Misplacement Game Chapter 31

Arc 2: Luxury Cruise
Chapter 31

Fifth day on the cruise ship.

Xu Ziyue went to the restaurant early in the morning to get breakfast. Amongst the crowd, he spotted the tour guide sporting his red jacket, red hat and red flag.

Xu Ziyue looked around. There weren't many crazy people like himself coming out so early for breakfast. Of the ones there, almost all were languished. One could probably tell how much toll their experiences over the past few days have taken on them.

Xu Ziyue went over to the tour guide and gave him a friendly smile "Mr. Guide, how have you been the past few days?"

The tour guide however stepped back a little and nodded stiffly: "Do you need something?"

Xu Ziyue was surprised. Why did it feel like the tour guide was trying to avoid him?

"Nothing special. I just wanted to ask if there are any special people on this ship? Apart from the tourists and ship crew." Xu Ziyue added when he saw the tour guide about to shake his head, "Didn't you mention that the owner of this cruise ship will give those who collect all the stamps a special gift?"

The tour guides act of shaking his head stopped.

Xu Ziyue used this opportunity to ask: "What's the name of the owner of this cruise ship? You mentioned the name of this ship before, right? Can you tell me again?"

The tour guide fell silent for a moment. Xu Ziyue noticed him turn his head in another direction like he was listening to something.

The tour guide acted like he was thinking for a moment before saying: "Westminster is the name of this cruise ship. Westminster is also the owner's surname."

"Westminster……" Xu Ziyue scratched his head.

The tour guide saw Xu Ziyue fall into thought and didn't plan on hanging around, "If there's nothing else, I'll head off first."

"Oh, thank you." Xu Ziyue nodded and smiled gratefully at him.

The tour guide hurried off. Before talking to Xu Ziyue, he clearly had nothing to do. He was walking here and there inside the restaurant and just looking around.

Xu Ziyue brought the breakfast over to Austin's room. On his way there, he silently repeated the name "Austin Westminster" in his mind.

………Sounds like it rolls off the tongue quite well.

Austin was as gentle as usual. They had agreed to visit the children's playground, so he brought Xu Ziyue over.

The children's playground was located on the tenth floor. As Xu Ziyue pushed Austin's wheelchair over, he saw from the distance that there weren't many people present.

The entire children's playground was filled with vibrant colours and cute designs.

Poles painted with pastel colours were put together for children to climb. Once they've reached the top, they could come down via the spiral slide or they could slide down the vertical pillars. It was just that the highest peak was about five or six metres from the ground and the slide wasn't an enclosed one but one with handrails on the sides. The handrails were very low so if one didn't pay attention, they could easily fall out.

There was also an inflatable rock-climbing station, but the base wasn't inflated. Even if a safety harness was worn, it could be dangerous if one fell.

Next to it was a small house built using large plastic parts. The house could be entered, but only by children. For adults, only half of their body could enter, and the rest would be exposed.

There were also seemingly harmless things like a sandpit and carousel…….

But Xu Ziyue wasn't certain whether they were really harmless. It would be harmless in a normal setting but in a world like this…….

Xu Ziyue pushed Austin over to the entrance.

Austin said: "You can go play. I'll wait out here for you."

"Oh……..okay." Xu Ziyue didn't recklessly ask Austin his surname. Even if he asked, Austin wouldn't necessarily tell him and if he lied, how would he know if it was fake?

Xu Ziyue was most afraid of himself not having the courage to doubt him when facing a face like his.

It was better to concentrate on working it out himself. He could always ask once he has some clues.

There was a staff wearing a mascot costume in the children's playground. The staff wasn't wearing headgear, and had it clamped between his arm and body.

The staff appeared friendly and easy to get along with. Contrary to the staff he had encountered so far, the staff here had a small smile on his face.

The staff said: "Welcome to the children's playground."

"I'm here to get the stamp. May I ask how I can get a stamp?"

Please read this from kk translates

There were three children about seven or eight years of age playing inside the playground while their parents sat outside.

There was no green symbol above their heads, so it meant that they are not players and likely ordinary tourist NPC's.

"You just need to play in the children's playground for half an hour and successfully experience half the games."

Xu Ziyue nodded: "Okay, thank you."

Xu Ziyue took off his shoes. To be honest, he had not touched things like this for more than ten years and could only faintly remember himself playing in a playground similar to this as a child. At that time, he would often have an adult accompanying him.

He looked back at Austin and saw Austin looking at him. The moment their eyes met, Austin smiled and waved.

This gave Xu Ziyue a feeling of being constantly watched.

Xu Ziyue went to try the inflatable rock-climbing station first. As he stood on the edge of the inflated hill, he realised that there were no safety mechanisms put in place. In reality, there would always be a harness tied to a rope to ensure safety.

But the ground was only covered with normal foam and there were no ropes supporting him above. If one accidentally fell down………Although there was a chance for an adult to fall to their deaths, the chance of it happening wasn't high. Breaking a bone or two was much more likely.

Xu Ziyue once again felt some pain on his b.u.t.t.

Xu Ziyue grabbed the rope on the inflatable mountain and slowly climbed up.

If Austin was the owner of this cruise ship, then he wanted to know what the special gift was for those who manage to collect all twenty stamps. On one hand, Xu Ziyue didn't want to appear too different to the other horror game players. On the other hand, he also wanted to complete his mission in this game. Fortunately, there are a lot of people this time, so he actually didn't have to collect all those stamps.

But if the number of players grew fewer and fewer, and his card didn't have anything and he didn't know about the information exchanged between the player and their horror game system……….the others would start to suspect him.

Even if he threw the card into the sea and didn't do anything about it, they may conversely regard him as a delusional player who had given up and may even drag the others down.

