Mountain Climbing?

On his fifty-fourth rollback, Xu Kai returned to the back seat of the car and heard the three players chatting.

It was all small talk. The three players were wary of Xu Kai, so he heard nothing of value.

But JK was driving fast, and the familiar road told Xu Kai they would soon reach the big bend.

He would die again when they reached it. That wouldn't do.

"Oh, sorry, could you stop for a moment? I can't hold it anymore."

Xu Kai clutched his stomach as he spoke. Yellow Hair and the short-haired woman looked at each other, while JK glanced at the map Xu Kai had given them and said,

"We're almost there. Hold on a little longer!"

"Uh, sure, if you can stand it..."

With that, Xu Kai cast aside his dignity and made as if to get started.

"Wait! What do you mean, if we can stand it? Stop! You can get out, driver. Be quick, though. There aren't any lights along this road, and it's pretty dark."

"Of course, of course."

Xu Kai used the excuse to get out and pretended to relieve himself, while carefully studying the big bend ahead.

Unfortunately, just as before, the road was peaceful and quiet, with nothing out of the ordinary. But Xu Kai knew that just beyond the bend, a semi-trailer truck with its high beams on was waiting for them.

As he looked at the spot, an idea suddenly came to him. He turned to JK with a nervous expression and said,

"Miss! This bend looks so familiar. Someone died here! We need to burn some paper before we can get past!"

"Burn paper?"

JK was still speaking in a high-pitched voice, sounding no different from a sweet girl. He frowned and looked at the short-haired woman in the passenger seat.

Without anyone noticing when it happened, the short-haired woman had become the core of their group. They sought her advice before making any decision.

The short-haired woman didn't use her Talent. She thought for a moment, then nodded.

After all, Xu Kai was the driver who had come to transport the coffin. The instances she had been through told her that NPCs who moved the plot along meant no harm.

Of course, if Xu Kai had known what she was thinking, he probably would have laughed out loud. Was it really that those NPCs meant no harm? They were just afraid of being erased for failing their Role-Playing Mission.

Xu Kai felt that what he was about to do was highly risky and could very well expose him as someone other than an ordinary person in front of the players. But they had all agreed to let him burn the paper. The arrow was on the string, and he had to loose it.

He took some paper from the Funeral Car and murmured by the roadside:

"Wandering souls and stray ghosts, come take this money to spend. Once you have it, don't block our way..."

The players listened to Xu Kai's mumbling. None of them got out of the car; they simply watched in silence.

From their perspective, Xu Kai was muttering in the local dialect. He put the paper on the ground without setting it alight and simply walked in circles around it.

Suddenly, the paper burst into flame on its own. Everyone was startled, and they saw Xu Kai suddenly drop to his knees, despair on his face.

"Wait, something's happening!"

The players were immediately on high alert. The short-haired woman got out of the passenger seat, a dagger hidden in her sleeve and her eyes fixed on Xu Kai. Yellow Hair and JK also got out and followed behind her.

They watched Xu Kai from a distance and saw that he was simply kneeling there while the pile of paper burned bright red. Soon, the flames went out.

When nothing happened for a long while, JK remembered that his Talent gave him some resistance to the Weird. He took the lead and walked over to Xu Kai, where he heard him murmuring in despair:

"It... it won't let me go..."

"Master Xu? What's wrong? What happened just now?"

JK was still using a woman's voice, which could always put others off their guard. Unfortunately, Xu Kai didn't respond. JK could only look at the ashes of the burned paper, and his pupils contracted.

A human definitely hadn't burned this paper! It was more as though the dead had come here to collect money! No normal flame could burn words into paper!

JK looked at the remains of the paper. They actually formed several words:

"Master Xu, stay."

Gulp.

JK swallowed, feeling both lingering fear and relief. He was a newcomer who didn't understand the game's rules at all. He wondered whether he too would have been made to stay if he had listened to Xu Kai and helped him burn the paper.

After seeing the words, JK patted Xu Kai on the shoulder without a word and returned to the short-haired woman and Blondie. He told them what had happened, and all three players immediately looked at Xu Kai with sympathy.

Yellow Hair even clicked his tongue.

"Man, people really shouldn't ask for trouble. He said himself that someone died here, but he just had to stop and burn paper. Look what happened—he's gotten himself stuck here, hasn't he? This Master Xu..."

"All right, enough. Let's keep going!"

The short-haired woman waved her hand. The three returned to the car, started it, and set off toward the bend.

Only once the three could no longer see him did Xu Kai drop the act and calm himself down.

He had burned the paper by consuming Weird Energy and using the Flame Skill. Since he had set it alight from a distance, the players couldn't tell that he was the source of the Weird Energy.

What was more, his bold performance had confirmed his guess.

His actions didn't count as maliciously obstructing the players, because one of them could drive and had taken his place.

Watching the three leave, Xu Kai felt somewhat rueful. The Stone Statue Weird was probably going to have a headache.

