Endgame (Part One)

Xu Kai quickly left the stairwell. After the doctor died, the certificate lost its believers, and the entire stairwell became inanimate again. Xu Kai pushed open the heavy fire door normally and returned to the seventh-floor corridor.

He walked quickly, keeping his eyes fixed on both sides of the corridor so he wouldn't miss a single detail.

In fact, Xu Kai was looking for a clock. He hadn't seen the time in far too long.

His clothes were in tatters, and only his pants pockets were still usable. He held the certificate at arm's length in one hand, keeping his gaze raised as much as possible to avoid looking at the thing below.

He worked to isolate the certificate with Weird Energy as he raced forward.

The sights on both sides of the corridor flashed past. Xu Kai cushioned his feet with Weird Energy to reduce the noise he made, and as he ran, he finally spotted a clock.

Its hands had passed eight. It was about 8:20, leaving only ten minutes.

Xu Kai had reached the door to Room Nine. This time, his perception wasn't wrong. The neighboring rooms were still there, and a cat-eared Nurse stood outside his door. It was Kana.

"Kana? What are you doing outside my room?"

"Ah! Who's there?! Xu Kai, how did you get behind me? You scared me to death!"

Kana's ears twitched, and she jolted. She looked back and saw Xu Kai, then slowly let out a breath.

"Yesterday... yesterday your room disappeared! I looked for it several times, but it came back today. So I was standing here to see whether you were inside and find out what abnormality happened..."

Kana described the abnormality she had encountered yesterday as best she could, speaking in a very thin voice. Xu Kai listened carefully, and the longer he listened, the stranger it sounded, like a cat meowing.

"Stop!"

Xu Kai raised a hand. Under Kana's puzzled gaze, he took two red pills from her pocket, handed one to her, and swallowed the other himself. Then he continued:

"Quick, take it! Your alienation was very severe just now!"

Kana's face changed with fright when she heard that. She hurriedly took the pill and swallowed it. Sure enough, her voice returned to normal afterward.

After taking the pill, Xu Kai also felt lighter all over, but he knew the alienation hadn't disappeared.

That energy had merely retreated from the surface of his body and hidden inside, waiting for the next outbreak.

The pills were becoming less and less effective, something Xu Kai knew all too well. He felt that when the next outbreak came, he would need two red pills to resist it.

Speaking of the pills, Xu Kai now understood the rules' malice completely.

The rules' perspective was wrong. They regarded people crawling on the ground as having the correct perspective, so they dictated that those with mild symptoms should take red pills and those with severe symptoms should take blue ones.

Xu Kai's perception had been fine before, so he had used blue pills, because he had been standing upright normally at the time. From the rules' perspective, that was instead a severe case of Upright Ape Cognition Disorder.

Now he sprouted fur at the slightest provocation and was even highly likely to turn into a monster. From the rules' perspective, however, his symptoms had eased, and he was encouraged to use red pills.

Xu Kai now understood almost everything about this Instance. It was essentially a breeding ground.

Whether they were players, natives of the Instance world, or "Evil," anyone could obtain a Discharge Certificate and become a Weird being as long as they sincerely praised Red Shirt, willingly underwent alienation, and then competed as if raising gu.

Xu Kai had merely been verified by the game, so the game had issued his mission.

The purpose sounded simple enough: to cultivate outstanding Weird beings. The competition was fierce, and it was normal that only one would survive.

But did the Instance boss have no designs of its own? Xu Kai smiled.

If it had no designs, it wouldn't have encouraged alienation. Instead, it would have made these seeds kill each other as quickly as possible, selecting the last one to complete the mission and become a Weird being.

Xu Kai made a bold guess: alienation was very likely the boss's means of controlling newly born Weird beings, a means by which it sought to bypass the game's certification and control them.

So the sooner this Instance ended, the better.

The longer it dragged on, the more it favored the Instance boss.

Xu Kai opened the ward door and went inside, then said to Kana:

"Besides the abnormality yesterday, have you remembered anything else now?"

"I retraced every route I'd taken before, and I remembered pretty much everything..."

When Xu Kai brought it up, Kana began recounting her previous experiences in detail.

