"Mountain Inn": Suit Yourself, Go Die If You Want

The Refined Man and the Burly Man both froze when they heard that.

Right. Since it had been able to release the White Humanoid without any of them noticing, why hadn't it simply locked the door again? They would never have found out.

After all, none of them had checked whether the number of keys matched. Their attention had been drawn to the three rooms in the register whose occupants hadn't checked out.

The Refined Man said thoughtfully, "So the unknown thing hiding in the shadows deliberately lured us to room 101. Its goal was to make us discover this passage under the wardrobe. The passage is actually a trap."

"That's what I think." The High-Ponytail Woman nodded, her expression calm.

It was also the most reasonable guess she could make based on what the young man had said.

Holy crap.

Xu Xi listened from the side, increasingly dumbfounded.

He had just finished reassuring himself that he had merely died too many times and wasn't a psychopath. Then he looked up and heard the two of them come up with an explanation between them.

And it sounded extremely reasonable.

Xu Xi fell silent.

Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea.

The next time he learned something by resetting and couldn't find an excuse to explain it, he could simply act as though he couldn't be bothered explaining and let his teammates make the connections themselves.

That way, he wouldn't have to rack his brains explaining how he knew everything.

Genius!

Why hadn't he thought of that in the previous instance? All he'd done was give vague answers.

"That's just your guess. This passage could also be a way out that the instance left for us." The Burly Man seemed determined to challenge Xu Xi, always finding something to argue against.

"You can go down and try it."

Xu Xi had meant that the Burly Man could climb down and crawl through it. Once he reached the end and found there was no way through, he would naturally realize the passage wasn't a way out.

But to the other three, who didn't know exactly what was inside the passage, his words meant—

Suit yourself. Go die if you want.

"..."

The Refined Man watched the Burly Man get rebuffed and quietly shook his head.

The man had some brains, but he was too impulsive. Unless he changed his habit of wearing his emotions on his sleeve and acting recklessly whenever he got worked up, he would suffer a major setback sooner or later.

He didn't want to pay the man any attention for the time being either. What mattered most now was clarifying their situation and deciding what to do next.

"If this passage really is a trap, put here just to mislead us, then this room is meaningless too. Our progress has effectively stalled here."

"Right now, all we know is that something capable of disguising itself as a human appeared at the inn and caused the deaths of the occupants of rooms 103 and 204. But we still haven't solved any of the mysteries: when that thing appeared at the inn, why it appeared, what happened to the occupant of room 202, what happened to his missing sister, whether her disappearance had anything to do with the inn, or where the innkeeper ultimately went. Let alone figured out how to clear the instance."

"There's also something watching and scheming against us from the shadows. We're out in the open while it's hidden, and nobody knows whether it'll set another trap for us."

"We can't keep letting ourselves be at its mercy like this."

Xu Xi's brow twitched slightly as he listened.

In the previous run, when they returned to the entrance of the hole, they found it blocked from above. Clearly, the thing in the shadows had deliberately sealed them inside after they went down.

What if they turned the trap against it this time?

They weren't making any progress at the moment anyway. If they could catch the thing, they might gain something extra.

Having made up his mind, he acted.

Xu Xi suddenly spoke up. "We can lure the thing in the shadows out."

The three of them looked at him in surprise.

Before the Burly Man could speak, the Refined Man asked, "How? Have you thought of a way?"

It would be best if they could lure the thing out. Otherwise, they would have to stay on guard against it while searching for a way to clear the instance, and that would become mentally exhausting over time.

As for whether his plan would work... they could hear him out first.

Besides, he had been the first to notice that candles attracted the uncanny, and this time he had warned them that the passage was a trap.

Anyone who could lock an uncanny creature in a room by himself and still escape wasn't the sort to make baseless claims, however one looked at it.

Xu Xi glanced at the three of them and explained his plan. "Since it wants us to go into the hole, we'll do as it wishes."

The Refined Man's eyes lit up. He instantly grasped what the young man had left unsaid. "After going to such lengths to lure us into a trap, it can't just do nothing."

The High-Ponytail Woman followed up immediately. "As long as we hide beforehand, we might be able to catch it in the act."

"Hide? Where are the four of us supposed to hide in a place this damn small?" The Burly Man curled his lip.

"Look, isn't there a hole right there?" Xu Xi tipped his chin toward the wardrobe, speaking casually.

The three of them: Huh?

"...Didn't you say we'd die if we went down there?" The Burly Man narrowed his eyes, his tone hostile.

"I never said how you'd die." Xu Xi shot him a brief glance. "We're just hiding someone in there for a short while. They won't die."

Everyone understood what he was implying.

The danger didn't come from the passage itself.

"Who knows what's down there? I'm not going down, anyway. Whoever wants to hide there can go ahead."

The Burly Man made his position clear, his expression resolute.

Xu Xi nearly rolled his eyes at him.

One moment, he was saying the passage might be a way out. The next, he was saying there was no way he'd go down.

So you're just being contrary.

Xu Xi couldn't be bothered with him and walked straight toward the wardrobe.

"Then find a corner in the room to hide in."

The room wasn't big, and there were only two places to hide. One person could lie on the floor on the far side of the bed, and another could hide under the table, concealed by the tablecloth.

The High-Ponytail Woman hesitated for a moment, then chose to follow Xu Xi. "I'll hide in the hole too."

After the two carefully jumped down one after the other, the Refined Man turned to the tall, burly man beside him. "Where are you hiding?"

The Burly Man pointed to the floor on the far side of the bed. "I'll lie there. There's not much room under the table. You could hide there, but with my build, I'd give us away."

Having picked their hiding places and switched off the flashlight, the two hid quietly in their respective spots, waiting for the unknown creature to appear.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Just as the Burly Man was growing impatient and starting to think Xu Xi's plan was useless, the door suddenly made an extremely faint sound.

The noise was slight, but unfortunately, in the silent room, it was still somewhat noticeable.

The Burly Man was lying with his head toward the foot of the bed, so he could see the Refined Man hiding under the table.

The Refined Man carefully lifted the tablecloth a crack.

Seeing this, he couldn't restrain himself any longer and quietly raised his head to look.