Beast Taming: Starting From Zero

p>"Did you hear that sound?" Qiao Sang asked tensely.

Fang Sisi paused, uncertain. "It sounded like a Baby Shell."

Baby Shell, a water-type beast companion, typically makes soft whimpering sounds, but it can also produce cries similar to a human baby’s.

Only trained breeders can usually distinguish between the two sounds.

Qiao Sang was surprised Fang Sisi guessed it right. Before she could ask more, Fang Sisi continued:

"When a player enters the second stage, the Baby Shell in the water starts making that sound, and then the doppelgänger puppet's claw brings a fake human hand out of the water to scare the player."

"But isn't that supposed to be part of the escape room scenario? Could it be that the second-stage companion beasts weren't affected?" Qiao Sang asked.

Fang Sisi thought for a moment. "No, it's still different. The doppelgänger puppet's claw didn’t come out."

"You're right." Qiao Sang nodded in agreement.

Behind them, Little Treasure blinked his innocent eyes.

After walking a few steps, Qiao Sang stopped and closed her eyes, focusing again on the direction of Yabao.

He was still the same dark background, and the distance was less than a hundred meters.

How could they have walked so far, yet the distance remained unchanged? Qiao Sang opened her eyes, bewildered.

At that moment, the baby-like cry echoed again.

"Do you know the exact location of the Baby Shell?" Qiao Sang turned to ask.

"If we're following the escape room script, it should be in the waterway beside us, following along."

Fang Sisi paused and asked, "What are you planning?"

"It’d be best if it's willing to have a chat. If not, we’ll have to fight first, then talk." Qiao Sang replied.

So far, the only NPC awake in the first and second stages was Baby Shell. With things going awry in the escape room, they had to find the Baby Shell to figure out what might have happened.

---

In the Monitoring Room

A man wearing a hat paced back and forth, anxious.

"How did they get in there? What if something happens?!"

The observation room’s feed only covered the scene where the Flame Hound appeared, but now the hound was gone, and the first room’s cameras were down. Staying there was useless.

But the monitoring room was different.

Multiple screens corresponded to various stages of the escape room in Lost Town.

One screen had inexplicably filled with the image of red eyes, visible to everyone in the room.

As the fog spread, all the cameras in the first room stopped working.

The rest of the stages seemed unaffected, but the walkie-talkies were malfunctioning, and they couldn’t get a phone signal.

They tried to leave, but every time they reached the hallway corner outside the monitoring room, they found themselves back where they started.

With no other choice, they retreated to the monitoring room.

When the two girls entered the second-stage escape room, they immediately noticed.

At first, they suspected them of causing the mess.

But upon zooming in, they realized one was a Flame Hound trainer, and the other was a trainer for NPC No. 9.

Neither the Flame Hound nor the Cotton bug could cause such a strange situation, so they ruled them out.

But that wasn’t the most important part.

What mattered most was that the monitor showed two ghost-type companion beasts following the girls!

One was a Treasure-Seeking Ghost, the other a Dreamless Doll.

The former was nothing to worry about, an entry-level companion beast, small in size and likely young.

But the latter was a high-level beast!

Dreamless Dolls have the trait of insomnia, never able to sleep for 24 hours. Some experts believe their eyes are bloodshot from staying awake for so long.

They feed on others' dreams.

They are considered one of the less malevolent ghost-type extraordinary creatures.

But there’s one catch.

Dreamless Dolls like to create dreams, and all of them are nightmares.

They are naturally skilled at crafting nightmares so real that even after waking, people struggle to distinguish between dream and reality, leaving them deeply unsettled.

Some people can’t recover for days, leading to cases of severe mental exhaustion.

How could such a beast appear in their escape room?

"The phones still won’t connect." A young man nearby shook his head.

"Do you think this is intentional, or did they just wander in?" The man in the hat looked at the monitor, his face darkening.

"It doesn’t seem intentional, nor does it seem like they wandered in." The young man analyzed.

"Look at the monitor. The Treasure-Seeking Ghost is staying close to the girls, wearing what looks like a bead necklace, a tool, likely indicating it’s been contracted."

"But the Dreamless Doll is following from a distance, almost hiding as if it doesn’t want to be noticed. If it had wandered in, it would’ve likely phased through a wall by now, as ghost-type beasts often do."

"But look at our hallway, we can’t leave. The signal problem, the black fog, these are all deliberate. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence."

"And those red eyes we saw on the monitor earlier, don’t you think they belong to the Dreamless Doll?"

"Dammit, I already thought that! What do we do now? And those two kids... wait, what are they doing?!" The man in the hat stared at the screen, his eyes wide as if he’d seen a ghost.

The young man turned to the screen.

At that moment, a red eye once again filled the entire second-stage escape room monitor.

The eye darted from side to side.

The screen went black.

---

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

"Yabao, save me!!!"

The piercing scream echoed through the underground waterway.

"Xun, xun~"

Little Treasure grinned, speeding up to follow behind Qiao Sang, looking pleased as if playing a game.

Behind him were two dismembered hands dripping with red liquid, along with two legs in the same state, and a Baby Shell covered in spikes.

"Holy crap! What is that thing?!" Qiao Sang shouted as she ran.

"Baby Shell!" Fang Sisi shouted back.

"I mean the severed limbs!" Qiao Sang sprinted faster than she ever had before.

"Those are the doppelgänger puppet's limbs!" Fang Sisi, slightly slower, responded.

What? The doppelgänger puppet's limbs?

Qiao Sang froze for a moment, suddenly losing the will to run.

She had thought this was a real horror movie scene come to life, but it was just ghost-type companion beasts messing around.

Slowing down, Qiao Sang turned her head.

She saw the four bloody severed limbs, along with the crazed Baby Shell, charging straight at her.

Her slight pause allowed them to close in considerably.

Startled, Qiao Sang instinctively sped up again.

Holy crap! Watching scenes like this in horror movies and experiencing them firsthand are two completely different things!

"Aren’t they NPCs? Why are you running?!" Qiao Sang shouted.

"Because of you!" Fang Sisi cried as she ran, tears streaming in the wind.

"What did I do?!" Qiao Sang was baffled.

"You made the Treasure-Seeking Ghost wiggle its butt and make faces at the waterway!" Fang Sisi yelled.

"Not only that, you had it spit into the water!"

"Wasn’t that to lure out the Baby Shell?" Qiao Sang protested, feeling wronged.

"How was I supposed to know the doppelgänger puppet was in there too? Is this how the second-stage script goes? Don’t they know we’re not here for fun? Is it reasonable to scare us this much?"

Fang Sisi shouted, "Of course this isn’t how the script goes! Why do you think I’m running?!"

"Then why-"

"Because of what you made the Treasure-Seeking Ghost do!"

"..."

"Xun~"