Volume 3: High School Arc - Mirror Game
There were four newcomers, two of whom looked like a couple—the fancier super sports motorbike belonged to them.
One of them was clearly a construction worker, probably doing hard labor, with thick calluses on his hands and a significantly darker complexion than the others, looking somewhat panicked—the Suzuki 125 was his.
The last one was a slightly chubby young man, and the bicycle was his.
I honestly didn’t expect that a newcomer would rather stay poor like this than spend even a single point of credit—it showed a certain amount of willpower.
On the other side, the five people naturally stepped forward, and the thirteen of us gathered together.
“Next, it's time to bring out your phones and display your identities. Shan Xuelin… you should’ve known this already. If you had just said it earlier, wouldn’t you have avoided all this suffering?”
After nearly an hour of recovery, Xiang Wei had already come out of the intense pain he’d felt earlier.
As for me, once the Evil Spirit Form detached and returned to my body, the excruciating pain disappeared.
“Aiya…”
Shan Xuelin repeated those two catch-all words again, making the blond young man on the other side twitch at the corners of his mouth.
“Alright, time to show your phones. You newbies are participating in a team mission for the first time, right? It’s actually quite simple. Just open the app and let others see that you’re a player in this mission.”
Xu Han was quite friendly toward the newcomers and stepped forward to explain.
I already knew this part, so I had long pulled up the app.
Strangely, the special condition I could see through my eyes wasn’t visible to anyone else.
And not just that—during identity confirmation, both sides couldn’t see the rules on each other’s phones.
The only visible words were just the line: “Participating in this mission.”
Then we confirmed everything.
Three on our side, two from the Death Coffin side—and those two were exactly the ones who had spoken aloud.
One was the blond youth—we didn’t know his surname, just that his name was Yaocheng.
The other was Xiang Wei, who had gone head-to-head with me earlier.
The number of people was fixed: four beginner-level players.
Jiang Yulong and I were both intermediate players.
Xu Han on our side, along with the blond youth Yaocheng and the middle-aged man Xiang Wei on their side, were all advanced players.
Four beginners, two intermediate, three advanced.
Seeing this lineup, not only did the three of us frown deeply, even the two from the Death Coffin side furrowed their brows tightly.
No one spoke.
Xu Han walked toward the four beginner players on our side.
And from the Death Coffin’s five, the only woman stepped forward.
Maybe it was because women tend to have higher approachability than men, so whether it was Lucky Alliance or Death Coffin, they both had female players go recruit newcomers.
At the very least, the fact that these four people survived meant their luck or strength was quite good.
Although it wasn’t certain whether they could survive this game, leaving a good impression first was definitely the right move.
So, Xu Han walked over, and the woman from the Death Coffin side also stepped up to speak with the four newcomers.
On our side, Jiang Yulong stood in the middle of the road, eyes fixed on Xu Han, his hand resting on his pouch, as if he feared the others might suddenly attack her.
It really looked like Jiang Yulong had a different kind of relationship with Xu Han.
I had already helped Shan Xuelin back into the vehicle.
And to avoid a total wipeout on our side, I had no choice but to stand by the car door, keeping a close watch on Jiang Yulong and Xu Han, and staying alert in case the Death Coffin side made any sudden moves.
The Death Coffin people were also keeping their eyes on us.
Both sides were deeply wary of each other.
I also noticed that, aside from the woman player sent to recruit the newbies and the last short man, the other three had their gazes locked on me the entire time.
That included the blond youth Yaocheng, the middle-aged Xiang Wei, and an unnamed burly man.
“Hss… hoo…”
Just as I was staying alert, Shan Xuelin’s condition gradually improved with the passing of time.
Hearing that deep sigh from inside the car, I couldn’t help glancing at him instinctively.
“What is it, Brother Shan?”
When I looked over, I saw Shan Xuelin looking back at me, brows tightly furrowed, and he slightly shook his head.
“This mission… is too strange.”
“What do you mean?”
Strange? In what way?
“A team mission—normally, having even two intermediate players would already be rare, let alone advanced players. I think… this mission might very well be above S+ level. That’s trouble.”
That was what Shan Xuelin said to me, and honestly… I didn’t know what to say either.
I didn’t have full knowledge of the game’s system, but the rules of this mission alone were already off.
In previous games, there were always specific conditions for each party.
Like ‘escape,’ ‘combat,’ or ‘completion,’ something like that.
But this time, the game felt extremely bizarre.
First of all, there was no defined terrain.
The only requirement was that by midnight the day after tomorrow—Sunday night this week—we had to reach Factory Building No. 7 of the Mirror Factory and stay inside for one hour.
However… during that hour, neither players nor monsters could take any action.
What was even stranger was that after that hour, players still had to survive another three days?
Was it that three days were being compressed into one hour, forcibly accelerating time inside the factory?
Or were we supposed to leave after staying inside for an hour?
I had already confirmed with Xu Han that players must meet up with each other.
Every team mission gave players some buffer time—basically a prep period.
A time to either prepare for death or struggle to survive.
There were also players who couldn’t bear the psychological pressure and ended their own lives.
So, players gathering wasn’t strange.
What was strange was why we had to stay in the factory for a full hour?
One hour and three days—what was the connection between them?
I had puzzled over it for days and couldn’t figure it out.
During lunch this afternoon, I even discussed it with Xu Han and Jiang Yulong, but no one had a clear answer.
“Survive for three days”… it wasn’t even explicitly stated whether that meant inside the factory or outside.
So was it a matter of time, or a matter of space?
The weirdest part about this mission was that it involved not just a time requirement, but a spatial one.
They seemed unrelated, but there was a vague sense that something was hidden within.
And for such a vague mission, with no restrictions even on the monsters, the difficulty was almost no less than a sudden-death scenario.