He was quite glad that the chemical was on ***-173's body. If he had killed the little Boss but not acquired the chemical, it would have meant he had to search the room in the middle of the second corridor again. Fortunately, that wasn't a problem. He not only successfully obtained the quest item, but his death also saved him the time of traversing the corridor. The consumption of those two Contra Medals seemed quite worthwhile.

After obtaining the chemical, Feng Bujue didn't rush to leave. He quickly crouched down and rummaged through the corpse fragments, hoping to find some other rewards. Anyway, his hands and body were already covered in blood and grime, so he didn't mind getting a little more dirty. Besides, he was never one to be bothered by filth.

This, it must be said, was one of his strengths. Feng Bujue had always been able to calmly view and even handle disgusting things that ordinary people found unbearable, such as corpses that had been left out for three days and had fly eggs laid on them, or skunk dens in old garbage dumps. In fact, every time he encountered a new disgusting substance, his boundary would expand. To put it politely, he was discovering new limits of endurance; to put it bluntly, he was just lowering his standards...

Searching the corpse didn't take him too long; a minute was enough to confirm that the Boss had nothing else on him besides the quest item.

While checking the item's description, Feng Bujue had already risen and stepped through the door, entering the fan-shaped area.

[Name: Chemical of Unknown Composition (B)]

[Type: Plot-Related]

[Quality: Average]

[Function: One of the raw materials for synthesizing a certain antidote]

[Can it be taken out of this script: No]

[Note: Cannot be stacked with similar items.]

"Strange..." When Feng Bujue saw the note, he thought of a problem... At the moment, his inventory was occupying a total of seven spaces, containing: Mario's Pipe Wrench, Flashlight, Eighteen Bronze Men Folding Stool (No. 5), ***-500 (1920), Anti-Gravity Catapult, Contra Medal *2, and One-Hit Kill Pistol.

Adding this bottle of Chemical of Unknown Composition (B) made it 8/10. According to the note, chemicals A, C, and D would also each take up an inventory slot.

Ignoring the fact that clothing pockets can assist in carrying items, when Feng Bujue obtained the last bottle of chemical, the inventory should be in a completely full state. However, he wouldn't need to put the last bottle into his inventory, because after all four chemicals were collected, they could be synthesized into one bottle, avoiding the awkwardness of not having enough inventory space.

Although this might be a coincidence, combined with the fact that Billy the Puppet mentioned ***-500 in the broadcast at the beginning of the script... Feng Bujue was more inclined to believe that the designer of this game was very aware of his situation, perhaps not just the items in his inventory, but also his skills, stamina, equipment, etc., were all taken into consideration.

If the system generated the script based on the player's characteristics, then... this "game" was equivalent to being designed by the system. And Billy the Puppet was just relaying the system's message. Did that mean... Billy himself was merely instilled with the idea that "I designed this game" by the system?

That's why [Winning Strategy] showed him nothing, because this script had no true Boss, only a set of rules, a player, and a few specific pawns...

After Feng Bujue returned to the fan-shaped area and looked back at the second corridor, he was surprised to find that the corpse fragments and blood stains on the ground had all disappeared. It had become an empty corridor again, but the blood on his body was still there.

"I see..." Feng Bujue seemed to understand something. He didn't linger there for long. At the moment, he estimated his personal time to be around forty-six minutes. If everything went smoothly, he would appear in the cell at the map time of forty-one minutes at sixty-five minutes, and he would already have three bottles of chemical in hand.

In terms of average time, this progress was just right.

While thinking, Feng Bujue had already entered the fourth corridor and was sprinting forward. Although the Contra Medal had revived him, his stamina after revival hadn't returned to a full state, still maintaining the original consumption rate. Even with the help of [Jazz Dance], Feng Bujue's stamina was starting to run low; it was currently at 894/1800. It seemed like it was just past halfway, but anyone who has run a long distance knows that the further you go, the more tired you get... especially since Feng Bujue was sprinting continuously.

This script was simply a double marathon of body and mind. This marathon was not about spreading the spirit of sportsmanship, but a life-or-death game with a set death line.

...

After entering the corridor, five minutes passed in the blink of an eye. The door to the room appeared in front of him around this time.

Feng Bujue suddenly realized that he had never run a complete corridor. He only ran the first half of the third corridor, and only the second half of the second corridor. And whether the room where the small Boss was located was closer to the front or back was also unknown. Therefore, even if he could estimate the length of the fourth corridor from beginning to end, he wouldn't know which corridor was the shortest compared to the others.

"No wonder that rabbit didn't know which path was shorter," Feng Bujue muttered to himself. "One is because it had only been to the first corridor, and two is because... the me who appeared at forty-one minutes has already run through three corridors, but I also don't know their lengths. If I did, I would have told that rabbit."

He used a Sakamoto-style side slide, gracefully arriving in front of the door, reaching out to grab the doorknob, and pushing the door open.

This was a rusty iron door, which had the feel of Saw. The room had a dim, secret chamber feel. The sound of some gears and cogs moving after opening the door also indicated that some mechanism had been triggered.

Feng Bujue didn't even think about leaving a way out. He also knew that actions like wedging the door open with something would probably be useless. There were no suitable objects in his inventory to wedge the door. The flashlight and folding stool might be crushed, and the pipe wrench... if it broke, then the loss...

Click—

The lights turned on, illuminating the entire room. Above in the secret chamber, an iron chain was hanging an iron cage. Billy the Puppet was inside the cage. His red and black eyes were looking down at Feng Bujue through the iron bars.

The puppet's hoarse, deep voice came out at the right time: "Hello, Feng Bujue. I want to play a game with you."