How Could There Be Such a Brainless Fool

"...Uh? Boss?"

Miss Doppelganger's voice carried a realistic tone of confusion: "When did you get back...?"

Zhu Yan was very worried about blowing his cover.

From the time he went down to finishing everything, it had only been about ten minutes.

Within those ten minutes, Yang Zhanbai and the others had already sat down in the shop, which meant this [David's Kitchen] wasn't far from the flower shop.

He really didn't have time to dawdle!

"I have another passage here, bro," Zhu Yan urged. "Hurry up, I brought you a human leg."

A human leg!

The doppelganger's brain lit up.

The golden cage creaked as it began to move upward, soon bathing in the light once again.

However, the boss was nowhere to be seen inside the cage.

Only that "food" was there—the food the [Hunter] had just brought to the boss!

The doppelganger stopped its glistening drool, coming to a realization.

It lunged forward the moment the cage door sprang open, only to be stopped by a sharp knife pressed hard against its body!

"Don't move." Zhu Yan maintained the appearance of "Zhu Zeyu," pushing the doppelganger's sharp nails away from his neck.

"Tell me, how do I operate the elevator?"

Two minutes later.

Weighing the slime-covered knife in his hand, Zhu Yan bent down, picked up a bunch of keys from the puddle of flowing slime on the ground, and grabbed three intact skins.

Unlike the "police officers," the inner core of this doppelganger monster was actually a transparent gel, with its human skins layered over the gel one by one.

The originally tough and almost hard gel softened the moment the dining knife pierced it, quickly melting into a puddle of transparent slime.

Zhu Yan rolled up the human skins and stored them together in the folded space of the [Silver Storage Ring].

Just now, he had learned the location of the elevator's up and down buttons from the doppelganger.

Killing the doppelganger was, first, the natural thing to do, and second, to prevent it from leaking the secret that he could "disguise himself as the boss."

Zhu Yan strolled around the flower shop, looted some bone gold coins, bone silver coins, and bone copper coins from the counter, and took a few oddly shaped bouquets as spoils of war.

He wasn't sure if these things were useful, but taking them was better than leaving them.

What if they were items?

What if they could be sold for money?

After doing all this, Zhu Yan pushed open the front door and hadn't walked a few steps before he saw Yang Zhanbai running toward him.

Under the faint blue light, the beads of sweat on his forehead reflected a fine play of light and shadow.

The moment he saw Zhu Yan, Yang Zhanbai called out excitedly, "Zhu Zeyu! Hey, over here!"

Sometimes, Zhu Yan felt like his brain was a self-running program.

He immediately pretended to be shaken and walked quickly toward Yang Zhanbai, figuring out his next steps in the few paces it took to reach him.

Judging by Yang Zhanbai's reaction, the current student group shouldn't have any ill feelings toward him.

But to be safe, he still needed to probe the others' attitudes.

"I didn't scare you guys, did I?" Zhu Yan asked.

"You did, bro, you did."

Yang Zhanbai patted his back, and the two walked briskly toward the block ahead.

"Everyone was scared out of their minds by you. Damn it, I thought you were really a goner this time!"

"Oh right, how did you end up getting back up?"

Under the dim night sky, Zhu Yan observed Yang Zhanbai and found that besides worry and lingering fear, there were no other emotions on his face.

Completely open, without any suspicion.

Had the police verified the identity of the person providing information on the [Player Forum] with him?

It seemed they hadn't had the time, but...

"I told that monster that the boss sent me up to give it a leg to eat. As soon as I came up, I used an item to kill it."

Zhu Yan lied briefly and then quickly changed the subject.

"In a shop run by humans, you should be able to charge your phones and have Wi-Fi, right?"

Yang Zhanbai cursed.

"You're fucking incredible. You just escaped death and instead of shivering in fear, you're asking about the shop's amenities?"

To him, aside from a slight tremble in his voice, Zhu Yan's overall condition seemed completely normal.

Even after completing the highly difficult feat of "killing the boss," he was able to react quickly, find a way up on his own, and kill that terrifying flower shop monster.

This was a true badass, a real warrior.

If the situation wasn't so critical right now, Yang Zhanbai would have immediately dragged Zhu Yan to swear an oath of brotherhood.

