by N. Heller
Rena panicked and quickly retaliated with her [No depiction of body parts below the neck] while she stooped down and tried to create some distance between Hannie and herself.
Hannie's black pipe swept noisily past Rena's head, touching her hair. Maintaining her fight stance, Hannie managed to dodge Rena's attack by just shifting her body. While Rena was silently atonished by this, she was shocked when she realized Hannie was hovering above her.
It was too late. Rena couldn't change the direction of her movement. Rena felt her back touching Hannie's palm almost like a self-delivered gift. She immediately felt the warmth from Hannie's hand on her body. Meanwhile, Hannie threw away the black pipe far away. It fell on the ground not far from them. At the same time, Hannie erupted into a series of sharp laughter and Rena finally heard the woman saying, "[Truth or Dare], activate!"
Rena finally realized what had happened and she felt her heart sinking.
Even though Hannie used that black pipe with impressive finesse, she wouldn't be able to cause any fatal damage with it when fighting with posthumans with enhanced physical attributes. Therefore, it was only used as artiful deception.
Similiar to her boots, Hannie could create such deceptions which diverted attention with ease. Rena realized that Hannie probably needed to touch her target to activate that [Truth or Dare] ability, and therefore the woman needed to create a false impression that she was a fighter type. When her opponents fall for her deception and focused instead on defending themselves against her physical attack, that was the best time for her to strike.
[Truth or Dare]
This is a party game popular among middle school students and alcoholics with a twist. The ability user would start first, dictating if the target would need to answer a question truthfully, or performing a "dare". The target must then execute accordingly. During the game, both ability user and target cannot attack each other. Disregarding this rule would result in a random punishment. Regardless of the choice made, the target must answer truthfully or successfully perform the dare, otherwise, the person posing the question would gain a chance to attack the target. During this chance, the target would be forced to endure the attack without dodging or countering.
Of course, in this world, there isn't such an unfair one-sided advantage. After the target completes three requests, the roles would switch. Thereafter, the game would take a normal turn-based format. So, dear ability user, please take full advantage of the first three turns before the ability move toward the fair gameplay.
The question poser can choose any question to ask, however, the "dares" are automatically generated by the ability.
PS: This ability creates opportunities for players to flirt around in the name of the game.
Hannie narrowed her eyes. She tapped her red lips lightly with her long fingernail. Rena and Hannie stood three to four meters away from each other. None of them dared to move unnecessarily.
"What should I choose..." Hannie appeared very pleased with the current situation as she gave a satisfied sigh, "This moment always feels so good. It's addictive."
Rena could hear her own heart pounding loudly. She bit her lips hard.
"Should I ask a question? What should I ask?" Hannie really toying with her prey, like a cat toying with a mouse. She liked it so much that she even felt a little reluctant to pose the first request, "Should I... ask you where your brother is hiding?"
Before Rena could say "in your dreams", the woman in front of her waved her hands. "Oh, but I am not at all interested in knowing where he is. For now, getting you is enough."
While Rena was caught off guard by Hannie's "getting you is enough" comment, and was wondering what she meant, the woman's voice suddenly spoke in a mechanical and flat voice. Her [Truth or Dare] ability announced using her mouth, "Dare 1: Get a phone number from a duoluozhong in Kisaragi Station 1 ." This refers to the world.
Chapter 234 - Soaring Blue Sky Education Consultancy
"Get a... a duoluozhong's number?" Rena could never imagine in a thousand years that she would hear such a request from Hannie's mouth. She had already prepared herself mentally as she thought that Hannie would get her to hurt herself or jump off a building or something along that thread. When she heard that it was a seemingly simple task, she was a little stunned for a moment.
"How could the task be so simple? It is not even dangerous? How does the requester have an advantage?" Rena thought to herself.
However, Hannie had not finished speaking. "The time limit for this request is 20 minutes. The number you receive must be an actual phone number. It doesn't matter if the call can or cannot be connected. The executor must appear in front of the requester before the time limit. The gender of the duoluozhong does not matter. Start!"
After Hannie finished her monotonous instructions, Rena immediately ran off to complete the request.
Hannie had to stand in the same spot to wait for Rena to return as long as her ability was still activated. As a result, Rena didn't have to worry that Hannie would run off and help Derik fight against Lin Sanjiu.
20 minutes was neither a long nor short time. Before Rena could get a phone number, she had to look for a duoluozhong. However, things don't usually go the way one wants. When Rena didn't need a duoluozhong, they seemed to be everywhere and it was impossible to get rid of all of them. Yet, when Rena wanted to find one, she couldn't even see a single duoluozhong in sight after running and looking around for five minutes.
Rena estimated the time she spent and stopped. She couldn't run too far as she would not be able to reach Hannie in time. After she surveyed her surroundings, Rena started to feel a little anxious.
"Where do spirits usually appear?"
There were just bank and financial buildings in the street that Rena was in. All of them looked sparkling new and seemed to give off the aura of elitism. No matter what, it didn't seem like any spirits were in those buildings.
