Ordinary Chapter 34: Breaking the Field

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

Yang Yi returned to the surveillance room. Five hours had passed and only seven people were left at the scene, so even if they didn’t remember the people who had disappeared, they could sense that something was wrong. Since the playfield covered such a large area, how could only seven people be locked up in it? Moreover, Yang Yi came to the Special Unit to sign a contract.

Why did he come alone? If it was a contract, shouldn’t he have brought a Survivor that could work with the Special Unit?

No, their memories were all wrong.

“Who is the person who disappeared?” Yang Yi entered the doorway and asked directly, “Do I have a relationship with them?”

Shen Si made sure everyone was there before rewinding the footage to the beginning, which dutifully repeated the earlier scene. In the video they could see the monster crawling out of the clock, the girl standing in place looked back, she looked in the camera with her empty eyes, then the next moment she rushed directly towards the end of the corridor.

She was running away, without her previous near-uncontrollable breakdown, and chose a very sensible escape route, but unfortunately, during all this, the monster was invincible.

The screen went black with a click, and the time jumped back to 5:00:00.

The moment the screen turned black, Yang Yi felt his heart seize and he subconsciously put his hand on his chest. He obviously didn’t know this woman, but in the moment of seeing her disappear he shuddered, because he knew very well, this person who was deleted from his memory must have had a great relationship with him.

“Is that the only way you can think of?” Yang Yi looked at Shen Si, “Are you sure that I can smash the clock after resurrection? Can you also be sure that we can leave this playfield after the clock is destroyed?”

“Not sure.” Shen Si said this without care, “But we have no choice, there’s only this method. You can try using Extreme Death in the future, so it should be quite obvious which one to choose.”

Yang Yi nodded as he leaned against the door frame, “I see.”

“If it works out, you’re our salvation.” Ning Yangze said half-jokingly, “When the time comes, say it was a cooperation with the Special Unit, and based on your contribution the top might even give you a medal.”

“Is there a bonus?”

“There must be one.”

After that was silence, because no one knew if this method was indeed the right one, nor did they know whether this attempt would succeed in the end. There were too many uncertainties. The horror of this playfield had been a black veil for everyone, and they were quietly dying and being forgotten by all of them. This kind of clear death was chilling to the extreme.

Time passed and no one spoke anymore. Time never stopped, and nobody knew what to think, even the usual confident and conceited He Xin didn’t speak again either.

Shen Si stood up under the eyes of the people and went back to the corridor of the Special Unit office. He leaned against the wall and looked at the clock that had long been re-set to the wall, its second hand rotating, round and round, and as it was approaching the full hour, the rest of the people also returned, and they would be here to witness it together to the end.

If it didn’t work, and Yang Yi died, Shen Si was the next number 1, so once he’s dead the rest would never know that the people in this playfield were disappearing one by one.

And they will… all perish.

Ding-dong, the alert of the full hour sounded, followed by a familiar voice.

“No. 1 is disappearing!”

Yang Yi looked at Shen Si, their eyes on each other. Yang Yi turned into air, the rest of the people, as usual, didn’t notice.

However, this time, the second sentence ‘No. 1 disappeared’ did not sound.

The moment he disappeared, Yang Yi snapped his eyes open, and the next moment he realized that he had changed locations. He was not quite sure where he was, but the surroundings were still. Whether it was the wind or the air or people, he could see the people moving still in front of him, as well as the blood on the ground.

Gurgle, gurgle, like the sound of a water bubble breaking rang out. Yang Yi turned around sharply to look on the wall behind him, where the clock was trembling, then fell to the ground with a clear crisp sound, and a black, bloodied shadow crawled out of it.

The oddly distorted face made Yang Yi subconsciously take a step back, but he didn’t resist, since once he died, he could strike.

Even though Yang Yi had experienced death countless times, he still harbored a fear of death, especially when he was in fear of not being able to resist at all. Yang Yi desperately suppressed his instinct to survive, letting the black shadow wrap around him and letting the bloodied hand penetrate his body.

If this was the only way to get through and get out of here, then he will do so.

Yang Yi: dead.

The shadow slowly crawled away, leaving the already dead man lying on the ground with blood spilling slowly out of him and quickly staining the ground. The moment the shadow reentered the clock, time jumped again, but suddenly, the already dead man on the ground shuddered, and slowly got up with his body covered in blood.

He ran forward, his eyes full of red blood, like a man who hadn’t slept for days and nights. Almost hissing, he smashed his fist into the clock with a fierce bang, and a hole was made in the glass dial of the clock.

Yang Yi didn’t stop, but kept attacking, until his fist was bloody from the cuts by the glass, but he didn’t care. Crack, the sound of the clock breaking became more and more obvious.

