“What’s up with Bin Yong? He seems more pumped up than you?” Jia Le asked Shi Zuo as she sat beside Bin Yong who had entered a world of his own, scribbling down something in the Restaurant Instance seemingly unaware of their presence.
The moment she had finished her work, Jia Le had rushed over at the request of her boyfriend. Similar to Bin Yong, she had been busy doing overtime all week long to get her workload done and be able to leave earlier today. (Just that Bin Yong had taken the day off with Shi Zuo while Jia Le and Luo Bo continued with their day work.)
“He’s been like this the whole day. He refuses to believe that the Deep One arena is the correct way to progress even when everyone else appears to end up in the same predicament as us, just in different locations.” Shi Zuo informed Jia Le, as they had watched others try their luck in the newest dungeon instance. Some were fighting at other famous places like the Madison Square Garden, Central Park, the Theatre District and even at the Statue of Liberty.
Yet, Bin Yong was still clinging on to Milk’s words and hoped that the others had not been told about it. It was only a matter of time that someone else would get the first clear. So far they were luck as it seemed that they are the only Pandawans who had appeared.
“Thank goodness, Bu Dong and the rest of the high schoolers are on an excursion this week, The Venus Four probably having their semester exams and Xiong Da has some other matters to attend to, or else he could have possibly figure out the instance in a jiffy.” Bin Yong thought to himself as he watched a few more Deep Ones dungeon instance streams to see if he could catch anything before attempting with the entire group.
“All I know is that I am starving.” Luo Bo cried out loud and shouted for a penguin to serve her. She had followed Jia Le reluctantly even though she did not want to fight those scary looking Deep Ones, but she decided to come since Bin Yong rarely asked for favours. Besides, Shi Zuo would probably be the one paying for her too and that itself was already a plus.
The entire group enjoyed some Tonkatsu curry rice together and no matter how many times they ate Lynn’s food, it seemed that it was getting tastier and more fragrant. People usually say about how tasty the first time was when they reminisced the days they ate that good full portion of delicious food, but for those in the Restaurant Train of Delicacy, the food continued to get better every time they visited it.
After a hearty meal and a short talk on what to expect, Bin Yong decided to say his piece. “Guys, this is privy information which I got from Milk.” He leaned closer and the rest followed suit. “We need to search for clues in this dungeon. Just as Boss Jin warned us at the start, we should not think of this as a ‘Search and annihilate every single monster you see’ mission. The best case scenario might probably be that we entirely avoid having to fight any monsters until the last boss or so.” Bin Yong then showed his close knitted group the notes he made while waiting for their arrival. There was not much to go about, but he eventually guessed about the Grand Central Terminal trap correctly.
“The doors are different as compared to the real Grand Terminal station, come and have a look.” Bin Yong utilised the virtual screen consoles that were available to them in the Restaurant instance. He showed them screenshots of certain individual streams. “See here, they spawned right beside the Grand Terminal Station and it is extremely crowded as compared to the one we had entered. See the doors here too.”Bin Yong pointed it out.
“I am no architect, but one thing we know about Boss Jin is that he is rather particular about details. I do not think this is a coincidence. Look over here there are other examples of stuff not being ‘correct’.” He showed how the iconic gates to Central Park and even the base of the Statue of liberty was off. He even scrutinised background in the video of the team fighting at the Statue of Liberty.
“If I am not mistaken, there’s another statue right over there and of the right size compared to this one here. I think the bad heavy fog and rain pour made it hard to see. If not for the image to be of high resolution, I could not have found that original statue.” Bin Yong indirectly praised Jin’s Magic Eye technology. At the very least, he knew that what he was paying for Pandaflix was indeed high definition.
“I guess, it isn’t truly a spy kind of dungeon instance then…” Shi Zuo rubbed his stubble while frowning, showing some disappointment, but he did enjoy the thrill from the Black Suits.
“Maybe when we are stronger, this could become a spy action thriller instance, but the fact is that we aren’t able to play it this way for now. We should go about it the smart way, I guess.” Bin Yong suggested and he told them about the experience he had.
“Ignore the whispers?” Jia Le asked and wondered if she had such willpower to withstand it. She too had read up on Lovecraftian lore and understood how alluring those murmuring whispers were. The protagonists were disillusioned by them, and after a while, it made them go insane. If this was any other Dungeon Supplier, it was nothing to worry about, but Jin had already proven in the Halloween Instance, that he had the means to make their fears become a reality.
“So …does this not mean that this dungeon instance is literally like a giant escape room?”Jia Le asked by chance, and Bin Yong looked at her with his eyebrows furrowed. That was when Shi Zuo was suddenly reminded about something they had overlooked.
“Bro, don’t you remember that…weird English quote we found in the abandoned building? And we never found our phones in the end.”Shi Zuo asked and suddenly Bin Yong placed his palm on his temple.
