Edited by RinRin
As Shan Ziwei and Sha Po Lang climbed up the stairs, Shan Ziwei could feel the other’s unflinching gaze burning into him despite having his attention on the multipurpose tracker.
“… Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Ah, I was just surprised. You don’t look like the kind of person who could do that kinda thing.” Sha Po Lang smacked her lips. “I never thought you could so resolutely kill my grandfather –“
“I didn’t kill him,” Shan Ziwei stuttered, “I-I-I was just trying to scare him.”
Currently, on Sha Po Lang’s back, an elderly man huddled there and attempted to hide himself behind his granddaughter’s back, terrified of being seen by the white-haired young man.
“But you would’ve. I trust my instincts; they generally don’t lead me wrong, and in that moment, they told me that if my grandfather hadn’t immediately obeyed, then you wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him.” Even after Shan Ziwei had voiced his disagreement, Sha Po Lang still spoke with absolute conviction. Then she added, “Ah, I don’t mean to say that what you did was wrong. I’m just surprised. The first impression you gave me was that you were a soft guy, I didn’t expect you to be so resolute.”
“Personally ensure their wellbeing” was a trap set for the players by the system. As soon as the scenario activated, the players would be forced to stick to their family member to “ensure” and thus confirm their wellbeing, because as soon as the family member left the side of the player, then they would be in a state of uncertainty between “well” and “unwell”. It was like Schrodinger’s cat, where the cat in the box was between “dead” and “alive”.
So how could you break this state of uncertainty? The easiest way was to open the box and confirm the status of the cat inside, just like the players sticking to their family members to confirm that they were well. Apart from that, the only other way to break the state of uncertainty was to use an “absolute”: if you took the cat out of the box and kept it out, then that cat would remain “alive”. That was the method Little Shuai and co had planned to use. If they got their family members out of the hospital, then they would remain “well”. Though this was a correct solution, the system used this to drag out the time the players would need, so Shan Ziwei had to choose the other route.
If you put a dead cat into the box, then even if you closed the box, you still knew that the cat was definitely “dead”. Similarly, if a player’s family member died in front of the player, then they could confirm that their family member would from that point on always be “unwell”. That was the situation Shan Ziwei was in. Maria had died in front of him, so even if he left her side, he wouldn’t lose any SP. Compared to making sure their family member remained “well”, it was far easier to make them remain “unwell”. The only problem was that a player couldn’t personally cause their family member any harm. Thus, when the old man had lain on the floor playing dead, the white-haired young man had pointed his gun at the old man and told the other he’d turn his pretend death into a real one.
Hearing Sha Po Lang’s words, Shan Ziwei fell silent for a moment before shaking his head. “… I wouldn’t kill him.”
Sha Po Lang made a noise of surprise and confusion before she heard the white-haired young man continue.
“I can’t kill your family member.” Shan Ziwei really wished he wasn’t so familiar with the way the system was. “I have a strong feeling that if I were to kill your grandfather, the system will probably give you an ‘avenge your grandfather’ scenario.”
Sha Po Lang was stunned for a moment, clearly not having thought of that. “It wouldn’t screw with us like that, would it?”
Shan Ziwei, his past experiences of pain flashing through his mind, gave her a dead look: trust me, the system absolutely loves to screw with players like that.
Little Gaia clung to Shan Ziwei’s shoulder, silently turning his head away.
Shan Ziwei climbed a couple more stairs and turned to look exasperatedly at Sha Po Lang, who was still staring. “Any other questions?”
“I wanted to ask just now. Did something cut or rip out a chunk of your hair? There’s a part that’s cut short at the back.”
“…” We’re about to deal with the perpetrator of that hair crime.
Shan Ziwei silently turned back, but didn’t climb further up the stairs, instead staring at the area at the top. Sha Po Lang asked, “What’s wrong?”
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.
“Before, there was a nurse here stopping people from heading up this way. They’re gone now.” Shan Ziwei stared at the empty space at the top of the stairs. His instincts told him he was about to see something horrific. “The monster is in the hall on that floor.”
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“In a moment, we’ll head up. I’ll draw the monster’s aggro and you stay at the top of the stairs and DPS. Stick to the plan.”
