He opened his eyes in a rustic egg tart shop. It was rather beautiful, with little porcelain tiles on the walls and those little bamboo seats. He rested his arms against the table that he was somehow magically resting on. The table was cold though, and it froze his elbows. He sat upright instead.
But… ah.
Where was he, exactly?
This shop didn't really feel familiar; he didn't think he'd seen it before. So probably not amnesia? And he was the only one in the shop.
He flexed his hands, fingers curling in before uncurling, deftly stretching like a pianist before a concert. It seemed as though his body was completely normal, without any external tampering like knock out drugs or roofies. Perhaps he had been knocked out by brute force, though it would have taken a lot, but it didn't seem to have any long lasting effects. Like a concussion.
There were more important things to worry about though, like those delicious-looking egg tarts on the display. Hong Kong style maybe? With a hundred different flavors too.
Ooh! Creme Brûlée flavored! Maybe getting kidnapped or something wasn't too bad after all, if only he had his wallet.
Wait.
…
Where was his wallet? And his phone?
Well. It did make sense that if there were any kidnappers, they'd take his valuables too.
At least no one was sitting across from him. It was a small table, and it would have been awkward from the close proximity.
POP.
He took it back. Whatever deity was out there must have hated him. A grinning blond kid shot finger guns at him, even though he had somehow just materialized into the seat across the round table.
"Hi!"
Nope. Too much magic bullshit for him. He leaned far, far away from the kid. Who had been talking, although he certainly hadn't been listening. The blond was constantly making large, grandiose gestures as he spoke, sweeping hand movements just as energetic as he seemed.
Ming wasn't that energetic enough for that. In fact, he could tell his social battery was at an all time low. Who knew being near loud people could be so draining?
"Call me Huipao? Anyways, I guess we're partners for this scenario. Have you ever cleared it before?"
What? Scenario? Clear? Partners?
At least he knew that the last one was a definite no. Too loud, too smiley. Too… blond.
"Ah. I guess you aren't very talkative, huh? Any name though? Or I can just call you ge!"
He narrowed his eyes at the blond kid.
A name?
Hmm.
"Ming. You may refer to me as… Ming"
The blondie squinted.
"ming like the classic textbook ming?"
What was he going on about now? What kind of textbook had a Ming in it—
Oh wait, right. The classic Xiao Ming.
"No." He gruffed out. Annoyingly, his voice was scratchy and far too low. Human vocal cords were so hard to manage. Oh no, did he sound mean? Oh dear. Talking was way too hard. What if he messed up again? Best to keep sentences short.
"Ming as in green tea."
That was it. That was all the kid was getting.
That was enough talking to last two more lifetimes.
Never again.
But the blondie didn't take the hint.
He, no, Ming, could feel his blood pressure rising. The chilling cold of the table seeped into his fingers, and he looked down to realize that he had been clenching it for far too long. His knuckles were white, he noticed.
oops.
At least there weren't any indents in the table yet.
He let go, slowly, as Huipao kept chattering.
"Anyways, I've cleared this shop twice now, but it's really annoying how the instance changes each time, right? Oh yeah! I've cleared three main instances now, and I'm a Darklance prospective!"
Ming squinted.
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
The blondie acted as if Ming had just insulted his entire bloodline and ancestors, leaning back in his chair and gasping.
"Excuse me?! You don't know the Darklance guild? Wait, are you a newbie? Makes sense I guess, but you're so—"
Tuning the rest out, Ming turned back to look at the shop once more. Where there had once been a fully barren shop, there were now about two to three people per table. He hadn't noticed them come in though.
Teleportation again?
Some people looked like they knew each other. Others? Random strangers, like him and the blond kid.
Honestly, the kid was getting kind of annoying now, chattering on and on about his amazing guild. What was he, a D&D player?
"Any chance you're from LanXing? well, I think the classification for it is something like 102? No, wait, ELX-102 Beta? Or was it 103?"
Ooh, interesting. Different planets. Perhaps everyone here, all of the other players, all came from different worlds. How exciting!
Ming prepared to stand up and rest on the back of his seat. Actually, the seat was really nice. Very aesthetic. Would buy. Maybe he'd ask the owners where they got their chairs.
