Super Righteous Player
Chapter 681 - 222: Nightmare: The Inescapable Death_1

Chapter 681: Chapter 222: Nightmare: The Inescapable Death_1

——Drip-drip.

The sound of water droplets falling woke him like a heavy hammer.

"Ugh... Heh..."

Longjing let out a low and heavy sigh of lament.

Intense dizziness tormented his brain, his whole body drenched in sweat.

The cold, hard, and sticky sensations coming from his back made him feel waves of nausea. His consciousness was clear, yet his limbs were like entwined by snakes... no matter how much he wanted to move, he just couldn’t.

It was an extremely real sensation of fear.

It was like sleep paralysis, where he couldn’t even open his eyes.

After players got used to setting their pain sensitivity to a certain low level... it had been a long time since they had felt such a vivid and intense discomfort.

His attention was incredibly scattered—his thinking was so unfocused that he could barely realize he was in a nightmare.

——Finally.

After Longjing tried for the third time to concentrate, it was as if some transparent, intangible film in front of his eyes shattered, and he suddenly felt lighter.

He instantly opened his eyes and sat up with a flip of his body.

"Sss... huff, hah... hah... hah... hah!"

Longjing panted heavily, his slowly regaining consciousness in his right hand supported him on the ground, while with his left hand, he wiped the cold sweat seeping from his cheeks and temples.

He quickly realized that the object his right hand touched was unnaturally cold.

——That was a ceramic bathtub, and the cold water in it.

Longjing, sensing something, turned his head back.

Drip-drip.

The slightly turned, half-closed tap kept dripping water into the bathtub.

And before, he had been lying quietly in the cold water of this bathtub.

——Bathtub? Faucet?

Did the Land of Mist have such things?

Longjing thought as he stood up from the bathtub.

Even if the bathroom couldn’t compare to a modern one, it already looked quite decent. At the very least, it was styled with a European decor reminiscent of the post-nineties.

He even saw a mirror.

Longjing thought, and after he left the bathtub and kicked the water off his trousers, he approached the mirror without bothering to change into dry clothes.

He looked carefully.

——And found in the mirror was himself. Or rather, the "Longjing" from the Land of Mist, not the "Old Chen" from the outside world.

Although his clothes were completely different from when he entered... they had turned into a light blue, modern-looking shirt.

This discovery allowed him a brief moment of relaxation.

At least the most terrifying scenario had not occurred...

...but he had entered the instance while live streaming.

And now, not only had all the bullet comments in front of Longjing’s eyes disappeared, but he couldn’t even summon the display panel that showed his health and corruption levels.

The tactile sensation from the tips of his fingers... was also so real. He scratched the back of his left hand with the nail of his right thumb’s hard, and the sensation of pain was unmistakably clear.

100% pain sensitivity, huh...

He couldn’t see his own health bar.

He couldn’t enter forums.

He couldn’t see bullet comments.

... He couldn’t even log out of the game.

"Damn it, why..."

Longjing muttered, "I won’t have to play that crappy ’Man Up and Climb One Hundred Floors’ game, will I..."

As he said this, he started to become somewhat nervous.

He also couldn’t be sure... whether he could still respawn if he died here.

And at that moment, he touched the emerald-encrusted silver ring on his left middle finger.

——That was his vessel.

His clothes had changed... the single-use and ritual items stored in the Wizard’s robe were obviously gone, but his curse vessel had come back with him?

Longjing felt a surge inside, and a ghostly green light seeped into his pupils.

At the same time, a ghostly green light also burst forth from his emerald stone. With the spread of pale green inverse tree patterns from his middle finger towards his wrist, the power of the curse once again filled Longjing’s entire body.

... I can use spells?

He was somewhat surprised.

This was a precedent that had never appeared in his nightmares before.

—Is this the legendary "Otherworld-level" nightmare?

But Dragon Well Tea did not act rashly.

He simply withdrew the curse back into its vessel, then started to inspect his own body.

"...Am I injured?"

Dragon Well Tea touched his back but felt no wound. His body was mostly unscathed.

No.

He had his answer.

"—Then, was I attempting suicide, or was someone trying to kill me?"

He murmured softly, drying his right hand with the towel next to the mirror. He then touched the area below his eyes—with a place that rarely sweats.

Although he had been drenched in cold sweat just now, that spot was indeed dry.

The position of the bathtub’s faucet was on the right side of his hand, and the place to turn off the faucet was also nearby. So, there indeed was a possibility of getting wet.

He checked the sleeves of both his hands again.

He noticed that the right sleeve was more damp than the left... the upper part of the left sleeve remained dry, while the right was soaked through.

It was clear now. He must have been the one to turn on and then off the faucet.

But then the problem reoccurred.

Without prematurely calling it "himself"—why would "he" want to commit suicide? And why leave the water running drop by drop?

Dragon Well Tea thought calmly, glancing back at the bathtub.

He made a quick and rough estimate in his mind, using the shallow water trails as his guide.

...About three to five hours.

Being more precise was not so easy to calculate.

Just in case, Dragon Well Tea did not immediately turn off the faucet—although the likelihood was low, if someone were monitoring the faucet’s status, he would have exposed himself outright.

The bathroom door was not closed.

Without wearing slippers, Dragon Well Tea walked around the room fully drenched yet calm. He made sure there was no one else in his home, then changed into a dry and clean set of clothes.

During this process, he reaffirmed that this was definitely not the era—or the world—of the Mist Continent.

Because he had clearly seen something akin to a "television."

It was not the liquid crystal display type of television, but the kind of large box operated by knobs. At the moment, the "television" was on, but it showed only static.

Dragon Well Tea looked up at the clock.

—Afternoon, three fifty.

A plate with remnants yet to be cleaned was on the table, suggesting a meal of steak or some other type of fried meat. The sauce was black pepper—indeed a favorite of Dragon Well Tea.

He checked and found that he was not hungry at the moment.

"So I must have lain in the bathtub after the meal..."

He murmured, discovering a bottle of medicine on the table.

The transparent bottle bore no label, and inside were blue, oval-shaped pills reminiscent of toilet cleaner.

Were these sleeping pills? Or something else?

Dragon Well Tea thought for a moment and found his coat in the room—a somewhat stylish, blue-black uniform with a crest.

He put the medicine bottle in his pocket.

He then returned to the bathroom and turned off the faucet tightly.

At that moment, he heard the telephone ringing.

He went back to the living room and answered the phone.

Just in case, he did not speak first.

Rather, a hoarse voice came through—Dragon Well Tea was secretly glad he could understand it.

But he quickly furrowed his brows.

"Dragon Well Tea, come to the station quick,"

a commanding middle-aged man’s voice came through. "Someone is about to be killed... grab your gun."

What? Am I a cop?

Dragon Well Tea was startled for a moment before he realized something.

Wait.

...Quick?