When A Destructive Wolf Joins An Escape Game

In the quiet of the night, the sound of pattering rain clearly sounded.

White silk curtains were hung all over the mourning hall. White candles with erratically burning flames thoroughly illuminated the small room. Eighteen people were scattered around the corners of the hall, far away from the coffin that stood in the middle. 

The night breeze blew through the open door, bringing along a cloud of water vapor with it. The wind chilled everyone to the bone, and the candle flames became even more erratic. 

The atmosphere turned eerie for a moment. 

Suddenly, melodious music sounded in everyone’s ears. The sound was very soothing, and it didn’t startle anyone1. The people looked around, searching for the source of the sound, but they didn’t find it. 

[Welcome to ‘The Abyss Game’. I am No. 0182, Lord God Ye Xu’s assistant system.] 

[I’ll start introducing the rules of the game below: 

This instance will last for seven days. Players are encouraged to survive until the end of this period. Death means failure. 

Every night, you must select one player to hold vigil. The selected player will receive mourners while the other players may return to their rooms to rest for the night. 

The day after holding vigil, the selected player will receive a safety shield, making them immune to all injury. 

I wish you all a happy game!3] 

[Please select a vigilante before midnight.] 

Hold vigil at night?! The crowd of silent people suddenly panicked. They looked at each other, unsure of which choice would be best. 

Holding vigil in a normal mourning hall was already terrifyingly eerie, let alone holding vigil in this obviously unsafe one. God knows what they would bump into here. 

Gu Mozhi leaned against the corner closest to the door, he was quite bored. He leaned against the wall and let out a lazy yawn, completely unaffected by what the system had just said. 

‘The Abyss Game’. From the name alone, one could infer that this was a horror game, an unlimited flow horror game at that, the type where failure could not be taken lightly. None of the people here were stupid. No one was foolish enough to think that there would be no consequences for failing the game.

After all, they had very recently experienced a major disaster. 

ーThe sky had fallen, literally. 

This group of players were all newcomers to the game, and they had all come from the same place. A recently deceased world. 

They didn’t know if the world had been unable to hold itself up, or if something else had happened. The world they had lived in had suddenly collapsed, the ocean had flooded the land, and the sun and moon had fallen. The world had been completely destroyed, catching everyone off guard. 

Fortunately, humanity had not been destroyed along with it. Instead, they had been dragged into  ‘The Abyss Game’. Before entering the novice instance, everyone had received a notification from the newcomer reception system. It had told them that as long as players cleared ten instances, they could choose a peaceful world to start a new life in. To the newly homeless players, this sounded like a gift from the heavens. 

However, Gu Mozhi remained unmoved. 

He wasn’t even a person of that deceased world. He was a demon from purgatory. His damned curiosity had made him go through the crack in purgatory which he had accidentally stumbled upon. And then, he had fallen into another world. “Another world” as in the world that had just collapsed. Gu Mozhi had only stayed there for half a month before it collapsed, this made him wonder whether or not he should lament his bad luck. 

Of course, he had already thought over it and realized that the world's collapse had nothing to do with him. Truth be told, it had been a long time since the world had started showing signs of collapse. 

If not for the world already collapsing, how would it have a crack in its boundary connecting it to purgatory? Starting from when the crack appeared, the world had already started collapsing. 

None of this had anything to do with the innocent Gu Mozhi who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time4. Fortunately, he had been pulled into the game. Else, he would’ve had to expend a lot of effort to find an opportunity to escape the collapsing world. 

Compared to the panicking players, he was much calmer. Ghosts were part of a demon’s diet, and, he wasn’t afraid of his food. So he didn’t have much of a reaction to the stimulating game. It hadn’t even been confirmed that ghosts would be coming out. Anyways, he didn’t care that much. 

After arriving in the human world, Gu Mozhi had tried out various human snacks. Over the past half-month, he had been engrossed in eating, drinking, and playing. It had been a long time since he had tasted ghost.5 Unless an actual ghost showed up in front of him, he would say that the sound of frying chicken was more appealing.

Who let the ghosts of purgatory taste like purgatory? They tasted weird and weren’t very delicious. Gu Mozhi didn’t have a choice before. He had eaten so many purgatory ghosts that he felt like throwing up the moment he recalled their taste. 

He hoped that the ghosts here tasted a little better. 

As Gu Mozhi was thinking about his dinner, one of the players finally spoke up.  

“Um6...should we start choosing a vigilante?” The person who spoke was a young man. He scratched his head, inwardly thinking that staying silent would do nothing. It was almost midnight, and he didn’t know what the consequences for going over the time limit were. 

Everyone looked at him in unison, making him skittish and uncomfortable. 

Someone had broken through the silent atmosphere, and other people followed suit. Everyone started talking, but none of their conversations had anything to do with selecting players. 

The first person who spoke up was a middle-aged man7, “Did your world just collapse...before you were dragged here?” As he talked about the collapsed world, his expression twisted a little, as if he had yet to fully accept everything that had happened. 

As soon as they heard him, everyone immediately began to talk. It was obvious that they would rather discuss this subject than discuss picking a vigilante. 

“I am.”

“So am I!”

“All of us are probably…8” 

“My god, I'm really not dreaming?” 