His home was pretty bleak as of now.
His butt kissed the cushion to go, but the blondie immediately grabbed his arm, a panicked yet confused look in his eye.
"Dude, are you stupid?"
Ming raised an eyebrow back.
"I want-t to go order some egg tarts."
oops. Ming hoped the blondie hadn't noticed the stutter. Social embarrassment could drag him as far down as it wanted, but as long as the other party didn't notice, he was fine.
The blondie looked even more confused now.
"Are you stupid? Did you not read the forum guidelines? Wait, have you not even figured out how to open the forum?"
What forum? What guidelines? Did Ming look like he had his phone?
"What forum?"
The blood drained from Huipao's face.
"Oh no, you are a complete newbie. But they held a quick briefing at the start? When we all entered the instance? Did your system glitch?"
woah. Exposition, much?
"I… do not know. I woke up here."
The kid at least seemed honest; it would be good to play along. He seemed well-meaning too.
Well, it looked as if blondie.exe had stopped working. It would almost have been a funny sight, if Ming's legs hadn't hurt from the half squat, midway off the chair.
Whatever.
He sat back down.
But immediately, a waitress was behind him.
He didn't like her smell.
She was pretty though, bright and bubbly. Dark hair in a bob, and an even darker set of eyes. No light in them at all. How unnervingly beautiful. She leaned at a perfect angle, clearly a customer service veteran. Delicate little hands clasped together, and a pearly smile flashed straight at them. If only that smile reached her eyes, though.
"Good evening, dear guests! Would you like to order anything?"
Ming looked at the blondie. The blondie looked back at him.
…
So much for being a three-time instance clearer.
But the kid looked slightly nervous, even if he still had the stupid grin.
That must have meant there was something wrong with the waitress. Well, he could kind of tell, but it was always good to have confirmation.
The kid was too frozen to speak, so instead Ming lied straight out of his ass. Back ramrod straight, summoning all the effort in the world to say a single sentence. It was a very difficult sentence. A very long sentence.
"Apologies, ma'am. My brother and I were about to order, but our mother said that she'd be here soon and wants us to wait before ordering."
The look in the waitress' eye dimmed, and she seemed rather disappointed. Her smile never slipped though, and she responded in a grating, customer service voice.
"No worries, guest! I will come to take your order when your mother arrives! We need to get the kitchens going anyways, new ingredients will be arriving soon as well!"
She skipped away into the blue doors connecting to the kitchen.
Huh, they kind of looked like the ones in Ratatouille, but a pretty blue instead of red. Maybe there was a magic rat in there too. Ming wouldn't have been surprised.
Huipao's stuttering broke Ming out of his musing.
"Woah. Are, um, are you sure that you're a newbie?"
no answer.
"Tough crowd. How weren't you scared though, didn't you feel the pressure?"
What pressure, was this kid stupid? It was a waitress. Poor thing, maybe he had social anxiety.
"Don't look at me like that, the NPC was probably a ghost!"
Never mind, not a poor thing. Just a rude brat.
The waving from the kid was even more frantic now.
"Look, the others agree with me! She didn't even have a shadow! Her apron had bloodstains!"
Looking around, Ming spotted a couple of people looking at them, nodding.
Idiots.
Huipao looked to the sky, exasperated.
"Okay, I'm calling it quits with you. Confident enough to be a veteran, but you can't even notice that she's a ghost?"
It wasn't as if not having a shadow meant being a ghost. Bloodstains though… maybe she was just a girl with a certain side hobby? Nothing to discriminate against.
Obviously, someone working in a food shop would have food stains on their apron.
A large crack rang throughout the shop.
It looked as if a fat man had yelled at the waitress about not wanting the stupid egg tarts and wanting to leave.
What a strange man; the egg tarts looked positively splendid.
Oh. Then the waitress snapped his neck.
She must have been very strong. Didn't it take over three thousand newtons or something? Wait, Ming should have known this. He'd studied it for a bit in college.
…
Learning was not his strong suit.
Wasn't the waitress just in the kitchen though? But he supposed he did see a dozen people, including him, teleport into the egg tart shop. Maybe she could teleport too? Did that mean he could learn how to teleport as well?! How exciting!