If that was the case, it was better for Xu Ziyue to take the initiative to spend his time experiencing the activities. Once he has collected all twenty, he could also satisfy his curiosity.

If the system told Xu Ziyue that he would be in as much danger as the other players, Xu Ziyue wouldn't risk his life playing around with these activities but the system said he would be fine……..

And so, Xu Ziyue was fearless. With a bit of excitement, Xu Ziyue decided to try out all twenty activities.

Xu Ziyue safely got off the inflatable rock-climbing station and headed for the pool filled with plastic b.a.l.l.s. Afterwards, he tried the sandpit and other similar activities…………. As he wiled his time away, several other players also arrived. They didn't immediately enter the playground. Instead, they stood outside watching Xi Ziyue and only entered one by one after they saw Xu Ziyue come out safely and receive his stamp.

Austin watched Xu Ziyue glance repeatedly at his card and asked, "What's wrong?"

Xu Ziyue shook his head. He had a confused expression: "Nothing. I just thought………it was too easy. It felt a little strange."

"You're not happy about getting the stamp?"

"No, I'm really happy." Xu Ziyue restored his expression and smiled at Austin.

He didn't play with everything in the playground and had only picked out the easier and faster ones. The staff earlier mentioned that he needed to experience "half of the games"……… Did he reach half?

For example, the carousel. After sitting on it, Xu Ziyue began to count. By the time it stopped, Xu Ziyue counted more than two hundred. There were even b.u.mper cars..… The playground itself was rather large. As he went back and forth, he didn't pay much attention to how many he had played with and just ran back to the exit as soon as half an hour was up.

Please read this from kk translates

In the end, the staff said he had completed it……

With Austin nearby, it was inconvenient for Xu Ziyue to wait around to find out how the others went so he could only leave with Austin soon after he was done.

For the rest of the morning, Austin brought Xu Ziyue to get stamps for table tennis and chess. At noon, they had lunch at the buffet.

With this, he had a total of eight stamps.

After lunch, Xu Ziyue told Austin that he had business with the people who boarded the ship with him and reluctantly parted with Austin for rest of the afternoon.

If he didn't confirm Austin's ident.i.ty, he would constantly think about it!

Xu Ziyue left Austin and quickly hurried back to the children's playground on the tenth floor…..

Soothing children songs were playing in the corridor. The song echoed down the empty hallway. It sounded like there were invisible children nearby following you around whilst singing.

Xu Ziyue after all couldn't find the speaker playing the song……

He strode quickly over to the entrance of the playground and glanced at the playground staff who was a little surprised by his arrival before turning around and walking over to several players.

Xu Ziyue asked: "Excuse me, how can I get a stamp for this activity?"

Several players looked down at Xu Ziyue and answered: "You just need to play with everything in there in one day. You need to actually play with it. Just touching it won't count."

Xu Ziyue rubbed his nose, "Thank you."

They thought Xu Ziyue was going to experience it and quickly stopped him, "Don't go. Something happened in there just now."

"Something happened?"

"Yeah. Someone just fell off the slide and their posture on the floor was strange." The player speaking had an ugly expression, "Looked like all four limbs were broken. After falling off, they became a ball."

"And there was another one. Their body was all distorted and stuck inside the small house. It was only discovered later by the players. When they found that player……..They didn't even know when that player died. The body was all stiff. No one knew how that player got in there."

"As for the other players…….." The player speaking to Xu Ziyue smiled bitterly, "Even if they wanted come out, they were told that they can't come out because they haven't successfully completed the activity. That's why we're all standing out here. We don't dare enter and can only wait and see if anyone inside can come out."

"I understand now. Thank you." Xu Ziyue gave them a bow and thought about going to the other place he visited that morning. He gave his goodbye to the players and hurried back to the elevator.

Before he could get too far, he glanced back at the entrance to the playground.

The staff at the entrance of the playground was smiling as usual, the arc of his mouth unchanged.

Table tennis and basketball were both located on the twelfth floor of the cruise ship. When Xu Ziyue arrived at the room for table tennis, he saw several players receive their stamp and get ready to leave with a relaxed expression.

When they saw Xu Ziyue, they were initially a little vigilant, but their expressions then changed into a look of mockery as they walked over towards Xu Ziyue.

Xu Ziyue frowned but he didn't back away, "Do you need something?"

With an expression like that, they're clearly not good people.

"Don't worry, we're just here to give you information."

"We just saw that you're alone and was worried that you might not have been informed so we're specifically going out of our way to tell you."

Xu Ziyue looked at them suspiciously, "Then tell me this information."

"We have already discovered what the parasitic sea monster would look like after the body becomes useless." They smiled and said, "Once the sea monster leaves, the body of the corpse would completely sink in, the eyes would fall out and………."

"Don't say it anymore. That's enough." Someone beside him couldn't stand hearing the descriptions and moved to hold the speaker back. Although they enjoyed seeing the fear on other people's faces, they didn't like being scared themselves.

"A player has already……"

That player shook his finger, "No, we discovered this from a staff on this ship. That is to say, the sea monster's target is not only the players but everyone on the ship."

"If you wait until the staff stamping the cards are also parasitised…….What do you think we should do?"

Xu Ziyue looked at them unwaveringly, "Then aren't you also the same?"

The group of players laughed, "We have twelve stamps. We're almost done. What's there to be afraid of?"

"Wow…….. That's impressive. By the way, have you gone to the basketball court or the children's playground?"

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

Xu Ziyue raised his hand and patted the shoulder of the player standing closest to him: "Then you should be careful."

He still had to figure out Austin's ident.i.ty and give the chess room a visit, so he didn't clarify further.

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KK has something to say:
Did the kids do it?! ?