Pampered by the Escape Boss

Chapter 18 ~ Second Game Pt.9 ~

Gu Yian landed on the grass.

That ice-cold breath had already receded.

Now, the closest person to Gu Yian was the Merchant who came down first.

The Merchant stood less than one meter away from Gu Yian and he looked into the darkness in a direction and said, “You guessed right. After we grabbed the correct summoning ritual, she took the initiative to come out.”

At this stage, the ghosts would make a preemptive move.

Two muffled noises sounded behind Gu Yian with the Witch and Student landing on the lawn, one after another.

The Witch ordered, “You two protect the Sage well.”

The sound of a faint “click” came from in front of them.

The Merchant’s expression changed and, in what seemed like a second, there were several small items in his hand.

“Merchant, put away your props,” the Witch calmly instructed.

“Alright.” The Merchant waved his hand and retracted an item.

The Witch quickly drew a symbol in the air with her fingertip and then charged into the darkness.

Suddenly, the office building behind the players that had been providing a weak light for everyone disappeared.

Everyone was enveloped in endless darkness.

The horror toward darkness instantly swept over the present players.

The Witch’s calm voice sounded, “Don’t panic. I’m here, so come close to me.”

But immediately there came a voice from another direction which sounded the same as the Witch.

“No one move. She’s a ghost.”

Panic surged through the air.

Several seconds passed.

The sound of the Student’s crumbling voice fell into the ears of all the players, “Which exactly is the real one?”

“Fool, shut up!” The Witch shouted coldly.

A strange sound came from the Student’s location but then it quickly returned to being silent.

Gu Yian stood in the dark, listening to the various collision noises and the unconscious grunts of the other players.

She turned the small coffin she got from the last game world in her hand.

Right now, all the other players had been attacked except for her.

Gu Yian didn’t think she could be fortunate enough to be a target the ghosts wouldn’t attack.

Suddenly, a sense of extreme danger surged up in Gu Yian’s heart.

It was coming!

Just as Gu Yian thought this, the small coffin in her hand slipped out of her palm without any sign.

BOOM!

In a flash, light replaced darkness.

A coffin laid quietly on the grass.

Gu Yian’s hand was still slightly hanging in the air, holding the pose of turning the small coffin.

In the distance the Student was covered in blood, the Witch had disheveled hair, and the Merchant had four to five small objects floating around him. All three of them looked toward Gu Yian at the same time, dumbfounded.

The sky was clear and it was evident that the ghosts were successfully destroyed.

The Merchant reacted quickest and put away his props as if nothing had happened. He walked towards Gu Yian with a cheery smile.

“Miss Sage, in the end, you still hid a move.”

He glanced at the coffin which made no move and said, “If you have this sort of prop in the future, I’ll exchange a resurrection badge for it with you.”

Gu Yian actually hadn’t come back to herself yet. Such a powerful ghost died just like that?

But her complexion didn’t change and, after listening to the Merchant, she just asked, “How do I contact you? Do I call the number on the note we found from the Butcher’s body?”

The Merchant’s smile deepened, “Miss Sage is indeed clever. The number is that number, but you need to use an underworld phone.”

The Witch tidied her hair and then slowly walked over.

She measured the Merchant with a few looks and then said with certainty, “You have a prop on you that can exchange items.”

Right after, the Witch’s voice was displeased, “You wouldn’t have switched out my prop, did you?”

The Merchant replied, “You misunderstand, I’m not that capable.”

The Student limped over to join them and the fresh blood on him faded at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Student only heard half of the conversation and was very confused. “Switch what?”

No player answered him.

Because, at a time when no one noticed, the scenery around them changed.

From the grassy lawn back to the round table at the beginning of the game.

The Witch, Gu Yian, the Merchant, and the Student stood there in proper order.

Facing them, Mr. Demon sat in the spot that belonged to them.

They looked at the players through their mask.

“You have achieved my wish,” their voice was gentle, carrying a smile.

“I declare that the game has concluded.”

The present players were really looking forward to hearing this sentence, but now that they heard these words they didn’t feel the joy they imagined they would have.

The Student was the only one who was happy. Although this game easily took it too far, they managed to clear it at any rate.

But when he saw the three contemplative people beside him he was a little puzzled.

The Student stretched out an arm and elbowed the Merchant next to him, “What’s wrong? We cleared the game and we can go back soon!”

