A few minutes later.
The bus resumed its smooth journey.
Everyone had returned to their seats, but their expressions were grave.
Originally, reaching the final station shouldn't have been a difficult task—as long as they stayed on the bus, they would eventually get there. But what had just happened shattered that illusion.
Once the bus reached a stop, people would get off. Even if you didn't want to, you would be forcefully dragged off.
As for the consequences of getting off before the final station...
No one knew.
But it most likely meant death.
So, to survive, you had to have the right ticket. But right now, not only did they not know which color was the right one, but even if they did, they couldn't just snatch it from someone else.
Under these circumstances, they could do nothing but silently pray their ticket would take them to the final destination. It would be strange if they weren't anxious.
And among them, the most anxious were the middle-aged couple.
Because the middle-aged woman had an orange ticket—the orange from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Although it couldn't be confirmed yet that the stations followed this sequence... the first stop being red had, in a sense, increased that possibility.
So naturally, the couple was on edge.
"This damn instance, isn't there any way for us to buy another ticket?" the man asked, gritting his teeth in frustration.
Hearing this, Fumiya Jin thought for a moment and said, "Buy a ticket... it shouldn't be 'buy a ticket.' We're already on the bus, so it should be 'paying for an extension'... But the conductor isn't here, so how would we do that? Should I just shout that I want to extend my ticket?"
The moment he finished speaking, a ghostly wind suddenly blew through the bus.
At the front of the carriage, there seemed to be a shift in the light and shadows.
Fumiya Jin lifted his head and looked forward... his gaze turning slightly cold.
There, in the ticket conductor's exclusive seat to the right of the driver... the conductor's uniform and waist pouch, which had been lying there quietly, suddenly began to take shape on their own. Floating in mid-air, they outlined a human figure, as if an an invisible person had just put them on.
Then, it slowly walked... or rather, floated over, moving down the aisle until it was near Fumiya Jin.
"Hiss..." Everyone drew in a sharp breath, staring in terror at the floating uniform. No one dared to speak.
Fumiya Jin straightened his back, his right hand moving to his left hip, ready for battle.
"Who wants to extend their ticket?" a dry, cold voice emanated from the uniform.
Fumiya Jin was slightly startled.
You can actually extend your ticket?
Could this be the proper way to clear the instance?
The floating uniform slowly turned to face him.
If there truly was an invisible head above that collar, its eyes were surely fixed on Fumiya Jin right now.
The next second...
"Piss off, extend your &*¥% ticket, you @#¥!%¥#..."
Fumiya Jin heard a string of extremely dense, muffled sounds. He couldn't understand what the words meant. But he could feel that it was cursing him, and cursing him filthily.
(Otherworldly profanity).jpg.
Fumiya Jin was a bit stunned. He even thought this specter was about to attack him after it finished speaking.
But what he didn't expect was that when the voice stopped, the floating uniform simply turned around and floated back to the conductor's seat at the front. Then the clothes settled back onto the chair.
And Fumiya Jin?
He was completely unharmed!
Now Fumiya Jin was utterly baffled. The others were dumbfounded too.
After about ten seconds...
"Um..." Yuki Suou was the first to break the silence. "What just happened? If I saw that correctly, it looked like some kind of... specter came over, and then..."
"That was the conductor's uniform," Hasaka said, adjusting his glasses, his eyes shining with curiosity. "This gentleman just called out about extending his ticket, and it responded... Perhaps it's really possible."
"Then why did it suddenly... start cursing at you?" Yuki Suou asked, looking at Fumiya Jin in confusion.
Fumiya Jin, however, instantly understood what it was—'Loved by All.' Or rather, this superpower could be renamed—'Hated by Ghosts.'
This conductor, let's call it the Ticket-Specter for now, obviously fell into the category of "humanoid but not human." Therefore, it was naturally filled with hatred and malice toward Fumiya Jin.
Although Fumiya Jin didn't know why it hadn't attacked him—perhaps it was constrained by the instance's rules?
But one thing was for sure: it didn't seem very willing to let him extend his ticket.
So how was he supposed to play this game?
What a fucking moronic superpower!
"Maybe I'm just too handsome, so much so that even specters get jealous," Fumiya Jin sighed and said.
Yuki Suou: "..."
Hasaka: "..."
But the middle-aged couple sitting further up front suddenly perked up.
"Then I'll give it a try," the middle-aged man said, raising his hand.
"I want to extend my ticket!"
The ghostly wind blew once more.
The conductor's uniform floated up again and came before the man.
"Who wants to extend their ticket?" it asked.
"Me!" the man immediately replied.
"How many stops?" it asked again.
"Extend... extend to the fi—"
The man had intended to say "extend to the final station." But halfway through, he suddenly felt something was wrong.
This Samsara Game was no child's play. If extending the ticket was the path to clearing the instance, could it really come without any cost?
It wasn't just him; his wife beside him was tugging at his arm, giving him frantic looks.
So the man thought for a moment and made the most cautious choice: "Just one stop for now."
"Alright," the Ticket-Specter replied... its sleeve lifted slightly, and a six-sided die dropped out.
The die clattered onto the floor, rolled a few times, and then came to a stop.
Everyone secretly craned their necks to look at the die on the floor...
They saw that the faces of the die didn't have numbers, but symbols.
There was a circle, a right-angled triangle, and...
The one facing up now was a short horizontal line.
But the next second, the man felt an icy, huge, and coarse hand—one that seemed to be made of bone, yet was invisible—grab his left arm. It slowly lifted his arm, and then... gave it a gentle twist.
"CRACK!! SQUELCH..."
His forearm was instantly twisted ninety degrees in the opposite direction of his elbow's natural range of motion.
Tendons snapped and flesh tore... but nothing could stop the arm from being ripped off.
The entire forearm, along with the hand, was torn clean off and stuffed into the waist pouch... it actually fit.
It all happened so fast that the man was stunned for a moment before the heart-wrenching pain erupted. He bent over, clutching the stump of his elbow, and let out a blood-curdling scream.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH..."
Fumiya Jin, watching this unfold: "..."
My dearest 'Loved by All,' I'm sorry. I think I spoke a little too loudly just now...
______
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