By the time he remembered to focus, both the waitress and fat man were gone, but there was a large, red drag mark leading to the kitchen doors. The front door to the shop had once been fully blue, yet it now had a pretty rose trim. Very red, very pretty.
That was rather ominous, no?
The person the fat man had been sitting across from was making all sorts of weird noises, her shoulders shaking. She looked to be in tears. Ah. She looked young. Her first time seeing a death? It came to all eventually though. The nearby people (veterans?) were comforting her, trying to make her stop panicking. Whatever, at least the noise wasn't too grating.
There was a hushed muttering rebounding from all across the room. In particular, one other corner had a rich man with a very nice watch yelling about his money. Rude! Why'd he get to keep his watch when everything of Ming's was taken away? Favoritism.
Anyways, the rich guy yelled at them for kidnapping him, setting up an elaborate ruse to break him, yada yada. He must have been very rich if he thought it was all for him.
Hm.
Target spotted. Robin Hood plan perhaps?
Before Ming got up again, Huipao tried to stop him once more.
"Are you stupid? Did you not just see the npc snap that guy's neck? We gotta wait and figure out the rules!"
Ming rolled his eyes.
"I know you might not care, but I do! This is a team exercise, if you die, I might die too!"
Some things were starting to become clear though. Blondie had kept talking about instances, newbies, veterans, guilds, and so on. A horror instance with a forum.
No way… Ming had transmigrated?
Amazing!
And into an egg tart shop as well! His favourite dessert!
But.
No money.
No egg tarts.
He mentally deflated into a small puddle of tears.
Pretending not to know anything, about everything, Ming questioned (ahem, grilled) Huipao. He hated talking, but this seemed important enough. Oh well. Maybe he could just get through this… scenario?
"How do you know where we are? How do you know we need to find out the rules? What's the forum?"
Huipao looked like he was about to explode.
Whatever. If he wouldn't answer Ming's questions, then Ming would find someone who would. Eventually.
By then, a couple of other braver people had also tried to stand up. The waitress hadn't come back though. As a single worker, life must have been tough. Surely there were cooks and managers backstage though, right?
Anyways, time to act like a pro.
Ming smiled and walked up to a big congregation of people, all of them looking to be in deep conversation. They looked strong. Maybe if he pretended to like talking, and they liked talking, then they could just carry Ming to victory? It was a nice thought. Not probable though.
But maybe they had money! For the egg tarts!
"Hi there! I've cleared three instances, but not this one. Anyone mind filling me in?"
By scythe, thanks to blondie for giving him the script. Ming screamed nonstop in his head at the victory of not messing up his words.
Until he realized that the whole group was eyeing him in suspicion.
He blinked.
Humans were strange, annoying creatures. Were they not pack animals? Come on, play along! It had been very hard to say all of that in one go.
A clear leader in the group stepped up though.
"apologies. I am Liu Xitong. We are the copper-tier mercenary group, weaver. This is drifter, another freelancer like you."
The leader gestured to the woman beside him, the only one in the group not having a yarn ball emblem. It was a really cute logo though—did they choose it themselves?
Drifter nodded.
"we know that we are in the rule based instance #4238, Restful Resort, sub-story #28, egg tart emporium. Forum guides state that we must find clues to prove the identity of the ghost in order to clear this sub story. It's an investigative type instance."
Hmm. This forum truly did seem useful. Ming would need to grill blondie more on it later.
A man in a hoodie beside Liu Xitong piped up.
"should we try asking her for help?"
He nodded towards the girl who had sat with the late, fat man.
The group began to debate.
No way was Ming going to listen to all of that. He looked around and saw a very nice cuckoo clock behind the counter. The clock pointed at 4:04. How ominous! He loved it already.
Yet, the clock seemed a bit jammed. What a shame.
Should he look through the cashier desk? But that might trigger rules. It was certainly against legal rules. But other than the cashier and tables, that left only the kitchen to ruffle about.
The waitress was still in there though.
Maybe later.
The paintings, perhaps?
