Chapter 26

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

After arriving on the second floor, a ‘conference hall’ came into view. It wasn’t so much of a conference hall as it was a temporary meeting room that consisted of a few simple tables. There were four of these tables and once together, they connected to form a ring. Approximately 3 people could sit at each table. There were wooden stools everywhere. Shen Mu counted exactly 12. Currently the tables were empty, and there was no sign of any numbers at all.

The second floor had the same layout as the first floor, only this time the rooms in the corridor were numbered 5-8. Shen Mu knocked habitually on each door in turn, and sure enough, no one answered.

Arriving at the 3rd floor, there was a restaurant, or rather, a dining hall. Its location corresponded to that of the lounge and it accommodated four standard dining tables. Of course, the tables didn’t currently hold any food. Knocking on the third floor’s rooms 9-12 similarly garnered no response.

Shen Mu rapped on the gray-white walls in the corridor with his knuckles. The fallen leaves in front of the door indicated that someone must’ve come here before him. Yet, from the time he’d appeared in the woods to the moment he’d entered the building, although he hadn’t had a watch, it was possible to roughly estimate that approximately half an hour had passed. Shen Mu was confident that most players would still be travelling, but then again, someone had clearly come and left during such a short time-frame? Why did they leave? Was it to find their own partner? Or was there still another reason?

The person who’d arrived before him had a high probability of being number 1. Since he’d already inspected the game site, Shen Mu decided to return to the woods to find some acquaintances. For a moment, Shen Mu stood in the corridor on the third floor and looked out from the window. The shadows cast by the trees stretched out endlessly beyond. It seemed as though the forest was borderless.

Yi? That is……

In the woods on the far right, a flock of birds suddenly scattered into the air.

On the way here, Shen Mu had discovered that the forest wasn’t dead, but was instead an ordinary forest that housed all sorts of insects and birds. Although the trees in the forest were dense, there were no particularly large trees. By using common sense, the forest should be free of large beasts. Therefore any creatures that could create such movements would be ‘definite’ players.

For a player to make such a noise, they must’ve hit a tree or fallen into a pit… did a conflict start?

Shen Mu went downstairs and left the game building, moving towards the disturbance that he’d previously seen on the far right. This setting did have a sun, unlike the endless darkness outside the window in the preliminaries. The current sun had a tendency to sink. It had just passed behind a broken building. If one assumed that the direction of the setting sun was the west, this building would be precisely in line with the sun’s orbit, and the building itself would also be oriented so that either side faced east and west respectively. For the time being, he could assume that the building was situated in the western side of the forest. In that case, the far right would be southeast. Yes, that’s it, I won’t get lost……

Shen Mu’s blue and white figure quickly disappeared into the woods. “Creak”, at that moment, one of the doors that had been closed originally opened slightly, and was then pushed open completely. A petite figure appeared in the corridor on the first floor, staring at the place where Shen Mu had disappeared from the window, frowning slightly. Her brows were heavy, revealing a degree of confusion. She too wore a blue and white factory uniform, and astonishingly, on her chest was a ‘1’.

“Hulala…”

At that moment, a sudden noise echoed, extending from the forest, but it didn’t come from the direction in which Shen Mu had left. No. 1 immediately entered the room and quickly closed the door, gasping while leaning against it.

Another girl appeared from the forest. She also wore a European-style uniform, but it had a different design compared to Shen Mu’s previous style. It was mainly black. She had long, slightly curled, chocolate brown hair, with bright eyes and she sported fine sweat from where it had beaded on her beautiful face. Clearly, she hadn’t even stopped to take a break throughout her entire journey. Her brows were also slightly wrinkled, appearing as though she was thinking about something. After seeing the worn building in front of her, she didn’t seem very surprised at all, but was instead taken aback by the building’s shabbiness. After all, it was too different from the site they’d used during the preliminaries.

The girl opened the rusty door and walked into the building. In an instant, her clothes also changed, replacing her original clothing with a blue-and-white factory uniform, and the number “3” appeared on her chest. The girl only hesitated momentarily before rapidly finding her room. After learning about the site, she also started knocking on doors.

Dong, dong, dong… No. 3 girl knocked on the door of No. 1. No. 1 who was leaning on the door trembled as the door vibrated, firmly biting her lips.

“Excuse me, is anyone there?” The young girl’s voice was very nice. Her voice had a pure and clear feeling. Hearing this voice, No. 1 also froze for a while, it’s a girl? This realisation seemed to make No. 1 relax a little and her body, which had previously been stretched taut, loosened minutely, but she still pushed unwaveringly against the door and didn’t answer.

Evidently, No. 3 was unaware of what was occurring within the room, and knocked on the next door when she saw that no one had answered. Of course, this time around she still received no reply and the door remained closed. Like Shen Mu, the young girl inspected the entire game site in turn. Of course, she didn’t find even a shadow after knocking on all the doors. In the wake of knocking on the last door on the third floor, the girl stood in the corridor and looked out from the bed. Her eyebrows, which had just begun to relax following their concentrated surveying of the area, tightened again at this time, clearly thinking about something.

