It was not midnight! Eric exhaled in relief.
Examining the task details, she found it was to organize the logistics department's warehouse at two in the afternoon.
The logistics department was located on the second floor.
"Who else has a midnight task?" she inquired.
"Damn! I do too! So now it's my turn?!" came a frustrated retort.
Eventually, it was revealed that four players had been assigned the midnight task.
"Looks like there will be five players getting the midnight task tomorrow, seven on the seventh day. Perhaps every player will face the twelve o'clock mission at least once, with only two fortunate enough to evade it."
"That's hardly conclusive—where's your data?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Hardly! Only one player named Eric survived the midnight task; the rest perished. There's no reliable reference. Maybe one player is just unlucky enough to receive the task two or three times!"
Someone asked Eric about her mission, prompting her to show the task card.
By the fourth day in the dungeon, only twenty-six players remained.
Yet another player fell that morning.
Paranoia gripped the surviving players. At precisely two p.m., Eric arrived at the second floor's logistics department. The logistics manager assigned her the task of sorting through crates in the east warehouse section.
"Separate the useless ones for disposal in the west section," he said. "Clean and organize the useful ones."
"You must give me a standard to judge what is useful and what is not," Eric insisted, blocking his departure.
The manager chuckled. "Just like before—you'll know once you start."
Armed with a large ring of keys, a bucket, a clean rag, and a mop, Eric embarked on the task.
Before the entrance to the east warehouse, she gazed upon heaps of crates piled like rubbish mountains, unsure where to begin.
According to the manager, every crate had to be opened; only then could "useless" be discarded and "useful" set aside. She entered the east section and selected several crates for inspection. Constructed of wood, each bore a numerical label. Though seemingly heavy, the crates lifted with surprising ease. Gently shaking them produced no movement, suggesting cushioning materials such as foam or crumpled newspapers lining the interior.
What could they contain?
Daring not to open directly, she set the crates down and began to inspect the warehouse itself. The manager had offered no clues; she hoped to find clues such as inventory logs. Alas, nothing but crates filled the space; she remained ignorant of their contents.
With no alternative, she resolved to open one.
Unlocking was straightforward. The manager had provided keys tagged with numbers matching the crates. Eric chose the smallest crate first. The moment the lid lifted, a chill coursed through her veins.
Inside lay a diminutive urn.
A child's laughter seemed to echo softly in her ears. Her hands trembled.
Whirling about, she saw nothing amiss. Steeling her nerves, she retrieved the urn. Affixed atop was a photograph and a name—belonging to a child of six or seven years.
The child's smile beamed brightly into the camera, but, perhaps her imagination, Eric found it unnervingly distorted. Even a glance inspired unease.
Turning away, she examined the contents: indeed ashes.
She carefully wiped dust from the urn's surface with her clean rag, then polished it again with a fresh towel from the supermarket. Foam padding secured the urn within the crate; she removed and shook the foam clean before replacing it. The urn was returned to its place, the lid closed and locked.
Upon sealing, the faint laughter vanished. Eric breathed easier. She surmised that opening the crate had temporarily released a sealed spirit, and closing it restored the confinement. This child seemed harmless, allowing her to proceed smoothly.
Placing the tidied crate in a corner, Eric inhaled deeply and faced the mountain of crates once more, summoning courage to continue.
She opened another crate to find yet another urn, this one containing the ashes of a man in his early forties. Suppressing her fear, she cradled the burning-hot burden, gently dusting every corner and edge.
This urn's occupant stirred not a whisper, a fact for which Eric was grateful. But the third crate proved less fortunate. Upon unlocking it, Eric felt a chilling, coarse restraint encircling her neck. She reached to pull free—it was a rough hemp rope.
The noose constricted tighter and tighter, lifting her whole body. No matter how she struggled, escape was impossible.
The sensation was eerily reminiscent of the red-clad ghost in the elevator; before the spirits' power, her physical prowess, honed through mundane dungeons, was but an eggshell shattered upon stone—reckless and futile.
Suspended like a lifeless fish by the coarse rope, her throat emitted a fractured, strangled sound.
Near death, her mind felt as if filled with tons of cement, hindered and sluggish. Yet her will to survive was fierce, tearing through the haze, summoning a flicker of lucidity amid the shadow of death.
Her hands stubbornly grasped the rope choking her throat, fingers wedging between the coarse fibers and her skin, winning a tenuous breath.
