Chapter 31: Can You Still Pull Out Seventeen Throwing Knives and Take Me Down in an Instant?

In the brief span of Qiao Qiao’s exorcism career, he had encountered all manner of vengeful spirits.

Vengeful spirits were born from obsessions, and since every person’s obsession was different, so too were the spirits themselves. Even in the recent incidents, the origins of the spirits varied greatly. There was the factory owner who took his own life unwillingly, the architect who harmed others for the sake of “art”—both aggressors and victims.

Thus, Qiao Qiao quickly understood the source of this particular spirit’s obsession: it simply wished to torment players within the game. It could cheat, but players could not. How shameless.

Qiao Qiao speculated that this might be the spirit of a mischievous child, or someone with a childish mentality. He arrived at this conclusion, rather than believing the boss was invincible, because of the earlier actions of Miko Asano. Had the clown not pulled out seventeen throwing knives at the last moment to instantly kill Miko Asano, she might have had a chance to defeat the boss. Moreover, Qiao Qiao noticed that a single throwing knife was not necessarily fatal—just nearly impossible to evade. After reviewing the game data, he found that while the clown boss’s moves were indeed underhanded, they still fell within the game’s parameters. The difference was, the boss had intelligence.

It was as if—if a boss in an MMORPG retained all its original stats but was controlled manually by a staff member, players would find it nearly impossible to defeat. After all, everyone knew: target the healers first.

He digressed. Qiao Qiao thought that the boss’s demeanor resembled a spoiled child who throws their controller when they’re losing. With this in mind, he decided to attempt a strategy—defeat the opponent within the game’s mechanics.

First, he created a new character.

“Wait a moment, Master, do you have to start from character creation?” Shinnozuke Arai stopped him. If they were searching for a strategy, wouldn’t it suffice to have Miko Asano—no, Asano Alice—try a few times?

“I’ve studied your game’s information,” Qiao Qiao replied, explaining as he built his character, chose a background, adjusted base stats, and customized the face. “By increasing constitution here, you raise the maximum health. If your health is high enough, you won’t be killed instantly.”

Earlier, Miko Asano had used a character with balanced attributes, and two throwing knives were enough to kill her. The clown, after all, wielded seventeen knives. Qiao Qiao realized that so long as he couldn’t be killed instantly, the attack would lose its threat.

Originally, he could have used the console to spawn a character meeting his requirements, but since the spirit wouldn’t allow it, he wouldn’t bother.

“But if you only focus on constitution, your damage will be too low…” Shinnozuke Arai said. The game had four attributes: strength, dexterity, constitution, and inspiration. The other three contributed to damage in varying degrees; only constitution affected natural health recovery and maximum health, with no impact on damage. Yet, seeing Qiao Qiao’s confident air, he decided not to argue further. After all, Qiao Qiao was more familiar with exorcism than he was.

Besides, the game’s storyline was short—five groups were enough to clear the main quest.

Shinnozuke Arai considered the time: ten o’clock in the morning, plenty of hours ahead. He turned his gaze to Qiao Qiao’s character customization.

“?”

Shinnozuke Arai froze. Suddenly, darkness enveloped him. Within that darkness, a voice called out. It came from the grand cities of the deep sea, from the withered ruins of Mars. Shinnozuke Arai began pondering the meaning of life. He felt as if he had touched true nothingness.

To be born human… was truly regrettable.

I’ll go end it all right now.

He had just turned to leave when President Owada stopped him.

“Arai-san, what are you doing?”

Shinnozuke Arai snapped back to reality. Instinct told him not to look back, though curiosity beckoned. The screen showed the face of the character Qiao Qiao had just created. A single glance was enough to feel swallowed by the abyss.

A chorus of wails echoed through the office.

“Looks like it’s working well,” Qiao Qiao said, satisfied. The character’s face could effectively intimidate vengeful spirits. Even a brief pause in the coming battle would suffice.

Yet, it seemed his colleagues were even more affected. Qiao Qiao had no choice but to equip the character with a motorcycle helmet, covering the face.

“The chin seems to be clipping through, Arai-san,” Qiao Qiao pointed out, noting the sharp chin protruding from beneath the helmet. Who would normally set such a long chin? Arai grumbled internally, though outwardly he maintained a smile.

“All right, we’ll fix it later.”

Qiao Qiao guided the character out of the starting point. After a brief story sequence, he walked a short distance and soon faced a minor enemy—a zombie hound. He dispatched it easily and gained experience.

Due to the influence of “Dark O Soul,” “Horror Park” adopted the mechanic where all minor enemies respawn after saving at a checkpoint. This was why Shinnozuke Arai felt starting from scratch was a hassle.

After witnessing Qiao Qiao’s somewhat clumsy controls, he worried Qiao Qiao might not make it to the clown boss. However, a minute later, Shinnozuke Arai realized he was wrong.

Qiao Qiao, after killing the zombie hound, immediately returned to the first checkpoint, sat down, respawned the monster, killed it, returned to the checkpoint, respawned, and so on.

“Wait, Master, isn’t this…?” Shinnozuke Arai struggled for words. But this was certainly not how the game was meant to be played.

“Is there a problem?” Qiao Qiao was already adept.

“No, please continue.” Shinnozuke Arai sat back down.

And so, Qiao Qiao farmed zombie hounds for five hours. Even Asano Ariko, who had started out full of enthusiasm, ended up scrolling on her phone, while Qiao Qiao continued to grind with unwavering seriousness.

At last, he seemed to have had enough and began advancing the storyline.

Shinnozuke Arai leaned in to watch, only to find Qiao Qiao had begun farming zombie hobby horses.

“The zombie hounds give too little experience,” Qiao Qiao explained.

By nine o’clock in the evening, eleven hours had passed since Qiao Qiao started playing—enough time to clear the game twice. Finally, he was ready. He stood before the clown boss’s door.

“I’m about to begin,” he alerted Asano Ariko, who was watching dramas on her phone.

“All right, I’ll go wake them up.”

Asano Ariko hurried to the break room and roused the drowsy President Owada, Shinnozuke Arai, and the others.

When the bleary-eyed group saw Qiao Qiao’s attribute panel, sleep vanished instantly.

Qiao Qiao’s constitution was so high that his health value caused a display bug. Seventeen throwing knives? Even seventy wouldn’t scratch him.

And not just constitution—all his other stats were maxed out, reaching the program’s limits; any higher, and they’d overflow.

“How—how is this possible?” President Owada was astonished. It was their own game; how could Qiao Qiao achieve such stats?

Impossible.

Very soon, Shinnozuke Arai spotted the problem. In the test build, they had forgotten to set a level cap for their characters.

It wasn’t the developers’ fault. After all, this was a horror game focused on narrative progression, and most players aimed to finish the story. No one would spend five hours farming beginner monsters at the entrance.

No one.

After all, games were meant to be fun. Farming entry-level monsters for five hours was anything but fun.

Moreover, Qiao Qiao had discovered a monster with excessively high experience yield, but extremely hard to kill. By exploiting environmental tools like elevators, he managed to dispatch it with almost illicit methods, earning a huge amount of experience in a short time.

This could be considered a bug.

Thanks to these factors, Qiao Qiao now possessed these extraordinary attributes.

With the game’s best gear equipped, Qiao Qiao stood tall upon the earth.

Within the game, in the final boss’s arena—the circus tent—the clown suddenly shivered.