He looked at Mr. Demon’s seat which, at some point in time, was empty again.

“Huh? It wasn’t that Mr. Demon’s game was cleared, but not our God’s Game, right? Don’t tell me we can’t go back to that white space anymore?”

Once the Student thought up this possibility he was terrified. They wouldn’t have been tricked by the demon, were they?

“We cleared the game.”

Gu Yian’s tone was light. She looked at the seat where the demon disappeared and said, “It’s just that we mistook a few things.”

The Student was clear in his head when he heard the first half, but when he heard the second half his head was a bit dizzy.

He asked, “Mistook what? We just need to clear the game, right?”

Gu Yian glanced at the broken window. The hole had been made by the Butcher.

“Mr. Demon said before that we could call them God, but they preferred that we call them a demon.”

“What the first victim actually summoned was God. God took pity on her and bestowed upon her the power to get her revenge. However, in the end, she became a demon, one that repeatedly used her power to play death games with the living. Consequently, God was no longer willing for us to call them God and instead made us call them a demon.”

The Student murmured, “God is a bit tragic.”

Gu Yian gave a fake cough, stopping the Student from talking to himself. Mr. Demon only disappeared and they were still watching the players.

Gu Yian looked at the empty seat belonging to Mr. Demon and said seriously, “But you aren’t a demon. You are God.”

Please God, praise God, and God would bestow on you immortality.

The Student looked at Mr. Demon’s empty seat, then at the Merchant who had a sudden realization, then at the Witch who had a smile on her face again, and then finally at the calm Gu Yian.

He understood a little a while later.

Mr. Demon’s wish to kill a demon was referring to this title of demon on them.

They rather wished for others to call them God.

This game was full of traps.

The Student swallowed and then asked apprehensively, “Miss Sage, didn’t you say we cleared the game?”

Gu Yian nodded. “We cleared the game. Now it’s cleared.”

As soon as her words landed the figures of the four present players began to fade.

It could be seen that Mr. Demon, or perhaps God, was extremely satisfied with her earlier words although they did not appear.

Before he disappeared from this world, the Merchant specially said to Gu Yian, “Miss Sage, I hope we’re lucky enough to meet in the next game.”

The Merchant appeared in the pure white space that belonged to him.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: ADEQUATE. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED YOU WERE THE REAL THIEF? BE GRATEFUL THEY DID NOT EXPOSE YOU. GOD LOOKS FORWARD TO YOUR SHOW IN THE NEXT GAME.]

Having returned to this space, the Merchant let out a long breath.

If God hadn’t created the conditions for him, he had almost been exposed on the spot by the sage.

Fortunately, at the first moment in the game, he reacted to the opportunity God created for him and used the prop in his hand to exchange his card before everyone flipped over their cards.

He was also lucky the sage had been a little misled by the small trap arranged in God’s seats.

She already sensed his abnormality but, because she had no evidence and her understanding of God’s Game still wasn’t deep enough, in the end she let him go out of kindness.

The Merchant continued to look at the black letters in the air.

[REWARDS: GOD MERCIFULLY BESTOWS TO YOU TEN DAYS OF LIFE AND AN ITEM. DO NOT HESITATE, PRAISE GOD FROM THE DEPTHS OF YOUR HEART.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: IMPOSSIBLE.]

The Merchant was just about to jump over the last line that had the same contents every time except he suddenly realized that something wasn’t normal.

Something seemed different this time.

The Merchant’s eyes were stuck on the last line of black letters.

Impossible?

What was impossible?

It couldn’t be that God disliked his invitation to Miss Sage, right?

~~~

In another pure white space that belonged to the Witch.

She looked at the black words floating in front of her, angry to the point where she couldn’t maintain the expression on her face.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: BARELY PASSABLE.]

[REWARDS: YOU STILL WANT A REWARD? DREAM ON.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: (DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. GOD HAS NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU. GOD HAS BLOCKED YOU.)]

The Witch stamped her foot, “Wasn’t it just a few souls last last game and getting them for cheap? You’re a God and going so far as to be petty?”

The black letters broke apart and combined into two numbers.

[10]

In the blink of an eye, they became a new number.

[9]

The number changed every second.

The Witch gave a long sigh and quickly sorted out her appearance.

“I admit defeat. Fortunately, I took in over twenty evil ghosts in the game just now and they can barely count as nourishment.”

The numbers disappeared and the white space in front of the Witch’s eyes ripped in the middle.

She saw several people at a loss.

They were new players.

The Witch had arrived at a new game.

