“This is truly the definition of a home with barren walls…” Feng Bujue walked into the room. The long house was old and worn, and the walls were a mix of bricks and woods. The exposed beams were made of wood, and the walls had spidery cracks on them. Some of the more serious cracks even had cement layered on top of them—they looked fairly recent. There was only one window in the room. It was about one meter wide, and it was the kind similar to the one in prison, with bars and not glass. There was a simple bar of wood installed above the windowsill from where the curtain hung. If the wind was to blow into the room, then the rain was definitely going to drip through the open window.
The house was delineated into two rooms with a door-less doorframe as a partition. The first room that Feng Bujue entered could be seen as the living room. It was about ten meters wide and had wooden tiles as flooring. Leaning against the wall was a cupboard that reached Feng Bujue’s chest. A short, circular table was placed in the middle of the room and around it were three tatami mats.
The ceiling was low, and one of the beams had an exposed lightbulb dangling from it, giving off the only source of light.
Feng Bujue walked through the doorframe and poked his head to look into the other room. The room was smaller than the living room. A bed was placed on the ground, and it had already taken up half of the space. There was a dresser placed next to the doorframe. There was a conspicuous absence of lamps in the room. In other words, when the person living there wanted to go to bed, they had to turn off the light in the living room and find their way in the dark before crawling into the bed in the second room to sleep.
Of course… since this house did not have much furniture, technically speaking, it should not be too dangerous to wander in the dark.
“This is a bit much…” Feng Bujue closed the door and mumbled to himself. “There is electricity but no water. Even the bathroom is shared.”
He had already noticed that when he was outside. In the corner of the yard stood something that looked like a telephone booth. That should be a mobile toilet.
“Current quest complete. Main quest updated.”
Before he even sat down, the system rang. Feng Bujue opened the menu and noticed that there was a tick next to the ’Go Home’ quest. The new quest was “Stay at your home until dawn.”
“Huh?” Feng Bujue instantly looked displeased. “I have to stay here one night?”
Outside, it felt like the world was going to end by thunder and rain. Even though he had pulled back the curtains, the chilling winds still slipped through the window bars. There were shadows lurking behind the curtains. Feng Bujue convinced himself that it was just the shadows of the swaying branches…
Even though the house had electricity, the only thing that exhausted electricity was a lightbulb. There was not even a radio, much less a television. Even though Feng Bujue would not be tormented by fear, he would be tortured by extreme boredom.
“I thought that the nightmare mode would be a serious increase in the difficulty of combat…” Feng Bujue walked to the cupboard placed in the corner. “But it’s just a change of setting…”
He pulled open the wooden door and looked inside. There was a thermos, two tea cups, and a teapot inside the cupboard. They were all placed on top of a round wooden tray.
Since everything was still black-and-white, Feng Bujue could not tell their colors. He picked one up and realized that the thermos was practically full. He took out the whole tray and placed it on the table.
Then, he returned to the cupboard and found a small can that stored tea leaves on the top later. The word ’tea’ was written on the can, but other details like the type of tea, production date, and so on were missing.
“Hmm… Even though this is a temporary home found after a natural disaster, can a human being really live a life like this?” Feng Bujue grumbled. “There is not even running water, and I have to leave the house if I need to use the toilet. The toilet is in the yard, and the public bath is down the street. There are not even utensils for dinner… and even if there were, where I am supposed to wash them after dinner?”
He used the water inside thermos to rinse the pot and cups before tossing the water away. He opened the can and dropped a pinch of tea leaves into the pot. After letting the unknown tea steep for a while, he poured himself a cup.
Since one could not change their apparel in-game, it also meant that one could not remove their apparel in a scenario. Therefore, all Feng Bujue could do was twist his shirt dry. He wore the wet shirt and waited for it to dry. He held the hot tea in his hands, using it as a source of warmth to counter the chill running through his body.
“Greatly decreasing the number of clues and amount of information provided, while greatly increasing the chance of instant death, there is a concerted effort to kick up the fear factor in the plot. That should be the basis for all nightmare quests, I suppose,” Feng Bujue murmured. “Some choices that seem insignificant might lead to your death.”
He thought back to his earlier experience and realized a bit too late. “If I said the wrong word and showed any trace of fear, the woman with the torn lips probably would have killed me on the spot, as would the monster perched on the telephone pole…”
He lifted his head up to look out the window. Outside, it was still pouring. “It might look like there is no space or time limit, but if I really ignore the main quest and go away to explore, I might encounter some death-trigger on the streets. Based on the world-building of this scenario, one has to have a powerful mastery of Sorcery to gain some degree of freedom… or else one has to follow the main quest obediently.”
After another sip of hot tea, he mumbled, “Following the main quest… should lead me to more scares, and I shouldn’t be cornered into impossible to win battles.”
He put down the cup. “But… this is quite boring. Am I supposed to fall asleep while in-game? By the way, is there even not a newspaper in this room?”
“Oh…” Suddenly, a strange voice sounded. “Wu… Ergh…”
Then those two sounds followed. They were dragged out. They sounded like the voice an old witch would make. The sounds came from the wall, from the room of his ’neighbor’.
“What the hell is going on?” Feng Bujue turned his face to the wall. “It’s raining so heavily outside… and people are summoning the spirits inside?”
Feng Bujue thought about it and realized that this should be part of the plot, and he should be reacting in some way.
“Hello, are you okay over there?” he yelled at the wall. Then, the voice suddenly stopped.
“What’s going on? Is she dead?” Feng Bujue was originally sitting cross-legged on the ground, but once the voice stopped, he pressed his palms against the ground and edged his body as silently as he could toward the wall. He perked up his ears and leaned against the wall to listen.
Creak…
It was the sound of the door followed by footsteps. From the sound of it, his neighbor had left her room.
“Wait, she’s not coming over to knock on my door, right?” Feng Bujue moved to wait behind the door of his room, but from his side, the only audible sound was the rain outside. He waited for a while, but there was no knocking, and it did not seem like anyone had shuffled to his door.
Since Feng Bujue had no fear, he planned to open the door to take a look, to see what kind of entity his neighbor was. He stood up and gripped the wrench with one hand while his other slowly turned the doorknob. He pulled the door back, leaving a gap while he peered outside.