A Winner

Whoosh! The sound the toilet flushing followed by the running water from the sink came from the bathroom of apartment 448. It didn't take long for a pale-faced Juan to weakly stumble out of the bathroom while clutching his stomach.

"Uyy ... what did I eat today? I've never suffered this much when having to let it out before," Juan moaned as he glanced at the silent living room.

Juan was stuck in this room for a while now. He was going to look for the key to get out, but he only managed to search the living room before his stomach forced him to go make friends with the toilet. Now that he finally got rid of that sticky friend of his, he could finally get back to the task of finding the way out.

The toilet doesn't need to be searched any further as he had spent plenty of time 'searching' in there. So, Juan headed towards the nearby bedroom.

With a gentle shove, the bedroom door was pushed open. Glancing inside, Juan was able to notice a normal looking bedroom. Although it had fairly old furnishing, Juan would probably not even know that this was a haunted house if he wasn't told.

"Did the designers run out of budget? Or are they just too lazy and skipped over this room during the decoration process? And that hijo downstairs even said that this would scare us to death. Still ... that location transfer technology, I still don't understand," Juan's thought ran amok as he searched through the bedroom.

After searching through all the cabinets, Juan finally looked under the bed and was surprised to find two dolls!

"Mama mia! 200 dollares just like that!" Juan exclaimed in excitement as he easily grabbed the two dolls in each hand.

Observing the two plushy dolls that were a bit charred as if they were burned by something, Juan couldn't help but complain about the shoddy quality of this haunted house, "Is this part of the design? Or is it because they can't even afford to get intact, new dolls? But they can afford the money for advertisement ..."

Taking a deep breathe, Juan stopped thinking about it and focused on his main objective.

"My number juan priority is to get out of here. I wonder if the dolls will be the key," Juan muttered as he turned towards the bedroom door, intending to leave.

Suddenly, his eyes opened wide in shock as he saw a uniform flashing across the doorway! Freezing in place, Juan rubbed his eyes a bit as he tensely comforted his beating heart, "I-I'm imagining things."

Taking a couple of deep breathes to calm himself down, Juan gripped the dolls tightly as he cautiously strolled towards the doorway.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Sudden knocks came from the nearby bedroom wardrobe as if something was trying to get out! Juan's face distorted in fright as he dashed out of the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Huhuhu ... scared me to death, I'm not visiting haunted houses again ... unless I get paid to," Juan muttered as he gasped for breathe.

Suddenly, Juan froze up in fear as he felt a tap on his shoulder. Cold sweat rolled down his face as he gripped the dolls tightly. His face then distorted in anger as he swung his fists back while turning his body around swiftly, "I got you! Vete al diablo!"

Whoosh! Juan's hands smashed into empty air. Juan blankly stared forward at the empty living room in shock, "H-how?"

Suddenly, Juan felt another tap on his shoulder. Juan hiccuped in fright as he turned his head to glance over his shoulder, but he wasn't able to see anything besides the bedroom door!

"What in God's name is going on?!" Juan felt a chill run down his back.

Juan no longer cared about winning some money. All he wants right now is to get out! Running over to the front door, Juan began slamming his hand on it as he yelled, "Let me out! Is there anyone there?! Let me out! I want to quit!"

Hearing no response, Juan kicked the door in frustration, only to hurt his foot. Hopping on one foot due to the pain, Juan almost lost his balance, but he managed to grab onto the door knob in time to stabilize himself.

With the force from his grab, the door knob miraculously twisted and Juan discovered that the door actually opened!

"Thank god!" Juan exclaimed in excitement as he tugged the door open.

He then limped out of the room and into the silent hallway. Juan didn't see Jose anywhere. Although he originally wanted to retreat together, but Juan eventually refrained from calling out for the man.

"If this is really just an amusement park and not what I think it is, then the hijo downstairs will bring Jose out safe and sound! So my number Juan priority is to get out of here!" Juan decided as he limped towards the stairway door.

With two dolls gripped in one arm, Juan opened the door with his other hand and entered the gloomy stairway. Although there wasn't any scary decors around, Juan couldn't help but still feel a sense of fear. Still, Juan pushed on and slowly made his way down the stairs.

As he limped down the stairs, Juan couldn't help but feel cold and lonely inside. He didn't feel it much before when Jose was still by his side, but now he felt the journey on the stairway was so long!

Suddenly, Juan froze in place as he felt another tap on his shoulder! His already pale face distorted in fear as he didn't even bother to look back. He limped down even faster, almost tripping multiple times; however, there seemed to be some mysterious force helping him stabilize himself, but Juan didn't notice.

Gasping for breathe, Juan dashed down the stairs while an occasional tap on his shoulder served as a whip to drive him forward. After what seemed to be a million years, Juan tumbled down the last couple of steps and almost knocked his head against a cabinet, but a strong hand reached out to stabilize him.