Oh, how Ming adored the paintings. Classic Chinese watercolor, yet some with black, some with blue. He knew that he'd had this line of thought many times before, but the owner of the shop was truly a man (or woman!) who knew just how to get to Ming's heart.
Ming tuned back into the conversation. Still nothing interesting, so he asked, "why not just leave?" pointing at the door—the very pretty door, matching the very pretty shop.
The group looked at him like he was an idiot.
Fair, but ouch.
"Ahem. Well. Past experience and forum guides state that opening the door in the resort sub stories never goes well."
Well, at least one person was sympathetic enough to respond. With quite valuable information too! A resort, hmm?
And a resort rife with danger!
Not much though. These people were genuinely overreacting a lot. Nearly twenty minutes in, yet out of the dozen and a half people, only one had died. Barely anything! Even nymph playtimes had a higher casualty rate.
Ming really was hungry now.
He bid the very nice group—the dreamers(?)—goodbye and sat back down at his original table. The blondie was gone, probably off to find his edge-lord clan teammates. Dark-blade? Shadow blade? Shadow-scythe?
No matter. Ming could probably do it himself.
He looked around. All the other people were busy. But earlier, they'd mentioned a forum. And a system.
Hmm.
Trying very hard (and failing) not to feel stupid, Ming whisper-shouted at the air.
"System. System? Forum? Inventory? Quest?"
Nothing prompted a response.
No magic screens.
No magic apps.
Not even the blue one with white calligraphy like last time.
Stupid system.
Stomach growling, Ming gazed mournfully at his egg tarts. Well, not his. That was the main problem. And he had even forgotten to pickpocket that other group earlier! A shame, really.
At this point, Ming had basically given up. Though the shop was amazing, he had no money and no way to eat those egg tarts. According to the other group, he wasn't even able to leave through the door!
So, the only way to leave was to clear the sub-story. How? Ming didn't even have the stupid system to give him quests!
If only it had been the system from last time—that one had honestly been really useful.
Hmm. What could be the goal? It was a small space, so probably not a chase scene. It could have just been to survive for a limited amount of time, but that would have been very boring. What if it was a cooking challenge? Oh dear, please no! Cooking was the hardest thing to do, ever. Hopefully the challenge was something easier.
Maybe to find clues? To catch a ghost? That made sense.
Ooh! Maybe it was like a werewolf game, one of Ming's favorites. Everyone was a villager, but there were werewolves—or in this case, ghosts—and they tried to kill all the villagers. The villagers had to try and figure out who the werewolves were in order not to die.
Ming really liked that game actually, because depending on the amount of people, there might have been extra characters and roles like detective, little witch, cupid, or martyr.
Yep. He should try that first.
But what if there were consequences to guessing wrong? It would probably have been okay, right? Death was a social construct anyway!
Ming got back up and walked to the kitchen doors. The cashier was empty, and the paintings on the walls only had bamboo. No clues in the main sitting area—hand on wood, heart beating excitedly.
He walked in, half expecting the waitress from earlier to pop up once more. But no, the kitchen was also startlingly empty. Clean though.
Ming ran a hand over the metal counters and sniffed at it. A strong sense of iron… because the tables were made of iron. Eh, at least he'd tried.
A hand on his shoulder startled him, and he nearly jumped a foot high into the air. How had he not noticed? Even if sounds were muffled and his eyes were less compound, he should still have been able to hear their heartbeats, no?
It was obviously just because Ming hadn't been paying attention. Right.
He turned back and was face to face with the blond kid once more. Aw, how cute! He was out of his scaredy-cat phase.
Behind Huipao stood two others, people wearing matching wristguards on their right hands. A marker of their shadow lance(?) guild? Though they did look a lot more menacing than Huipao. Bodyguards, perhaps.
That meant Huipao was important! Hopefully money-wise, so he could buy Ming food later. Best to get on his good side. A rich friend was a useful friend after all.
Oops. Huipao had been chattering on this entire time, and Ming hadn't been paying attention. Hopefully nothing important. Tuning back in, he realized that Huipao had just been introducing his teammates, with a brief intro to their abilities.
No way—abilities? Ming positively had to know more.
