Previous Chapter Θ Table of Content Θ Next Chapter

Chapter 45: The Haunted Mansion by the Tarn (Final)

---

The series of events that occurred while they were leaving the Mansion went surprisingly well. After the formation lost its effect, the House of Usher simply became an ordinary place of residence. On their way home, a particular change was quite obvious: the portraits on the wall had become random scrawlings, appearing just like disorderly paint splotches. As for the phenomena of illusions and spatial distortions, those naturally vanished as well. After noting this, the five of them quickly returned to the parlor by the front door on the first floor.

This time, the door flew open with a single kick from Long Aomin, and a burst of cold air from outside assaulted their faces. Even if it was a world of ice and snow outside right now, the five of them refused to stay even a moment longer in the mansion.

As the party passed through the front door, the System notification went off, 【Current mission accomplished. The Main mission has been completed in its entirety】

Feng Bujue, who was carrying Madeline Usher’s body, then heard another line,【Hidden Mission completed】

“Just bringing it out of the Mansion is fine, right….” Feng Bujue laid Madeline’s body on the ground as he said this.

Not long after, the corpse began to decay at a speed visible to the naked eye, quickly becoming a skeleton that, soon after, turned into dust.

Like mist, it floated away into the distance, dissipating into the red sky.

【You have finished this Scenario. After 180 seconds, you will be automatically teleported】

“It was a pleasure to work with all of you,” said Sorrowful as she giggled.

“Yeah, a pleasure,” said Feng Bujue.

Long Aomin stretched, heaving a sigh, “Hu… this Scenario was quite intimidating. It really was meant to scare people. My Terror Rating was definitely awful this time around.”

“Long Bro, you think about your Terror Rating?! I get Panic-Stricken and Scared Soul-less nearly every time! I only got Lost your Head in Fear once!” Exclaimed Lil’ Tan.^[1]

“See ya.” Indifferently saying just a line, Rain patted Sorrowful on the shoulder, hinting for her to leave the Scenario, and immediately faded from everyone’s sight.

Sorrowful waved at the three of them, saying, “Bye bye.” Then, she looked at Lil’ Tan and sulkingly said, “Hey, thanks for your flashlight.”

Without waiting for Lil’ Tan’s response, she turned into a white beam of light and teleported away.

At this moment, Feng Bujue began to speak, “We should also teleport and settle our rewards, then we can queue for the next Scenario.”  

Long Aomin spoke, “Feng Xiong, I’ll be stopping here. I set up my connection at 10:40 and had already played over ten hours worth of gaming content before you came online. This Scenario also took over three hours, so if I continue, I’ll probably have a headache when I get up tomorrow.”

“Yeah, alright.” Said Feng Bujue, “Go ahead and disconnect, Long Bro. The two of us will carry on.”

Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi bid Long Bro farewell, and then the three of them left the Scenario one after another.

An autumn breeze brushed past the Mansion by the tarn, which was just as sullen, secluded, and silent as before.

The blood moon in the sky slunk down and, during the darkest moment, right before daybreak, the front doors to the House of Usher were once again slammed shut by some unseen force….

…………

Long Aomin glanced briefly through the details in the settlement. Since the rewards could be received at any time before the next Scenario, there wasn’t any harm in leaving them temporarily in the Login space. After the display showed his departure from the team, his name also grayed out on the friends list.

Before Feng Bujue even looked at the details of his settlement, he noticed two new friend invites. Selecting them to take a look, he saw that, sure enough, they were sent by those two players: Like the Rain After Parting and Soulfully Sorrowful Smiling Skeleton.

At the same time, Wang Tanzhi’s excited voice once again rang throughout the team channel. “Jue Bro!”

“I know, they added you as a friend.” Feng Bujue said straightforwardly.

“How come you knew again?” asked Lil’ Tan, “Oh, right… they must’ve added you too.”

“It’s easy to guess from the way you made a fuss,” said Feng Bujue, “What’s there to be excited about?”

