It's just one door

A.N: Sorry. Little short. But I also have to write the plot for this, the baseline for my next sl3 I'm planning to write after this, and the other broken gadgets problem lmao.

Anyways. Enjoy.

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"What are you two so on guard for?" Tang Jiayi nonchalantly asked him and Gu Yue in confusion as he stopped in front of the door Gu Yue was looking at, calmly placing his hand on the handle.

"If there are people over this door, then there's nothing to worry about." He reassured in a dismissive manner, not being nearly as worried as the other two he was with.

"But we aren't even sure if the footsteps I heard from there belonged to humans." Gu Yue retorted and pushed Tang Jiayi's hand off the door knob. "Moreover, how are we sure they're going to be good people and not murderers or thieves?"

For his part, Tang Wulin stayed completely silent, neither worried like Gu Yue nor completely lax like Tang Jiayi. He was trying to hear both of them out, like what a good leader should do.

However, he did have his remaining Soul Power ready just in case, the Golden Dragon Spear waiting to be released in his hand.

Had he ever even used this thing since arriving here?

"As I've mentioned earlier, the Abandoned Office is completely devoid of entities or anything of the sort. The only ones that could possibly be here are humans." Tang Wulin forgot about that. "Well, either that or entities that are powerful enough to traverse the levels got here. But that's unlikely."

"Wait- Normal entities can't travel through levels?" Tang Wulin interjected in surprise, not quite expecting that. Why can't entities travel through levels if humans can?

Oh, wait. Didn't Long Bing mention something like this too?

While he was thinking, Tang Jiayi turned to him and nodded. "From what I remember, only Class 7 threats are capable of traversing the Backrooms. And even then, it's only the ones who've reached a God Status." He finished, concerning words rolling off his mouth casually.

"Ahh..." Tang Wulin trailed off in sudden nervousness. Class 7? God Status? Well, that sounded far from good.

"Let's get into that later..." Gu Yue cut off hastily, looking just as worried as he was about that information. "For now. How can we guarantee that we won't get murdered or mugged after we open that door?"

Tang Jiayi sighed. "There are two large outposts on this level. And trust me, they're both friendly. Besides, do you really think humans are dumb enough to start killing themselves when they're in a location like the backrooms?" He asked, probably meaning to be rhetorical. But...

Tang Wulin didn't hate his own race as much as Gu Yue seemed to. However, even he knew that they could be very stupid on certain occasions.

In the billions of humans, there are bound to be those small groups of deranged psychopaths.

"Yes." Gu Yue responded to Tang Jiayi without a millisecond of hesitation.

See.

"Nevermind. Don't answer that." Tang Jiayi said right after Gu Yue's response, probably realizing the same thing Tang Wulin did.

"Anyways, just trust me on this one. People here are-"

While Tang Jiayi was speaking, all three of them were caught off guard when the subject of their little debate, the door, opened on its own, scaring all three of them in surprise.

Tang Wulin reacted to it fast and instantly moved, his instincts flaring up for him. And what did his great instinct prioritize first? Well, grabbing Gu Yue by the waist and dragging her to his side in order to shield her, of course.

He didn't even care that he couldn't keep her safe because he was heavily fatigued and that Gu Yue herself could probably stomp him ten times over at this point.

If his body was capable of moving to protect Gu Yue, then that is what he would do.

Everything else is a secondary priority.

The Golden Dragon Spear finally appeared in his right hand, glowing with a bright golden color as he held onto Gu Yue tightly with his other arm.

Stamina? Not good.

Soul Power? Barely there.

Body? Exhausted and definitely not prepared for a fight.

His vision landed on the now opened door, meeting eye contact with a black-haired man of relatively medium-height looking at him strangely with confusion.

In the very corner of his eyes, he saw Tang Jiayi relax in his position. "See. It's just a regular guy." He said with a small smile growing, looking at the new stranger and then back to them.

"You two can stop being so paranoid now."

Tang Wulin sighed and calmed himself down, knowing he had to concede to Tang Jiayi's point. This stranger, looked completely and utterly human, with him not being able to sense an ounce of danger coming from him.

