You Come Here!!!/Don't Come Over Here!!!

To be honest, he wouldn't have been surprised even if the person who entered this place had been Temperance Gentleheart or Bai Zhi. But he had never expected it to be Night Owl.

Given how she had spent the entire time lying down and begging the Big Shot to carry her earlier, there was no way she could have gotten past the psychological barrier of voluntarily entering such a terrifying place.

But she was far more ruthless than he had imagined. She had actually used self-harm to temporarily make herself forget her fear... although the pain had brought tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

"I acknowledge this kind of courage and resolve."

Bai Zhi gave her a thumbs-up, his face utterly solemn.

"I, Black&White, am willing to call you a true tough guy!!"

Night Owl: "???"

"...Could you be a little more serious? I've never experienced this much pain before. If we keep wasting time, I can't guarantee how much longer I'll be able to hold on."

The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. Hearing the sounds coming from upstairs, Night Owl glanced upward.

The intense pain radiating from her arm temporarily covered up her fear to a large extent, but it also inevitably distracted her.

"Did you bring any weapons in your Inventory?"

Supporting himself with his left hand, Bai Zhi got to his feet beside the wall.

"There's a corpse upstairs that'll be hard to deal with. If you can distract it for a while, I only need two minutes to complete the Novice Quest trial."

"Weapons..."

After thinking for a moment, Night Owl raised the Fruit Knife she used for peeling fruit under someone's strange gaze.

"In my Inventory, I also have a Broom, Mop, and Clothes Rack. I specifically brought over some things from the Dormitory earlier."

"...Do you know how to use a Chainsaw?"

After a moment of silence, Bai Zhi asked.

"Uh... no."

Night Owl honestly shook her head.

"...Take this small can of Gasoline. When I lure that corpse away, don't worry about anything else. Just rush to the Stairwell Entrance on the top floor, pour this can of Gasoline over that Severed Hand, and light it. Can you do that?"

Bai Zhi sighed helplessly.

"If you can't do it, then we'll all die here."

"I... think I can?"

Night Owl looked somewhat hesitant.

"Take out the 'think.'"

Giving her a glance, Bai Zhi ignored the wounds on his body that had split open again and charged straight up the stairs to the second floor.

That walking corpse had been wandering around the third floor. He had to find a way to lure it down.

Standing at the Stairwell Entrance on the second floor and looking upward, Bai Zhi gathered his qi in his dantian, drew his left hand before his chest, extended his right hand, and slowly yet firmly raised a perfectly straight middle finger at the corpse guarding the stairwell above.

—Legend had it that the martial world possessed two supreme arts: One Yang Finger and Lion's Roar. A Master had once spent thirty years combining those two arts into one, and Bai Zhi had gone on to carry it forward.

"You Come Here!!!"

A moment later, furious Roars drifted down from the Stairwell Entrance.

"..."

After a brief silence, Night Owl took a deep breath. Fruit Knife in one hand and Broom in the other, she launched a suicidal charge toward her destination like a fearless Dragon Slayer facing a Dragon.

Before today, Night Owl, who had always needed a nightlight to sleep, had never imagined that she would do something as crazy as this.

Searching for dismembered corpses in a decrepit abandoned Villa with a Flashlight had been one thing. Summoning up the courage to hurt herself for the first time, even though the pain had made her cry, had been manageable. But pouring Gasoline onto a corpse and burning it... she truly felt the urge to cry.

As blazing flames rose, this illusory space beyond reality began to shatter. It felt just like when they had first been pulled into this phantom space. When Night Owl opened her eyes again, she had returned to the Villa's main hall in the Real World.

"Finally, it's over..."

Feeling the Chilling Aura that had invaded every limb and bone suddenly vanish, Beard Guy, who had been busy tending the fire and looking after Temperance Gentleheart, let out a huge sigh of relief. Without caring about anything else, he collapsed backward onto the cold floor.

Earlier, he had almost thought he was going to die.

"There are still ten minutes until dawn."

Thanks to the Curse on her body dissipating, the weak-looking Temperance Gentleheart had barely recovered a little. She pulled out her phone and checked the time.

"That's why I said that the essence of a Novice Quest is simply a test to see whether a Player is qualified to become a Player. Once you understand that, Novice Quests are pretty easy."

Leaning against his Hiking Backpack to barely support himself, Bai Zhi, whose stamina had been almost entirely exhausted, looked calm.

"But if we're talking about the greatest contributor to this mission, it should be... uh..."

Looking at Night Owl beside him, who was clutching the wound on her arm and crying from the pain, Bai Zhi's mouth twitched slightly.

He could see it now. Not only was she afraid of the dark and timid, she was also afraid of pain.

"I have medicine here. Do you want some?"

Sighing, Bai Zhi endured the wave-like exhaustion constantly surging up from deep within his body and took out his Medical Kit.

"Even if you're using pain to suppress fear, don't cut yourself that deeply. You nearly reached the bone. It's lucky you didn't hit an artery... I'll stop the bleeding first."

"Who knew this Fruit Knife would be so sharp? One day, I'm definitely going to leave a bad review on Taobao... Wait, what are you doing with a Stapler!?"

Night Owl looked up with tears in her eyes. When she saw the thing in someone's hand that was supposedly meant to stop her bleeding, she was so frightened that she forced her tears back in.

"To stop the bleeding. After stapling it shut and wrapping it with this Adhesive Tape, the hemostatic effect is fantastic."

Holding up the Stapler in his hand, Bai Zhi looked utterly baffled.

"Look, the wounds on my hand were treated this way. Don't worry, it works great. It just hurts a little. Come on, be good and don't move around. If we don't stop the bleeding, you'll pass out from blood loss. You're a tough guy who dared to cut yourself. What does a tough guy have to fear?"

"You're the tough guy! Your whole family are tough guys!! I don't want it... Don't Come Over Here!!!"

"..."

Temperance Gentleheart and Beard Guy silently turned their heads away.

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