If he killed the players and ran back the way he had come, only the "evils" under the Stone Statue Weird would pursue him. Though those "evils" had been modified, they were outside the killing zone, and without the Stone Statue Weird's help, they were no match for Xu Kai.

If he didn't kill the players, things would be a little troublesome for him. He would have to take risks, feel out the limits of his role as the Funeral Car driver, and test whether he would be erased for not accompanying the coffin. But he would avoid a direct conflict with the Stone Statue Weird and move completely from the open into the shadows, which was also a major advantage.

As Xu Kai thought this, a voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

[While playing the driver, you have moved more than three hundred meters away from the Funeral Car and the players. Role-Playing Mission failed. Failure penalty: erasure]

Well, the good news was that he had found the limit of his role. The bad news was that it had cost him his life.

Xu Kai shrugged. A white light flashed, and he instantly turned to ash.

On his fifty-fifth rollback, Xu Kai stood in front of the burned paper. The three had only just set off.

Xu Kai didn't ask the players to take him along again. Instead, he ran in the direction the car was heading.

Of course he knew a person couldn't outrun a car, even if he was an "evil." But he knew the Funeral Car wouldn't get through. The road was narrow, and a semi-trailer truck with its high beams on had been placed on the other side, blocking it completely.

Xu Kai charged ahead. When he reached the bend, countless strands of Weird Energy wrapped around him and covered his eyes. Unfortunately, it was no use. He had a strong sense of direction on this bend, especially after receiving two rewards.

Xu Kai strode boldly forward until he emerged from the bend. Only then did the Weird Energy reluctantly release his eyes.

The timing was perfect. The players were driving the Funeral Car into the path of the semi-trailer truck.

Xu Kai didn't bother acting at all. Weird Energy broke through the skin of his hands and formed grappling claws. He climbed straight up the mountainside until he was higher than the truck, where it couldn't hit him even if it crashed toward him.

The semi-trailer truck crashed toward the Funeral Car, but instead of hitting it head-on, it scraped past the right side, as though deliberately avoiding it. The truck was so powerful, however, that it still crushed the side of the Funeral Car. The truck itself tumbled off the mountainside, passing just by Xu Kai's feet on its way down.

As the truck drew near, Xu Kai caught a faint smell of alcohol and understood.

So that was it. The Stone Statue Weird had assigned this "evil" the identity of a Semi-Trailer Truck Driver, and it had drunk alcohol to get around the rule against "maliciously harming players." How sinister.

Xu Kai also had a theory about why the truck hadn't smashed the Funeral Car to pieces this time.

Once they killed all the players, they would have to kill him in the extremely short time before the instance settled. That was practically impossible, so they had decisively abandoned that plan. They would probably arrange an assassination attempt on his group somewhere else.

They really were decisive. This "evil" didn't care about its own life at all, flying off the cliff just like that. Its heart was full of loyalty to Stone Statue Weird.

Xu Kai believed he had overestimated his opponent as much as possible, but he hadn't expected that he had still underestimated them.

The right side of the Funeral Car was damaged. The crushed spot was where Xu Kai had originally been sitting. The players had only suffered minor injuries from the jolt and were otherwise fine.

The car, however, was another matter. The connecting rods underneath and the body frame were deformed, and neither the brakes nor the steering wheel worked. The car could only be abandoned here.

The players got out of the car. By the light of the rear taillights, the short-haired woman spotted Xu Kai clinging to the mountainside at a glance. Her expression changed, and she drew her knife warily.

"Be careful! The driver can't possibly be there! There's a Weird on the mountain! It's taken the driver's form!"

"Wait, I'm not! Help me!"

Without hesitation, Xu Kai decided that since the players suspected he wasn't an ordinary person, the quickest way to clear up the misunderstanding wasn't to explain, but to fall from the cliff and become a victim.

Xu Kai let go without hesitation. He trusted his body, especially now that he had Weird Energy.

Thump!

The sound wasn't especially loud, but it wasn't quiet either. It succeeded in attracting the other players' attention, and even the short-haired woman, who had been suspicious, put away her knife.

"Let's go take a look! Maybe I was wrong. A Weird couldn't have fallen." Seeing Xu Kai fall, the short-haired woman promptly admitted her mistake.

"Master Xu? How are you?"

Xu Kai pretended to be unconscious, blood still running from his arm. The short-haired woman tore off her own stocking and used the section away from the foot to bandage his arm.

"We'll have to wait until we get somewhere with more people to disinfect it and see if they have supplies there."

"Wait, short-haired woman, why are you helping him? What if he's a Weird?"

"Heh, if we don't help him, he'll die. If he dies, who are we going to get to arrange a car? Do you know anyone here? Or are you planning to carry the coffin to the crematorium?"

The short-haired woman was calm and clearheaded, and she immediately shut Yellow Hair up.

Of course, the unconscious Xu Kai also grew nervous, because he didn't have contact information for anyone in Maple Town either. All he had was a phone he had taken along with him.