/
Mu Jiashi was expecting Selfish to be uncooperative, but it was worth a try. So he just responds in silence to Selfish’s taunts.
He isn’t someone good at winning verbal assaults anyway, and would rather not waste his saliva talking to people like Selfish; he’s had his fair share of selfish people who are even more so than Selfish in his days working for customers.
At least Selfish wasn’t getting in the way of them trying to figure out the Nightmare. Some customers, though…
Oho.
So in the Nightmare, Mu Jiashi has been pretty calm up to this point——Perhaps excessively so, both to others and to himself.
In the Nightmare, maintaining a calm mind is top priority, because nobody knows when danger might suddenly come in the Nightmares.
You might think Selfish is extremely temperamental given his spewing bullets, but he might be calmer than anyone would think.
He is a lone wolf.
Lone wolves that have survived this long in the Tower, are never characters to underestimate.
This is the bottom floor?
So what. People make mistakes all the time. See, even Mu Jiashi could end up retreating to the bottom of the valley from time to time. There is no way to tell what the ‘companions’ one meets in Nightmares have experienced and what past they have had.
Missiontakers in the Tower are distant and wary of each other.
Mu Jiashi is nonresponsive because he has become too used to these things, but Scapegoat, clearly much more inexperienced than any of them are, is retorting, “how nasty are you? He doesn’t even have a utility card!”
Selfish then targets him instead, going, “then if you’ve got a utility card, use it!”
Scapegoat then grows hesitant.
Of course he does. All Missiontakers who have utility cards will definitely take a few with them when entering Nightmares. True, Carddealers are always a risk, but nobody wants to ever actually end up lost in Collapsed Nightmares forever.
Missiontakers in the Tower all know that if they can’t leave a Nightmare, then all they would do is forever repeat a wholly crumbled, Collapsed Nightmare. It is a fate worse than death.
Of course, whether this information really is true, and where it came from, is no longer known. It was just a kind of common knowledge by now.
Besides… it can never be proven anyway.
The same way that dead people cannot just jump back up to tell the living what happens after they die; Missiontakers who have lost themselves in Collapsed Nightmares cannot just appear suddenly either to tell them what happened to them.
Really, it is entirely unknown whether Nightmares really have a Collapsed, repeating state either, but the Missiontakers——And even Actors——believe so.
Especially when nobody wants to use their own life to test whether the claim is true.
The Tower is bad enough; if they are lost forever in those inexplicable, repeating, endless Nightmares, that would be hell on earth.
Which is also a reason many of the Missiontakers have grown tired and hopeless. They do not enter Nightmares again, but instead, join in the apocalypse fiestas hosted by some Missiontakers.
And even Missiontakers who still enter Nightmares, unless a True End is visibly in sight, are all more prone to playing it safe and finishing with a Normal End first before retrying, like Selfish, who is challenging the Nightmare again with information he already acquired from the last run.
They also avoid using utility cards as much as possible.
Naturally, that includes Scapegoat, who is now hesitant, unsure, and working out the pros and cons.
Selfish just goes “ha, I’m telling you hypocrites, just be a true fiend like me and you’ll at least be free of all those moral responsibilities and ethics. I said I would not give up my utility card and I mean it…”
Scapegoat’s face is all red when he yells, “you… you’re calling me a hypocrite? You shameless…”
Selfish and Scapegoat are arguing at the backseats.
“Enough,” Lin Qin says impatiently, “I’m going back to the Tower now. I’ll suppress the man in black when we’re there.”
The car falls silent; all three Missiontakers look at him in shock.
Though somehow, Mu Jiashi is even sighing in relief inside. This Nightmare… The whole way they came along for this Nightmare, has made him deeply exhausted.
From both the physical trip, to the back-and-forth between all the Missiontakers present, or the annoying issue with the time in this Nightmare, or even his own failure, are all making him feel like——He should just be a piece a trash like he said.
A true piece of trash, that has given up on himself, who never wants to do any work anymore.
Therefore, when Lin Qin said he is planning to deal with the man in black himself, Mu Jiashi is even cheering for him inside.
They’ve got all the information already. If they really want to get a True End, they can just try again later. The first few times a Nightmare is opened wouldn’t cause too much change to it anyway, nor will a Nightmare crumble already in the first few runs.
Mu Jiashi is silent, and the other two Missiontakers don’t dare to go against the dalao either, worried they’ll be dealt with first——Even Selfish is flexible with his modus operandi now.
Thus Lin Qin nods and says with a pleased tone, “then it’s decided. Not that any of you look like you can get a True End anyway.”
The Missiontakers “…”
Dalao, please, mercy, dalao.
Lin Qin doesn’t know how his words are arrows to the Missiontakers’ knees, but instead, is looking outside the window, glad he’ll be leaving the Nightmare soon.
After figuring out Xü Beijin’s preference and securing a chance to visit him, he doesn’t want to wait a second more already.
In fact, given his personality, the reason he still put up with everything for so long still was because he was thinking carefully about what to do next.
He definitely overestimated both himself and the group of Missiontakers this time, though. After all this time, he couldn’t come up with a plan, and these Missiontakers couldn’t come up with a plan either.
Having lost his patience, Lin Qin decided to end the Nightmare already.
This is actually something he does all the time, but this time, for once, not because he’s been pissed off, but because there is something that makes him really, desperately want to be back in the Tower.
Thinking so, when the four of them reach the service area, Lin Qin exits and walks straight for the flowerbed in the plaza——Then he stops.
Mu Jiashi, who was running along following him, also makes an ‘eh’ sound reflexively.
The man in black, is nowhere to be seen in the service area.
In fact, even many of the many Tower residents that were hanging out before have disappeared. The entire service area is almost empty. The bloody, chaotic murder scene from before is gone, replaced by this unsettling silence.
Mu Jiashi widens his eyes in shock and murmurs, “what happened? Did the Nightmare change again…”
After that brief moment of confusion, he quickly rushes for the service area supermarket. Selfish and Scapegoat follow right behind.
Inside, Dai Wu is still working at his post, showing a strange expression when he sees the three of them run over.
“You guys again? Still for the killer?” He then asks, curiously, “but after that guy killed his wife and slaughtered people in the service area, he’s been apprehended and sentenced to death already. Didn’t you watch the news?”
What Dai Wu just said makes Mu Jiashi stop as a realisation finally hits him.
In the bookstore, Xü Beijin, who was observing with the stream, puts his head on his upright arm to mutter, “I see…”