Feng Bujue was lucky that SCP-173 had been carrying the potion with him. If he had dealt with this mini boss but did not obtain the potion, it would have meant that he needed to return to the room in the middle of the second corridor to search for it. Thankfully, he had avoided that hassle. Not only had he obtained the plot item, death had saved him the time of crossing the corridor. Viewed from that perspective, the consumption of the two Contra Medals seemed somewhat worth it.
After Feng Bujue took the potion, he did not hurry to leave. He squatted down and started to search among the carcass, trying to find something else worthwhile. After all, he was already covered in blood, so what was a little bit more? Furthermore, he had never been one to shy away from getting dirty.
One had to admit that this was something praiseworthy about the man. All this while, Feng Bujue had been able to handle and access things that would have disgusted a normal person, like dead bodies that had been abandoned for more than three days or a monster that hid inside piles of trash. These were all within his limit. Actually, whenever he encountered a new disgusting object, Feng Bujue’s limit would be pushed further. He found a new limit to his threshold, and that was supposedly a good thing…
He did not waste too much time searching through the body. It took him less than a minute to confirm that the boss did not carry anything other than the plot item. Feng Bujue examined the properties of the item as he stepped over the door into the fan-shaped area.
———
Item Name: Unknown Chemical Potion (B)
Type: Plot Item
Quality: Normal
Function: One of the ingredients to make a certain antidote.
Can be taken out of the scenario: No
Remark: Cannot be stacked with other similar items.
———
“This is strange…” When Feng Bujue saw the remark, he was instantly reminded of a problem. In his inventory, seven of his slots were filled. There was Mario’s Wrench, the flashlight, the bench, SCP-500 (19/20), the anti-gravitational gun, the two remaining Contra Medals, and the One-Shot-Kill Pistol.
Adding the newly acquired Unknown Chemical Potion (B), eight out of ten slots were occupied. According to the remark, each of the potions would occupy one inventory slot. The ability to place small items inside his apparel’s pockets aside, when Feng Bujue obtained the last potion, his inventory should be completely full. But he would not need to place the last potion inside the inventory because, after obtaining all four potions, they could be synthesized into one, so he would not face the problem of lacking inventory space.
Even though this could have been a coincidence, when the scenario started, Billy did mention the SCP-500… Feng Bujue was more willing to believe that the designer of this game knew his current status very well, and that was probably more than just the items in his inventory. He probably was very familiar with Feng Bujue’s abilities, stamina, and equipment.
If this was a scenario based on the player, then… this ’game’ would be designed by the system, and Billy was merely the system’s mouthpiece. Did this mean that Billy itself was implanted the impression that ’I’ve designed this game’ by the system?
Therefore, he could not see anything when he used a Strategic Victory because this scenario did not have the conventional final boss; it only had a set of rules, a player, and several specific chess pieces…
After Feng Bujue returned to the fan-shaped area, he turned back to look down the second corridor. He realized with a shock that the pieces and blood stains on the ground had all disappeared. It had reverted to an empty corridor, but the blood on his body was still there.
“So, that is why…” Feng Bujue seemed to have understood something. He did not stop for long. According to his internal clock, his personal time had arrived to around the forty-sixth minute. Assuming everything went well, when it came to the sixty-fifth minute, he would appear at the prison at the forty-first minute map time, and he would possess three potions then.
Averaging the time, he was progressing quite well.
As Feng Bujue thought about it, he entered the fourth corridor. He raced down it. Even though the Contra Medal had revived him, it did not recover his Stamina Points. It maintained the exhaustion rate before death. Even with the buff from Jazz Shoes, Feng Bujue started to feel the depletion of Stamina Points. Currently, he was at 894/1,800. It might look like he still had fifty percent to go, but those who had participated in a marathon would know that the real uphill battle came in the second half. Furthermore, Feng Bujue had been sprinting nonstop.
This scenario itself was a double marathon for the body and the brain. This marathon was not spreading the importance of participation or sportsmanship, but once you stopped, you would die.
…
Five minutes had passed since he entered the corridor. The door to the room should appear right before him soon.
Feng Bujue suddenly realized that he had not really raced down the whole length of a corridor before. Even for the third corridor, he had only covered the front part, and for the second corridor, he had run down the back part. Whether the mini boss’ room was closer to the front or the back was still an unknown, and Feng Bujue could not even tell if it was placed right in the middle. Therefore, even though he might be able to make an educated guess on the overall distance of the fourth corridor, he would not be able to compare it to the other corridors to tell which of them was shorter.
“No wonder that rabbit didn’t know which corridor is the shortest,” Feng Bujue mumbled to himself. “It’s only taken the first corridor before, and the me who appeared at the forty-first minute, even though he has already taken three corridors, he wouldn’t have known the different lengths either. After all, if I knew that, I would have told the rabbit.”
He slid to a stop before the door. He gripped the doorknob and entered it at once, pushing the door open. This was a heavily rusted steel door. It did remind Feng Bujue of the ones commonly used in the Saw movie. The room had the feeling of a dark trap room. After the door opened, he heard wheels and axles turning. That could only mean that some kind of mechanism had been activated.
Feng Bujue did not think about having any back-up. He also knew that actions like finding something to block the door would be pretty much pointless. There was nothing in his inventory that could serve that purpose. The flashlight and bench might snap from the pressure, and the wrench… if it broke, then the loss…
The light came on, and it brightened up the whole room. At the ceiling of the room, there was an iron cage that hung from an iron chain. The puppet Billy was inside this cage. His red and black eyes were staring at Feng Bujue from above through the bars.
The low growling voice also punctually came out from the puppet’s lips. “Hello, Feng Bujue. I want to play a game with you.”