“Okaaaaay~”
There were seven minutes left until the monster’s second evolution. Shan Ziwei motioned for Sha Po Lang to put her grandfather down, and then the two of them began to smear their bullets with the concoction they were given, preparing for battle. Shan Ziwei got a “Three of Clubs – Mirror Image” and a “Three of Diamonds – Magic Mirror” from Little Gaia. They only had two people on their side. Getting his mirror images to help would lower the risk.
Shan Ziwei summoned his mirror image and Sha Po Lang pulled her goggles down over her eyes, whistling at the sight of the two identical white-haired young men.
“Cool! Is this a perfect copy? Can he use your skills and equipment?”
“He can’t.” Shan Ziwei glanced at the identical tactical equipment and tracker tagging gun on his mirror image, shaking his head in disappointment. “The equipment and items on the mirror image are all just there for show. He can’t use skills either; he can only use normal attacks with his hands.”
It made sense though. If a mirror image could copy all the equipment, items and skills he had as well, then he could use it as a bug to make infinite copies of what he had.
After making all their preparations, Shan Ziwei held his gun tight and took a deep breath, giving the order.
“Let’s go!”
One, two, three steps. Shan Ziwei charged up the stairs, taking several steps at a time. Even if he had mentally prepared himself beforehand, Shan Ziwei still received quite a fright from the state of the corridor. For a moment he thought he had entered the body of some giant. The corridor was completely covered by meat tendons. Bloody red flesh surrounded them on all sides, pulsing like the internal organs of some great beast.
The little monster was bouncing around the flesh walls with its tuft of white hair. Seeing Shan Ziwei, it stopped and patted the stretchy, elastic flesh, as if showing off the results of its hard work to a parent.
As its father, Shan Ziwei expressed his surprised delight and rewarded it with a bullet.
The little monster slapped the ground with its two tentacles, using the elasticity of the flesh walls to dodge the bullet. It stuck itself to the ceiling, feeling as if its good will and intentions had been trodden on. Plucking the white hair off its head in anger, it slapped the tuft of hair against the ceiling and then rolled over it repeatedly with its round body.
Sha Po Lang, who also was shocked at the state of the corridor when she had come up, stared at the monster as it steamrolled the tuft of hair, taking aim as she asked curiously, “What’s it doing?”
“… Ahahah.”
The little monster slapped the flesh wall once again, using it to dodge Sha Po Lang’s attack. After it landed on the flesh ground, its flesh sagged out and expanded before abruptly contracting, squeezing out a spray of liquid.
“Splish!”
Shan Ziwei and Sha Po Lang stared as the liquid splashed onto the area a meter in front of them, not even touching a hair on their heads. Sha Po Lang commented, “I think… it just spat at us.”
“… Change of plan. Use incendiary bullets.” Shan Ziwei’s voice was full of exhaustion. “We can’t hit it with all this around.”
“Okaaay.”
Sha Po Lang immediately switched in her red bullets, aiming the muzzle of her AWP-like rifle towards the depths of the corridor.
“Bang!”
The bright red bullet sailed through the hallway in a trail of burning heat, erupting into flames as it hit the flesh wall. At the same time, Shan Ziwei and his mirror image charged into the fleshy corridor. Shan Ziwei raised his gun, trying to force the monster away from putting out the flames.
The monster dodged the bullet. Upon seeing Shan Ziwei, it abandoned its attempt to extinguish the flames. Slapping the wall with its tentacles, it threw itself at Shan Ziwei. His mirror image lunged in front of Shan Ziwei, getting roughly slammed against the flesh wall by the monster. A certain hypersexual stared at the mirror image pinned against the fleshy wall with tentacles wrapped all around him, his scalp feeling numb, and silently apologised to his mirror image for the one hundred and first time.
Fwaaah –
The tiny embers began to burn away the plains; the flames on the walls roared, spreading rapidly. Shan Ziwei quickly returned to the entrance to the stairway to avoid getting caught up in it. The flesh walls were far more flammable than he had expected. It was probably a weak point the system had given them on purpose. The bloody red flesh tendons rapidly burnt into a charred black as the flames devoured them, soon turning to ash. However, no matter how fast the flames burned, it would take at least twenty minutes to rid the corridor of the flesh walls. After twenty minutes, the monster would long have evolved.
“Aaahhh… We can’t fight like this.” Sha Po Lang stared at the inferno of smoke and flames that filled the corridor. “We can’t even see where the monster is, never mind take aim.”
“No,” Shan Ziwei said. His mouth curved into a smile as his eyes grew bright, “We can see it.”
