"Okay, I'm calling it quits with you. Confident enough to be a veteran, but you can't even notice that she's a ghost?"
It wasn't as if not having a shadow meant being a ghost. Bloodstains though… maybe she was just a girl with a certain side hobby? Nothing to discriminate against.
Obviously, someone working in a food shop would have food stains on their apron.
A large crack rang throughout the shop.
It looked as if a fat man had yelled at the waitress about not wanting the stupid egg tarts and wanting to leave.
What a strange man; the egg tarts looked positively splendid.
Oh. Then the waitress snapped his neck.
She must have been very strong. Didn't it take over three thousand newtons or something? Wait, Ming should have known this. He'd studied it for a bit in college.
…
Learning was not his strong suit.
Wasn't the waitress just in the kitchen, though? But he supposed he did see a dozen people, including him, teleport into the egg tart shop. Maybe she could teleport too? Did that mean he could learn how to teleport as well?! How exciting!
By the time he remembered to focus, both the waitress and fat man were gone, but there was a large, red drag mark leading to the kitchen doors. The front door to the shop had once been fully blue, yet it now had a pretty rose trim. Very red, very pretty.
That was rather ominous, no?
The person the fat man had been sitting across from was making all sorts of weird noises, her shoulders shaking. She looked to be in tears. Ah. She looked young. Her first time seeing a death? It came to all eventually, though. The nearby people (veterans?) were comforting her, trying to make her stop panicking. Whatever, at least the noise wasn't too grating.
There was a hushed muttering rebounding from all across the room. In particular, one other corner had a rich man with a very nice watch yelling about his money. Rude! Why'd he get to keep his watch when everything of Ming's was taken away? Favoritism.
Anyways, the rich guy yelled at them for kidnapping him, setting up an elaborate ruse to break him, yada yada. He must have been very rich if he thought it was all for him.
Hm.
Target spotted. Robin Hood plan perhaps?
Before Ming got up again, Huipao tried to stop him once more.
"Are you stupid? Did you not just see the NPC snap that guy's neck? We gotta wait and figure out the rules!"
Ming rolled his eyes.
"I know you might not care, but I do! This is a team exercise, if you die, I might die too!"
Some things were starting to become clear, though. Blondie had kept talking about instances, newbies, veterans, guilds, and so on. A horror instance with a forum.
No way… Ming had transmigrated?
Amazing!
And into an egg tart shop as well! His favorite dessert!
But.
No money.
No egg tarts.
He mentally deflated into a small puddle of tears.
Pretending not to know anything, about everything, Ming questioned (ahem, grilled) Huipao. He hated talking, but this seemed important enough. Oh well. Maybe he could just get through this… scenario?
"How do you know where we are? How do you know we need to find out the rules? What's the forum?"
Huipao looked like he was about to explode.
Whatever. If he wouldn't answer Ming's questions, then Ming would find someone who would. Eventually.
By then, a couple of other braver people had also tried to stand up. The waitress hadn't come back, though. As a single worker, life must have been tough. Surely there were cooks and managers backstage, though, right?
Anyways, time to act like a pro.
Ming smiled and walked up to a big congregation of people, all of them looking to be in deep conversation. They looked strong. Maybe if he pretended to like talking, and they liked talking, then they could just carry Ming to victory? It was a nice thought. Not probable, though.
But maybe they had money! For the egg tarts!
"Hi there! I've cleared three instances, but not this one. Anyone mind filling me in?"
By scythe, thanks to blondie for giving him the script. Ming screamed nonstop in his head at the victory of not messing up his words.
Until he realized that the whole group was eyeing him in suspicion.
He blinked.
Humans were strange, annoying creatures. Were they not pack animals? Come on, play along! It had been very hard to say all of that in one go.
A clear leader in the group stepped up, though.
"Apologies. I am Liu Xitong. We are the copper-tier mercenary group, Weaver. This is Drifter, another freelancer like you."
The leader gestured to the woman beside him, the only one in the group not having a yarn ball emblem. It was a really cute logo, though—did they choose it themselves?
Drifter nodded.
"We know that we are in the rule-based instance #4238, Restful Resort, sub-story #28, Egg Tart Emporium. Forum guides state that we must find clues to prove the identity of the ghost in order to clear this sub-story. It's an investigative type instance."
Hmm. This forum truly did seem useful. Ming would need to grill blondie more on it later.
A man in a hoodie beside Liu Xitong piped up.
"Should we try asking her for help?"
He nodded towards the girl who had sat with the late, fat man.
The group began to debate.
No way was Ming going to listen to all of that. He looked around and saw a very nice cuckoo clock behind the counter. The clock pointed at 4:04. How ominous! He loved it already.
Yet, the clock seemed a bit jammed. What a shame.
Should he look through the cashier desk? But that might trigger rules. It was certainly against legal rules. But other than the cashier and tables, that left only the kitchen to rifle about.
The waitress was still in there, though.
Maybe later.
The paintings, perhaps?
Oh, how Ming adored the paintings. Classic Chinese watercolor, yet some with black, some with blue. He knew that he'd had this line of thought many times before, but the owner of the shop was truly a man (or woman!) who knew just how to get to Ming's heart.
Ming tuned back into the conversation. Still nothing interesting, so he asked, "Why not just leave?" pointing at the door—the very pretty door, matching the very pretty shop.
The group looked at him like he was an idiot.
Fair, but ouch.
"Ahem. Well. Past experience and forum guides state that opening the door in the resort sub-stories never goes well."
Well, at least one person was sympathetic enough to respond. With quite valuable information too! A resort, hmm?
And a resort rife with danger!