No. 3 had something on her mind, but still she unconsciously looked out at the endless sea of trees. At that moment, the nearby bushes shook. No. 3 came back to earth, someone came? She immediately left the window front, turned sideways into the shadows, and slightly tilted her head to look down.

People emerged from the woods. No. 3 concentrated her gaze. There were actually two people——a young man and the person he carried. The latter lay on the young man’s back. Although their face couldn’t be seen, from the dangling waist length hair, it was possible to deduce that it was a girl. No. 3 looked at the two, hesitating slightly before deciding to meet them downstairs.

……

Somewhere inside the forest, a little girl with two pigtails was walking around anxiously. As she hurried forward, she kept an eye on the sun, feeling anxious in her heart. The bright, golden ball of fire was no longer positioned the same as when she’d arrived, affixed upon the sky’s zenith, but had now fallen half-way, indicating that there was at most two or three hours left before the sun would go down. Although the system didn’t specifically mention that it was necessary to arrive at the game site before dark, the little girl instinctively felt that once the sun had gone down, she would be in danger! What’s more, the forest was so large. Even after walking for such a lengthy period of time, she had only ascertained that in the forest, apart from trees, there were only trees, and she had absolutely no idea where the meeting place was. If she continued in the same manner, it would be impossible to find the game site…

Having registered where her thought process was leading, the little girl became increasingly terrified, and instinctively began to tear up.

No, you can’t cry… Remember what your brother said before; if you mess up first, then the game that could have been won won’t be won! The enemy may not be so terrible at all, the scariest thing is you scaring yourself…

The little girl took a deep breath, working to calm her emotions. The little girl was, of course, Shen Xin. Although her body was still shaking, Shen Xin tried to start thinking of a solution.

Finding the gaming site without being given any hints … was it completely reliant on luck? Currently, after walking in the forest for so long, she didn’t even know which direction to head towards. If her current path was the wrong direction, would she have to walk on endlessly?

Shen Xin always felt that this wasn’t the case, after all, how could it be completely dependent on luck? That would be too strange! Shen Xin once again tried to recall every piece of information that the system had given them, yet nothing was found. As seconds and minutes trickled by, various insects and birds in the trees added to the anxiety in the air. To the contrary, Shen Xin slowly calmed down.

If she continued on like a headless fly, who knew when she’d be able to find the site. Since the forest was so extensive, if some players went in the wrong direction and they weren’t able to reach the required quota of 12 people, would the game never start? Moreover, there was no food in the forest and while they were fine on the first day, if they couldn’t find the meeting place, would some players starve to death? The rules of the game gave the impression that everyone should compete for one of the 12 places, but they themselves might not even reach the 12 players required for the game. They should at least give everyone a direction to head towards.

Was it the tallest tree in the forest?

Shen Xin stood on tippy toes to find the tallest tree. Of course, her sight was completely blocked by the nearby trees and no matter how she jumped, she couldn’t see any further.

No, it definitely isn’t a tree! Although I’m short, how can anyone be taller than a tree? It must be something else…

This movement caused Shen Xin to sweat even further. She raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead. It was so hot, she felt as though summer had returned, the sun was so hot…

The sun… the sun?

Shen Xin jumped up violently. That’s right, the most obvious sign here, wasn’t it the sun?! If there was a hint, then maybe… maybe, the sun was the hint! Although it’s position in the sky was constantly changing, and it had fallen from its original location, the orientation of its descent was fixed, that was, to the west! So, she should move westwards.

With this awareness, Shen Xin became very energetic all of a sudden, and the exhaustion in her body completely disappeared. Shen Xin moved quickly towards the west. Absolutely, she absolutely must catch up…

After walking speedily for some time, Shen Xin began struggling to endure under the pressure of the physical exertion. She slowed down, taking deep breaths, footsteps lightening. She walked for a while longer before feeling that her physical strength had recovered slightly. Shen Xin was just planning to speed up again when she suddenly heard a fierce scolding voice coming from in front of her, shocking her so much that she almost fell down, before she hurriedly squatted down in place, not daring to make a single sound.

The other party seemed to be burning with anger, and didn’t notice the slight noise that Shen Xin had made: “X* A’De stop sleeping! Get up and find a way to release grandfather**! X that ungrateful wolf, Laozi must X have her crying for her parents…”

*T/N: X = Censored swearword. X was used in the raws (original text).

**T/N: T/N: Grandfather & Laozi (this old master) both refer to the speaker. As age traditionally denotes superiority and ranking, the speaker is referring to himself as someone better than the other. His manner is arrogant and condescending. In this case, he is saying this out of anger (toward the person who tied him up).

Immediately, there were sounds of struggling and something fell to the ground, but no one responded to the man. Clearly, his companion A’De was still “sleeping”.

Shen Xin’s wildly beating heart stabilised slightly. The fierce adult seemed to have been bound by something and couldn’t move for the time being while his companion wasn’t awake. Walking by at this time shouldn’t present any danger right?

Although she thought that there was little risk, Shen Xin was still afraid, how about… going around? Time had already been delayed… but if there were two people stuck lying here, as long as she wasn’t the last one, there wouldn’t be any danger of being eliminated right?

Shen Xin was thinking intently when there suddenly came a fierce roar, “Who is in the forest ?! Come out for Laozi!”

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