He will admit. He did kind of pull a Gu Yue and became too paranoid.

He relaxed his hold on Gu Yue to allow her to get free (His arm only relaxed on her waist, not removed. No sane man would do that if not needed.) and the Golden Dragon Spear once again dematerialized from his hand, disappearing before he could get any use out of it.

It seemed Tang Jiayi's judgment was accurate. He would keep this in mind for later occurrences where he needs to decide if he should trust the older Tang or not.

After feeling Gu Yue's body also relax, she immediately broke free from his embrace, probably because of the wave of embarrassment that she definitely felt.

He wondered how many times he has to do this until she just learns to accept his utterly shameless advances in public.

Probably a million times. At least.

Anyways.

New person. In front of him. Looking right at him. Need to go socialize, befriend, and give a good impression before the woman next to him inevitably ruins everything with that mouth of hers.

"Hi." Tang Wulin greeted amicably, raising his hand and waving at the stranger, and walking over to him.

The black-haired man's eyebrows raised. "You look... far from in good condition. What level did you come from?"

Tang Wulin opened his mouth, planning to reply with the truth since he couldn't see any benefit from lying. But Tang Jiayi beat him to it.

"The three of us came from Level Fun, sir." Wait, what? Sure, Gu Yue and Tang Jiayi came from that level, but Tang Wulin had obviously only ever been on levels 0 and 27.

What was he trying to do here?

The man turned to him and his eyes widened to saucers at that, almost like the mere mention of Level Fun in this place was terrifying enough. It really puts into perspective just how dangerous and difficult that level must be.

"You three survived Level Fun?!" He asked in shock, his tone much louder than before.

"Jeez, no wonder you look so banged up..." He commented as he turned back to Tang Wulin, motioning to the numerous scratches, dried blood, and clothes that looked like something a homeless person would put on.

"Uhh..." Tang Wulin replied in a clueless manner, not having anything to say. Tang Jiayi's lying completely threw him off as he couldn't state the actual reason for his injuries, for obvious reasons. But he also can't comment on what injured him in this so-called Level Fun because he doesn't even know what the 100,000 entities on that place are.

Were they called Partypoopers or something?

"Come on," The black-haired man motioned for Tang Wulin to follow him. "My group will be more than happy to help you three." Turning around, he moved to the side a bit to give them space to enter through the door, looking back at them with a patient expression.

For what might be the first time ever, Gu Yue actually recollected herself and thought of a response faster than Tang Wulin.

"Thank you. We appreciate the generosity." As Gu Yue, GU YUE, spoke those words, Tang Wulin, and probably Tang Jiayi as well, froze in sheer shock, stunned and speechless out of their minds. She spoke in an even tone, not sounding quite grateful like she was saying, but she definitely sounded nothing like her usual rude and cold self.

That made no sense whatsoever! Gu Yue doesn't know how to say 'Thank you' or anything of the sort! Even to Tang Wulin himself, the only one Gu Yue is nice to, that's still a highly rare occurrence.

What kind of insane character growth did she go through after he took his attention off her for ten seconds?

The stranger quite obviously didn't know what was so wrong with Gu Yue currently, so he just stared at them silently, his patience noticeably shortening as seconds passed by.

At some point, Tang Wulin felt Gu Yue's hand land on his, dragging him along with her as she walked through the door. He also noticed her turning her head to the other stupefied person in this room, not vocally saying anything but probably silently telling him to follow.

That was probably correct since he heard Tang Jiayi's footsteps following them soon after. And together, they entered the next room.

It looked exactly like the other rooms in this dumb (no, he shouldn't say that.) level, but a lot of details put it way apart from the rest.

The room had a clean feel to it, the smell much better than any other level. It was missing some of the office chairs and tables that the other rooms he visited had, and it was a much, much, larger room. Even larger than the room where Long Bing's outpost was located.

Boxes and crates were scattered neatly around the corners of the room (Just like with Long Bing), each one having a medical symbol.

And, the most of important detail of all, it was filled with so many people.