"Oh? It seems you have completed your journey. Congratulations," a familiar young man's voice sounded from in front of Juan.

Juan looked up with a frightened face and relaxed when he recognized the man to be Pro. Juan finally breathed a sigh of relief as he plopped to the ground in exhaustion.

"F-Finally out ..."

"Ah ... it seems you have been frightened pretty bad. I did give my fair warning before, but why do you all never listen? This isn't some shabby rip-off haunted house, we actually put a lot of money into this, investing in a lot of new, high tech to give the best experience," Pro explained as he calmly returned to his seat.

Juan stared at Pro blankly as he couldn't believe that all he experienced can be explained by science, "B-But I felt it was so real! Hijo, I think this place is really haunted!"

"Eh? Seems you really thought it was real? Hahaha! That's good! That's what we are aiming for! But believe me, it is all possible due to science!" Pro chuckled as he stared at Juan with playful eyes.

"To think that it was just science ..." Juan muttered as he couldn't accept it, "Did science progress to this level whilst I didn't notice? How is this possible?"

"Well, maybe the outside world is still using old tech, but here we are testing some of the top tech not available outside. That is why you won't understand, and when you don't understand something, you fear it. It's in human nature. Of course, we won't disclose the secret as that is what makes our haunted house special," Pro continued to fool the confused man with his elegant speech.

Juan fell into silence as he began to believe Pro's explanation while feeling that he forgot something. After Juan calmed down and recovered his breathe, he finally staggered up as he complimented, "Hijo, this place is really scary. Well done! Maybe I'll bring my familia here to teach those naughty hijos a lesson."

"Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed your experience. Oh, and it seems you have managed to collect two dolls! Congrats, it seems we have a winner!" Pro happily said as he took the two dolls clamped under Juan's arm while handing him two one-hundred dollar bills.

With some color returning to his pale face, Juan excitedly took the bills with his trembling hands as he thanked, "Muchos gracias hijo."

"No problem, it's what you deserve," Pro replied before he recalled that he teleported the other guy down earlier.

Pointing at the first floor door, Pro mockingly told Juan, "Oh, and you companion is outside. He passed out from being scared too much, and one of my employees brought him down. Such a pity, he even had the third doll, you two could have won 1000 dollars."

"Ah!" Juan exclaimed in surprise as he finally remembered who he had forgotten.

A security guard uniform sneakily peeled off from Juan's back as Juan hurried left through the stairway door. Not noticing what happened behind him, Juan entered the first floor hallway and found Jose leaning against the hallway wall, passed out. Juan walked up to him and gave him a couple pats on his cheeks, "Jose! Jose! Wake up!"

Jose groggily opened his eyes and the first person he saw was Juan. However, instead of feeling happiness from the reunion, he screamed in fear as he tried to scramble away. It took a while before Juan managed to calm Jose down by making him realize it truly was Juan and not 'Juan'.

"Thank you for visiting Toilet Wonderland. I hope you enjoyed your visit and please come back again."

A still trembling Jose waved goodbye to Pro as Juan helped him out while showing off the 200 dollars he earned and trying to convince him to come back. Of course, Jose doesn't seemed to want to come back anymore.

Teleporting back to the fourth floor, Pro cheerfully complimented his family and servants for their performance.

"Well done everyone! Just keep up the good work, and once you get used to it, I'll let you make your own choices on how to play!"

"Yeaaa! Thank you master! Alice had so much fun!" Alice said in a cheerful voice as she hugged Ali in her hands while bouncing up and down in excitement.

Ali also flapped her plushy hands up and down to show her excitement. Toi Toi, two dolls, and the uniform spirits also excitedly gathered together to celebrate. After allowing the group to celebrate for a bit longer, Pro sent them back to work as the next batch of service workers will be here soon.

Even if the service workers don't take the haunted house route, Pro can still harvest them, but will hold back a little and only harvest 30 points. As for those greedy ones like the ones from earlier, Pro harvested a total of 40 points from each of them! Any further may lead to their death due to bleeding out. Of course, they may still be weakened or bleed a little after going home.

After an eventful day of fooling humans, Pro harvested a new daily record of 210 points, bringing his total to 2160 points! Not only that, Pro also knew that Alice was able to harvest a lot of fear, and he noticed the denser yin qi gathering around her. At this rate, Alice may be promoted soon! Pro only hopes that her personality won't be affected too much.

"Just the service workers won't be enough to start the snowball's momentum. I only hope that there will be visitors from the forums soon."

After resting a bit, Pro decided that it was time to take a bit of risk.

"The first five floors have been harvested. It's time to become the Sage of Six floors by sending the sixth floor spirits on their journey to reincarnation!"