A Guide to Raising Snake Spirits - Chapter 25

“Everyday Love Elimination” shut his eyes tight and steeled his nerves, thinking that whether he faced it or hid from it, the outcome would be the same. He lunged past the ghost that had suddenly appeared, and to his surprise, he met no resistance, passing through quite smoothly.

However, as a novice, “Everyday Love Elimination” lacked experience. He couldn’t resist looking back to see if the ghost was following him.

Right before his eyes, the ghost NPC remained standing in place, but its head began to stretch toward him, getting longer and longer. Rapidly growing black hair quickly filled the entire dead end, threatening to spread toward him.

“Everyday Love Elimination” screamed, “Aaaaaah!”

The chased Hunter player let out a wretched cry, completely forgetting the sweeping NPC’s warning. His screams naturally attracted more ghosts, and more ghosts led to louder screams, a never-ending cycle of terror.

After splitting from the Hunter, Mizuki Xi and Shiraishi Hare continued further inside. They hadn’t gone far when they heard the screams behind them, mixed with a cacophony of indescribable sounds.

They could make out phrases like “Give me back my life,” “Hahaha, little master,” and “Don’t run,” but most of it was a jumble of indiscernible shouting, male voices, female voices, and voices that were neither, rising and falling in a grand, multi-part chorus.

Being experienced, Mizuki Xi grabbed Shiraishi Hare and started running immediately, looking back to see the situation only after putting some distance between them.

He saw “Everyday Love Elimination” in his black robes leading the pack, followed by a dense swarm of ghost NPCs. There were ghosts in red bridal gowns, ghosts in tattered official robes, and others whose attire was unrecognizable, a scene comparable to an idol making a public appearance.

“Save me! Aaaaaah!”

“Everyday Love Elimination” waved his hands while shedding tears. Seeing Mizuki Xi and Shiraishi Hare running away from him only made the tears flow faster.

Mizuki Xi and Shiraishi Hare eventually gave in to their remaining shred of conscience and slowed down slightly to wait for him.

The main reason was that if the Good camp wanted to win, they couldn’t afford any more casualties, and a Hunter truly could die at the hands of the ghosts.

“Everyday Love Elimination” scrambled and crawled into the space between them.

Shiraishi Hare, a reliable Civilian with a speed card, grabbed Mizuki Xi with his left hand and dragged “Everyday Love Elimination” with his right. He kept up a steady pace, eventually shaking off the ghosts that had been summoned.

After their frantic escape, they had mostly lost their sense of direction.

Shiraishi Hare peeled “Everyday Love Elimination,” who was deathly clinging to his right arm, off himself. The latter finally began to feel a belated sense of embarrassment.

Mizuki Xi teased him, “The Hunter title should really be given to ‘Bluestone’ instead.”

“Everyday Love Elimination” felt wronged, “It’s not like I got to choose my own identity.”

Mizuki Xi warned, “Stop shouting. If you scream again, not even the Great Immortals will be able to save you next time.”

The three of them stopped to observe their surroundings. They were in a small, independent courtyard. A sign hung crookedly on the door. After squinting at the blurry, haphazard handwriting for a moment, they managed to make out the words: “Park Manager’s Office.”

The ghosts might have let them go for this reason, they had either run out of the ghosts’ aggro range or the spirits didn’t dare act up in front of the manager’s door.

“What kind of amusement park manager puts their office inside a haunted house?” the revived “Everyday Love Elimination” complained. “If I were the manager, I’d put my office in the spot with the best view in the park.”

“Does this amusement park look normal to you?” Mizuki Xi asked with a half-smile. “If the manager isn’t normal, then the office location naturally won’t be normal either.”

“Everyday Love Elimination” replied, “You’ve got a point.”

Mizuki Xi was about to knock when “Everyday Love Elimination” interrupted him.

“You’re just going to knock like that?” The novice was clearly intimidated, looking a bit stunned.

“It’s fine. We’re tourists. It’s perfectly normal to look for staff when you’re lost,” Mizuki Xi explained casually before knocking on the door.

Knock, knock.

The sound of knocking was abrupt in the silent underground. “Everyday Love Elimination” held his breath, waiting in terror.

Nothing happened. There was no terrifying ghost boss like he imagined, and no trapdoor opened beneath their feet to swallow them whole. They simply stood there in the quiet.

