Chapter 17: The Hunter of the Maze (ii)

Lin Jue moved forward in the silence and darkness.

The safety exit casted a green light over the surrounding walls and ground, making them all appear eerily tinted.

His footsteps were light, barely audible.

What was ahead of him? He didn’t know. In the dim and ominous surroundings, it felt as if a monster could appear at any second and savagely tear open his chest and feast upon his innards, just like that scene he had seen himself.

Wind blew in from the open glass doors of the entrance, sending a cold breath across his naked nape, every hair of his seeming to stand on end in an instant.

Lin Jue pressed his back against the wall and cast his vision towards the entrance, alarmed and alert. The wall behind him seemed to press up against him, the coldness slipping in through his clothes, surging through his every vein. His heart thumped loudly in an attempt to warm up his cold blood and create relief for his frozen limbs.

The entrance was empty apart from the light shining diagonally across of it, casting the shadow of a bare tree onto the ground. Its branches trembled in the wind, like countless thin claws struggling.

Lin Jue felt his heart settle back to where it was supposed to be, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh of relief.

When he finally opened his eyes, his heart suddenly missed a beat——

A familiar figure stood not far away and stared at him expressionlessly.

“Zhou… Yuxiu?” Lin Jue felt like his throat was so hoarse that he couldn’t speak.

Zhou Yuxiu stood in the nearby corner, still in that miniskirt, her feet bare. Her face was still pale, even a little sickly underneath the green glow.

She suddenly smiled, something gentle and beautiful.

“How are you here?” Lin Jue recovered his senses and asked, alarmed.

“Is it strange? But then again, it’s only right that I should be dead by now; you were the one that killed me after all, no one should know better than you.” Zhou Yuxiu took two steps forwards, a strange light glittering in her black eyes.

Lin Jue didn’t respond and stared at her silently.

The curses and screams just before her death still rang in his ears; he would never be able to forget that feeling of running away, despairing and numb, after murdering someone.

This person standing in front of him was definitely not Zhou Yuxiu, but rather a resurrected demon, a mad avenger.

“But I did die. Don’t worry, you’ll soon follow my footsteps; everyone will die in the end, it’s only a matter of time.”

Lin Jue stared at the long shadow behind Zhou Yuxiu and asked coldly, “What are you?”

Zhou Yuxiu caressed her left hand with her gloved right, her eyes staring unblinkingly at Lin Jue. “Just a dead girl. There’s nothing strange about that. This school is filled with the wandering dead, chasing senselessly after the flesh of the living. What a wonderful game. We’re like clowns, struggling, striving, fighting each other, all for a little hope at living on, but in the end, no-one can escape the ending. No-one can escape giving their soul up to the devil.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still not understand? This is a game that feeds on the spirit and despair. The instant you sign your name down, you’re destined to have the same ending as me. Luckily, I still have a chance to see you fall into hell with me together, struggling in nightmares forever!” 

Zhou Yuxiu slowly removed the glove on her left hand, revealing the bite wound. She raised her hand to her mouth, her lips gently kissing that hideous wound.

The next moment, her entire appearance changed.

A zombie’s hideous fangs, eyes so turbid that the pupils were hidden, a body covered in torn open bite wounds, pale bones showing under the hanging flesh, dirty blood dried on her clothes and festering pus and fluid oozing from the holes.

A pungent wave of rot hit Lin Jue as he took an instinctive step back. 

“Let’s play a fun hunting game. There are five mutated zombies in this maze who cannot smell but have enhanced hearing. Let me see how long you can survive while being surrounded by the despair of death. Lin Jue, don’t disappoint me.”

The sweetest voice came out of the zombie’s torn mouth as she giggled, her deformed hands clapping. “Come here my children, the prey has entered the cage. Let the games begin.”

A strong sense of danger made Lin Jue bolt immediately, the exit of the building right in front of him, three meters, two meters, one meter!

The moment he ran out of the building, Lin Jue even felt like he was still in a dream, but the next moment, he saw that he was standing in an audio classroom, surrounded by neatly lined up hearing desks¹. With no time to think, he closed the door behind him and opened the front door of the classroom—— a dark stairwell faced him.

A maze.

Lin Jue suddenly understood the meaning behind it: the entire building had been twisted around, and even if he jumped out of the window, he would be unable to escape, only taken to another space. It could be the stairs, the bathroom, or a common room.

With a bang, the back door of the audio room was hit, the wood groaning under the impact, accompanied by the sound of splintering.

With another two hits, the wooden door broke completely. With the ominous moonlight from outside, Lin Jue saw a monster that was about half a human’s height slink in, sticking onto the wall like a lizard, its red eyes focusing immediately onto him.

The pressure made Lin Jue slam the door shut behind him without thinking and run into the dark stairwell. Almost as soon as the door was shut, it received another violent hit.

Lin Jue ran down at the fastest speed possible; he felt as if he had never ran so fast his entire life, so fast that he couldn’t even feel his feet hitting the ground. The wooden door could at most take two more hits. If he was unable to escape into a new room before then, the only thing waiting for him was to be feasted on by monsters.

With another hit, Lin Jue saw the wood door leading to the bathroom, and as the door behind him flew off its hinges with the third hit, Lin Jue pulled open the one to the bathroom before opening a cubicle and entering another stairwell.

After traveling through another ten or so rooms, Lin Jue finally felt a little relieved. If every window and door opened itself to a random room, then after ten repetitions, the chance of meeting up again would be slim.

There was only Lin Jue’s rapid breathing and violent heartbeat in the dim classroom. He leaned against the door and panted, trying to recover.

It was quiet and dark all around him, ice cold ominousness seeping into his skin. It was only now that he finally had some time to think.

This building wasn’t very big, but five floors meant that there were at least a hundred rooms. To escape five monsters…

His brain whirled and the feeling of forgetting something made Lin Jue hold his breath.

No.

Five monsters, a hundred rooms, so the chance of meeting one in any room was a small five percent, but if he had already ran through at least ten rooms…

From above came a light sound of a gulp, a drop of cold liquid dripping onto Lin Jue’s hand, tightly gripping onto the wooden pole as he raised his head stiffly in despair.

A monster with blood red eyes stuck itself onto the ceiling, foul liquid dripping down from its ripped mouth.

Gulp.

***

The author has something to say: I’m sorry, I forgot to add the setting…

Part C: The game venue is the entire campus, and the duration is until dawn. The first monster to play in it is the zombie. The monster’s abilities will increase over time- of course, it has to do with other factors as well, it’s not entirely due to time or automatic enhancements. For example, due to the actions of players in an area, the longer you stay, the more dangerous it will become, so you should be ready to flee.

Part D: But in the game, other minigames may be triggered due to certain conditions being met (for example, the number of survivors gathered may trigger a certain minigame, or a battle royale, and the minigame will end when a certain number of people are left to return to the main campus plot). Don’t trust anyone easily, there is no game that will not cost the player number.

(Editor’s Note: There was no Part A/B. Don’t ask…)

***
¹Hearing desks, to train listening skills. If you’ve ever been in a languages class, you should be familiar with these…

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