“Don’t you get excited when beauties take the initiative to friend you?” Wang Tanzhi asked, even going so far as to use a self-justified questioning tone.

“Ironically you’re considered a Mr. Perfect^[2]… how can you be so shallow.” Said Feng Bujue. “Besides, even if they look as ugly as sin, they can transform into beauties in the game.”

“Jue Bro, if you always think about others like this, you’ll be alone all your life….”

“I don’t know how long I’ll live, so why should I consider what’s lonely or not?” Countered Feng Bujue. “On top of that, when I was ten I decided that I’d only be able to calmly confront every problem by negatively about everything.” He really was quite calm when he said this. “Just look at my parents when they were dying. After they learned that they were suffering from some unknown terminal illness, they behaved extremely calmly.”

“Ah… ahhah… okay then….” Lil’ Tan was speechless as a corner of his mouth twitched.

“But going back to the topic at hand, that heroine Rain really is incredible regarding her pure fighting ability. Based on just the moves she displayed, I can affirm that… she’s stronger than Long Bro.” Feng Bujue said as he accepted the two friend invites. “Presently, the number of players we’ve seen is quite limited, but she could be considered the strongest player I’ve seen thus far.”

“Then, for the next round do you want to invite them to join?” Asked Wang Tanzhi.

“Of course not.” Said Feng Bujue. “I just said that the number of players we’ve seen is limited, and then you immediately suggested something that’d make it even harder to see new players.”

“Oh, right….” Said Wang Tanzhi. “With four people queueing, the most we’d see is two new unfamiliar players, it’s even possible to not run into a single one.”

“In short… I’ll take a look at the settlement. When I’ve finished tidying up I’ll call you, you go rest first.” Finished Feng Bujue.

“Understood.” Wang Tanzhi answered. “It just so happens that I need to look at the settlement as well.”

…………

At the same time in Rain’s Login space.

She was also in the middle of a conversation with Sorrowful.

Sorrowful spoke, “Cousin, on my side it shows that they all accepted the friend invites. Eh… that Long Bro went offline pretty quickly after he accepted.”

“Same.” Said Rain.

“Hey hey, cousin. You already know, right?” Asked Sorrowful.

“You’re talking about that Feng Bujue?”

“Of course. He’s a novelist, his name has ‘Bujue’, and he even said he wasn’t very famous. All of this matches that Bujue.”^[3]

“Perhaps, but a name used in-game cannot be used as proof.” Replied Rain. “Although the matter of professing himself ‘a great writer’…does indeed fit Bujue’s style. Furthermore, when I asked if he was a novelist, it was his quite simple friend who answered first… but we also cannot be sure he is one.”

“Hehe… then what if he is?” Sorrowful laughed with ill intentions.

“If he is, then he is. What are laughing for?” replied Rain.

“Cousin, aren’t you his fan? Isn’t the dream of every fan to meet their idol?”

“I just like his works, that’s all.” replied Rain. Her tone was serene, as if she wasn’t defending herself at all. “I don’t know anything about him, so how’d you come to the conclusion of ‘idol’.” She paused for a moment before starting again, “Besides, if it really was how you said… I should be even more disinclined to get acquainted with and understand him.”^[4]

Sorrowful shook her head inside her Login Space, saying contemplatively “Yeah… that’s why they say… admiration is the feeling furthest away from understanding, right?”

“Did you think that if you said it completely seriously, then I wouldn’t know those were Aizen’s words^[5]?” Rain spoke in an icy-cold tone, relentlessly exposing Sorrowful.

“Hmph… anyway, he’s your idol, not mine. Who knows if the man will ignore you in the future because you made your face ugly, sigh….” Sorrowful stuck out her tongue and pulled a face at the display screen even though there was no way the other could see her….

