Thank you @MsKend_a for the Kofi.
Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 583: Toy manufacturer
“Alright, please wait a moment.” Inside the elevator, the attendant pressed the “-5” button with a smile on his face.
Accompanied by the sound of hinges operating, the elevator slowly descended.
The narrow space was deathly silent, so quiet that one could almost hear the intermittent breathing.
What exactly awaited them on the negative fifth floor?
Probably no one knew the answer to this question until they actually entered this level.
Wen Jianyan raised his head and glanced at the flickering red numbers on the panel, slowly taking a deep breath.
But at least their purpose for this trip was clear.
Enter the negative sixth floor before the Oracle, and kill the resident dealer on the negative fifth floor—that is, the core dealer numbered No.2, and obtain the last piece of the agate stone fragment from them.
As for which came first, they would have to see how things went.
While Wen Jianyan was deep in thought, there was a “ding” and the elevator slowly opened.
The instant the elevator opened, the thin black pass in his hand began to spontaneously combust, disappearing completely before the elevator doors fully opened.
After receiving the tip, the attendant’s face revealed an ingratiating smile: “Please watch your step.”
The group left the elevator and officially arrived at the negative fifth floor.
Although no one said anything, everyone’s vigilance rose in unison.
After all, they weren’t the only ones who had entered this level—there was also the Oracle, who eyed them covetously with great malice. If the other party wanted to ambush them on this level and prevent them from continuing downward, now would be the best opportunity.
What was worse, the Oracle’s team never lacked members with prophetic talents. Finding out when they would descend to this level would be a piece of cake for them.
So the moment they left the elevator, they were already prepared to face a merciless attack.
But… nothing happened.
The negative fifth floor was quiet and peaceful.
Ma Qi closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she opened them and shook her head: “I don’t sense anything. Although I can’t rule out the possibility that they’re too powerful and my talent is failing, but…”
She hesitated, then said quietly, “I’m more inclined to think this place is temporarily safe.”
“…” Several people looked at each other, seeing the surprise in each other’s eyes.
How could this be?
Wen Jianyan frowned.
The Oracle giving up an ambush should be a good thing, but he couldn’t feel happy about it at all.
Previously, on the negative fourth floor, the Gentleman had used every means to prevent them from continuing downward. After that attempt failed, ambushing them here became the simplest and most effective method, yet it hadn’t become the Oracle’s first choice. Could it be that…
The Oracle was also currently stretched thin?
Alarm bells rang loudly in Wen Jianyan’s mind.
This was the Oracle, which had a large number of prophets.
You see, within the first two days of the instance starting, the Oracle had rapidly passed through the negative second to fourth floors, their progress far exceeding everyone else in this instance. But after entering the negative fifth floor, they had inexplicably stagnated…
The resident dealer on the negative third floor was No.10, the resident dealer on the negative fourth floor was No.9, but the resident dealer on the negative fifth floor had jumped directly to No.2.
This level gap was not small.
Wen Jianyan felt this was probably not a coincidence.
He raised his eyes and surveyed the surrounding environment.
This level looked not much different from the previous floors, even appearing more luxurious and opulent. However, the counter that should have been for exchanging chips and the semi-open casino entrance had all disappeared, replaced by a thick red wall and tightly closed gold-embossed doors.
Before the doors stood an attendant in uniform, his bloodless face bearing a large smile, looking inexplicably eerie.
“Let’s go take a look.” Wen Jianyan said.
“Distinguished guest, hello.” Seeing them approach, the arc of the attendant’s smile didn’t change by a fraction as he said in a stilted voice, “Entry qualification for the negative fifth floor requires separate purchase. The price is one hundred million.”
One hundred million?
Ma Qi, behind him, gasped quietly.
This number was a bit too much!!
Wen Jianyan’s eyes flashed, but he still said nothing, only nodding at Chen Mo.
Chen Mo understood and paid straightforwardly.
After receiving the money, the attendant’s smile grew even larger. He handed Wen Jianyan a pitch-black envelope with the words “Entry Pass” written on it, then stepped aside: “Please enter.”
The gold-embossed doors opened before them, revealing a deep passage inside.
Several people looked at each other, silently raising their vigilance, before slowly stepping inside.
As Wen Jianyan walked, he opened the envelope and poured its contents into his palm.
There was nothing inside the envelope except a bright red coin.
Chen Mo guessed: “Could it be something similar to the special capsule coins?”
The special red capsule coins on the negative third floor appeared to be ordinary coins but actually contained a ghost inside. They had to purchase at least five at once, and if they didn’t consume the capsule coins in time, the ghosts inside would gradually revive.
That was a vicious device that seemed like a welfare benefit but was actually a trap.
Wen Jianyan picked up the coin and examined it carefully.
“No, it’s not.” He shook his head decisively.
He turned the coin over, revealing a small safety pin on the back. “Look.”
“A brooch?” Several people were stunned.
“Um, can I see?” Blond blinked, saying somewhat uncertainly.
Wen Jianyan paused and handed it to him.
Blond took the brooch, frowning as he examined it repeatedly for a long time.
