaths, and the deliberately light steps were almost silent under the cover of the dirty carpet.
At this moment, there was a strange striking sound in their ears, which seemed to come from the darkness at the end of the corridor.
Mo Yi’s heart tightened, he pulled Yu Ran, and dodged into the nearest room beside him.
The striking sound of ‘da da’ and the sound of the nursery rhyme got closer and closer, Mo Yi turned off the flashlight, held his breath, and let himself hide in the dark motionlessly.
The heavy and dense striking accompanied the sweet song of the little girl, getting closer and closer to their ears.
–and finally stopped at the door where they were hiding.
Thanks for the update
spooky!
thanks for the chapter <3
Did the girl sing last time too? I don’t remember…
thank you very much for the translation 💙💙💙💙💙
You don’t have to be the brawns when you’re brains!
I can’t believe how tense this chapter is and then right in the middle Mo Yi just takes a moment to lament that muscle growth takes time ahaha. Wish I could say that ending was any less scary because of it
Thank you so much for translating! <3