The serious-looking man was called Fu Bianheng and had a soul-bound item instead of an ability. Very cool. It was a set of double daggers, each with names. Maybe they even had set effects too? Truly fitting for the dark blade guild.
"It's the darkLance Guild!"
The woman was called ZhaoYing, and she was a healer. Very cut-and-dry introduction, and honestly? She looked nothing like a healer. She looked more like she would try to dissect innocent little bugs—somehow even more monstrous than a ghost. Extremely scary, but cool in equal measure.
He scooted away from her a bit. He could also see her amusement from where he was standing, but that was okay. A strategist knew when to reduce risk.
Ming cleared his throat, pretending he hadn't missed the entire set of introductions.
"Well! Good to meet everyone. Very cool knives, very cool healing, very cool… wristbands."
He gave them a thumbs-up, hoping it read as friendly instead of starving and desperate.
Huipao beamed for some strange reason. That kid always smiled. Very scary, almost like the waitress. Did that mean he was a ghost?! Ah, but the others would probably have looked at Ming weird if they knew his criteria for judging ghosts was whether they smiled.
Maybe blondie wasn't the ghost?
Blondie continued.
"So! We were thinking, we should search the kitchen together. Ghost dungeons like this usually hide clues near food prep areas."
Ming brightened.
"Clues? Maybe even edible clues?"
No one laughed. Tragic.
Ooh, more to a tragic backstory! Everyone knew the coolest people had the absolutely worst, most heart-wrenching, absolutely tragic backstories. Maybe having one would increase the coolness of Ming's ability?
That reminded him—he really did need to ask how exactly one went about unlocking abilities. Probably some wishy-washy magic? But Ming didn't have a system. Oh no, did that mean no magic?
Still, the four of them shuffled deeper into the kitchen, past the metal counters and spotless stovetops. The place looked so pristine it felt wrong, like someone had polished away all signs of life.
Ming tapped a ladle. It rang too loudly in the silence.
Fu Bianheng surveyed the room, daggers materializing in faint outlines at his hips.
"No spiritual residue. No traps."
Zhaoying snorted.
"Not here, anyway."
He really wished she would stop sounding delighted at the idea of surprise death.
They spread out, with Huipao poking cabinets, Zhaoying scanning for energy flows, and Bianheng examining the tiled floor like it had committed a crime. Ming, meanwhile, gravitated toward the far corner where a bulky, old-fashioned ice box sat squat and frosty against the wall.
He paused. The iron latch glinted.
"…Was that always there?" he asked.
Huipao blinked.
"What? Of course. It's a kitchen."
"No, no," Ming stepped closer. "There's kitchen appliances, sure, but that's the only thing here we haven't checked. We've gone past everything else, searched, but still not noticed this."
Still, Ming tugged the latch. It groaned open with the slow, theatrical creak of a horror movie prop. Mist spilled out, cold enough to sting. He peered inside, expecting ice, or maybe a ghost chef's leftovers.
Instead, he saw… a ladder.
A ladder leading straight down into darkness.
"Oh," Huipao whispered. "Oh, absolutely not."
He stepped back. Then forward again. The curiosity-to-survival ratio in his brain was probably vigorously malfunctioning.
Bianheng leaned in beside him, expression sharp.
"Hidden access tunnel. Probably the real dungeon."
Huipao paused, then bounced on his toes, excitement poorly concealed. What is up with that kid?
"Secret basement! That's definitely where the sub-story boss is."
Ming's stomach rumbled in protest.
"Can't the boss come upstairs? I'm hungry."
"We clear it faster if we go down," Zhaoying said simply, already conjuring a faint green glow over her palm. "And maybe you'll get food afterward."
Food.
That magic word again.
Ming straightened with sudden resolve.
"Well! Why didn't you lead with that? Into the death-chute we go!"
He grabbed the ladder. The cold bit his fingers, but he pushed past it, climbing down first—partly out of bravery, mostly because if something ate him, maybe it would be too full to eat the others.
He paused and looked back at the group.
They looked back at him.
Ming cleared his throat.
"Shouldn't we ask the others to come too? Strength in numbers, and all that?"
Bianheng blinked.
Ming blinked back.
They blunk at each other.
