Chapter 101: Just Like a Ghost |
With twenty minutes left, Bai Mu used Best Friend's Help to summon the Witch.
The current map was a skyscraper. He had just taken a leap of faith from the third floor, and the petite Witch appeared on the deserted street.
The Witch only reached Bai Mu's waist. Compared to Lucy, the Witch seemed a bit more rigid. She could not engage in complex communication with Bai Mu and could only understand relatively simple commands.
When no orders were given, she simply stood by on standby.
Since Bai Mu had summoned her without giving her anything to do, she tilted her head back to glance at the building with its black glass curtain wall, then stood blankly in place, staring at Bai Mu's face.
Bai Mu picked up the Night Vision Camcorder and aimed it at the Witch.
[Do you wish to designate the current target as your Model?]
"Yes," Bai Mu replied, activating the special effect of Soul Photography.
[Model designated successfully.]
Click.
The flash went off, and the Witch's limbs suddenly struck a pose. Using her sharp claws, she flashed a peace sign at the camera.
Every time Bai Mu clicked the shutter, she struck a different pose. Her movements were completely out of her own control. She did not seem to understand what was happening, her eyes brimming with confusion as her arms and legs moved of their own accord.
After taking ten photos, the Witch returned to her dazed state. The control duration was about ten seconds and could be divided into segments, with each press of the shutter counting as one segment.
A series of photos were saved in the camera's memory. Bai Mu walked over and showed the pictures to the Witch. She stopped staring at Bai Mu and instead looked blankly at the photos. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, but she gave off a rather simple-minded impression.
Feeling that she actually quite liked the pictures, Bai Mu printed the photos and handed them to her.
She looked at them for a while longer before tucking the photos into her plush backpack. She had a plush backpack just like Lucy, though hers was noticeably much more worn out.
Another five minutes had passed. Bai Mu originally wanted to use the Witch as a sparring partner—which basically meant using her as a punching bag—but looking at her silly appearance, he could not bring himself to do it.
With only fifteen minutes left, buying monster editing rights seemed a bit like a waste. After some thought, he reached out to Yan Yu.
"Are you free? I have fifteen minutes left in this Training Room. Want to come spar?" Bai Mu asked. The Training Room allowed players to invite friends—up to four people for free, while any more would cost extra.
Yan Yu's massage was not over yet, but she waved her hand, signaling the masseuse to leave. She usually hated having her resting time interrupted, but she was genuinely curious about Bai Mu's true skill level, so she accepted the invitation.
"Sure, just pull me in."
[Your friend "Bai" has invited you to enter Training Room No. K8107. Do you accept?]
"Yes," Yan Yu replied, clicking accept.
The next moment, she appeared in front of Bai Mu.
Yan Yu was wearing a blue string bikini, sporting dark sunglasses, and walking in wooden flip-flops, showing off her long, fair legs.
This kind of swimsuit was essentially no different from just wearing underwear. In fact, Bai Mu had never understood why women would shyly cover their skirts if the wind blew, yet could boldly go out in public at the beach wearing underwear disguised as swimwear.
He remembered seeing a forum post many years ago back when he was in college, pointing out that some styles of women's shorts were even shorter than men's boxer briefs.
Of course, he only kept these complaints to himself. As a D-grade player, Yan Yu was naturally completely different from women living ordinary lives.
In Paradise, a player's Community Time was equivalent to their lifespan. No one knew if they would survive their next random Script.
When you could clearly see your "life" slipping away at any given moment, many secular rules lost all meaning.
As the saying went, only when you realized that everyone would eventually die, and that sooner or later you too would turn into a handful of yellow dirt, did you truly begin to live.
"What are the rules?" Yan Yu asked as she began to change outfits right after entering, switching into her familiar bloody nurse uniform. "A direct fight? Or competing in something else?"
"Let's fight," Bai Mu said. "I mostly just want to test out some new skills and equipment."
"You already summoned the Witch, why not test them on a monster?" Yan Yu glanced at the Witch sitting on a stool, then cast a suspicious look at Bai Mu. She suddenly felt a pang of regret, suspecting that Bai Mu had already tormented the Witch and, feeling unsatisfied, had called her over to continue.
"I did not buy monster editing rights," Bai Mu explained. "The Witch over there is my summon."
"You can summon the Witch now?!" Yan Yu exclaimed in shock.
"Don't worry, she won't interfere with our spar," Bai Mu reassured her. "It is just the two of us practicing."
Yan Yu's gaze grew increasingly cautious, and she looked as though she wanted to back out.
Bai Mu asked tentatively, "I will transfer one hour of Community Time to you, how about it?"
He still had 1,364 hours of Community Time, which was even more than his Points.
Judging from the signs held by the streetwalkers, ten Points was roughly equivalent to one hour of Community Time. However, this conversion rate only applied to certain demographics. Otherwise, the Community Time he currently had would be enough to exchange for over ten thousand Points.
Perhaps Community Time was only this expensive among groups terrified of the Scripts, as they were essentially buying their own lives. For high-ranking players, the exchange rate between Community Time and Points probably was not as steep.
"Are you really paying up?" Yan Yu double-checked.
[Player "Bai" has initiated a trade with you.]
Yan Yu remained silent for a few seconds before quietly clicking accept.
Free time was free time, she would be a fool to refuse.
Bai Mu gave an honest, good-natured smile. "Let's get right into the fight. Use whatever means you like, and make sure not to hold back. We will just fight until the Training Room time runs out, which is about ten minutes."
"Alright," Yan Yu agreed. 'It is only ten minutes,' she thought to herself. 'Even if things go poorly, I can just grit my teeth and push through it.'
Ten minutes later.
Hurried footsteps and terrified screams echoed through the building's emergency stairwell.
"No!"
"Stay away from me!"
"Brother, I surrender! I surrender!"
"Please, I'm begging you!"
She glanced back but saw no sign of Bai Mu.
However, just as she was about to escape through the exit ahead, Bai Mu suddenly materialized in front of her like a ghost.
Wearing a faint smile, Bai Mu stood there without a word, raising a Baseball Bat in his hand. Meanwhile, behind Yan Yu, a bloodstained kitchen knife hovered, flying straight toward her.
Yan Yu turned pale with fright. Even though her pain sensitivity was dialed down to ten percent, Bai Mu kept popping up completely unannounced without saying a single word. He showed absolutely no mercy to the fairer sex, and that bloody kitchen knife was chasing her everywhere like a vengeful spirit.
She seriously began to doubt whether she was still in the Training Room or had been thrown into a Script. The thing in front of her was not a human—it had to be some murderous urban legend wearing a human skin, right?
The Smiling Cleaver Butcher?
If she had not made a trade with Bai Mu, which prompted Paradise to enforce their sparring session until the Training Room timer expired, she would have hit the exit button long ago.
Now she was regretting everything to death. Damn it, was this guy even human?
How could an E-Grade Player have such surreal skills? It was as terrifying as dealing with a ghost.