Just as they’d resolved one issue, another cropped up.
The bedroom door opened again, and the man in the suit awkwardly called out, “Can? There are a few words we’re unsure how to pronounce.”
“Glasses and I came up with different versions—whose should we use? Also, we finished the book. Should we move on to the next one or reread this one?”
[Flying Can] felt his head throb. Thankfully, the rules were vague enough to offer some leeway.
“The rule just says to read English with her for one hour. If you’re unsure about a word, it’s best to skip it—better that than reading it wrong. The family seems highly focused on education. If we mess it up, we might break the rules.”
As for the second question, he recalled how the girl had willingly answered the woman’s question earlier.
[Flying Can] quickly made a decision: “As for which book to read… ask the NPC what they did before.”
Su Shisan didn’t intend to make things difficult. She calmly replied to the woman’s question: just reread the current book.
After all, they had already stepped into every trap this task had to offer. No matter what they did now, violating the rules was inevitable.
With that in mind, Su Shisan’s attitude became even more pleasant.
She obediently accompanied them for one hour and twenty minutes of English reading, behaving like the model child.
Read.
“Alright, that’s enough. Time for lunch.”
Checking the time, [Flying Can] raised a hand to signal the end of the session.
The rules specified an hour, but to make sure their debates over pronunciation didn’t eat into the reading time, he’d intentionally extended it by twenty minutes—better safe than sorry.
But this was the limit. They had started at 11:30 AM; now it was 12:50.
While lunch wasn’t at a fixed time, it was usually around noon.
Leaving the room, the three felt their heads spinning. Still, none of them thought anything was wrong.
After all, the glasses girl and the suited man had been tutoring for over an hour, and [Flying Can] had an injured arm. Feeling unwell seemed perfectly normal.
If they were veteran players, they’d have known: in a dungeon, any abnormality should be taken seriously. Even the faintest discomfort might be the body trying to warn them.
But unfortunately, they were all newbies, yet to learn the lessons written in blood and tears.
Even [Flying Can], who fancied himself an “old hand,” was more of an “experienced rookie”—a veteran in name only, with no real progress in strength.
Lunch consisted of four dishes and a soup made from ingredients in the fridge. If you didn’t know the meat came from humans, you’d think it was a delicious, perfectly presented meal.
Su Shisan happily tasted the red-haired player’s cooking—he had made most of the dishes himself. The short-haired woman had only assisted a little, and Wang Yaozu hadn’t lifted a finger.
As for the two meat dishes, she avoided them. Even if she wasn’t quite human anymore, Su Shisan still had no desire to eat human flesh.
“Um… Little Thirteen, being picky isn’t good,” [Flying Can] hesitated but eventually spoke up. “A balanced diet means both meat and vegetables. You need protein too.”
“Eggs are protein.”
Since the cooking task would only happen once in this dungeon, Su Shisan didn’t mind dropping a little hint.
“I thought so…” [Flying Can] had suspected as much but didn’t dare risk it. Well, once the dungeon was over, all injuries sustained would be healed anyway.
After lunch, Su Shisan rubbed her eyes, feigning exhaustion. “Big brother, big sister, can I rest for a while? I’m so sleepy!”
“No!”
With the earlier incident in mind, [Flying Can] rejected her without hesitation.
The rules clearly stated she wasn’t allowed to rest—and let’s not forget how she’d tried to trap them earlier.
Su Shisan lowered her head, appearing dejected. Her subtle expression of sadness was caught by the red-haired boy, who looked visibly pained.
Then, like a well-behaved child, she quietly followed them to do math exercises.
“Can—hey, Can, wait up!”
Just as the three were about to enter the room, the red-haired man suddenly called out.
[Flying Can] turned around and gestured for Wang Yaozu to go in without him. He walked over. “What’s wrong? Did you find something?”
“I don’t think we should keep following the rules,” the redhead said seriously once Su Shisan was inside.
“That rule sheet seemed off from the start.”
[Flying Can] pulled out the paper. “What exactly seems off to you?”
As he spoke, he frowned and rubbed his wounded arm. The wound itched—it was probably starting to heal.
If he had rolled up his sleeve and looked, he would’ve seen his entire arm covered in black patterns, the skin turning an unnatural grayish-white.
