How should a reliable adult react when faced with a child seeking help?
Naturally, they would hold the child's hand and soothe her anxieties.
But the Witch's hand was truly quite different from a normal person's. Imagine a hand as dry and withered as rotting wood, tipped with razor-sharp nails, reaching out to you from the darkness. It would be difficult not to scream in terror, especially when you were acutely aware that the owner of this hand could twist a person's head right off.
The fact that she could wring a person's neck meant she was equally capable of violently tearing your arm off in a bloody mess.
Although she showed no aggression for the moment, accepting her invitation was akin to walking a tightrope across a thirty-story building without any safety gear. Regardless of whether you had the skill to reach the safe end, a single misstep or loss of balance would leave you smashed to pieces on the ground below.
A person lacking mental fortitude would tremble and break into a cold sweat just standing at the edge of the roof, looking down at the miniature cars and greenery while feeling the wind rush against their face.
Fortunately, the person who triggered this quest was Bai Mu. If Yan Yu had been the one, she likely would not have been able to resist throwing her throwing knives, completely enraging the Witch.
It was even highly probable that the Witch would be provoked the moment the triggerer pulled out something like a "knife."
Since she retained a certain level of self-awareness, her subconscious most likely also recognized common dangerous items like bladed weapons.
If Bai Mu had not put away his Fire Axe before coming inside, she very well might have attacked.
It was not difficult to deduce the Witch's behavioral patterns. She was hyper-sensitive to everything in the outside world. Anything outside her expectations would instantly flip her from her current tranquil state into a frenzied, attacking mode.
Bai Mu quickly grasped the difficulty of this Side Quest. The key lay in pacifying the Witch's emotions; he absolutely could not do anything to startle her or cause her to lose control.
He had to humor her and follow her rhythm.
This was equivalent to dancing on the edge of a blade. Giving her his hand meant closing the distance between them so much that she could snap his neck with her sharp claws at any given second.
Aside from this, Bai Mu had another option: he could immediately pull his shotgun from his inventory before the Witch could react.
At such a close range, it would be enough for a guaranteed headshot. The Witch's head would burst open like a crushed watermelon.
He mentally weighed the consequences and gains of both choices. By choosing the former, he would unlock a hidden Side Quest, giving him the chance to obtain extra items and rewards, albeit at great risk.
By choosing the latter, he would completely forfeit the rewards this Side Quest could bring. Even if he temporarily escaped danger, the deafening roar of the shotgun was highly likely to trigger a horde of corpses, leading to them being besieged inside this cramped children's park.
However, his current ammunition supply was still relatively sufficient. He also had a massive lethal weapon like the Cherry Bomb in his backpack, which would be enough to blast his way out of a heavy encirclement. But the final result would be the depletion of most of his ammo, leaving him with heavy losses and absolutely zero gains.
Thinking of it this way, the choice was obvious.
Bai Mu stowed the butter into his backpack, extended his right hand, and held onto the Witch.
To avoid being punctured by her long nails, he directly grasped the Witch's palm. After all, she was just a Mutant formed from an infected child; her palm was very small, allowing Bai Mu's large hand to easily envelop hers.
The sensation was cold and clammy. The blood of the corpses had congealed on the surface of her skin. Furthermore, because there was a Swimming Pool inside the children's park, the air in this place was exceedingly damp.
The moisture in the air condensed on her icy skin, mixing with the corpse blood to create a bizarrely sticky and slippery texture.
He could feel the Witch's bulging veins. She had no pulse, and her body temperature was extremely low. Holding her hand felt like gripping a venomous snake that had been soaked in frigid water.
[You have accepted the Witch's invitation and pacified the Witch.]
Paradise chimed with another notification. The facts proved that his judgment was entirely correct. The Witch did not launch an attack; instead, she led him deeper into the children's park.
Bai Mu followed her footsteps, his shoes softly stepping against the foam floor mats.
Standing behind Bai Mu, Yan Yu heard the fading footsteps. She sensed that Bai Mu had left with the Witch, and a sudden wave of relief washed over her.
Closely following that was an intense desire to survive. She did not want to stay in this terrifying room for a second longer. The Witch had left her with a massive psychological shadow, and only a single thought remained in her mind: 'Escape.'
So, she backed away exactly the same way she came in, tiptoeing out of the indoor park until she reached the brightly lit reception area.
At least, compared to the room from just now, this place could be considered bright.
Once outside, she gasped for air, clutching her chest. Her heart was pounding furiously in her ribcage. The ecstasy of Survival After Disaster and the guilt of abandoning a teammate made her expression look rather complicated.
Bai Mu was still left in that room, entirely alone with that terrifying Mutant.
The fifteen-minute gathering time she had previously agreed upon with Great Northern Wilderness and his brother had already passed. Being alone made her feel like there were needles pricking her back, and brushing shoulders with death was certainly not a pleasant feeling. Worse still, suffering such a heavy blow in the early stages of the Script gave her a pessimistic outlook on what the future held.
This damned endless Paradise... how could this place be called a paradise? It was clearly an unceasing hell.
But even in hell, one still had to struggle hard to survive...
Helplessly, Yan Yu gripped her own wrist, adjusting her breathing to steady her pulse. She stared intently at the sole entrance and exit, slowly retreating out of the children's park and into the mall corridor.
'I will wait another five minutes,' she thought.
She felt that Bai Mu's chances of survival were extremely slim. Even now, she did not fully understand what had just happened. She inwardly speculated that perhaps the Witch possessed some sort of mind-control ability and, finding Bai Mu tender and appetizing, was taking him back to her lair to meticulously tear him into strips of meat.
As for the rest of the Script, she feared that only she and the Great Northern Wilderness brothers would be left to continue.
A four-person Script turning into a three-person Script meant losing a useful teammate; naturally, the difficulty would spike.
'I can only go look for gasoline elsewhere. I wonder if I can escape the mall before dark...'
The more she thought about it, the more anxious she grew. The more anxious she became, the more she told herself to calm down, yet she could not calm down at all. However, an image suddenly surfaced in her mind—the sight of Bai Mu calmly peeling through the pile of corpses just moments ago.
'If it is that extraordinary man, maybe there is still a glimmer of hope...'
Her time spent with Bai Mu had been brief, yet without realizing it, she had developed a strange sense of expectation toward him.
Because of this, she chose to wait another five minutes.
"In five minutes, whether he comes out or not, I must head to the first floor," Yan Yu muttered to herself.
Gripping her scalpel, she kept watch from afar by the corridor edge, simultaneously gazing downstairs in search of her other two teammates.
Meanwhile, Bai Mu, who had remained inside the children's park, had already been led by the Witch into the deepest recesses of the area—a pitch-black corner entirely untouched by sunlight.
Suddenly, the Witch halted her steps, and she began to weep once more.
[The Witch feels uneasy and needs soothing.]