Xu Kai summed it up. The gist was this:

Kana had been a Nurse before the Instance was created. It wasn't that she had entered the Instance; she had already been in the hospital when the game Instance suddenly appeared.

She had suddenly heard a mysterious voice demanding that everyone obey those strange rules. Anyone who broke them would meet a gruesome end. All her colleagues who had broken the rules were gone, too.

Later, Kana discovered the alienation on her own. Instead of telling anyone, she eavesdropped on conversations between the Instance's doctors and learned that taking patients' pills could temporarily delay the effects of alienation. She also secretly worked out a route for getting medicine and stole pills in accordance with the rules to suppress it.

She had also passed this information to the other Nurses through notes and other messages. That was why Xu Kai had seen a Nurse asking for red pills when he first arrived.

After that, Kana had continued to fight the alienation alone, taking so many pills that she had lost count. From then on, her memories became muddled. Only when she occasionally walked a familiar route and saw a scene from before would she remember something.

The situation had continued until now, and Kana's condition was already very serious. Even after taking the pills, she still couldn't return to normal. Not even her ears would ever go back to the way they were.

She had also tried to escape through the hospital's main entrance. She knew where it was, in the lobby on the building's first floor, but she couldn't see it. Someone had pointed it out to her before, but when Kana looked in the direction they pointed, all she could see was a wall.

From then on, she gave up on escaping and lived one day at a time, threatening, intimidating, or pleading with patients, hoping only to get extra pills from them.

When Xu Kai heard Kana's account, he immediately understood why she couldn't get out. Only someone carrying a Discharge Certificate could leave.

From Kana's description, the hospital was laid out like a giant square loop. If someone deliberately hid, they would be very hard to find.

Xu Kai thought it over, and the more he thought, the more troubling it seemed.

His two opponents had already fully alienated. Leng Chong, for instance, could ignore the time restrictions on the wards and enter or leave them freely. If Leng Chong deliberately hid, Xu Kai wasn't confident he could find him among so many rooms.

This Instance would only end once the final victor was determined and obtained the Discharge Certificate. But the longer it took, the worse the alienation would become, and eventually, everyone would be alienated.

He couldn't delay any longer. In the ward, Xu Kai quickly ate some bread and shared the milk with Kana. Then he said to her:

"I have a way to end all this and get you out, but you have to cooperate. If you fail, we'll be completely alienated."

Xu Kai deliberately made the situation sound grave to get Kana's attention. Kana nodded vigorously.

"Xu Kai, you've saved me several times already. Whatever it is, tell me."

"Go to the pharmacy and burn all the medicine, then take this to the first floor and wait for me."

Xu Kai took out a mass of black Weird Energy and placed it in Kana's hand.

"Wh-what is this? Why is it so cold?"

Kana held the mass of Weird Energy, puzzled.

Xu Kai didn't explain. He simply looked at Kana earnestly. She thought for a moment, then finally nodded.

The two finished breakfast and waited quietly for the time when they could leave the ward.

Xu Kai's vision, which had been black and white, gradually began to show color again. He immediately took two red pills, and the colors faded. He looked in the mirror. His eyes had turned completely red and had fully alienated; they couldn't go back.

At around 11:30, Xu Kai set out with the messages he had written.

Kana understood. She followed behind Xu Kai, and the two walked out of the ward, nodded silently, and headed in opposite directions.

Xu Kai headed toward the elevator. He walked very slowly, as if to make sure he was fully visible. He carried a large box of medicine in his right hand. Suddenly, halfway there, he stopped.

Xu Kai's eyes flicked toward a corner of the ceiling, and he grinned.

That was where the surveillance camera was. Xu Kai slowly approached it and took something out of the box.

It was a note he had written earlier. Xu Kai unfolded it as much as he could and held it up beneath the camera.

"Leng Chong, aren't you wondering why the Nurse didn't bring the pills this morning?"

As soon as the note appeared, the surveillance camera actually moved slightly. Someone in the Surveillance Room was clearly adjusting it.

Xu Kai had expected this. He took another note out of the box. It read:

"All of today's medicine is in my hands. If you don't want to break the rules, come to the cafeteria or the Arena."

Xu Kai spread out the entire note. After making sure the camera had seen it, he picked up the box and entered the elevator.