“What kind of parent forces a child to study with zero breaks? That alone feels wrong.”
The redhead recalled the girl’s earlier pitiful expression and frowned.
“Besides, she doesn’t seem malicious at all. She studies, eats obediently, even told us eggs count as meat.”
His past profession had been a kindergarten teacher. He instinctively empathized with obedient children.
Even though Su Shisan was an NPC, her innocent appearance and gentle behavior made him believe she didn’t deserve such treatment.
He felt he should help her escape her parents’ oppressive control. Happiness was the most important thing—if she was happy, then it was worth it.
At first, [Flying Can] had felt the redhead’s argument held some merit, but when he heard that last part, his expression darkened.
“That girl isn’t what she seems. Let me give you a piece of advice—never trust an NPC. She literally just tried to trick us.”
He told them how Su Shisan had subtly attempted to reduce the reading time—hoping it would bring the redhead back to his senses.
So far, none of the NPCs he’d met were trustworthy. The player forums kept hammering the same warning: never believe NPCs.
They were constructs of the dungeon—never allies.
But the red-haired man didn’t buy it. “It’s normal for a child not to want to study more. Forcing her to keep going—that’s the real problem.”
The short-haired woman added thoughtfully, “The subsystem that brought me in said the dungeon’s goal is to kill us. If that’s true, then why would it give us the correct rules so easily? What if the real answer is to do the opposite of what the rules say?”
Though it was her first dungeon, her basic logic remained intact.
That was actually a valid point. [Flying Can] felt conflicted. But his face soon hardened.
Delving into the core mechanics of a dungeon wasn’t something low-level players like them should be doing. His priority was keeping newbies alive.
“No. Stick to what I say. We’ve followed the rules all morning and nothing bad has happened. That proves this path is safe.”
At this, [Flying Can] relaxed slightly, a small smile tugging at his lips. According to top-tier players on the forums, newbie dungeons could vary wildly in difficulty.
It seemed like he’d gotten a relatively easy one this time—100 points, easily in the bag.
But in his self-satisfaction, he failed to notice the doubt on the faces of the other two. They clearly didn’t agree.
Meanwhile, Su Shisan observed their argument through the system interface.
She multitasked while solving elementary math problems, and thought: At this rate, I’ll be done with this dungeon in under five hours.
Disagreement is good. Two-pronged chaos maximizes contamination.
Her gaze slowly shifted to the three players helping her solve problems. All of them looked paler now, their eyes duller than before.
The glasses girl and the suited man, who had each tutored her twice, now had sunken cheeks—as though their vitality had been drained.
If one looked closely, their eyeballs had even shrunk slightly, making them appear slightly unhinged.
Anyone from the outside would immediately know something was wrong.
But unfortunately, all six people in the dungeon had already suffered the consequences of violating the real rules—contamination.
None of them could sense their own deterioration, nor that of their companions.
Hovering near the players was a massive floating eyeball—visible only to Su Shisan. It remarked gleefully:
“They’d never guess that both following and breaking the rules leads to death!”
As a system built exclusively for a Constructor, it knew exactly what kind of deathtrap the woman had created.
Of course there were ways to survive the dungeon—more than one, in fact. Otherwise, the system wouldn’t have been able to generate it.
But 90% of players wouldn’t figure that out. They’d blindly follow the route provided—step by step—straight into death.
Wearing a thoughtful expression, Su Shisan replied in her mind, Without the experience of veteran players, they might still have had a chance.
This time, she had designed the dungeon specifically to punish “sticking together.” The more they clung to each other, the faster they died.
“They’ll never figure out the key to this dungeon’s death condition,” the system said smugly, as if it had designed it itself.
“Even though you told them straight from the start.”
Rationality and cruelty—that’s right. I told them already, Su Shisan smirked. But maybe they’ll accept it better if it’s framed another way…
SAN value.
Yes—the dungeon’s fatal rule was that once a player’s SAN value hit zero, they would die. And she was the main source of SAN corruption.
Simply studying with her would slowly drain their SAN. Letting her rest? Even worse—she’d bring them special “surprises.”
Just like the system said: every path led to death. The players had boarded her hearse the moment they stepped in. Now the doors were welded shut.
There was no getting off.
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