~~~

The Student was also one who suffered the same tragic fate as the Witch.

The Student’s hand, which held a student card, trembled and he looked at the black words in the middle part about the rewards, feeling especially regretful.

[REWARDS: GOD MERCIFULLY REVOKES YOUR LUCKY PROP. THIS IS THE PROMISE OF GOD; YOU WILL NOT BE CERTAIN TO HAVE GOOD TEAMMATES NEXT TIME. PLEASE PRAISE GOD, FOR SEEING HOW PITIFUL YOU ARE, THEY HAVE KINDLY BESTOWED UPON YOU A CARD.]

If time could rewind, the Student wanted to throttle himself for going to strike up a conversation with God.

Who made him boast? Who made him boast!?

Great, now his lucky prop was revoked by God.

It was clearly that student card, which made him ask questions nonstop in the game to complete the character setting, that earned this; however, now it was regarded as the grace of God.

The Student regretted it. He regretted it so much his heart hurt.

~~~

Gu Yian wasn’t clear on what the situation in the other players’ pure white spaces were.

She looked at the black letters in front of her and sunk into thought.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: PERFECT CLEAR. BECAUSE GOD IS EXTREMELY PLEASED, IT IS PERFECT. GOD WILL NOT MIND THAT YOU LEFT OUT SOME TRIVIAL CLUES.]

[REWARDS: GOD WILL ALLOW YOU TO ENJOY TEN DAYS OF TRANQUILITY. GOD BESTOWED TO YOU AN ITEM. DO NOT HESITATE, PRAISE GOD FROM THE DEPTHS OF YOUR HEART.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: (PLEASE WAIT, GOD HAS A QUESTION.)]

This was possible?

Gu Yian waited.

The black letters in front of her disappeared like smoke.

Then a new line of letters appeared in the air in front of her.

[DO YOU LIKE GOD OR THE DEMON?]

Gu Yian: “……”

What a godly nutcase! They’re both you, so how can I answer?

Chapter 18 ~ Second Game Pt.9 ~

Gu Yian landed on the grass.

That ice-cold breath had already receded.

Now, the closest person to Gu Yian was the Merchant who came down first.

The Merchant stood less than one meter away from Gu Yian and he looked into the darkness in a direction and said, “You guessed right. After we grabbed the correct summoning ritual, she took the initiative to come out.”

At this stage, the ghosts would make a preemptive move.

Two muffled noises sounded behind Gu Yian with the Witch and Student landing on the lawn, one after another.

The Witch ordered, “You two protect the Sage well.”

The sound of a faint “click” came from in front of them.

The Merchant’s expression changed and, in what seemed like a second, there were several small items in his hand.

“Merchant, put away your props,” the Witch calmly instructed.

“Alright.” The Merchant waved his hand and retracted an item.

The Witch quickly drew a symbol in the air with her fingertip and then charged into the darkness.

Suddenly, the office building behind the players that had been providing a weak light for everyone disappeared.

Everyone was enveloped in endless darkness.

The horror toward darkness instantly swept over the present players.

The Witch’s calm voice sounded, “Don’t panic. I’m here, so come close to me.”

But immediately there came a voice from another direction which sounded the same as the Witch.

“No one move. She’s a ghost.”

Panic surged through the air.

Several seconds passed.

The sound of the Student’s crumbling voice fell into the ears of all the players, “Which exactly is the real one?”

“Fool, shut up!” The Witch shouted coldly.

A strange sound came from the Student’s location but then it quickly returned to being silent.

Gu Yian stood in the dark, listening to the various collision noises and the unconscious grunts of the other players.

She turned the small coffin she got from the last game world in her hand.

Right now, all the other players had been attacked except for her.

Gu Yian didn’t think she could be fortunate enough to be a target the ghosts wouldn’t attack.

Suddenly, a sense of extreme danger surged up in Gu Yian’s heart.

It was coming!

Just as Gu Yian thought this, the small coffin in her hand slipped out of her palm without any sign.

BOOM!

In a flash, light replaced darkness.

A coffin laid quietly on the grass.

Gu Yian’s hand was still slightly hanging in the air, holding the pose of turning the small coffin.

In the distance the Student was covered in blood, the Witch had disheveled hair, and the Merchant had four to five small objects floating around him. All three of them looked toward Gu Yian at the same time, dumbfounded.

The sky was clear and it was evident that the ghosts were successfully destroyed.

The Merchant reacted quickest and put away his props as if nothing had happened. He walked towards Gu Yian with a cheery smile.

“Miss Sage, in the end, you still hid a move.”

He glanced at the coffin which made no move and said, “If you have this sort of prop in the future, I’ll exchange a resurrection badge for it with you.”

Gu Yian actually hadn’t come back to herself yet. Such a powerful ghost died just like that?

But her complexion didn’t change and, after listening to the Merchant, she just asked, “How do I contact you? Do I call the number on the note we found from the Butcher’s body?”

The Merchant’s smile deepened, “Miss Sage is indeed clever. The number is that number, but you need to use an underworld phone.”

The Witch tidied her hair and then slowly walked over.

She measured the Merchant with a few looks and then said with certainty, “You have a prop on you that can exchange items.”

