The NPCs and the others had already settled down in their respective rooms. Chu Siyan cheerfully walked over to Sara's room, which was the first room in the hallway, and knocked on the door.
The sounds coming from inside the room abruptly stopped.
"Sister…" he whispered softly, worried that they might have already gone to bed.
The door opened slightly, and Sara poked her head out. "Oh, it's you. Come in, Siyan."
Smiling, he walked into their room.
Sara's roommate, Kira, immediately cowered into the corner of her bed. Her head was lowered as she mumbled something to herself.
"Hope I'm not intruding."
"Don't worry. She'll get used to you after a while. Right, Kira? This is our junior, Chu Siyan. Just call him Siyan." Sara kindly introduced him.
The NPC, Kira, nodded at him.
Chu Siyan grinned. Kira seemed like a wonderful lady. She had the same unruly hair his nanny had. It looked kind of cute on her head.
"Come here." Sara dragged him over to her bunk bed and sat him down. She pulled out a bunch of tattoo tools and bottles of ink from her desk. "What color do you want? Any design? Anything you want to remember?"
Chu Siyan's eyes shimmered as he looked at all the tools. "Can you tattoo 'respawn' on my arm?" He held up the inside of his wrist.
Sara raised a brow. "Unique choice of tattoo. Young cuties like you usually prefer cute bows and flowers."
"I do like flowers, but I want something to remember this day. It's a very important day, you see. I'm finally free. I don't want to die soon. I want to respawn even if I do. So, this tattoo."
Sara and Kira's expressions turned strange as they listened to him.
"O-oh, I see… It'll only take a few minutes." She hurriedly cleaned up her equipment and wiped down his arm. Then she drew the word 'respawn' in a fancy font. It looked elegant, small, and very cute. He loved it.
After getting his approval, she prepared the tattoo needle. "I'll get started now. It'll sting a bit. Just tolerate it and don't move your arm. I'll give you short breaks if it becomes unbearable."
"Hmm." Chu Siyan excitedly watched as she began tattooing his arm.
His initial reason for coming here was this, but he also had a second reason. He glanced around the room and spotted the girl's phone on the table.
"Sister, can I borrow your phone? I broke mine just tonight. I want to let my parents know that I've settled down." He lied through his teeth.
Sara bought his lie and kindly lent him her phone.
She didn't have a password, so he simply pretended to be texting someone. But while doing so, he sneakily opened the apps and found the alarm app.
This was a ghost game world. There was a high possibility that the ghosts might even enter the sorority. He just wanted to know what time they would come and 'visit.' As much as possible, he wanted to avoid that meeting.
But how could he find out the time?
Easy. The alarm settings.
Anyone who lived in a risky place would definitely become paranoid and set an alarm to remind themselves to stay safely inside their room. The NPCs had probably done the same, he hoped.
He spotted an alarm marked with a red danger emoji and grinned. The time was set for exactly nine-twenty.
Give or take, the girls must have given themselves at least ten minutes of buffer time. That meant the usual ghost visitation time would probably be nine-thirty.
'Great. Now I can explore this place. All I need to do is get back in before nine-thirty. But what about the ghost outside… should I try to investigate it?'
Sara cleaned up his tattoo. It was finished in about ten minutes. The font was neat and very cute. He loved it.
"There, all done."
Chu Siyan simply grinned at her before suddenly pretending to shiver. "Sheesh. It gets cold around here. Even when we were outside, I felt a cold wind. I even felt like someone touched my shoulder."
Sara's eyes filled with worry as she looked at him. "Did anything else happen?"
"No. Nothing much… Should I be worried?"
Sara held his hand. "I-it's not that bad… It's just dark out there. Nothing much."
As she said this, Chu Siyan felt a small poke on his other arm. He glanced to his side and found Kira much closer to him. Her disheveled hair fell over his arm, tickling him slightly.
"Hi," she enthusiastically greeted him. "Here, look at my new tattoo."
Kira nodded and nudged him again with something.
Glancing down, he noticed it was a flashlight.
"Is that for me?"
Kira nodded without a word.
"Thank you so much." He took it from her without hesitation. "You guys have been the coolest seniors I've ever met."
Sara grinned widely. "Of course we are. We Thetas all stick together!"
Chu Siyan said his goodnights and left their room.
The time was eight-ten. He had plenty of time, and he also had a new prop.
Sara had only said that it was dangerous in the dark. But with a flashlight, he could light his way.
Why worry about ghosts when you had a flashlight?
If this thing didn't work, he could always toss it at the ghost and buy himself some time to run.
His plan was coming together perfectly.
But one problem remained.
He didn't want to go alone.
Not because he was scared, but because he was worried he might miss clues if he searched by himself.
He trotted over to his room and glanced inside.
The trench coat guy was still lying on his bed.
"I'm heading out. Are you coming along?"
The man sat up and walked out with him without saying a word.
"Aren't you worried the ghosts will come out here?"
The man glanced pointedly at the flashlight in his hand.
Chu Siyan pouted. 'Seems like he's too smart. I wanted to boast about my intelligence a bit here…'
The trench coat guy didn't wait for him. He simply continued walking away.
"Wait! Wait for me!" Chu Siyan hurried after him.