Chapter 6 Pay WIth Your Body

"So, how was it? Find work entertaining?" Catherine asked, cradling a glass of blackcurrant martini in the dimly lit bar, her joke cruelly inappropriate.

"Entertaining? If that qualifies as entertainment, I'd rather swallow ten flies!" Charles downed his beer in one gulp, slamming the empty glass onto the counter.

"A living person—his entire head exploding right in front of me. Is that normal?"

Catherine took a calm sip from her glass. "We're in an abnormal world. Everything abnormal that happens here is normal to everyone else. Remember what I told you earlier?"

"Things you can imagine and things you can't imagine—they all exist here, including everything you witnessed today."

Charles fell silent, involuntarily recalling his earlier bathroom conversation with Eddie. How confident and cheerful Eddie had been then, even planning to treat Charles and Catherine to drinks after work.

Now, he'd never fulfill that promise.

"Listen, Charles, I know you must be feeling terrible, but you need to adapt quickly."

"When trials appear and what punishments they bring are completely unpredictable. It's entirely possible that even as we sit here talking, we could face various trials."

"If you can't adapt to these sudden changes, your fate might not be much better than Eddie's."

"I'm sorry. I lost my composure."

Charles, jolted by her words, felt his emotions settling.

After a moment, he asked Catherine, "How can we tell when a trial has begun, and how do we escape them?"

"It's simple." Catherine snapped her fingers, then dipped her finger in her drink and began drawing strange symbols on the bar counter.

Charles noticed her unusually long, glossy fingers—clearly well-maintained and cared for.

"This is us," Catherine said, unaware of Charles's gaze, pointing to two stick figures marked with arrows on the counter.

Then she drew a large circle at the end of the arrows. "And this is the trial."

"Generally, when a trial first appears, those of us who are anomalies can sense something's wrong—like those piercing noises we heard at the office."

"To survive successfully, there's only one method: strictly follow every rule the trial establishes. Never violate them!"

"We can only sense something is wrong—we don't automatically know what the rules are. We have to rely on intuition or deduce them from clues."

"So when a trial begins, pay close attention to everything happening around you. The patterns you observe likely reveal the hidden rules."

Just as Catherine finished speaking, a steaming plate of steak was slid in front of her by the bartender.

Catherine cut off a small piece with her knife, placing it in her mouth. "But you don't need to worry too much right now," she said, her words slightly muffled. "Trials rarely appear consecutively. Since you survived today's work trial, you should be safe until work tomorrow."

"By the way, this bar's special steak seems delicious. I ordered one for you too. Want to try it?"

Charles nodded after a brief silence.

Yesterday he'd been taken straight to the interrogation room by Brand after waking up, questioned for nearly half an hour, then somehow transported to this mental world by Sharlec. Adding his time at TechFront, he hadn't eaten for at least fourteen hours.

Soon, a steaming steak was placed before Charles.

But just as he lifted a small piece toward his mouth, a strange odor reached his nostrils.

The smell was difficult to describe, blended with the steak's aroma and spices, making it hard to isolate.

But with his sensitive sense of smell, Charles detected the odd scent anyway.

"How did you order your steak cooked?"

"Medium-rare. Steak shouldn't be overcooked—it makes the meat tough."

"Do you smell something strange then?" Charles's expression was serious; he wasn't joking.

Catherine immediately straightened her posture.

She speared a piece of steak with her fork and carefully sniffed it.

After a moment, she said, "No. Doesn't steak always smell like this?"

'Maybe it's not the meat?' Charles thought.

He lifted the entire steak with his fork and used a napkin to wipe the sauce from the plate.

Now the peculiar smell became more pronounced.

Sweet, with a metallic tang—the smell of human blood.

"Stop eating." Charles grabbed Catherine's wrist, intending to leave with her.

But as he turned around, he discovered that all the patrons—even the dancers wildly moving on the dance floor—had simultaneously turned to stare at them with disturbing gazes.

Their looks contained curiosity, anticipation, and a hunger for food.

Charles felt every hair on his body standing on end.

He asked Catherine, "You said trials usually don't appear consecutively. That means there's still a possibility they could, right?"

Catherine didn't answer, but the slight trembling Charles felt in her palm told him everything he needed to know.

"Seems we're not very lucky today."

"Stop talking. We need to leave—now, before it's too late!" Catherine gripped Charles's wrist and rushed toward the bar's entrance.

But the door slammed shut. Several muscular, dark-skinned security guards blocked their path, their voices cold: "No leaving without paying!"

Catherine pulled several bills from her pocket and threw them at the guards' faces impatiently. "Can we go now?"

The guard smirked disdainfully, pinching the corner of a bill. "Sorry, miss. We don't accept suspicious money like this."

Catherine froze. She had confirmed earlier that real-world money was usable in the mental world.

Perhaps because the mental world partially mirrored reality, such fundamental elements remained unchanged.

But now, this real-world money was suddenly worthless!

"We can stay and work—sweeping floors, washing dishes—until we've paid off our tab. Would that work?" Charles calmly suggested after pulling Catherine behind him.

But the guard shook his head with a sinister grin. "No. No amount of money equals your worth. This time, you'll pay with your body."