Right after, the Witch’s voice was displeased, “You wouldn’t have switched out my prop, did you?”

The Merchant replied, “You misunderstand, I’m not that capable.”

The Student limped over to join them and the fresh blood on him faded at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Student only heard half of the conversation and was very confused. “Switch what?”

No player answered him.

Because, at a time when no one noticed, the scenery around them changed.

From the grassy lawn back to the round table at the beginning of the game.

The Witch, Gu Yian, the Merchant, and the Student stood there in proper order.

Facing them, Mr. Demon sat in the spot that belonged to them.

They looked at the players through their mask.

“You have achieved my wish,” their voice was gentle, carrying a smile.

“I declare that the game has concluded.”

The present players were really looking forward to hearing this sentence, but now that they heard these words they didn’t feel the joy they imagined they would have.

The Student was the only one who was happy. Although this game easily took it too far, they managed to clear it at any rate.

But when he saw the three contemplative people beside him he was a little puzzled.

The Student stretched out an arm and elbowed the Merchant next to him, “What’s wrong? We cleared the game and we can go back soon!”

He looked at Mr. Demon’s seat which, at some point in time, was empty again.

“Huh? It wasn’t that Mr. Demon’s game was cleared, but not our God’s Game, right? Don’t tell me we can’t go back to that white space anymore?”

Once the Student thought up this possibility he was terrified. They wouldn’t have been tricked by the demon, were they?

“We cleared the game.”

Gu Yian’s tone was light. She looked at the seat where the demon disappeared and said, “It’s just that we mistook a few things.”

The Student was clear in his head when he heard the first half, but when he heard the second half his head was a bit dizzy.

He asked, “Mistook what? We just need to clear the game, right?”

Gu Yian glanced at the broken window. The hole had been made by the Butcher.

“Mr. Demon said before that we could call them God, but they preferred that we call them a demon.”

“What the first victim actually summoned was God. God took pity on her and bestowed upon her the power to get her revenge. However, in the end, she became a demon, one that repeatedly used her power to play death games with the living. Consequently, God was no longer willing for us to call them God and instead made us call them a demon.”

The Student murmured, “God is a bit tragic.”

Gu Yian gave a fake cough, stopping the Student from talking to himself. Mr. Demon only disappeared and they were still watching the players.

Gu Yian looked at the empty seat belonging to Mr. Demon and said seriously, “But you aren’t a demon. You are God.”

Please God, praise God, and God would bestow on you immortality.

The Student looked at Mr. Demon’s empty seat, then at the Merchant who had a sudden realization, then at the Witch who had a smile on her face again, and then finally at the calm Gu Yian.

He understood a little a while later.

Mr. Demon’s wish to kill a demon was referring to this title of demon on them.

They rather wished for others to call them God.

This game was full of traps.

The Student swallowed and then asked apprehensively, “Miss Sage, didn’t you say we cleared the game?”

Gu Yian nodded. “We cleared the game. Now it’s cleared.”

As soon as her words landed the figures of the four present players began to fade.

It could be seen that Mr. Demon, or perhaps God, was extremely satisfied with her earlier words although they did not appear.

Before he disappeared from this world, the Merchant specially said to Gu Yian, “Miss Sage, I hope we’re lucky enough to meet in the next game.”

The Merchant appeared in the pure white space that belonged to him.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: ADEQUATE. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED YOU WERE THE REAL THIEF? BE GRATEFUL THEY DID NOT EXPOSE YOU. GOD LOOKS FORWARD TO YOUR SHOW IN THE NEXT GAME.]

Having returned to this space, the Merchant let out a long breath.

If God hadn’t created the conditions for him, he had almost been exposed on the spot by the sage.

Fortunately, at the first moment in the game, he reacted to the opportunity God created for him and used the prop in his hand to exchange his card before everyone flipped over their cards.

He was also lucky the sage had been a little misled by the small trap arranged in God’s seats.

She already sensed his abnormality but, because she had no evidence and her understanding of God’s Game still wasn’t deep enough, in the end she let him go out of kindness.

The Merchant continued to look at the black letters in the air.

[REWARDS: GOD MERCIFULLY BESTOWS TO YOU TEN DAYS OF LIFE AND AN ITEM. DO NOT HESITATE, PRAISE GOD FROM THE DEPTHS OF YOUR HEART.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: IMPOSSIBLE.]

The Merchant was just about to jump over the last line that had the same contents every time except he suddenly realized that something wasn’t normal.

Something seemed different this time.

The Merchant’s eyes were stuck on the last line of black letters.

Impossible?

What was impossible?

It couldn’t be that God disliked his invitation to Miss Sage, right?

