Treasure Trove

Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil

Xü Beijin has come to a startling realisation.

This Nightmare does not restart on death, but restarts on the degree of memory loss!

This is Xü Beijin’s first time ever facing such a Nightmare. He hasn’t even heard about one at all, not to mention Acting in one.

Everyone, from Missiontakers to Actors, know one thing for certain——Death means the Nightmare restarts.

But in this Nightmare, this fundamental law, seems to have been upended?

Xü Beijin is sure something must be wrong.

He is wondering if Baldie didn’t mean what he just concluded? Maybe Baldie didn’t imply that the Nightmare restarts, but rather, the Nightmare is in a time loop.

Xü Beijin knows about Nightmares that are locked in some sort of infinite loop, which occurs independently to whether the Nightmare restarts or not. Merely, some setting or story in the Nightmare would occur over and over again.

Yet, Baldie chose to say ‘restart,’ which, for Missiontakers, always clearly meant the restarting of the Nightmare, the game Instance itself.

Xü Beijin is hesitant. As an Actor, he cannot just ask which ‘restart’ Baldie is trying to say either, so there are possibilities for what he meant.

One, this Nightmare is one with some setting that is locked in an infinite loop. A memory loss represents one loop;
Two, this Nightmare has a different condition for restarting – from death, to memory loss.

Though, thinking about that, Xü Beijin’s thoughts digress again. What difference is there between complete memory loss, and death?

You could call it a complete death.

He seems to recall something, and his expression turns rather gloomy and cold.

While Baldie and Biceps are spooked by the response to the information they provided, Xü Beijin puts his poker face back up again, and nods at them calmly, saying, “an interesting piece of information.”

His seemingly unpredictable mood swings has just made the duo even more wary.

Xü Beijin isn’t in the mood to laugh at them, though, merely sighing to say, “then in exchange, I’ll tell you something.”

The two Missiontakers focus intently on Xü Beijin, who then says, “in this building, there is nothing worth exploring,”

Baldie is disappointed to hear that; he already knew.

That is when Xü Beijin casually adds, “besides the rooftop,” then, glances around his bookstore, and says, “oh right, and this bookstore.”

Both Baldie and Biceps felt stuffy in the chest for that way Xü Beijin worded the information.

Though it did open up new avenues for thought for them, because…

“Rooftop?” Baldie murmurs, with rather confused undertones, “it’s possible to climb up the roof?!”

The last time they were in this Nightmare, they never climbed the stairs, because they didn’t realise that the rooftop can be explored as well.

They only checked out the interior of the building before leaving.

The bookstore, though, while the NPC, Xü Beijin, was absent, they also had a simple search, but they didn’t find anything useful.

Biceps can’t help but ask, looking at Xü Beijin, “laoban, what is there on the rooftop?”

“That is your second question,” Xü Beijin chuckles, asking, “anything interesting you want to tell me before that?”

Baldie hesitates for a moment.

Which allows Xü Beijin to conclude, that they were still hiding something.

… Wait, Baldie said earlier that they haven’t told the most crucial piece of information to the other Missiontakers, before remarking that ‘they’ll eventually forget,’ so does this mean that the most crucial piece of information isn’t the fact that they would have amnesia?

What else could it be?

Xü Beijin stares straight back at the two men.

Biceps is clearly not as able to hold his cool, just like how he couldn’t help but question why Baldie leaked the information, he is also unable to really hold himself back from telling everything he knew to Xü Beijin in the hopes of digging information out from him.

He begins, “there is something…”

But he is stopped.

Baldie has grabbed his arm to stop him, before turning back to Xü Beijin to show the friendliest smile he could force onto his face, saying, “laoban, then we… will check the rooftop out first; you don’t mind?”

Biceps reacts in time as well, and nods to say, “right, right! Laoban, we’ll be back later.”

Xü Beijin “…”

“hahaha Beibei, your mooching failed!”
“Beibei: why are you so uncooperative”
“my poor Bei, it takes skills to rob things from wolves unscathed”
“ah, insolent! do you mean to suggest my Bei is unskilled?!”

Xü Beijin looks through the comments speechlessly… So what if his ‘mooching’ failed! Not even mooching… Why are you calling ‘equivalent exchange’ mooching?!

Clearly, Baldie and Biceps would rather not exchange with him here.

What else could he do, but show a peaceful, uncaring smile, and says, “I look forward to your next patronage.”

That simple sentence allows Baldie and Biceps to sigh in relief.

In fact, they’re worried they would anger Xü Beijin, though the bookstore owner’s temper seems much milder than they thought it would be.

Outside the bookstore, Biceps is heading towards the stairs when Baldie pulls him back.

Biceps is confused, asking, “what? You’re not going up to the rooftop?”

Baldie rolls his eyes at him, feeling the guy is getting dumber by the Nightmare, and says, with this frustrated tone, “look at the time! We should be meeting up with the others already!”

They’ve spent over 5 minutes in the bookstore, so if the rest of the Missiontakers are quick on their feet, they might be close to the building already.

Baldie and Biceps had the shortest route, so they should have been waiting for the Missiontakers early.

Baldie doesn’t want to the arouse the suspicions of the rest of the Missiontakers just yet——Whether about the information they have concealed, or their overfamiliarity with the locations in this Nightmare.

Biceps is just slow, but not dumb, and gets it immediately. Then, he asks, “you’re not planning to tell the rest of them about the rooftop?”

What Biceps means is that, they’ll act like they came here early and waited up there for them.

Baldie says, “we’ll see how it goes,” and a cold smile emerges from the corner of his lips. His bloodshot eyes make his face seem extra ominous, “let’s see if the rest of them would tell us everything they found out.”

While it was a Bad End the last time they arrived in this Nightmare, but they’ve practically explored the entirety of the Nightmare.

And, when they finally left the Nightmare, all the memories they lost came right back to them.

Baldie doesn’t know if his memories of this Nightmare will once again fade with time, but at least, right now, no one is as familiar with this Nightmare as they are.

So, he will wait and see if the rest of the Missiontakers will choose to report everything they found out along the way to them truthfully.

Baldie really is the embodiment of double standards; he hid the most important information in the very beginning, but is demanding that the rest of the Missiontakers tell him everything before he would tell them about the rooftop.

His reasoning is that, while cooperation in Nightmares here are beneficial, they are not compulsory.

Some lone wolves would even go out of their way to stay far from other Missiontakers. Whether they work together——Completely, as a team, should be a personal choice.

And so should he be able to choose whether and how he cooperates, even though he also knows they are double standards.