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Chapter 5: Plants
After a minute of silence, Robin replied:
[Huh?]
The other party's passive response made Shi Rang realize that this time he had to play the role of "Game Master" — he had to lead this story and, of course, participate in it.
He was indeed a newcomer to the “online community” of The Management Bureau’s main site, but he was no novice when it came to tabletop role-playing games.
"I need more information. Do you know where you are in Facility 031? Are you above ground or underground? Room number or specific location?"
[This isn't funny at all! You're right in front of the camera, aren't you? Want to see me scared out of my wits in the server room? This is not funny at all, !!1 Open the door, or I'll report you!]
Robin's agitation was evident, his typing speed increased even more, and he was so agitated that even the punctuation marks were messed up.
What a great performance!
Shi Rang couldn't help but admire the other person's dedication to their role.
In his mind, Robin was no longer an unknown netizen on the other side of the screen but an unfortunate engineer trapped in the server room — panicked, angry, unwilling to believe that disaster had befallen him. The character image instantly became three-dimensional.
It was almost like real life!
Encountering such a performer was every Game Master's luck.
He needed to show some real skills.
The main site had changed at some point; there was now a red box in the upper left corner of the main page.
Previously, he had been so busy studying the friends list that he hadn't noticed.
[! Containment Facility 031 has experienced a containment breach!]
He guessed this was probably something akin to a "site-wide event."
Following the built-in link in the box, Shi Rang easily found the relevant settings for this facility, from maps to various details. This was the best source of material for a Game Master — a "module"!
But it wasn’t appropriate for him to directly become an omniscient figure and command the "Robin" in the story.
If both parties bypassed the "roles they played" and immediately reached an understanding from a higher perspective, it wouldn’t conform to the story logic, commonly known as "meta-gaming."
As an "unknown external communicator," he needed to gain Robin's trust first.
A competent Game Master would logically push the story forward and reasonably act as a secondary character in the story. Even if a player knew the Game Master had absolute correct story clues and answers, they should make actions consistent with the character's perspective — doubt, judge, decide, and find the right answer.
That was the fun of role-playing.
"I'm not joking, Robin. Every word I say to you is true. It's a miracle that you can contact me, so I hope you seriously answer my questions next. This concerns your life safety." After carefully typing this sentence, just as Shi Rang placed his finger on the enter key, Robin provided the next line of information.
[The alarm stopped. Did you do it?]
[Or was it a drill alarm?]
[The door seems unlocked. I didn’t even notice. Did you help?]
[I apologize. I overreacted earlier. That really scared me. I’m not familiar with this place yet.]
[I’ll go out and take a look.]
Maybe he thought he was typing too slowly. Robin began to actively push the story forward.
Shi Rang copied the long paragraph in the input box elsewhere for future use and advised, "Be careful."
He needed to take the opportunity to check the module content.
[I have a wrench.]
-----------------
"Saying that the facility will soon initiate automated extermination is as absurd as going out for pizza and then being told that a meteorite will track down and smash everyone eating pizza..."
Holding the heavy wrench, Robin calmed down quite a bit.
At least this time it wasn’t someone deliberately locking her in the server room to scare her.
Actually, until the alarm went off, she had been quite comfortable in the server room.
She liked being around the server racks, running cables one by one and fine-tuning equipment in the dry, static-filled air—and the noise in this server room wasn’t nearly as loud as usual. But Robin had basically finished her work for the day, and with nothing to do, she ended up just sitting there, counting the racks for a long while—until the alarm suddenly went off, giving her quite a scare.
With no one directing her, she didn’t dare run around in this place that felt more like a military base.
The armed security personnel who brought her down earlier said they would come back every two hours to let people out to use the restroom or something. Now the time was about right, so opening the door to peek out and ask about the alarm shouldn’t be a big deal... right?
The server room door was secured with an access control system, but the pass hanging around Robin’s neck—marked [E-10917]—was enough to unlock it. The “E” at the beginning of her ID number indicated that she was currently a temporary staff member, slightly above a visitor in rank, and only permitted to enter and exit the specific server room under her jurisdiction. The level of restriction here was indeed strict.