“Gosh…you are right. Looking back we really didn’t pay too much attention and missed out on a bunch of stuff.” Bin Yong grumbled, and they finally had adjusted themselves with the right mindset going into the Deep Ones dungeon instance. Still, he could not believe it. It was amazing that Jin had created a virtual New York City, only for it to be potentially a giant escape room. For what it was worth, the wait for the release of this dungeon was indeed justified.
“Alright then, Please remember those escape games tips I gave you guys before.” Luo Bo reminded them and the entire group quickly looked a final time through their chat conversations. Dungeons were just one thing they shared together as a group. The two couples had tried various other activities together since they found each other to be rather compatible.
Even Jia Le, who was a rather new member of their clique, managed to quickly blend in and get to know some of the quirks the gang had. For example, Luo Bo, who was the laziest among them, had the most influence on the guys. But with Jia Le joining the group, it replaced Bin Yong’s previous craze for Luo Bo and the group dynamics was slightly more balanced. (Though there were times, Luo Bo pouted that things did not always go her way anymore.)
“As usual, I propose Shi Zuo as the team leader since Bin Yong always overanalyses things too much.” Luo Bo said and even Bin Yong agreed to that. “Bin Yong as the vice leader since he ALWAYS overanalyses things too much, so that there will be someone to watch our backs if we are missing out on things.”
“You know, you don’t have to say it twice, right?” Bin Yong frowned but Jia Le patted his head.
“Too bad, it’s the truth.” Jia Le whispered barely audible, reinforcing Luo Bo’s statement before the group entered the Deep One dungeon instance via their updated Pandamonium app.
As if given a second chance, they were teleported into the exact same derelict room with that muddled glass facing right in front of them. The four were tied up and instead of struggling, they began to carefully examine the room while waiting for the little Panda Pyjamas girl to appear.
She did not make them wait long, almost immediately entering by breaking open the door. Not panicking, the group slowly observed what the Panda Pyjamas girl did. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it; Find Captain Hei in 34th Street, Exit A of Penn Stati-“
“We accept.” The whole group said in unison despite the fact that they were still tied to the chairs which kind of shocked the little girl for a moment. Then, she stepped back while moving her panda mask a little to reveal that cute smile she was hiding. From her pocket, she took out a phone and placed it on the floor.
“Your first objective is to reach Grand Central Terminal. I will call you if you manage to reach there correctly and safely.” This time instead of pulling the straps out of the chairs for them, she disappeared after placing the phone on the floor. However, what she said corresponded to Bin Yong’s doubts.
” She said ‘Correctly’. So bro, your theory might be right after all.” Shi Zuo was finally convinced by Bin Yong’s way of thinking.
“Our cultivation is still active right?” Jia Le asked as she struggled a little after the disappearance of the little girl right in front of her eyes.
“It should be, it was not blocked the last time I remembered. Just that, we did not think of using it immediately.” Bin Yong answered and it assured Jia Le as she laid back and began casting a cultivation technique. Soon enough, there were vines growing from the bottom of her chair with razor sharp leaves, which at the behest of Jia Le, cut open the straps for her. Afterwards, she assisted the others in getting free.
“Now this is something different. Shi Zuo picked it up as he examined the phone. The first thing that he saw was the battery lifespan. Not only was it blinking at 10%, but it was also none other than Bin Yong’s phone… who had the lousiest battery life among the four of them. Mainly because he refused to change his phone after eight odd years since he claimed that it was still working fine for him.
“Seriously, if we lose because your battery dies out early, I am so dragging you to the Hua Wee store in the shopping district and get you a new replacement immediately.’ Shi Zuo cursed a little as he knew that Bin Yong’s phone booted up real slow. The power button was slightly faulty and turning it off might prove to be a nuisance and eventually consume more battery than it should.
“After getting a new phone for you, I will take your old phone and smash it into bits. I will make sure I crash and burn every single component.” Shi Zuo sighed as he looked at the worn out phone before leaving it with Bin Yong.
“I am guessing that it is also a sort of timer for us to complete this mission.”Jia Le chimed in as she was examining around the room once more. Luo Bo was already flipping the torture chairs upside down to see if there were any clues at all.
True enough, they found a tattered handbook stained with blood, hidden inside the chair’s broken cushion. Luo Bo was just trying her luck by poking her finger into those small cushion holes to see if she managed to feel anything. For a clue to be found so quickly, she became excited that she bounced around a little while Bin Yong was looking through the contents of the tattered handbook.
“From the looks of it, these…are something like coded cyphers, I think.” Bin Yong browsed through the contents for a while before giving it to Shi Zuo.(They would never guess that Boss Jin was well versed in cypher coding, and all credits were given to his grandfather teaching him that.)
“Yeah, and all written in tortured human blood I presume? Hahahha!” Shi Zuo was not helping the situation at all with his awfully cold comment. They checked the other torture chairs just in case before heading out of the room.
However, Jia Le turned around again as if to make sure she did not miss out anything else in the room. “Escape Room, huh? More like Escape City.” Jia Le mumbled to herself to which the System secretly awarded the group ten panda medals to their current dungeon score for being the first group to correctly guess the true name and nature of this particular dungeon.