The young man saw that they were enthusiastically veering off-topic and quickly interrupted the conversation, “It’s almost midnight. We should pick someone now.” 

“Pick, pick, pick, don’t you know how to say anything else? We aren’t idiots, we don’t need you to remind us!” The middle-aged man angrily said.  

A middle-aged woman sarcastically glanced at the young man. "Aiyo, youngster. Since you’re in such a hurry, why don’t you do it for the first day.”

Someone immediately seconded her, “I think that's a good idea.” As long as it wasn’t themselves, it didn’t matter who was chosen to hold vigil. 

“Are you sure?” An honest-looking middle-aged woman glanced at them awkwardly. “This youngster looks really young, he probably has no experience. What if he bumps into something at night, wouldn’t that be dangerous?” 

“So, you think we should find someone with experience? Auntie9, I think you look like someone who has experience.” A young woman immediately rebutted, After speaking, she deliberately directed a sweet smile to the other party. 

The middle-aged woman gaped. 

“Stop fighting.” A righteous-looking young man with pink hair interrupted the verbal tug of war10, “We have seven nights and eighteen people. At least a third of us need to be selected to hold vigil. In my opinion, it’d be better to choose those people now in order to avoid trouble later on.” 

His words were logical, but no one wanted to listen to them. Who would want to choose between the matter of life and death ahead of time? They wanted to drag this on for as many days as they could. 

Upon hearing this, a college girl beautifully dressed up in the latest Korean fashion cheerfully spoke up, easing the atmosphere. “Actually, holding vigil might not be a bad thing. Vigilantes will get a safety shield buff11after the day they hold vigil, this shows that the daytime isn’t safe either. Vigilantes will only need to watch out for danger at night while other players will have to be on guard for every second of the day. I don’t think the ghosts will leave us alone while we’re sleeping either.” 

“You're right." At last, one person here had a brain. Pinkhead nodded his head in satisfaction. “But the mourning hall will definitely be the most dangerous place to be in. Everyone can weigh the pros and cons themselves. Raise your hands if you would like to hold vigil. We’ll take note of who wants to and arrange the shifts for the next seven days. The people who don’t want to, be sure not to regret it in the future.” 

People are selfish. If they saw that nothing had happened at night and that there was even a safety buff for the daytime, those who previously didn’t want to would definitely rush to have an opportunity to hold vigil. He had warned them, when the time came, he would confidently reject them. 

Gu Mozhi had been listening with great interest for a while. He felt that with this many interesting players, the game didn’t seem as boring as it did before. 

However, their efforts seemed to be in vain. Besides Pinkhead, the female college student, Gu Mozhi, and a young girl, no one else raised their hands12.

The young man13 looked at the people with their hands raised in surprise, “You- you guys aren’t afraid? This creepy place might actually have ghosts!” 

After experiencing the collapse of their world, even the atheists weren’t able to calm down. Looking back on what the system had said, it seemed as if this was a danger-filled game, ghosts might even be the least of their problems. They were all scared of dying, even though they knew that sleeping through the night wasn’t necessarily safe, they subconsciously chose to escape reality. The further away from the mourning hall they were, the better.  

“Of course I’m afraid.” The female college student14 looked at him. She earnestly continued with a soothing voice. “But there are some problems that you can’t solve by running away.” 

Later on, they would have to go through nine more games. Would they be able to survive each one by running away? She didn’t think her luck was that good, nor did she think that the game’s Lord God would be so kind. Rather than waiting passively, she chose to take the initiative. 

Only by forcing herself to adapt to the game as soon as possible, and understanding the game’s rules, would she be able to survive. 

Pinkhead’s logic was a bit simpler. He wasn’t that scared of ghosts, he wasn’t that scared of death either. Contrarily, he was actually kind of looking forward to when the ghosts would make an appearance. He wanted to see what a ghost actually looked like. Perhaps he was all bark but no bite15, but he was feeling extremely courageous at the moment. 

The young man looked towards Gu Mozhi. Gu Mozhi yawned and paid him no attention. 

“......” He looked at the last person, the young girl16, “Aren’t you afraid?” 

She was a twelve-year-old girl wearing her middle school uniform and a red scarf. At first glance, it was easy to tell that she was in her first year of middle school and had yet to join the Communist Youth League of China17. Her hair was tied up in a small ponytail, and she was wearing a pretty hair clip. She had originally been inconspicuously standing in the back of the crowd. But in order for Pinkhead to see her raised hand, she had squeezed herself to the front of the crowd. 

She directed a docile smile to the young man, “Uncle, it’s alright, I’m not that scared.” 

The young man: “.......you can call me Big Brother.” 

What was wrong with kids these days? How could they randomly call someone uncle! 

The author has something to say:

To the hundreds of years old Gu Mozhi: Big Brother, you’re so amazing. 

To the twenty-year-old young man: Uncle, hello. 

The young man: ? ? ? I think I’ve been attacked. 

Everyone is welcome to catch plot holes, I’ll edit every time I finish an arc!

The translator has something to say:

Hello y'all, I’m pleasepickthisup!

My translations will be infrequent and I will drop the series after their first or second arcs (depending on how long they are). I am only translating in order to bring more attention to them so other translators can pick them up.

If you want to pick up a story, please message me or comment!