Players, Please Board the Train

Needle Mountain Therapy might imply human experimentation, but the content of the Insane Prison and the Doll Clothing Store went beyond the game’s stated background.

If the stories between exhibits were connected, then Museum City wasn’t just about people disappearing; the real truth hidden beneath the missing-person cases would be captive keeping, torture, murder, and human experiments.

“For some reason, a large number of people were detained in Museum City for human experimentation. These people suffered inhuman abuse during their lives, and it wasn’t solely because of the experiments. Judging by the exhibit themes, unless it was deliberate revenge, there might be religious motives. These people were beheaded and buried in the same place.”

“Also, they impregnated the detainees, and the children born were themselves part of the experiments.”

Xu Huo submitted this answer, and the dungeon task progress immediately jumped to 3/6. He opened the progress panel and saw the corresponding puzzle locations listed: first the Wax Figure Hall, second the Insane Prison, third the Doll Clothing Store.

In other words, his guess about Museum City was correct. On the surface, the disappearance mystery referred to those people who had been vanishing sporadically in Museum City, but what needed to be uncovered were the riddles about the contents of the exhibits.

Still, the exhibit-content riddles seemed somewhat removed from the official missing-persons objective.

He let that question sit for the moment—at least his general direction was right. There were many exhibits left; perhaps the themes of later exhibits would fill in the missing pieces.

After removing the Sound-Muffling Figurine, he silently leapt down from the upper floor, pushed open a shop door, and lowered his voice: “Search the mannequins from here toward us. We’ll circle around and go to the shops they’ve already searched.”

The few of them snuck past the mannequins like playing hide-and-seek, and wound back toward the area near the Insane Prison.Xiao Ling suggested heading to the crossroads, since that area had the most exhibits and shops and offered plenty of hiding spots, but Xu Ruosi objected. The mannequins around the Insane Prison could move at night. There was no guarantee other exhibits had nothing that could move; at least now they had some understanding of the mannequins’ behavior, but that might not hold elsewhere.

“What time is it now?” Xu Huo suddenly asked Xu Ruosi.

Xu Ruosi understood his meaning and took out the timing device. “Almost midnight.”

They crouched beneath a counter, staring at the time on the device. It passed twelve o’clock, but the date did not change.

“The device itself is unlikely to be faulty,” Yu Guangnan said at that moment. “If the date isn’t advancing, there must be something wrong with the dungeon.”

“What could be wrong because the date doesn’t advance?” Xu Ruosi frowned. “We haven’t lost our memories, and the dungeon hasn’t restarted. It doesn’t affect us at all.”

“It does affect us,” Xu Huo said. “If the dungeon’s date is frozen on the first day we entered, we might never be able to leave.”

“What!” They reacted with varying degrees of shock. Xiao Ling’s expression darkened. “The game system’s time keeps moving forward, but the dungeon’s doesn’t. If we can’t clear it within seven days, staying forever on the first day means there will never be a day we officially ‘fail’ the dungeon.”

Normally, if you failed a dungeon you could still leave—you just wouldn’t get a return ticket. If they reached D-level player status, new tickets wouldn’t be a problem. But if the dungeon’s time always remained on day one, they’d never reach day seven, closing off the path of “failing the dungeon.”

If failing the dungeon were impossible, and they couldn’t clear it within the game’s seven days, they would remain trapped in Sun Museum City forever.

“Then does that mean this dungeon will be open permanently?” Xie Ling’s face had gone pale. “If it drags on for three months, even if you get out later, it would be a death sentence!”

“Wait,” Xu Ruosi stopped her. “That doesn’t make sense. The game gives a seven-day time limit. How could the dungeon remain permanently open? If that were true, would clearing it after seven days still count as clearing it?”

“If clearing after seven days doesn’t count, then the game time is the measure. Once seven days pass—even if the dungeon’s internal time is still day one—we should be marked as having failed the dungeon!”

Conversely, if the dungeon’s own time were authoritative, they would always be stuck on the day they entered. That would mean any successful clearing would always be recorded as happening on day one, so failing would be impossible.

“This is indeed a contradiction,” Xu Huo said. “But you can look at it another way: regardless of which clock you use, the game time is moving forward. If more than seven days pass, we’ll be judged as having failed. If more than a month passes, we’ll risk getting a high-risk random dungeon. If more than three months pass, it’s essentially like being sent straight to a death sentence in a high-risk dungeon.”

“So we have to clear it within seven days. In other words, this is a dungeon that only counts if you clear it in time, because nobody can guarantee what happens after seven days.”

In his view, the dungeon most likely followed game time. The seven-day limit was probably real—if seven days were exceeded the game would treat it as a failure. But whether a new return ticket would work afterward was another matter, since a continuously open dungeon typically disallowed using new tickets.

If they could still solve the puzzles and leave after seven days, any delay would be minor. But if the game judged clearing by game time while the dungeon’s special time structure existed outside game rules, most players would likely never escape unless the dungeon were destroyed.

Whatever the final rule, exceeding the time limit carried the risk of being pulled into high-risk dungeons.

“What a freakish dungeon!” Xu Ruosi clenched her fists. “Of all the dungeons to encounter right after Zone 009 fully opened—we’re just unbelievably unlucky!”

“Look on the bright side,” Xu Huo said again. “There are so many shops here. If we can’t leave, we could take over a place and set up a business. First come, first served. We could settle down here and maybe avoid constantly drifting between dungeons.”

Xiao Ling glanced at him. “Are you serious?”

“Putting aside whether the dungeon really will stay open forever, what if a high-level player shows up? This time bomb could go off at any moment.”

What kind of settling down is that? That would be like holding a knife to your own throat every day.

“I was joking.” Xu Huo gave a small smile.

“That’s not funny at all.” Xie Ling looked at her legs. “Let’s focus on clearing it. From the exhibits we just checked, did you get any clues?”

“I only saw signs of human experimentation,” Xu Ruosi shook her head. “But when I submitted that answer I… I didn’t trigger a successful clear.”

“Besides human experiments, there’s captive keeping of living people,” Xiao Ling said with a half-smile as he looked at her. “Capturing and raising people for human experiments—this can get you one-sixth of the progress.”

After saying that, he looked toward Xu Huo. “You made progress at the Wax Figure Hall, right? Tit for tat—aren’t you supposed to tell me about that one-sixth?”