“I just wanted to be less conspicuous, but in hindsight, it seems I’ve failed.” Said Rain. “Displaying too much strength also garners many people sending friend invites…. Unfortunately, appearances can’t be changed after progressing through at least one Scenario. Otherwise, I’d have changed it to be incomparably ugly. That way it’d thoroughly defend against harassment.”

…………

Regulation Studio: at the lounge.

Unrivaled Brave One sat in the lounge sulkily drinking coffee. At the moment, he had just finished his Sleep mode shift and, after resting an hour, he’d then go online in Awake mode.

“What happened? Did you die in the Scenario, Unrivaled Big Bro?” A scrawny youngster appearing to be sixteen or seventeen years old came and sat on the sofa next to him. He was also one of the players of the studio, game ID:【Heaven Swallowing Daring Devil】.^[6]

Normally, in studios, staff members would refer to each other by their usernames because their IDs in all games were fixed, just like work IDs. On top of that apex studios like “Regulation” didn’t have to worry about a member’s username being used already whenever they joined some new game. After all, whenever a game launched those studios were always the first to join. Sometimes they’d even pay the game companies to directly reserve their usernames.

“Ah… dying doesn’t matter. It was my own fault. I immediately queued for another Scenario afterward, anyway. However, when I finished that Scenario and took a look at my menu after I exited, the Scenario I died in previously had actually been cleared. Not only that, it was cleared by three newbies and two female players. I received practically no experience points, meaning means I contributed next to nothing….”

“How did that happen?” Asked Daring Devil.

“I was trying to figure that out too.” Replied Unrivaled. “It can’t have been that I was tricked by them playing a pig to eat a tiger, right…. That newbie called ‘Feng Bujue’ might have been playing stupid, making me believe he was useless so that I’d go off on my own….”

“Oh… I get it. You were the one to think others were a hindrance first, but in the end, you found out that you were the useless one.” Said Daring Devil.

“Whose side are you on you punk?!” Shouted Unrivaled.

“Heheh… I won’t say any more, then. Alright,” laughed Daring Devil as he stood up, “I’m going home to take a big nap.”

“Why? Your shift is over?” Asked Unrivaled.

“Nope, it’s Group Leader who told me not to practice anymore and let me off for the day.” Replied Daring Devil.

“What? During the closed beta? Letting you off?” Unrivaled’s eyes widened. “You hit Level 20 too?”

“Level 15, man.” Daring Devil shrugged his shoulders. “The situation is like this…. In【Massacre Game】 mode, I killed Fearless Bro and his two lackey Big Bros, so they complained to Group Leader, saying that I didn’t properly cooperate with them to raise their Proficiency levels.” He chuckled, “Hai… adults these days… they’re sore losers.”^[7]

---

Footnotes:

[1]In case everyone forgot these are the Terror rankings from best to worst: Completely Courageous, Courage is Alright, Lost your Head in Fear, Panic-Stricken, Scared Soul-less….and of course Lil’ Wang is great at this.

[2]Raw is “tall, rich, and handsome. But it’s also a slang term for a guy who’s perfect

[3]Feng Bujue’s username has only one character difference with his real name; only his surname is changed from 封 to 疯. I believe his pen name uses just his given name 不觉.

[4]I think she means how some fans get star-struck and can’t even muster up the courage to talk to their idols.

[5]Bleach chapter 170

[6]Raw is 吞天鬼骁; if someone can come up with a better name please let me know. Honestly, I suck at naming things. If you all don’t really care like me, then just treat this as a TL rant. Alternative is Heaven Swallowing Nightmare: Cuz 骁 can mean ‘good horse’ and 鬼 is either ghost or demon.

[7]The raw is 杀戮游戏 and Google tells me there’s a movie called Kill Game that came out 2017 so I don’t think that’s it. Plus it sounds stupid compared to Massacre. Fearless Bro is that guy who hit Level 20 in case you forgot his name, because I did. Bless the glossary.

---

Previous Chapter Θ Table of Content Θ Next Chapter