"To contact the police."

Zhu Yan had no interest in knowing Yang Zhanbai's weird thoughts; his only goal was to fish for information.

"Have you tried calling the police before? With so many case files, their experience must be richer than ours."

"They should also be trying to find a way to contact the people inside the dungeon, right?"

Yang Zhanbai thought for a moment and honestly shook his head.

"No, I didn't see anything. I was busy ordering food. Let's head back and talk while we eat."

Zhu Yan observed Yang Zhanbai's expression and understood.

Either Guan En hadn't looked for him yet, or he had, but this careless guy ran out and missed the call.

Zhu Yan quickly changed the subject again, starting to fish for the next piece of information.

"What about the others? Are they okay? Is anyone acting obviously abnormal or standing out?"

Since they were mingling in a group of players, it was better to keep an eye on these two types of standouts.

Controlling a group of people is harder than controlling just a few.

"They're doing alright, but there's this one idiot."

Yang Zhanbai parted a patch of thin mist, turned his head, and fixed his gaze on a slender, swaying ghostly shadow.

He pulled Zhu Yan forward, tentatively releasing a skill toward the shadow.

Zhu Yan had already seen the illuminated sign of [David's Kitchen] and felt slightly relieved.

This sign was indeed different from the other shops he had seen.

Although it was lit, it looked more like it was illuminated by natural light rather than glowing on its own. It stood out awkwardly amidst the darkness, like two layers abruptly merged together.

"He said he thinks becoming a [Hunter] is a way to clear the dungeon, and he even proposed an even more ridiculous method..."

Before entering the shop, Yang Zhanbai spoke rapidly, telling Zhu Yan about their findings in the shop and the guy's theories.

"Qi Yinming said he ate some candy. Anyway, up here—" He tapped his red hair with his index finger, "he's not quite right."

That is pretty bizarre.

Zhu Yan fell silent for a moment, deciding to observe first.

If this person harbored ill intentions, he would take him out.

And while he was at it, he would use the [Copy Ointment] again and keep the guy's right hand!

Yang Zhanbai led Zhu Yan to push open the shop door, bumping right into a staff member who had just returned from sunbathing.

"Holy crap!" The young clerk jumped to the side in fright. "How come I didn't see you at the door just now? You are..."

The clerk looked Zhu Yan up and down. Probably because the smell of black mud on Zhu Yan was too strong, he wrinkled his nose from the stench.

How could there be so many smelly people?

"Are you... also here to eat?"

"Yes." Zhu Yan smiled, keenly sensing something off in the clerk's mood. "Could you give us some extra wet wipes, please? Thanks."

The clerk agreed as if granted a pardon.

Only then did Zhu Yan shift his gaze, feeling that most of the people here were looking at him with eyes full of deep respect and awe—

Except for a tall, thin boy standing by the table.

It seemed the acting had an immediate effect.

Zhu Yan glanced at the boy and asked Yang Zhanbai in a low voice, "Is that the one who came up with the rotten idea?"

Just as Yang Zhanbai was about to speak, the boy suddenly let out a cold sneer.

"Um, you... your name is Zhu Zeyu, right?"

Zhu Yan nodded impassively.

The boy broke into a fawning smile, glanced warily at the back of the little shop assistant, and then pointed at Yang Zhanbai.

"I know you need the right hand of the Hunter."

His smile was malicious; the corners of his mouth were still turned up, but his eyes had already grown cold.

"I think you can just chop it off right now. That way, we'll only have that yogurt bowl from the Solace Mother left to deal with."

"Ah, right, I also have a great idea. I think we should give it a try."

He lowered his voice mysteriously.

"The shop assistant can walk out into the sunlit real world outside. You're a hero, so why don't you follow the assistant out and test the waters for us? I think this plan is absolutely foolproof!"

Having suffered the backlash of being too soft-hearted and letting his aunt go, Zhu Yan felt he could no longer afford to be lenient.

This guy was just a brainless idiot whose mind had been warped beyond normal comprehension, trying to make him jump into a pit to test the waters for no reason at all.

...It would be better not to keep him around.

Zhu Yan's gaze lingered on his face for a second, light, like a blade sliding across glass.

Then he looked away and walked casually toward an empty booth.