Mizuki Xi pressed the handle. With a creak, the door opened, revealing a pitch-black interior. No people, and no ghosts.

“Everyday Love Elimination” shrank behind the other two.

The office didn’t have motion-sensing lights. Mizuki Xi felt around the dark wall for a while before pressing a switch. The lights flickered a few times and then hummed to life.

It was an ordinary office with ordinary bookshelves, an ordinary desk, and a few files piled on top.

As an old hand at this, Mizuki Xi went straight for the materials on the desk.

In a dungeon with PvP survival elements, there was no need for overly complex detective puzzles. Clues were usually placed in the most obvious spots. Shiraishi Hare followed along to help look through the files.

“Everyday Love Elimination” stood guard at the door. He didn’t dare close it, fearing it might lock like in a horror movie, but leaving it wide open to the empty corridor was also terrifying. After some thought, he left it slightly ajar, keeping his hand on the handle at all times, staying alert.

“Found it,” Mizuki Xi said.

He pulled a card from a book on the desk, and the escape progress changed to (2/3).

Mizuki Xi spread out the materials, putting the relevant pages together to piece together the story of Super Star Amusement Park.

Super Star Amusement Park had been established long ago. The manager, out of the kindness of his heart, had adopted many children with physical disabilities or intellectual challenges. He provided them with food, shelter, and job opportunities, treating them like his own children.

The children grew up in the park and came to see it as their true home.

But the good times didn’t last. Ten years later, with the advancement of technology, people preferred to find entertainment through fixed terminals, traveling the world in virtual spaces and immersing themselves in more fantastical, advanced worlds.

After the park went bankrupt, the manager had always wanted to revive it. He invited outside guests for free tours, hoping to bring more attention and vitality back to Super Star.

He worked tirelessly, personally teaching the children who were now employees how to serve the tourists.

However, dilapidated facilities and a lack of operating funds quietly set the stage for disaster. The Mimi Roller Coaster malfunctioned, a death occurred, the park was permanently cordoned off, and the employees went their separate ways.

Post-death obsessions trapped the children and the manager here. They continued to run the park just as they had when they were alive, recruiting batch after batch of guests from the outside. Some made it out alive, others stayed behind, in a never-ending cycle.

Even after becoming ghosts, the manager never gave up on teaching the children to maintain their kind nature and work hard to make the Super Star Ghost Amusement Park a place of joy.

For the slow-speaking ghost employee at the Mimi Roller Coaster, the manager taught him his lines word by word to say to the tourists.

For the sales employee at the mobile cart, the manager told him to remember to wear gloves to avoid dirtying the dolls.

As for the quirky, one-legged employee at the shooting gallery, the manager put in a lot of effort to teach her not to try and snatch tourists’ legs the moment she saw them.

“Everyday Love Elimination” asked, “If the manager isn’t in the office, where is he?”

“You should have all seen the manager,” Mizuki Xi reminded them.

Shiraishi Hare added, “Before the game started.”

“Everyday Love Elimination” suddenly realized, “No way… was it that old NPC man at the beginning?”

“That old man was even putting on a spooky act.”

Mizuki Xi noted, “He probably wanted to use those lines to build the amusement park’s atmosphere.”

“Everyday Love Elimination” fell silent. Playing Ghost Hunter for the first time, he had initially felt fear and dislike toward the ghost NPCs, but he suddenly realized that the ghosts weren’t what he had imagined.

“Well,” he said dryly, “I guess it’s normal for the ghosts to hate Hunter players then.” They were just trying to run their amusement park, and then a party of “justice” suddenly showed up to break the peace.

As the three stood around the desk in a moment of silence, the system issued another announcement.

System: [Player “6t8ap013” is out.]

At the same time, the blood-red markers representing ghost players appeared on the map again.

“Everyday Love Elimination” snapped out of the story and was pulled back into the game. He started counting on his fingers, “I’m a Hunter, you’re a Civilian, and you’re also a Civilian. One Civilian just died, so the one who just died was?”

While the three of them stood in silence, Shiraishi Hare quietly looked at Mizuki Xi.

Mizuki Xi sighed, took two steps back, and drew a green card he had been keeping in his card pack from his waist, holding it between his fingertips.

