It was late at night.

The druid lay flat on the ground, his body almost glued to the floor, hiding in the shadowed corner where the reception desk met the floor. He stayed in the blind spot of the nurse’s view, pretending to be an emotionless potted plant.

He silently counted his heartbeats, too afraid to switch out of the game to browse the forums, even though he was bored. He couldn’t risk missing his one and only chance.

The nurse at the front desk seemed to be watching a show, snacking on something like chicken feet as she watched. Occasionally, there were sounds of her sucking on bones and crunching on cartilage, eating with such enjoyment that she didn’t notice someone hiding nearby.

As the seconds ticked by, the druid grew increasingly impatient. What made him even more desperate was that it was almost 3 a.m., and the nurses switched shifts every three hours. If he didn’t find an opening to steal the keys soon, he’d definitely be discovered when they changed shifts, and the stealth success he had barely managed to roll earlier would be wasted.

The death cooldown in this wretched game was a full 12 hours, and the beta test would end in 10 hours. If he died now, all his previous exploration and efforts would be in vain.

But fortunately, as if the game’s administrator had heard his prayers, just when the druid was considering how best to meet his demise, a phone call suddenly came in at the reception desk.

The nurse, clearly irritated, stood up, her massive body making a loud noise as she left her chair. Because the phone cord wasn’t long, she had to step away from her station and move to the right side of the desk.

Now’s the time! 

The druid fixed his gaze on the keychain beside the front desk computer. As the nurse moved away, he quickly bent down, suppressing the urge of his pounding heart, and screamed internally:

‘Now’s the time! I’ll risk everything to steal that keychain!’

As his heartbeat raced and adrenaline surged, a cold voice echoed in his mind.

[Conditions met, Luck Ignition activated (consumes the required Luck points for success)]

[Skill: Sleight of Hand – Failed.]

[30 Luck points consumed.]

The keychain silently vanished from the table without making a single sound. The nurse, who was as large as a mountain of flesh, never turned around. The druid pretended not to see the human finger she had gnawed down to the bone and, while his stealth was still active, carefully moved from one shadow to another, slipping into the hallway.

As he gradually left the danger zone, the druid tightly gripped the key he had obtained at the cost of 30 Luck points, barely able to believe he had actually succeeded.

He had managed to survive in a map designed for at least level 30 players while only being level 10, and he had even obtained the crucial key!

‘No,’ he thought, ‘now that I’ve come this far, I need to gather more information before the beta test ends. That way, I’ll have more advantages in the next phase of testing.’

Feeling confident, the druid began to organize the clues he had collected so far.

First, this hospital was clearly abnormal. Day and night were completely different worlds. The normal nurses and doctors turned into various bizarre monsters at night. For example, the nurse at the front desk, who was almost as large as a mountain of flesh, had been noticeably thin during the day.

Second, the hospital was extremely eerie. According to the druid’s observations, people often disappeared for no reason, but no one seemed to notice anything unusual.

What is this? This is obviously a high-difficulty copy!

The druid had already started a thread on the forum, live-posting his exploration of the hospital. Unfortunately, since the game was still in the beta phase, live streaming of the gameplay was not allowed, so he could only share his experience through text and images on the in-game forum.

Now that he had obtained what might be the crucial key, the druid was eager to boast about it in a post. He was about to take a picture of the key he had just acquired when he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be a photograph tucked underneath it.

He had been too nervous earlier to pay attention to what he had grabbed. It seemed he had accidentally stolen the photo along with the keychain.

Thinking this, the druid picked up the photo and took a look, and that single glance left him stunned.

It wasn’t for any reason other than the fact that the person in the photo… was extraordinarily good-looking.

Could a human being really possess such perfect features?

The druid had seen countless videos of famous beauties from various eras on the internet, from the chiseled features of Western men and women, the captivating charm of Hong Kong stars, the lively energy of Japanese idols, to even the flawless faces created by AI. He had thought he had seen the pinnacle of beauty crafted by both Nuwa ^[1]T/N: Nuwa (女娲) is a goddess in Chinese mythology, revered as a creator deity and one of the most important figures in ancient Chinese legends. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing … Continue reading and God.

But this face before him made him realize that there was always someone better.

The photo depicted a young man wearing a hospital gown. His hair was a shade close to platinum, and his eyes seemed to be like emerald lakes.