“How is it? Did you discover anything?” Wen Jianyan asked.
Blond hesitated: “I’m not sure either…”
Ma Qi shook her head carelessly: “I don’t sense anything unusual anyway. You’re not a medium, what could you—”
While they were conversing, the passage reached its end.
However, the instant they saw the scene outside, everyone’s steps paused, all of them momentarily dazed.
What appeared before them was actually a…
Town?
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[…?]
[Huh? Wait, am I seeing things? What is this???]
[No way, what’s going on!! Is this something that should appear on a cruise ship?]
Several people blinked hard in unison, but the scene before them still didn’t change one bit.
That’s right, it really was a town.
The roads were straight and clean, and houses lined both sides in orderly rows. Except for not seeing a single human figure and the familiar ship cabin ceiling overhead, everything else was exactly like an ordinary town with no difference whatsoever.
Someone in the team couldn’t help but turn to look behind them—if not for the passage leading outside still remaining not far behind them, they might really think they had left the Lucky Cruise and arrived in a new instance.
The empty town before them seemed to be permeated with a daunting aura. Even though there was no visible danger, it still sent chills down one’s spine.
“What… is going on here?” Chang Feiyu asked, his voice unable to hide his confusion.
“…”
Wen Jianyan shook his head without immediately responding.
However, regarding why the Oracle had stayed on this level for so long without being able to advance, he had somewhat understood.
After all, from any angle, this level had an extremely big difference from the other floors.
“Hiss…” Just then, a faint gasp suddenly came from behind. Wen Jianyan sharply turned his head to see Blond pinching his finger, a large drop of blood slowly seeping from his fingertip.
“Your chest—!”
Ma Qi’s eyes widened as she pointed at Blond’s chest and cried out in alarm.
Blond was also stunned and instinctively looked down—that blood-red brooch had somehow already been pinned to his lapel, gleaming brightly like uncoagulated blood hanging at his neck.
He gasped in shock, seemingly not expecting such a thing to happen: “How, how did this…”
Wen Ya frowned and immediately stepped forward, yanking the still-dazed Blond over and studying and fiddling with him for a long time.
She raised her head, shook it at Wen Jianyan, her expression grave:
“No good, can’t remove it.”
“…” Wen Jianyan suddenly had an ominous premonition.
But before he could do anything, a “bang” came from behind, the sound like a thunderclap on flat ground, startling everyone.
They whipped around to look in the direction of the sound.
Above the town, a huge screen very similar to the one on the negative fourth floor was slowly lowering.
“Zzzz…”
Accompanied by intermittent electrical static, an unclear image appeared on the screen.
It was a huge, almost intimidating azure eyeball.
Just like someone was pressed close to the camera lens, peering outward at close range.
“Hello, hello, hello, can you hear me?” Through the crackling amplifier came a…
Childish voice?
Everyone was stunned.
The next second, the image shrank, the person pressed against the camera lens moved back, and the owner of the eyeball finally appeared completely and clearly in the frame.
“Ah! I see you!!” A doll-like little girl’s eyes curved as she revealed a delighted smile to the camera.
She looked so harmless, completely out of place with the eerie town before them. But no one could ignore the number on the nameplate on her chest—
[No.2]
Seeing this, everyone’s hearts tightened.
This little girl was actually the resident core dealer of this level, ranked second!!!
“Hello everyone, I’m the dealer in charge of this level. You can call me Lucy!” Lucy’s lively voice echoed through the empty town. “Welcome all distinguished guests to my amusement park!!—Lucy’s Toy Town!!”
With her voice, uniform squares slowly appeared on the previously empty blank road. Above the squares were numbers starting from 1 and gradually increasing.
“As for what exactly this level contains… mm, you’ve all played Monopoly, right? The specific rules are pretty much like that,”
Lucy shook her head, carelessly counting on her fingers,
“Roll dice to advance, invest in toy factories, pay taxes… oh my, I can’t explain it all at once. Anyway, you’ll understand quickly once you play!”
Although, like No.9 from the previous level, Lucy also controlled this floor, the operational method she chose was obviously vastly different from the previous level.
She smiled and waved at the camera like an innocent little girl: “Anyway, welcome to becoming one of the toy merchants. I wish you great profits!!”
With a “zzz” sound, the image disappeared and the town returned to silence.
However, the huge screen wasn’t retracted. Instead, it was replaced by a real-time updated leaderboard.
No.1 Lucy, owns 71 toy factories No.2 Tarot Master, owns 42 toy factories
No.3 Butcher, owns 28 toy factories … No.16 All-Seeing Eye, owns 0 toy factories
All-Seeing Eye?
Eye?
Could this name refer to…
Wen Jianyan was stunned and instinctively turned to look at Blond behind him, his gaze falling directly on his chest—on that badge, a number had appeared at some point:
[16]
As expected.
His heart sank.
The person wearing the badge meant becoming the actual controller of this team’s toy factories. And if Blond hadn’t taken the badge midway, the person who should be on the leaderboard now would have been him.
However, whether wearing the badge was fortunate or disastrous was still very difficult to predict.
