Grudge Eerie, Sensitive Interaction

Shaking off his thoughts, Long Yuan wasted no more words. He pulled the cleaver from his waist and strode straight over.

The other players' faces lit up with obvious joy.

No one cared about the meaningless bet. They just wanted to survive.

Ji Yan watched calmly, a faint, unreadable gleam flickering in his eyes.

Over there, the Plague Eerie was still gnawing at the apartment building's corner, its body swelling into a mountain of flesh. The gap it had torn through the reinforced concrete was now as wide as a basket.

Strangely, blood seeped from the concrete blocks it had ripped off!

It was as if the entire Crimson Apartment had been built from chunks of corpse mixed with mortar...

Stepping through puddles of filth and trash, Long Yuan walked up to it and called out. The Plague Eerie turned its head to look, and the cleaver was already swinging.

The Plague Eerie's swollen head thudded to the ground. Long Yuan crushed it under his foot.

Then he turned, flicked the pus off the blade, and walked back.

The whole process took less than half a minute.

The players were stunned.

This... this was way too simple and brutal? Like chopping a watermelon.

Long Yuan stared at Ji Yan, casual yet with a hint of mockery: "Convinced now?"

These eerieness that weren't tied to a dungeon had no backstory and bred no grudges.

Without those buffs, they were just animals that looked a bit creepier—cut off the head, and they died for good.

What he'd said earlier was just to scare the newbies.

Only by creating a more desperate environment could he amplify people's will to survive.

But Ji Yan pointed behind him with a smile: "Maybe you should check behind you?"

Long Yuan glanced back. The next second, his face froze.

From the Plague Eerie's severed neck, a torrent of pitch-black blood gushed out, and in an instant, a new head grew back.

It was even more enraged, tearing into the apartment building with greater frenzy.

"Pain... it hurts!!"

As the hole widened, many rats scurried into the building.

"Not dead?!"

Long Yuan's face twisted in shock. Then he noticed the cleaver in his hand was slowly corroding from the blood.

A warning panel popped up.

Code
"Ding! Your Eerie Weapon, Butcher's Cleaver, has been damaged. Durability decreased by 30%. Enchantment damage decreased by 55%."

Code
"Warning! Your actions have caused losses to the apartment. The residents are cursing you. A total of 12 Eerie Residents have had their favorability toward you decreased by 7%."

After the two warning panels appeared, Long Yuan's expression soured.

Then he understood. He looked at the Plague Eerie: "Damn it, was this eerie a resident of the apartment?"

If it couldn't be killed, that meant it had a grudge.

And a grudge meant it was tied to the Crimson Apartment dungeon's backstory.

The trickiest thing about Grudge Eeries was that as long as the grudge persisted, they simply couldn't die!

Seeing his damaged cleaver, Long Yuan winced in pain.

He turned to the Bandage Eerie and asked in a low voice: "What's the relationship between this eerie and the apartment?"

The Bandage Eerie paused for a few seconds, then spoke slowly: "A former resident of the apartment. Later, he was kicked out."

"And?"

"You'll have to ask the Landlord."

That was the only information the Bandage Eerie's interaction yielded.

"What a pain."

Long Yuan put away the cleaver and said to the administrator: "Tell the Landlord, I can't clear this Rat Plague."

"I'm out."

The Bandage Eerie: "Because of your actions, the apartment suffered losses. The Landlord is very unhappy."

"He says you can leave."

"But pay one extra month's rent as compensation."

Long Yuan: "One month?!"

He glanced at the Plague Eerie, his face sour, but eventually agreed.

As a veteran player, he hated dealing with Grudge Eeries. Taking one down always meant wasting a ton of energy and burning through plenty of gear.

Little reward, big hassle.

Just one slash, and he'd already lost that much favorability with the Eerie Residents. If he actually killed it, the rewards wouldn't even cover the loss.

What he hated most was making a losing deal.

If he'd known this task would turn out like this, he wouldn't have come.

He'd missed a step.

Forgot to interact with the Landlord. Accepted the quest without learning more information first.

Putting away the Kitchen Knife, Long Yuan turned to leave.

The moment those Players saw Long Yuan about to go, they all panicked: "You promised! You can't leave!"

"What are we supposed to do if you go? If it's not enough, we can add a few more days, feed the blade with our blood."

Long Yuan snorted coldly, irritation in his voice: "The Kitchen Knife's quality has already dropped. What the hell do I need your blood for?"

"Bad luck. Stepped in a pile of dog shit the moment I walked out the door today."

He turned and left, but Ji Yan's voice stopped him: "What about our deal?"

"You lost, didn't you?"

Long Yuan looked at Ji Yan and laughed: "Fine. If you can make it back to the apartment alive, you can have this crappy Kitchen Knife."

"Better worry about how you're getting back to the Dungeon yourself."

With that, Long Yuan vanished into the fog.

Ji Yan didn't press the issue. That score could be settled later.

For now...

He needed to focus on the task. After all that messing around, there were only a little over two hours left.

Ignoring the Players whose faces had turned ashen, Ji Yan walked forward and reached out to grab the chunk of head that Long Yuan had chopped off.

This was his little scheme.

There were too many unknown dangers with the Plague Eerie. Reaching out to touch it was too risky.

So he'd agreed to Long Yuan's terms, wanting him to be the one Stepping on a Mine. That way, he could trigger his talent later and get more hidden information.

From the very beginning, the hidden info had told him Was this eerie carried an extremely heavy grudge.

If killing it in one slash completed the task, Long Yuan wouldn't have even had a chance to draw his blade.

Now, touching the Plague Eerie, Ji Yan gained more hidden information.

"Ding! Talent Omniscient Understanding successfully triggered. Player obtains new hidden information---"

Plague Eerie: Former resident of Room 102, Crimson Apartment. Original name, Huang Sheng.

After severely violating the apartment rules, he was expelled. In the thick fog, he was devoured by wandering specters, causing his resentment to deepen and his return to the apartment.

Tip: Resentment lingers, the soul refuses to scatter, neither dying nor being destroyed. To break the situation, you must find the source of the resentment.

Ji Yan absorbed the information, his brow furrowing.

That was a lot of info.

But it still wasn't enough!

He glanced at the swaying Apartment Building, then turned his head to look at the Bandage Eerie, trying to continue interacting.

But the Bandage Eerie was like an NPC, only repeating: "It was once an apartment resident, later expelled." There was no second line of interaction.

"Total NPC," Ji Yan muttered, shaking his head.

Since the other eerier interactions gave no info, he'd have to extract it from the main body itself.

Ji Yan walked closer, but after the Plague Eerie had been slashed, the Mutant Rats had become extremely agitated, refusing to let him get near.

"Huang Sheng!"

Ji Yan called out the Plague Eerie's name from a distance.

But being called that only made the Plague Eerie more agitated. It smashed the corner of the wall, growing even more ferocious.

"Warning!! Your actions have increased damage to the apartment. Resident favorability toward you has decreased. A total of 14 eerier have developed hostility toward you!"

Ji Yan: "..."

The Corner of his mouth twitched. Just shouting its name was enough to trigger it?

This Plague Eerie was like a hypersensitive nerve—couldn't touch it, couldn't call it. Any stimulation just made it destroy the apartment building faster.

Was This a task meant for humans?

But then Ji Yan noticed something.

The Plague Eerie's dialogue had changed...