“Bring back the memory of everyone, give it back!”

Crack, the hour hand was smashed straight down, while the metal hands fell on the floor with a sharp crashing sound.

The clock shattered.

Yang Yi stood up, and breathed heavily, as the blood on his right fist fell to the floor drop by drop.

“I didn’t disappear.” Yang Yi murmured, “I’m still alive, did it… work?”

… 

In the real world, Wu Qiu pushed the glasses on the bridge of her nose, now she finished the detection lecture task. In case there was more work, she was still there, but she was now with Jian Nian, the Jian Nian ugh, that legendary S-Rank Survivor? What was he doing here?

After finding his men and asking them, Wu Qiu realized that Jian Nian was here because Shen Si was also one of the twelve missing, and he came straight here after learning the news.

However, after knowing this matter, Wu Qiu had a doubt.

If she was the regular Wu Qiu she wouldn’t dare to ask, but now she wasn’t the ordinary Wu Qiu, she was the Wu Qiu wearing glasses. After she put on the glasses there was nothing she dared not ask, nothing she dared not experiment, so she walked very brightly in front of Jian Nian.

“What are you doing?” Jian Nian looked at her, and there was no suspicion in his dark eyes, but there was definitely no good intention either.

“Sorry, I just have a doubt that I want you to help me solve.” Wu Qiu pointed her thumb backwards at the Special Unit office door behind her, “Shen Si is also in the playfield, right? Death Trial ah, this kind of legendary playfield, why don’t you try it?”

“Would it be useful?” Jian Nian slightly narrowed his eyes.

Wu Qiu laughed, “No matter if it’s useful or not. For you, since there’s someone very important to you, you will definitely go to save people, and that’s why you ran straight here.”

She made a cutting sound while bringing her face closer, and Jian Nian lowered his head, “What the hell are you trying to say?”

“Do you know something that I don’t know? Although the Inspection Unit has the ability to detect, there are times when the information is really not as complete as you S-Rank Survivors’. Team Leader is okay, but I am a bottom C-Rank, and I have only just heard about the Death Trial. Cooperate a little, how about telling us what you know?”

Jian Nian looked at Wu Qiu, after a moment he laughed, “What’s the use of knowing?”

“In theory, his playfield definitely has a humanities aspect, and it’s going to play off of that. Learning more about it we can target this to prevent people from getting killed.” Wu Qiu spoke in a noble tone of voice, “But for us now, I just want to know the situation to determine whether the people inside can come out alive.”

Jian Nian leaned against the wall, as he started explaining. “So, Survivors know why that playfield is called the Death Trial. It is judged more like human nature, and its passing method is more like a game than any other playfield. This playfield will be based on the chosen person to set the playfield, each person inside has characteristics that have a key role. It only brings in those with characteristics that can change the present playfield, and then if you follow a set script like a game, you can pass. You calling it an unlucky game is not wrong, this is indeed just a game.”

Wu Qiu froze. Three seconds later she found her voice, “In other words, the people inside must play their role at key points, and once the game runs smoothly, they can pass?”

“Which means cooperation.” Jian Nian looked at her, “Now you know why there are almost no survivors in the Death Trials, right?”

Of course… 

In the unlimited flow world almost no one had companions, except for some who had a fixed partner,  other than that they couldn’t trust people too much. If they were to blindly trust someone, then when encountering someone like Zeng Re, they could only die. So many strangers trusting each other was almost impossible.

But it was different now, the people inside were different, and Wu Qiu believed they would trust and cooperate with each other.

“…Such harsh conditions, in the world of unlimited flow is there really someone who survived?”

“There is.” Jian Nian smiled a little, only that smile of his didn’t look friendly, but had a little bit of inexplicable grim taste to it, “My luck is bad, really bad, and I would always get caught in strange playfields. I end up with a bunch of lousy bad guys in every playfield I enter. I met unprecedented scum teammates in this playfield, those guys made me understand how stupid of an animal humans really are, but since you see me standing here properly you must’ve realized, that in the end, I was the only one who came out of this playfield.”

Wu Qiu subconsciously gulped, “And then?”

“Then, I found out the nature of this playfield.” Jian Nian stared at the door of the Special Unit office, “This is really just a game. It’s like a team-style game, meaning that it doesn’t matter if someone in the team dies, even if there is only one person left and the game is cracked, it also counts as a win. This playfield has two modes: one where everyone dies, and one where everyone… survives.”

So just now this person’s eyes became like that because he survived, but because he passed, his own scum teammates came back to life as well. …She didn’t know whether to ask him if he had killed those people, or comfort him and say her condolences.