His skin was so pale it was almost transparent, making him look as if he had just recovered from a serious illness. There was a fragile, delicate quality about him—damn, the druid, who was as straight as they come, actually understood what those online fandoms meant when they raved about this kind of fragility. It felt like the boy in the photo could break with just a little force.

[Willpower Check in Progress…]

The druid snapped out of his thoughts, startled by the sudden system prompt.

“What the hell? A willpower check? I didn’t do anything… Hey, at least give me the result! Don’t tell me this is another secret roll?!”

The system remained unresponsive. The druid was just about to angrily ping the administrator when he suddenly froze.

A loud, furious shout echoed from the direction of the front desk:

“Who?! Who stole my photo?!”

Heavy, rapid footsteps approached from behind, and just as his stealth skill’s duration expired, the druid panicked and quickly tried to activate it again.

[Stealth: Failed]

‘Come on! Gods, don’t do this to me right now!’

The game system remained silent, but the footsteps grew louder. The druid could now vaguely see the massive figure appearing around the corner of the hallway, scaring him into quietly sprinting in another direction.

Unfortunately, the sound of high heels clicking against the floor echoed from the other end of the corridor as well.

Caught between the approaching footsteps, the druid instantly panicked. In his haste, he accidentally stubbed his toe against a hospital bench, and suddenly, everything felt hopeless.

Even worse, the nurse at the front desk seemed to have heard the noise. Her footsteps paused for a moment before clearly heading in his direction.

The sound of high heels clicking on the floor behind him also grew more hurried.

It’s over.

The druid knew he was doomed, and with a sense of despair, he opened the game’s recording function, intending to capture his final moments in the beta test.

Just then, the door of a nearby hospital room suddenly opened, and a pair of hands reached out, pulling the druid inside. He felt a strong force yank him from behind, and just as he was about to instinctively cry out, a hand covered his mouth.

“Shh—They’re outside,” a voice whispered softly in his ear.

The druid involuntarily shivered, unable to describe the sensation. When that voice spoke, it felt as if an electric current had run through his brain, leaving a tingling numbness in its wake.

Before he could ask anything, the nurse’s low, raspy voice came from outside: “You despicable little rat, I’m going to tear you apart piece by piece, and then dig my photo out of your corpse!”

The druid couldn’t help but picture the front desk nurse in his mind: layers of fat piled on her body, making her resemble a mountain of flesh as she sat at the front desk. Her skin appeared thin, revealing red blood vessels and yellow fat beneath it. Her eyes were small, with occasional flashes of greedy hunger. But the most terrifying feature was her mouth—lipstick so bright it looked as though she’d just eaten a child, with shark-like teeth that could easily crush bones.

After the druid uploaded a picture of the front desk nurse, players on the forum spontaneously gave her the nickname “Butcher of Flesh Mountain.”

The heavy footsteps stopped right outside the hospital room door, and just as the druid was convinced that the Butcher of Flesh Mountain was about to break in, another voice suddenly spoke from outside.

“What are you doing?”

The voice was chilling, and it was also a woman’s voice.

Upon hearing this, the terrifying Butcher of Flesh Mountain in the druid’s mind actually sounded a bit fearful.

“S-sorry, but there’s a thief who sneaked in…”

“Return to your post.”

“But…”

“Do I need to say it a second time?”

“N-no!”

Hearing this, the druid suddenly remembered where he had heard that voice before. It was the voice of the red-haired head nurse!

The red-haired head nurse was one of the few NPCs he had interacted with in this hospital. With her striking red hair, attractive face, and angelic white uniform, she had gained some popularity on the forum. The druid had even jokingly considered her one of his in-game “wives.”

However, compared to her daytime demeanor, the red-haired head nurse’s voice was now much sharper and colder, which is why he hadn’t recognized it at first.

But that didn’t mean much. After all, the Butcher of Flesh Mountain had been a slender, blonde girl during the day. This eerie hospital was entirely different at night compared to the daytime. Judging by their conversation, it was clear that the red-haired head nurse was even more terrifying than the Butcher of Flesh Mountain.

Fortunately, the voices outside soon faded, and the sound of high heels clicking on the floor grew more distant as the nurse seemed to move on to patrol other areas. The druid breathed a sigh of relief, finally having a moment to look at the face of the person who had saved him.

With just one glance, the druid froze in place.

