Underworld Player
chapter-86

"The clue... was there from the beginning?"

As he repeated the words which had been delivered over walkie-talkie in a matter-of-fact tone, Traveler turned to look at the shadowy figure a dozen or so meters away, trying—and failing—to find the clue that Bai Zhi was referring to.

"Oh yeah, you were just overcomplicating things... Simply a matter of having a mediocre mentality."

The remark coming from the walkie-talkie was as unhurried as ever.

"Come to think of it, a shadow that slaps the wall with its hand... Wouldn't it hurt after a while?" Bai Zhi continued.

Traveler and Viridescent were nonplussed.

...who the heck cares about how the shadow feels?!

"...Well, since our being trapped here must have something to do with the shadow, I presumed that the slapping could be some kind of ritual that activates its powers. But the fact that we've been unable to harm the thing in any way is what we need to focus on here. Over," said Traveler, sounding exasperated as he gave his glasses another nudge.

"Didn't you also mention that the shadow looked blurry, even up close? Over."

Instead of responding to Traveler's comments, Bai Zhi started on another line of questioning, clearly uninterested in having a conversation.

"...That's right."

"Then there you have it; it's a ghost-wall*~"

"Uhh—?!" Something clicked in Traveler's mind and for a moment, his jaw literally dropped at the surprising realization. "You mean... So that's what it is?! This, this—"

Traveler seemed to be having a mental breakdown of sorts.

"It is what it is~ Don't overthink things, is what I say. The shadow-thing really only has one ability, after all. If it truly had all the abilities you say it does, you'd all be long dead by now, y'know?"

Crunch—

A sound like someone biting into an apple was heard over the walkie-talkie. "Heh, mediocre mentalities..."

"Are you both just about done with your Punch-and-Judy show**?" Viridescent yelled. "That thing is coming for us again!"

The sneaky shadow had inched its way back to within ten meters of them while Traveler had been talking to Bai Zhi. Viridescent, who had found the entire exchange incomprehensible, now shot Traveler a vehement glance as she rushed at the shadow to beat it back once more, just as she had done over and over for the past ten minutes.

"I've finally figured out what I overlooked!" Traveler sighed, cringing slightly as he said, "Actually, Black&White is right. I have been overthinking the whole thing."

"And?" Viridescent leveled an icy gaze at him as she returned.

"...We're dealing with a ghostwall."

Traveler pointed to the dark shape not far away, still mechanically landing slap after slap on the wall, with a pained expression.

"That shadow represents a 'ghost', and it's been slapping the wall all this time, so this is a 'ghostwall'... Thus, the black shadow only ever had one ability."

Viridescent furrowed her brows in bewilderment.

Glaring at Traveler with an are-you-fucking-kidding-me expression, Viridescent spoke with a clear edge of fury in her voice. "Then, why did it target you when the robot exploded on its own?!"

"Well, it was a safety precaution at the time, but I was manually controlling it earlier..."

Traveler heaved a rueful sigh. "While under my conscious control, the robot's self-destructive explosion can't hit the ghost—it would only be redirected at me. Besides, this corridor can't be more than twenty meters long—we've been getting turned around this whole time.

"...You're telling me we've just been fucking ghostwalled all this time?!"

Viridescent dropped a rare F-bomb as she stared daggers at the dark shadow, slap-slap-slapping at the wall.

"I should have realized it sooner. The kids in the orphanage were only young, after all..."

With a sad smile, Traveler touched his palm to the ground and summoned the robot again.

"This is a rural area, without much access to computers or mobile phones. Naturally, they must have learned what they knew from picture books and the like, donated by the public—hardly a source of clearly-explained factual information. We know what ghostwalling means, but I imagine those kids must have heard "ghost-to-wall" and naively thought... 'Something like a ghost hitting a wall?"

Traveler made a wry expression as he recalled the time and energy they had spent desperately dodging the shadow.

"Of course, a kid would imagine a 'ghost' as a dark, hazy blur... So if I'm right, the truth about the supernatural incident that occurred here is..." Traveler trailed off as he concentrated.

The skill [ RX－78 Land Runner ] summoned a homing robot that was equipped to self-destruct. The robot could automatically pursue a target and detonate on contact, but it could also be remote-controlled by the skill-user.

Once Traveler relinquished control of the robot, setting it to the automatic search-and-destroy mode, the walking bomb immediately headed in the direction of the wall-slapping shadow.

It looked like the same scene from ten minutes ago, but Traveler looked significantly more self-assured... until he noticed Viridescent lifting her leg in preparation to deliver another kick.

"Wa-wa-wait! Don't kick me! It's going to be all right! It won't end up like last time!"

"You sure?" Viridescent looked doubtfully at the robot, which was ambling toward the dark shadow at that just-slightly-faster-than-walking pace.

"Of course I'm sure. Just need you to be patient."

As Viridescent slowly lowered her leg, Traveler sighed with relief as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow. The throbbing pain in his gut had returned at the memory of that vicious kick. In his mind, even the dozens of cuts he had suffered whenever the shadow came near could not compare to the pain of a single kick from Viridescent.

After all, the cuts were only superficial, while the kick she had served up had most definitely caused some internal injury, with a side of psychological trauma. If she had missed her mark and hit lower by just a smidge, well... a smidge would be all that was left of him.

BOOM!

After the better part of a minute, as they listened to the sound of the robot's explosion, the Players also noticed their surroundings quickly fading back into normalcy. The endless corridor was no more, and they once again found themselves in the actual corridor on the third floor of the orphanage.

A notification from the system had also popped up before them.

[ One secret source of strange activity neutralized ]

*Apologies for the tenuous connection. The original text built this enemy around a pun, which was first mentioned in Chapter 81—鬼打墙, translated in that context as ghostwall. Literally, it reads "ghost-hit-wall", but it means to get turned around when trying to get somewhere, only to end up in the same place. In this case, the shadow is the "ghost" and it's literally "hitting the wall" which, according to Bai Zhi, is the key to resolving the encounter.

P.S. I had considered "spirit-to-wall being" initially (-__-)

P.P.S. To make a properly equivalent pun would be to rewrite the whole encounter around something like Lost Bear Rings (lost bearings), do you guys want that? Comment your thoughts!

**A puppet show having a conventional plot consisting chiefly of slapstick humor and the tragicomic misadventures of buffoon Punch and his wife Judy. Used here as a metaphor for the inane exchange between Bai Zhi and Traveler.

The word used here in the original literally translates to "charade" but the meaning does not translate, as "charade", when not referring to the game, is typically understood as "an act or event that is clearly false".