With a swish, the two iron doors retracted into the walls, revealing an empty corridor.
The alarm had stopped. The guard wasn’t standing post outside, and the others in the corridor were also gone. Other than that, it was consistent with what Robin initially saw after removing her blindfold — a long corridor, pale lighting, and endless rooms on both sides.
Thump thump thump...
Rapid footsteps approached, and a figure rushed around the corner, running far towards Robin while waving and shouting something. However, the distance was too great, and the sound was severely distorted.
Recognizing the black combat uniform, Robin finally found some familiarity and quickly stepped out from the server room.
"Excuse me, what happened with the alarm earlier? I..."
She noticed a dark mass surging from behind the corner where the guard appeared. Something was spreading along the floor and walls at high speed. It looked like liquid, but...
At this moment, the guard finally got close.
The terror on that face and the shouting finally reached Robin.
"Run, go to shelter—!"
The ceiling suddenly collapsed, countless pieces of earth and stone fell down, and the entire corridor plunged into darkness instantly.
The emergency lights stubbornly lit up again after a few seconds, casting an unsettling crimson glow over the concrete blocks and the guard pinned underneath.
Robin froze in place, inhaling a mouthful of dust, feeling her mind shatter into many pieces. One part screamed, another wanted to help, and another shouted to run, run, and hide.
Amidst the chaos, Robin took a step forward. Her glasses slid off her nose, but she didn’t stop them, instinctively reaching out as if she could pull the guard from afar and offer assistance.
Something was faster than her.
A thick mass of hair descended from the hole in the ceiling at a visible speed, touching the skin of the guard. The poor person trapped under the rubble twitched, seemingly mustering the last bit of strength to lift their exposed head towards Robin, their throat moving, opening their mouth—
A root emerged from the guard’s mouth.
Those weren’t strands of hair; they were plants.
The guard’s body shriveled, the skin contracted, collapsed, and eventually lost its luster, turning into a desiccated corpse within seconds.
The roots fell from the dead man's mouth to the ground, rapidly swelling and growing into vines as thick as fingers, winding their way towards Robin, getting closer and closer to that courageous step she had taken...
Robin regained control of her body.
In overwhelming fear, the unlucky electrical engineer turned to run, but her legs stiffened with extreme terror, causing her to fall flat on the ground.
The vines pursued from behind, spreading and crawling over the floor and walls, engulfing everything.
Robin crawled into the brightly lit server room, leaning against the wall, reaching out to touch the access control switch.
Faster!
Her hand slapped below the switch, still an inch or more away.
The vine crawled over the threshold, rapidly growing in all directions, searching for moisture and biomass.
Faster!
Robin struggled to climb a little higher, but her legs wouldn’t obey. No matter how much her fingers scratched, they only reached the edge of the panel.
A section of the vine sensed the vibrations on the ground and crawled over following the engineer’s trailing foot.
Just as she raised her hand to touch it again, the wrench caught her eye.
Wrench, I’m still holding the wrench!
The wrench struck the switch heavily.
The server room door closed with terrifying force and speed, like a pair of guillotine blades rushing towards each other, cutting through the root system with a sharp bang, severing it from the main body.
The vigorous plant writhed on the ground once and finally lay still.
Robin was still shaken, staring at the server room door without blinking, slowly retreating deeper into the server room, afraid that hair-like roots would crawl in through the cracks at any moment.
Immediately afterward, she felt a tug on her feet.
The engineer's gaze followed the sprawling roots, spreading everywhere, all the way to her feet.
Unbeknownst to her, the terrifying plant had already grabbed her shoes, coiling around them. Without the nutrient supply from the roots, the vines twitched one final tightening before falling limp.
Robin kicked wildly to free herself and crawled to the deepest part of the server room at the fastest speed of her life, hugging the wrench in a tight ball.
After a while, she finally let out a scream.
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