Volume 4 - CH 58.2

Mu Jiashi is currently pasued, thinking.

… What? ‘Impurities’? Did he hear that right? Is that a passphrase or something?

The man that spoke up is still glaring at these unexpected guests, and says again, “impurities!”

Collector gives a giddy response, “magazine?”

The man furrows his brows immediately to say, “wrong!” And like some kind of loyal captain of the knights, he calls for several bulky guys from the side, and with backup, says with this cold, threatening and stern tone, “invaders, leave!”

“Eh, why are you so nervous?” The Collector does not seem fazed at all, instead, he looks downright excited in that smile. He asks, “we’re just here, so we don’t know what’s going on, can’t you explain? What do you mean by ‘impurities’?”

The man is still creasing his brows, but is more hesitant. In the end, he still stands his ground, saying, “please leave.”

That tone certainly improved, if nothing else.

That is when Mu Jiashi notices that, behind the rusted fences of the amusement park, many people are approaching towards them like ghosts drifting through the air.

The people have stopped talking. The murmur-like background noises have disappeared already, only leaving behind a stagnant silence.

It almost feels like all those who are present in the ruins, are already dead.

… All these living people in front of them, but Mu Jiashi can only see people that have no soul, that are cold and disinterested.

They are not at all welcoming Mu Jiashi and Collector’s visit. Instead, they show an extreme xenophobic, hateful response.

Where does this kind of animosity… come from?

Mu Jiashi is suspecting that bald Missiontaker of hiding some information already. He glances at Collector besides him, and thinks, he might just happen to be collateral damage this time.

… Never mind.

He just sighs, and drags Collector away while calmly nodding towards and telling that ‘captain,’ “we’re sorry. We’ll be leaving.”

They will choose to avert this amusement park.

When Mu Jiashi is pulling him away, Collector is still incessantly going on about “eh, impurities, what… you, stop! We could have got the answer!”

Mu Jiashi just tells him, “don’t be in such a hurry. This is only the first run of the Nightmare, so instead of going up against these guys head-to-head, it’ll be better to check elsewhere and see if there’s anything we can dig up on them.”

Collector seems surprised by the answer, then gives Mu Jiashi this dramatic thumbs-up, saying, “woah, nice! You’re already ready to pull the blankets from out under them?”

Mu Jiashi “…”

His brows furrow slightly as he looks puzzlingly at the young man in front of him.

Since when did he say he was going to take them on directly?

Collector isn’t interested in whether he misunderstood Mu Jiashi, though, as he continues his leaping steps——He should be thankful for his still-youthful appearance, otherwise he would look too terribly, absurdly childish.

Not that Mu Jiashi could really get used to that behaviour, since he knows too well that Collector may still pass for a teenager in appearance, but considering the number of years he must have spent in the Tower…

No Missiontaker are really young in any sense.

It is only their age, along with their physical bodies, being frozen in time forever the moment they woke up in the Tower.

If you ask him, Mu Jiashi feels he’s more a forty-something middle-aged uncle, even though he only appears to be just in his 20s.

His physical body may not have changed, but what’s inside, is different as night and day.

Sometimes, Mu Jiashi can’t help but wonder, even if they do leave the Tower, can they readapt to life outside? After all the years they have spent living inside the Tower, inside Nightmares like these…

Whenever he thinks about that, he can only sigh.

He continues forward with Collector.

They agreed to meet up at that building.

In terms of the route they take, the Baldie-Biceps pair have the shortest route, which Baldie said he should have been allowed because of the information he provided.

While Mu Jiashi and Collector has the medium-length route, but it is terribly unfriendly terrain, especially when they are circling by the amusement park only to realise the way forward is completely ruined, the kind without any single flat surface to speak of…

Even Collector’s smile twitches for a moment.

Meanwhile, as the back-and-forth took place between Mu Jiashi and Collector, and the people in the amusement park, as they head south-east, Xü Beijin was outside of his bookstore, checking out his surroundings at the entrance to the building.

The mere scale of this ruinous landscape only implants fear in people, because it looks more to be destruction by some weapon that descended on them without notice, than anything that could have been attributed to time and decay.

The amusement park looks more like ground zero for that hypothetical weapon, because buildings and ruins are noticeably, dramatically more broken down, decimated the closer one approaches.

Even the ground is more buckled the closer one is to the centre of the amusement park.

What kind of weapon can cause such a terrifying, mass destruction?

Xü Beijin stands there with a poker face, observing the ruins with a calm but deep gaze. There is a breeze from afar, providing some background howling to this scene.

He is recalling the long, long past.

A long while later, when even the viewers of the stream are asking why he is standing here doing nothing, Xü Beijin finally snaps back from his past, returning to reality.

He awkwardly smiles as he switches the source of the audio over to his side, and guides the viewers on a tour of the nearby rubble.

Well, he may say rubble, but there are still places where some walls remain standing, sometimes forming a barebones, makeshift shelter from the elements. These have been claimed as places where the survivors gravitate towards, or more straightforwardly, their marketplaces.

They never come to a stop in these places, though. Like some kind of phantom, they would drift between different places of assembly. When Xü Beijin spots a survivor and tries to get a detailed look, he would find the person already gone.

In the end, he can only note one man. One man with visibly more tattered clothes and a lifeless expression. He is so emaciated his cheeks have collapsed and his eyes look like the soul has been drained from them. He is doing whatever he could to look for food.

His steps are slow and sluggish, snail-pace compared to any other survivor. There is a ceramic bowl in his hand, perhaps it is used for trade, perhaps it is used for begging.

The man walks from here to there, and then, a while later, Xü Beijin sees him reemerge from behind a wall, with what appears to be a loaf of bread in his hands, as he walks away lifelessly again.

The audience are all in shock by how drained that man looked.

“oh man… such an apocalyptic game setting… is just unfriendly to me!”

“everyone else’s ‘apocalypse’ game: *tut tut tut* *boom*; my ‘apocalypse’ game: I’m so hungry I’m about to die…”

“im suddenly curious watching these people… Beibei, how are you so casual? you dont need to look for food and even has that basically functional bookstore under you?”

“!!! makes sense! Beibei, did you finally rise up in this nightmare?”

Xü Beijin “…”

He rubs his nose with a bitter smile, while telling his viewers, “no, I’m still just an extra.”

The viewers sigh in disappointment.

Someone remarks, however, “but so… wouldnt players suspect Beibei of being a bad guy?”

Xü Beijin “…”

Suddenly, he has come to the realisation of the high possibility of what the viewer just said.