Shan Ziwei slung his gun back across his back and raised his hand, activating the multipurpose tracker on his wrist in mode one.
“Forward left 35 degrees, distance 13.4 meters, height 0.1 meters. Aim, fire!”
Sha Po Lang subconsciously did as Shan Ziwei directed, shooting a bullet into the flames. “Bang!”
The bullet pierced through the fire. The gap that appeared in the flames due to the gust the bullet brought with it quickly swayed closed. They heard a very faint sound of impact from the other side.
“Did we hit it? Did we hit it?” Sha Po Lang asked, even more excited than Shan Ziwei.
Shan Ziwei didn’t reply, immediately giving the next set of coordinates, “Forward left 34 degrees, distance 13.8 meters, height 0.1 meters –“
This time, Shan Ziwei didn’t even need to give the command before Sha Po Lang shot as she cried out in excitement, “We can actually hit it like this!”
“Forward left 33 degrees, distance 14.1 meters, height 0.1 meters.”
“Bang!”
“Forward left 35 degrees, distance 14.3 meters, height 0.1 meters.”
“Bang!”
After a few rounds, Sha Po Lang realized why she could hit her target so easily.
“Why does that monster move so slowly?” Sha Po Lang asked in confusion as she reloaded, “Is it afraid of fire?”
“I don’t think so. The bald guy told us that only the concoction he gave us can harm the monster, so it’s clearly not afraid of fire.” Shan Ziwei looked down at his tracker and gave another set of coordinates before continuing, “I’ve seen it use a technique where it uses its tentacles to protect itself. It’s probably using that defensive mode. However, there’s still three full minutes until the monster’s gonna evolve; it’s enough for us to kill it.”
“Right-o~”
Sha Po Lang whistled cheerfully as she shot a couple more bullets in accordance with Shan Ziwei’s directions. She waited for a moment but didn’t receive anymore coordinates. The short-haired girl turned her head to look at Shan Ziwei, “What’s up?”
Shan Ziwei stared at the radar display on his wrist. Sha Po Lang glanced at it and realised that the blue dot had disappeared.
Sha Po Lang immediately grew excited, “It’s over!?”
In contrast to her excitement, Shan Ziwei’s face was pale. He looked over the display again and again, but no matter how hard he looked, there was no blue dot.
Shan Ziwei gloomily interrupted Sha Po Lang’s cheering, “No… I made a grave mistake.”
“?”
“A pawn tagged by the tracker tagging gun will appear on the tracker even if they’re dead.” Shan Ziwei’s expression was filled with despair, “There’s only one explanation to the blue dot disappearing: the tag on the monster has been neutralized.”
“Er, but it’s not time for the monster to evolve yet, right?”
“No, it’s not, but the last time I had shot the monster was before it evolved.” Shan Ziwei numbly explained, “We had the monster’s evolution time in mind, but we forgot that the concoction would lose its effect after two hours, too. As soon as the concoction loses its effect, the tracking bullet inside it would be melted, so we naturally wouldn’t be able to find the monster anymore…”
Sha Po Lang was speechless.
“I’m sorry.” Shan Ziwei announced their current situation, feeling pained, “We’re about to be faced with the fully healed monster.”
As if responding to his words, the blazing fire died as if someone had blown it out and then erupted.
Tiny embers of flame fell onto the ground, quickly extinguishing like their faint hopes. What appeared in front of Shan Ziwei and Sha Po Lang now was a white creature covered in red patterns. Its level?
Bishop.
Next up, Scenario Twenty-Five: Monster Hunter (VII)
I forgot to welcome Rinrin as our new editor last time orz. Welcome Rinrin! 
Also, I saw some good discussion going on in the comments of the last chapter Someone managed to guess what Shan Ziwei’s thoughts, congrats haha!
RIP
Shit😫
Emocionante…………!!!!!!!! que sucederá? 😲
What a sassy 120 min old monster 😆
🤣🤣🤣
More like a bear child
Ah big welp…
Thanks for the chapter! 💕
Thanks for the chapterrrrr 💙
lololol little Gaia turning his head away in guilt… xDD
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)
Oh noooo, patiently waiting for this little boss with hypersensitivity to turn the game around!
Thank you for the chapter! 🤧👌
Tysm for this chapter!!!!
gg ( ╹▽╹ )
Guilty Gaia and temper tantrum monster child 🤣 good luck beating the bishop 👀