" Honestly, there are not many urban legends about banks..." After Rena thought about it, she stomped her feet and quickly dashed into one of the buildings. Even though Rena was really confident, she had heard ghost stories about offices before. As long as there exists such strange tales, urban legends or ghost stories, there would be a real possibility of the relevant spirits existing in this world.
"Are there any ghosts around?" Rena ran through a few floors. The flickering lights made her more and more fl.u.s.tered. She grew more and more anxious by each passing second. "Quick, can one of you just appear?!"
She ran past some education consultancy firm and she turned into another corridor. There was a female toilet at the end of the corridor. Usually, there are many ghost stories which are set in a female toilet. From afar, Rena could already spot that the toilet door was half open. An indoor plant at the entrance of the toilet had been kicked aside. There was even a piece of toilet paper stuck on one of the walls. Even though the toilet had started to fall into desolation, there didn't seem to be any spirits around.
"Come on. Has it been 9 minutes already?" Rena took a breath and headed for the toilet, unwilling to accept the situation. She never really had a good concept of time so she wasn't really sure how much time had passed, "I would need five minutes to get a phone number and two to three minutes to run back, so..."
As she thought about this, she had already reached the entrance of the toilet. She looked up and inadvertently realized that the piece of toilet paper she saw was actually half a pale human's face.
The human face had moved from its previous position as Rena walked close to the toilet. When the girl looked up, her face nearly touched that pale, snow-white face. They were so close that their eyelashes were nearly touching. The top half of that human face had been squished together. The face opened its black toothless mouth and curled its lips, showing Rena a smile.
Rena couldn't help suddenly letting out a loud scream. She retreated a few steps backward. Before she could steady her racing heart, she stepped forward once again.
"You came a
t the right time," she still sounded fearful but for her brother, Lin Sanjiu and herself, the teenager demanded softly with her white lips, "Give me your phone number!"
As she said this, her fists glowed and she punched the white face. She purposely avoided the spirit's face and hit its ear. As its ear evaporated into a cloud of smoke, the smile fell from the spirit's face. It turned its too large eyes to its ear, showing its disbelief at what had just happened.
"Give me your phone number!" Rena had already rushed into the toilet. She had trapped that duoluozhong which was still wearing a woman's office wear in the corner of the toilet. "Otherwise, I'll kill you!"
When facing a posthuman with considerable experience, a normal duoluozhong couldn't do much to fight back. If the duoluozhong decided to take on Rena directly, it would have disappeared into a cloud of smoke long ago.
However, now, it turned its pupilless white eyeballs and a smile slowly appeared on its face again.
"If... you gave me... a piece of toilet paper," it said slowly, "I... would... tell you."
It did not even ask for a reason and had already caught its opponent's weakness.
Rena immediately frowned.
A normal duoluozhong combat ability was definitely lower than a posthuman who had already had a few level-ups. However, that was dependent on a condition. That condition is that the posthuman must not be dragged into the scenario which exists in the particular urban legend. There are certain special situations in an urban legend where the duoluozhong involved would gain a unique "peak" strength.
Taking the famous Sadako as an example. That situation would probably be "when a person watches the infamous videotape". The moment when Sadako crawls out of a television and attacks a posthuman would be when she would reach this "peak" strength. At that particular point, a spirit duoluozhong could even be a few hundred times more dangerous than usual.
Rena had done a lot of background research, so naturally she wasn't fooled.
"I know what urban legend you belong to." Rena sneered, she clenched her fists tightly while she trembled from her brewing anger. "When you are in a toilet cubicle in a woman's bathroom, a woman from the adjacent cubicle would suddenly say that she did not bring a packet of tissue paper with her and then she'll ask you to pass her some toilet paper. Supposedly, if a person tries to pass some toilet paper, the woman would grab the victim's hand and drag her to hell... Am I right?"
The face did not say a word but rolled her eyes and stared at Rena's hands.
"If you don't give me... any... toilet paper, I won't... tell you..." the spirit smiled with malice. "You can kill me... if you want."
It had probably overheard everything Rena mumbled to herself. It knew that Rena was hard pressed for time and did not have much choice. Rena felt her blood vessels pulsing. Normally, she possessed a sense of superficial superiority as a teenager, and people rarely created such difficult situations for her in Red Nautilus. Furthermore, this was just a duoluozhong. Even though she told herself in her head not to be rash, she couldn't overcome her impulse in the end. She punched the duoluozhong. At the same time, she grabbed one of its arms and tore it off. Her opponent screeched and Rena said vehemently, "Are you going to tell me your number?!"
The duoluozhong quickly stopped screeching. It looked at its arm, which had already dissipated into the air like ashes. She laughed cruelly and slowly crouched on the ground and started crawling down from the wall like a spider.
"I... will wait for you... in the other cubicle..." it said as it crawled. Something on its c.h.e.s.t swayed, illuminated by the light in the toilet.
Rena was stunned for a second. Before she could think anything through, Rena had already picked up the duoluozhong and looked at its c.h.e.s.t. After staring at its c.h.e.s.t for a few seconds, Rena suddenly couldn't hold back her laughter.
"I've never seen such a stupid thing," the young girl's crisp voice sounded in the toilet, she was relieved. "Yu Meizhen!"