[Special Alignment Card: Reverse the alignment of any one player.]

the green card glowed in his hand and then dissipated.

At the same time, Shiraishi Hare’s hood stirred without any wind. He took off his gloves and watched as the flesh on his fingertips turned transparent and vanished, leaving only snow-white bone.

Mizuki Xi pulled out a large scythe, identical to the ones used by ghost players, from under his cloak and rested it on his shoulder, smiling like a cunning fox.

“Everyday Love Elimination” stared at them in shock. They stood before him like the Black and White Guards of the underworld.

System: [The number of players in the Good camp is less than half. The Ghost camp wins.]

System: [Survivors: “Gonna Slaughter Everyone Today,” “Bluestone,” “Everyday Love Elimination,” “No Sleep at Night.”]

System: [Game Duration: 34 star-minutes, 19 star-seconds.]

It turned out that “Everyday Love Elimination’s” girlfriend, “No Sleep at Night,” was the true workaholic ghost player who had been slaughtering everyone. While her fellow ghost Mizuki Xi was not only slacking off but also siding with the Civilians, she had put her boyfriend out of her mind and taken out two Civilians by herself.

As for Mizuki Xi, whose handle was “Gonna Slaughter Everyone Today,” what had he been doing? He was helping the rookie Civilian Shiraishi Hare solve puzzles, teaching him how to kite ghosts, and conspiring with the novice Hunter to raid the manager’s office, doing his absolute best to help the Civilians escape.

There was no telling how “Everyday Love Elimination” would cry in his girlfriend’s arms once he went offline, but this Sentinel and Guide wouldn’t know about that.

Mizuki Xi casually accepted the friend request from “Everyday Love Elimination” and logged out, meeting Shiraishi Hare’s eyes as the latter rose from his fixed terminal.

Shiraishi Hare was silent for a moment before asking a question he had been thinking about during the game: “How did you find me back then?”

Everyone only draws one skill card at the start. The Guide had a green card to reverse alignments and had been with Shiraishi Hare the whole time, so he hadn’t had a chance to get another card.

Mizuki Xi was happy to review the game with him, explaining patiently, “I wasn’t lying to you at the start. The Alignment Reversal card was my initial draw. The green card to track locations was obtained by answering the NPC’s questions right at the beginning.”

“Is that possible in such a short time?” Shiraishi Hare found it strange. Although he had spent some time observing the situation, Mizuki Xi hadn’t taken that long to walk over.

Mizuki Xi said, “Actually, there’s room for maneuver during the preparation period. Talking to the guide NPCs gives you a chance to get skill cards, but it requires some communication skills.”

Shiraishi Hare: “?”

Mizuki Xi gave an example, “For instance, at the start, ask the NPC if they’re facing any difficulties, if their salary is being paid on time, or how often the park is maintained. There’s a chance they’ll give you a quest that rewards a card.”

Shiraishi Hare:  He hadn’t expected that kind of strategy.

“There’s a game community for Ghost Hunter with plenty of guides. Also, there are many types of skill cards. The developers haven’t released an official card index, but players have started recording the ones they’ve seen. I’ve seen people post about the Alignment Reversal card before, but this was my first time drawing it myself.”

Mizuki Xi changed the subject, “By the way… have you been staying at my place these past few days?”

Shiraishi Hare replied, “Yes.”

In Mizuki Xi’s memory, it seemed he had agreed to it.

After playing a tense and exciting round of Ghost Hunter, the awkwardness Mizuki Xi had felt earlier resurfaced.

Mizuki Xi fidgeted with the sofa, “I wanted to tell you earlier, but I didn’t find the chance. If you’re on break or it’s a weekend and you don’t want to stay in the dorms, just come back and hang out. My parents would be happy to have you.”

And so, Shiraishi Hare naturally moved back into the house.

The scent of lemon stirred a small fragment of memory in Shiraishi Hare.

He seemed to have tasted lemon before when he was in the laboratory—small, hard candies. He didn’t know who had given them to him, they were just left in front of him.

The simple, transparent packaging was completely out of place in the cold, one-way observation room. They were sour and sweet, not part of a Sentinel’s usual diet, but Shiraishi Hare had savored them. Compared to the usual colorless and tasteless nutrient solutions, they were a small, vibrant spark in a dull life.

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