“That Tarot Master, could it be…” Chen Mo hesitated and said in a low voice.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and nodded: “Yes.”
The toy factory controller of the Oracle team was Su Cheng.
“Strange, then why can’t the Oracle enter the next level?” Staring at the leaderboard on the screen, Ma Qi asked confusedly. “They rank so high, they should have earned enough points to buy the pass to the next level, right?”
Chen Mo: “It looks like this level’s model is probably similar to the negative fourth floor.”
On the negative first and second floors, as long as anchors earned enough money on that level, they could go to the counter to exchange for a pass to the next level. But after the negative third floor, the rules changed.
On the negative fourth floor, to get a pass to the next level, you had to bet correctly on the champion of the horse racing track.
The negative fifth floor should be the same.
“Mm.” Wen Jianyan nodded. “If the rules here are really like what that dealer said and it’s ‘Monopoly’, then just earning money isn’t enough to enter the next level. What you really need to do is ‘win’.”
“Is that how it is?” Ma Qi, the youngest who had never encountered this kind of game, widened her eyes. “Then how do you win? Having the most toy factories? Or being first to reach the end of the board?”
“No.”
Wen Jianyan shook his head.
He narrowed his eyes, looked up at the screen overhead, and said slowly:
“Make all other players go completely bankrupt, then you win.”
No wonder the Oracle was stuck on this level unable to advance… because the difficulty of winning was too great.
This meant not only having to defeat Lucy, who owned the most toy factories, but also seizing all other players’ assets and making them lose their competitive qualifications.
And one point worth noting was that this was in an instance. No matter how harmless a game was, as long as it appeared in an instance, it would no longer be simple, but instead be fraught with danger and deadly traps at every step.
Even though this level nominally played “Monopoly,” its true source of danger probably remained to be discovered.
Wen Jianyan raised his eyes to look at the screen.
Although there were sixteen “toy merchants” on the screen, the actual number of players still remaining in this game should be less than that—some names on the leaderboard had turned gray. Obviously, those should be players who had already been eliminated.
Looking at it this way, only seven teams remained active on the field now.
Tarot Master, Butcher, Corpse Rose, Ice Field, Reaper, Lion Heart King, and their team—”All-Seeing Eye.”
And these names should have been assigned by the instance, not decided by the anchors themselves.
“So what do we do next?”
Wen Ya cast an inquiring look at Wen Jianyan.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and said: “Let’s go. Didn’t that person say? ‘You’ll understand once you play.'”
The group cautiously approached the starting point. Just before stepping onto the first square, Blond suddenly let out an “ouch.” Under the gaze of the others, he opened his palm, and two blood-red ten-sided dice appeared in his palm.
“They suddenly appeared in my hand.”
Blond blinked with a bewildered expression.
Wen Jianyan showed a thoughtful expression.
He reached out: “May I see?”
Blond handed the ten-sided dice to Wen Jianyan, but as soon as Wen Jianyan got them in hand, the dice vanished from his palm and reappeared in Blond’s hand.
As if bound to him.
Wen Ya frowned and looked at Blond: “Looks like only you, as the toy merchant, can roll these dice.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Thank heavens.]
[What’s going on, I actually breathed a sigh of relief…]
[Hahahahahaha who understands, me too!]
[It’s lucky this toy merchant position went to Blond, otherwise you’d be done for!]
Blond looked at Wen Jianyan. Wen Jianyan nodded. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, raised his hand, and threw the dice.
The dice spun around several times and slowly stopped.
[16]
Not a small number.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Look at other people.]
[Look at other people.]
Wen Jianyan: “Let’s go.”
Under his lead, the group cautiously moved forward along the road, walking from square “1” all the way to square “16.”
They had just stopped on square 16 when a “creak” sounded from the side.
Like the sound made by a rusty, long-unoiled door hinge turning, it was particularly sharp and abrupt in the deathly silent toy town.
What’s going on?
Everyone’s bodies shook as they all turned their heads toward where the sound came from.
A narrow path extended from square “16,” and at the end of that path was an iron-gray building surrounded by iron railings. It wasn’t tall and basically looked no different from other buildings in the town. The rust-covered iron gate slowly opened before everyone’s eyes, and a pitch-black figure slowly emerged from the depths.
Creak, creak, creak.
Strange scraping sounds came from the darkness.
Under everyone’s gaze, the shadow gradually walked into the light.
It was actually a human-sized wooden puppet! On its stiff, comical cartoon face, blood-red lips were raised high, revealing an exaggerated smile. All its limb joints showed obvious bearing marks. Combined with its hollow gaze, it looked very terrifying and intimidating.
“Welcome… keke… welcome to Mr. Butcher’s… keke… puppet factory.”
When speaking, the puppet’s throat emitted strange scraping sounds that made one’s scalp tingle. It maintained an unchanging stiff smile, staring unblinkingly at Wen Jianyan’s group who had stepped onto the square.
“Please… keke… purchase a puppet, then… ke… leave.”
Author’s Note:
My version of Monopoly – warning: rules heavily modified