There was a metal employee pass holder hanging in front of the duoluozhong's neck. There was a small line of words "Soaring Blue Sky Education Consultancy". Then, there was a line of words which was slightly larger: Overseas Studies Consultant: Teacher Yu Meizhen. The duoluozhong opened her mouth as if she was about to say something. Yet, she had already turned into smoke the very next second.
Chapter 235 - Truth or Dare 2
When Rena rushed back to Hannie hastily, her last thin thread of hope disappeared completely when she saw the smile on Hannie's foxy face.
"You took 21 minutes and 34 seconds. You have exceeded the time limit." Hannie reported in a rather monotonous manner. When she finished reporting, her voice quickly changed into an overly-pleased tone. She watched Rena's expression and said slowly as if reveling in p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e, "How was it? You probably thought that fulfilling that request would be very easy, that it wasn't demanding, right?"
Rena took a breath of air. She felt her heart sinking like lead.
She had wasted quite some time failing to get that duoluozhong's number by interrogation. After that, she rushed to "Soaring Blue Sky Education Consultancy" and found the HR department. She wasted most of her time digging through various cabinets before finding Yu Meizhen's contact number from her employee file. Even though Rena ran as fast as she could, she did not reach Hannie within the 20 minutes time limit.
"The most impressive part of my ability is that the 'dares' it issues may appear random at first glance. However, it is actually generated after a computation of the surrounding environmental and situational information. The first three 'dares' are designed to give me an advantage... Oh, I don't mind letting you know this," Hannie said as she toyed with a few Special Items in her hand as if she was undecided which of it she should use to attack Rena. "I am unable to get you to hurt yourself or get you to commit suicide using my ability. It also wouldn't generate an impossible task. After all, games don't work that way in our everyday lives... Though that is a drawback, it is just a very fun ability."
Rena stood motionlessly. As she had exceeded the time limit, she had to endure a single attack from Hannie. Just a moment ago, she had realized in shock that her body had already stiffened and she had no control over it.
Rena had never been known for her physical resilience. If the woman in front of her attacked her with the intention to kill, she probably wouldn't survive.
Rena's mind was blank for a few minutes. After that, tears started pouring from the teenage girl's eyes without any warning. Perhaps it was fear or something else. Not even Rena could describe her feeling. After all, she was too young. In this world, the most nerve-wracking thing might be to witness your own death approaching. What else could surpass that?
"Let's use this. I don't want to waste any of the good stuff." Hannie picked up her black metal pipe from the floor leisurely. She stored the items she had brought out, "This should be enough."
When they exchanged blows previously, Rena had more or less figured out Hannie's strength. If Hannie chooses to use that black metal pipe, she wouldn't be able to kill her! While Rena felt a sudden sense of relief, she couldn't help doubting this "new lease of life" she was given.
"Why would she simply kill me? Does this woman enjoy this game that much?" She thought to herself.
Before Rena could process her thoughts fully, they were crushed by the sudden force from a black shadow which hit her. Rena's ribcage was instantly shattered. Her organs felt like they were scrambled. She couldn't say a single word as she felt a suffocating pain. She nearly blacked out for five to six seconds. She only regained her vision after vomiting a large mouthful of blood.
It was obvious that Hannie had intentionally held herself back when she was fighting with Rena. The strength she used in this attack was far beyond what Rena had expected. Thankfully, Rena was still alive.
While the teenager lay on the ground defenselessly, Hannie pulled up her dress and looked at her back. Then, she walked back holding her black pipe in her hand and seemed rather unhappy.
She turned to look at the teenager on the ground and snorted, "You won't die. Get up. You still have three—"
Hannie had just said those words, but then her expression stiffened, as if she had realized that she had let something slip. She immediately shut her mouth.
Rena could still hear the ringing in her ears; it was the sound of her blood flowing. She almost thought that she misheard Hannie.
"Three what?" Rena asked softly after she coughed a few times while she lay on the ground.
Hannie did not answer her.
"Aren't you going to stand up? I am going to state the second request," Hannie said a little impatiently, "I still have two chances... mmm..." After she said that, she seemed to be caught in her own thoughts.
Those words quickly caught Rena's attention and she set aside her doubts about that number three. With much difficulty, she propped herself up, pushing her hands against the ground. She didn't know how she was still able to stand up. She was surprised to find that the suffocating pain she felt had vanished very quickly even though she clearly suffered a serious blow from Hannie.
When she pressed her abdomen, it did hurt badly. If it wasn't for that, she would have forgotten that she was injured.
"Well, for the second request..." Hannie dragged her words, "I will choose dare. I don't want to hear a little kid's dawdling about her true feelings."
Her voice changed the next second and, just as before, she spoke in a mechanical, monotonous tone.
"Steal something from Zhu Mingchun. Condition: You can steal anything. You can only steal, but not snatch. You will have to steal something from the person without him noticing. Zhu Mingchun's current location is unknown. You have 10 minutes."
"This request is way harder than the previous." Rena was stunned. She looked at the woman in front of her almost in despair. Then, a muffled sound suddenly came from the bank building. The sound was very soft. If she was talking to Hannie at that moment, Rena would have missed that unusual disturbance.