Only her legs remained free to move, dangling midair.
With exertion from her waist and a forceful squeeze of her feet, Eric clutched the crate and flung it upwards to reach her hands.
Springing free from her struggle with the spectral grip, she caught hold of the crate.
The crate's lock had been undone, and in the act of tossing it upward, the lid had sprung open. Darkness blurred Eric's vision, leaving her groping blindly until her fingers found the urn within. She carefully extracted the urn and discarded the crate, then reached inside once more. Instead of ashes, her hand encountered a familiar, coarse object.
It was a coarse hemp rope.
Could it be that the "useful" items were urns containing ashes, while the "useless" ones concealed lethal objects—perhaps the very instruments that caused the deceased's demise?
The logistics manager had instructed her to discard the useless items in the west section—but now she was on the verge of strangulation!
Breathlessness overwhelmed her. Summoning every ounce of will, Eric activated her supermarket aid and shakily retrieved a pair of scissors, working feverishly to sever the rope.
She lost count of the slashes, but finally the noose slackened, and Eric collapsed to the floor, clutching her throat, coughing violently. Her vision flickered like an old black-and-white television, recalling how narrowly death had claimed her.
Once recovered, she propped herself upright and attended to a cut on her hand inflicted by the scissors. After disinfecting and bandaging the wound, she cast her gaze upon the shredded hemp lying on the floor. It appeared innocuous enough—who would have suspected such an ordinary rope to be a deadly weapon?
She gathered the rope, placed it back into the urn, then returned the urn to the crate. Cradling the box, she carried it to the west warehouse.
Looking back at the mountain of crates, Eric experienced a moment of clarity.
Her inexperience was evident. Before dismantling and cleaning the crates, she should have devised a plan. Though she suspected dangerous contents, she had failed to prepare defensive tools in advance.
Without the supermarket for backup, she likely would have perished already.
Yet she could not rely on this crutch forever; true growth demanded independence. The day the aid failed might well be her last.
With a solemn expression, Eric took a deep breath and gathered knives, scissors, sharpened sticks, even lighting a small fire from the supermarket's resources.
Any suspicious crate would be destroyed at once.
Her armory extended beyond mere weapons; she prioritized protecting her head, neck, heart, and abdomen. A helmet shielded her crown, while layers of glued cardboard interspersed with fabric fashioned a flexible armor to guard vital points, anticipating lethal traps sprung by forthcoming crates.
Prepared thus, Eric settled beside the fire and resumed opening boxes.
Over twenty crates yielded no threat.
"Seems the number of tainted urns is limited," she thought cautiously, maintaining vigilance.
Then, at the thirty-first crate, disaster struck.
Something pierced her flesh, eliciting a sharp cry.
Recognizing the menace, Eric hastily lifted the lid and extracted the urn to find a rusted fruit knife inside.
Despite ongoing attacks, she gritted her teeth and brought down a heavy cleaver upon the rusty blade repeatedly. After four or five strikes, the blade snapped in two and the assaults ceased.
Blood soaked her clothing. Pulling open her shirt, she inspected three superficial wounds. Yet a cold malevolence crawled within the cuts, fiercely painful.
From the moment of attack to the destruction of the rusted blade had taken less than five seconds. Three wounds had been gouged into her—she intuitively understood this ordeal reenacted the urn owner's final moments. Perhaps the victim had been stabbed repeatedly with that rusted fruit knife, the assailant unhesitatingly plunging the blade fully into flesh with each blow, dispatching their prey with relentless fury.
Without her protective gear, even these shallow wounds would have threatened her life.
Packing away the crate, Eric pressed on, resolving to endure the chilling discomfort and wait until the task's completion before purchasing a supernatural healing kit.
Further boxes revealed a brick stained with blood, blades used for throat slitting, and shattered fan blades.
She survived, though injured more and more grievously.
After finishing the final crate, Eric promptly acquired the healing kit. Its application mended every wound and banished the sinister chills, as though she had stepped forth from an icy purgatory into warm daylight.
Exhaling a weary breath, Eric summoned the logistics manager.
He inspected her work and, evidently pleased, stamped her task card with a blood-red handprint.
"Excellent performance. You've nailed the employee of the month spot, for sure," he chuckled.
Eric forced a stiff smile, bade him farewell, and departed from the logistics department.