Zhaoying rolled her eyes.
"Are you stupid or something? First clears of the round get extra rewards. Plus, they can probably find other routes too."
What other routes? The kitchen was, like, the only suspicious thing.
Huipao noticed his confusion and started to explain. The kid was always good at that, at least.
"The paintings had traces of spiritual residue, and the cashier probably would have had spirit money."
Then why'd they go to the kitchen? And how did they even sense the magic residue???
Fine, fine. Ming was here for one reason, and it was not his brain. Actually, he didn't know the reason either.
Eh. Future problems.
Wait. Was Ming here as a sacrifice? Or was he being scouted? Well, one certainly seemed a lot more likely than the other. Hopefully nothing came out of that suspicion!
They climbed down the ladder, and somehow ended up climbing up. Gravity magic, perhaps. They climbed up into a different kitchen, one that had the same layout, but was far, far messier.
Ming wrinkled his nose. There was a strong scent of iron, but sweet and cloying. He ran a hand over the rusted kitchen counters.
It was kind of unsettling, how stark the contrast was between the two kitchens. One was smooth, the other jagged and bumpy. And really dirty.
Oh dear. Now Ming's hand was covered in… sticky fluid. It was dark. Hopefully not blood. It smelled really bad.
…
He was going to lick it.
Tongue out—but Bianheng stopped him with a raised eyebrow.
It was starting to become a pattern: Ming finally doing something interesting, and then a member of the Blackbladeblade(?) guild stopping him.
"You know," a certain blond kid started, "your name is a wee bit short. Any chance we can give you a nickname or something?"
Hmm. If they gave him a nickname, that probably meant no sacrifice.
"sure."
Huipao brightened up significantly.
"How about Ah'Ming?"
Ah'Ming. That didn't sound too bad, actually.
Ah'Ming nodded.
"Great!"
Zhaoying called over from the corner of the room, beckoning them closer. Pointing at the sink, she asked the guild plus Ah'Ming,
"Do you guys remember if the other kitchen had a mirror?"
Nope. Not at all.
Now that he thought about it, Ah'Ming really wasn't suited for this profession. Hopefully he could take a combat one. He was certain that he would be great at fighting ghosts. It probably wouldn't be any harder than fighting normal people, right?
Ooh, now he hoped that there was a ghost. Time to break out his cutting skills and hope they hadn't completely degraded while Ah'Ming had been stuck in college.
Zhaoying pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I swear," she said, voice echoing unpleasantly off the tile, "this has got to be the stupidest instance I've ever been in. And I've done a sewer dungeon that turned out to be a mimic."
Oooh, mimics? Talk about plot twists. Almost like D&D! Ah'Ming had actually been in a D&D club once. It hadn't really worked out though, since they'd kept trying to kill each other instead of the monsters. Hopefully his new party was better though! The evilevilsword(?) Guild must be competent if they have DPS and healers, right?
Bianheng hummed noncommittally.
"The forum guides," Zhaoying continued, warming up now—oh dear, she seemed to be working up a true rage—"were clearly written by people who either lied, died immediately, or both. 'Kitchen route is optional,' my ass. Optional my foot. Optional like getting stabbed is optional."
Huipao laughed under his breath.
"Maybe they just didn't find the second kitchen."
"Then they shouldn't be writing guides," Zhaoying snapped. "If I see one more post that says 'just follow the obvious clues,' I'm reporting them for misinformation."
Ah'Ming nodded along, even though he wasn't sure what a forum guide was in this context. Earlier, he'd thought it would kind of be like a Reddit post. Was it more like a masterclass?
He was sure that none of this felt optional, though. The new magic world seemed pretty important—just like Silent Hill.
Zhaoying straightened, rolling her shoulders.
"Alright. We've confirmed the mirror discrepancy, the blood…."
She glanced pointedly at Ah'Ming's hand, still faintly stained.
"…and the gravity nonsense. There's nothing else here except bad vibes and tetanus."
She gestured toward the door.
"Let's get out of the murder kitchen. Maybe the inner world egg tart shop is better?"
No one argued.
They pushed back through the doorway and immediately froze.
They were back in the main shop.
Except… not.