Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 301 The Method of Breaking Away

Chapter 301: Chapter 301 The Method of Breaking Away

The longer the time passed, the deeper Xu Huo became trapped in this mentally contaminated area.

While pondering a countermeasure, Sima Xiao’er suddenly started banging on the door from outside, yelling, "Xu Huo, can you hear me talking? Wake up! They’re going to cut you open and gut you!"

Xu Huo saw the madness in his eyes and was about to go open the door when Sima Xiao’er let out another howl, tears streaming down his face as he turned and ran out. His voice still echoed in the hallway, "I will avenge you! Once I get out, I’ll submit a report and bomb this damn place!"

Xu Huo stepped out just in time to watch his figure vanish at the end of the corridor.

He closed the five doors that were open along the corridor and left the fourth floor to return to the third.

Sima Xiao’er was not in his room, and with no clue of his whereabouts, Xu Huo had no choice but to return to his own room. The Tall Black One was still unconscious, so he moved him to another bed and lay down to rest himself.

After daylight broke, he went out to find Sima Xiao’er.

Sima Xiao’er was hiding in the lawn, clutching his head and muttering nonstop, "... Xu Huo is dead, can I escape alone?"

"That’s not right! Is he really dead? Was the person I saw actually real?"

"I clearly entered the Mist Area with my teammates, and the others disappeared. Where did he come from? It must be fake, the hospital tricked me; no one’s dead!"

"... But his death was so horrible, with so many limbs in the treatment room... How come no one has discovered this hospital? Yeah! This hospital is also fake!"

"That’s not right either, I can see and touch the hospital, how can it be fake... Did I actually start to believe the game world is real? Is here real, or was before real? Were the people I killed before real people or just characters in the game world?"

Xu Huo walked over and kicked him, "Are you awake yet?"

Sima Xiao’er collapsed to the ground, his eyes red as he stared at him, "You’re dead, you’re fake."

Xu Huo crouched down and levelled with him, "Take a look, is this fake?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a screen lit up in the air, showing a player’s personal panel with nickname, number, and other information all displayed.

The dull expression on Sima Xiao’er’s face gradually became more animated, and he said with a trembling voice, "Am I really not crazy?"

"Didn’t I tell you last night that the hospital is fake and everything you see is in your imagination? You don’t have a mental illness," Xu Huo said while wiping away the electronic screen.

Sima Xiao’er’s eyes flickered, clearly his beliefs starting to waver, not fully ready to believe his words.

Xu Huo gestured for him to follow, and they walked to the center of the activity area. Pointing to the top of the hospital building, he asked, "Does that say The Seventeenth Hospital?"

Sima Xiao’er took two seconds before providing a definitive answer.

"Close your eyes and then look again," Xu Huo said.

Sima Xiao’er did as told, and upon opening his eyes again, he found that the hospital’s name had vanished from sight, reappearing after two seconds.

"Go ask anyone you like what the hospital’s name is," Xu Huo instructed.

Sima Xiao’er asked several people and received several different answers.

"The hospital is just a framework, its content is composed of each person’s imagination. As everyone’s mental state and life experiences differ, the hospital seen is also different, which is why the hospital’s name is different within each person’s consciousness," Xu Huo explained. "Your mental state is unstable, what you see is different from what I see."

"I saw you being killed," Sima Xiao’er said with difficulty. "So many people were holding you down; you were staring as they sliced open your belly..."

"All I see is that the treatment room is a bit rundown and nothing else," Xu Huo interjected.

"But why would I see that kind of scene? I’ve never thought like that before," Sima Xiao’er said, agitated.

"Your mind has been interfered with by others," Xu Huo said. "What you saw as The Seventeenth Hospital, and the windows that disappeared and reappeared the night before last—if the room before the windows vanished was almost like any regular hospital, but when I reminded you the windows were gone, the room changed along with your altered consciousness, becoming more like the psychiatric wards in movies."

"The hospital is like a water surface; anyone stepping on it will cause ripples, and those ripples interact with each other, creating something new."

As he spoke, he walked forward along the lawn, "Every person who enters here can form part of it, but the difference lies in the individual’s mental state. The more you believe in the reality, the more realistically it will be projected in the hospital. The doctors and relatives in the visiting room are all figments of your imagination. To me, they are real too."

Sima Xiao’er tugging on his hair, said, "But I can’t control it. Things I never thought of become real too. If we get killed by monsters that others have imagined, won’t we really die?"

"I don’t know," Xu Huo said, stopping in front of the main entrance to the hospital and looking up at the building, not as bright as the previous two days. "But the longer we stay, the more dangerous it becomes."

"Then how do we get out?" Sima Xiao’er pressed, "If the hospital is all imagined, this definitely isn’t a copy. Even if I imagine a copy, we still can’t get out!"

"Didn’t you study this mist with the Special Defense Department before you came in? What did they say?" Xu Huo turned to look at him.

Sima Xiao’er took a deep breath, "They said this is a random copy, created by spatial overlap. It’s just that the scope is bigger than any random copy we’ve seen before, and it’s weirder."

"How weird?"

"The entrances to previous random copies can’t be seen with the naked eye, as if there’s an invisible portal. But this time, the Mist Area has become isolated from the outside. Except for people being able to enter, there’s no communication in or out, sound doesn’t travel, and even the temperature is quite different!" Sima Xiao’er banged his head, "What on earth is this?"

After listening, Xu Huo suddenly caught onto something. Sima Xiao’er entered the Mist Area from Ting City, while he was near Hua City. The Mist Area kept changing, blocked communication, caused temperature differences, and seemed more like another space invading Zone 014. The lack of copy prompts could also be taken as indirect evidence.

If this odd space was indeed a mental contamination site, players would begin to feel the impact upon their psyche from the moment they entered. They might not be moving about with their real bodies, and since the Mist Area was accessible, it meant that as long as they could free themselves from this mental contamination, they could walk out of the Mist Area freely.

They were only mentally trapped, unable to use player abilities, which confirmed this. To break free, they would need to wake themselves up, but with their minds affected, ordinary pain or stimulation couldn’t awaken them. They still had to make a move at the mental level.

"Have you thought of a way?" Sima Xiao’er asked, gaze fixed on him.

"This method may not work for others," Xu Huo said. "I’ll try it first."