~~~

In another pure white space that belonged to the Witch.

She looked at the black words floating in front of her, angry to the point where she couldn’t maintain the expression on her face.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: BARELY PASSABLE.]

[REWARDS: YOU STILL WANT A REWARD? DREAM ON.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: (DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. GOD HAS NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU. GOD HAS BLOCKED YOU.)]

The Witch stamped her foot, “Wasn’t it just a few souls last last game and getting them for cheap? You’re a God and going so far as to be petty?”

The black letters broke apart and combined into two numbers.

[10]

In the blink of an eye, they became a new number.

[9]

The number changed every second.

The Witch gave a long sigh and quickly sorted out her appearance.

“I admit defeat. Fortunately, I took in over twenty evil ghosts in the game just now and they can barely count as nourishment.”

The numbers disappeared and the white space in front of the Witch’s eyes ripped in the middle.

She saw several people at a loss.

They were new players.

The Witch had arrived at a new game.

~~~

The Student was also one who suffered the same tragic fate as the Witch.

The Student’s hand, which held a student card, trembled and he looked at the black words in the middle part about the rewards, feeling especially regretful.

[REWARDS: GOD MERCIFULLY REVOKES YOUR LUCKY PROP. THIS IS THE PROMISE OF GOD; YOU WILL NOT BE CERTAIN TO HAVE GOOD TEAMMATES NEXT TIME. PLEASE PRAISE GOD, FOR SEEING HOW PITIFUL YOU ARE, THEY HAVE KINDLY BESTOWED UPON YOU A CARD.]

If time could rewind, the Student wanted to throttle himself for going to strike up a conversation with God.

Who made him boast? Who made him boast!?

Great, now his lucky prop was revoked by God.

It was clearly that student card, which made him ask questions nonstop in the game to complete the character setting, that earned this; however, now it was regarded as the grace of God.

The Student regretted it. He regretted it so much his heart hurt.

~~~

Gu Yian wasn’t clear on what the situation in the other players’ pure white spaces were.

She looked at the black letters in front of her and sunk into thought.

[GAME CLEAR STATISTICS: PERFECT CLEAR. BECAUSE GOD IS EXTREMELY PLEASED, IT IS PERFECT. GOD WILL NOT MIND THAT YOU LEFT OUT SOME TRIVIAL CLUES.]

[REWARDS: GOD WILL ALLOW YOU TO ENJOY TEN DAYS OF TRANQUILITY. GOD BESTOWED TO YOU AN ITEM. DO NOT HESITATE, PRAISE GOD FROM THE DEPTHS OF YOUR HEART.]

[GOD SAYS TO YOU: (PLEASE WAIT, GOD HAS A QUESTION.)]

This was possible?

Gu Yian waited.

The black letters in front of her disappeared like smoke.

Then a new line of letters appeared in the air in front of her.

[DO YOU LIKE GOD OR THE DEMON?]

Gu Yian: “……”

What a godly nutcase! They’re both you, so how can I answer?