The person before him was someone he had seen before, just a short while ago—on the photo he had stolen along with the keychain.

The druid had thought the photo was already an exaggeration, but he didn’t expect that the person in real life would be even more attractive than in the picture.

The druid: (﹃)

[Willpower check in progress…]

The system’s prompt jolted him back to his senses. He had to exert nearly all his willpower to tear his gaze away from the young man’s face. “Thank you for saving me just now.”

“No need to thank me, I just happened to pull you in,” the young man replied with a gentle smile, as if he had just remembered something. “Besides, you don’t need to be in such a hurry to thank me—your danger is far from over.”

In the dim hospital room, the young man’s meaningful yet calm smile, coupled with the eerie hospital environment, gave the druid the unsettling feeling of having escaped a wolf’s den only to fall into a tiger’s lair.

“No, no, no, I won’t bother you anymore. I’ll just leave now…” The druid quickly turned around, reaching for the door handle.

At that moment, Ranen’s calm voice sounded from behind him: “You’re going out? Are you sure?” 

“The person outside hasn’t left yet.”

The druid froze, and following Ranen’s gaze, he slowly looked outside the door. Hesitating for a moment, he gritted his teeth and crouched down to peek through the crack in the door under Ranen’s watchful eyes.

What he saw next made his blood run cold.

A pair of red high heels stood silently outside the door.

That red-haired head nurse has never left; the sounds of her leaving are just a trap!

How can this happen…

The druid huddled in the corner of the room, trembling. Outside, the red-haired head nurse seemed to realize that those inside had caught on. She stopped pretending, and her voice, now oozing with sweetness, was a stark contrast to the cold tone from earlier.

“Mr. Ranen, it’s Mary. It’s time for your medication. Could you please open the door for me?”

“Medication at this hour? No way! Please, don’t open the door!” the druid wailed in despair. “I don’t want to die, sob sob sob.”

Though player death in the game only meant getting logged out, he was now in such a dangerous core area of the dungeon that every second he stayed alive meant more valuable intel!

What he didn’t know was that Ranen was equally bewildered at the moment.

Where does this guy even come from?

Ranen was a transmigrator. He had died in a fire in his previous life, only to be reborn in the body of someone who had been rescued from a similar fire. Initially, he marveled at his luck, but two or three days later, he didn’t think so anymore.

This world was far too dangerous.

A hospital that changed entirely between day and night, inhuman nurses patrolling the corridors, various monsters that roamed at night, and the inescapable, uncommunicable reality all filled him with utter despair.

What kind of messed-up world is this?

The worst part was that this body he now inhabited possessed an extraordinarily attractive appearance. If this were a normal world, that would be a major advantage, but here? In this hellish place, being a heartthrob was just asking for a quicker death.

Just last night, after witnessing the patient in the next room get dragged out by a hulking night-shift nurse after accidentally opening his door, becoming a mere appetizer, Ranen had lost all hope for this world. The extreme highs and lows he experienced had even led him to a state of utter resignation.

Exhausted, might as well let it all end soon.jpg

The red-haired nurse was already a familiar presence. Every night, she knocked on his door, trying to get inside. The hospital’s ghosts seemed to follow some special rules—if the patient inside didn’t open the door, they couldn’t enter the room.

After witnessing the fate of the patient next door, Ranen had sworn never to open the door. Dying was one thing, but he wasn’t going to let himself be drained dry or swallowed whole.

Despite this vow, when he saw someone outside the door, Ranen still reached out to save them. He didn’t have any other thoughts; if he was destined to die in this world, he might as well save someone if he could.

The seductive voice outside the door gradually faded. The red-haired nurse seemed to sense the unwavering resolve of those inside. Her voice grew more irritable as she pounded on the door with increasing force, nearly to the point of breaking it down. Watching the door shake violently, the druid felt as though the monster outside would burst in at any moment.

“S-sir, shouldn’t we do something?” The druid asked, trembling.

Ranen, still in his resigned state, glanced at the druid with calm indifference and said, “Everyone has their fate, and life and death are in the hands of the heavens. Don’t worry, when the time comes, those who need to go will go.”

The druid: …

This nonchalant glance made it clear to the druid that the “everyone has their fate” was obviously referring to himself. It was evident that the phrase “those who need to go will go” applied only to him.

The druid felt that, as the only weak human surrounded by the boss, things were not looking good for him at all.