V2C5

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Crossing the artificial water system, the plaza lay right in front of them.

Taking a deep breath, Lin Jue sprinted forwards and the heavy fog around him immediately vanished when he entered the field, his vision returning.

He could see Song Hanzhang standing under the clock tower discussing something with another man, the latter pointing at the electric board. Song Hanzhang crossed his arms, his expression cold.

Two girls had already arrived at the plaza and were looking at them, the shorter one wearing a furry white jacket and a red hat, her appearance gentle and beautiful but a little stressed. The other girl was even more overwhelmingly beautiful. Anyone who laid eyes upon her would have been shocked. She wore a short shirt, low waist jeans, a pair of flat-soled boots, and a belt outlining her slim waist. She held a slender iron pipe in her hand, surprisingly calm.

“Xuezhang!” Lin Jue hurried forwards.

Song Hanzhang nodded at him. “Go get your reward first.”

Lin Jue nodded back and as he looked up, he saw the writing on the left electric board:

【Remaining Survivors: 11; Remaining Safety Time: 45 mins】

The electric board of the right was no longer empty like in the first round, but rather displayed an ominous line of red writing:

【Judas’ Rules: When a player has died after entering the game, randomly select one dead player and resurrect, borrowing their body, inheriting parts of their memory and power. You are not counted towards the survivor count.】

It was the information Lu Ren got after killing the Judas, Gao Yifei last round. They hadn’t expected it to show up this round. Did that mean that every time a Judas was killed, a hint would show up like this?

Lin Jue strode out onto the stand and placed his hand on the crystal ball floating there, film tapes flying out in a messy array from beneath his feet and surrounding him, the billions of images that he couldn’t decipher flashing before his eyes.

Last time, he received a virus antibody from there, almost costing Song Hanzhang and him their lives.

This time, what would it be?

Lin Jue reached out, his fingertips lightly touching the film, and in the silver-white light, the tapes suddenly tightened, forming a slender weapon in his hand, the cold texture of metal the only sense from his hands.

It was a polearm, around a metre long, the tip sharp, glinting with a ghastly green glow under the light.

【Polearm: Sharp, Unbreaking, Additional Corrosive Effects】

A line of text flashed through his head and Lin Jue blinked in surprise. In the last round, he had gotten an antibody that came with the directions on its label, so he had never experienced such a strange thing. But it made sense. Many people pulled skills that were extremely unscientific, such as teleportation, or impenetrable defense, or hiding one’s scent, none of which could be used properly without a descriptor.

Lin Jue walked gleefully down from the stand and passed the polearm to Song Hanzhang as if it were a treasure.

Song Hanzhang took a close look at the strangely coloured tip and passed it back to Lin Jue without word nor question.

“Xuezhang, have you gotten your reward yet?” Lin Jue asked.

“He’s the same as me, healing. Maybe it’s the set reward for anyone who does medicine?” The young man who was standing next to Song Hanzhang smiled and showed Lin Jue the pattern on his left wrist- a ringlet of silver-white tattoos.

Song Hanzhang glanced at him and nodded at Lin Jue.

“This is Lin Jue, another survivor from the last round. This is my classmate, Shen Tuming,” Song Hanzhang introduced.

Lin Jue judged him quickly. He looked like a gentle and elegant person, a rare mixture of a calm and humble temperament in the blend of the overly-hormonal men of their age, though the way he spoke was still both casual and cheery.

Shentu Ming smiled. “You can just call me Shentu. It sounds like I’m a butcher1, but I’m actually doing the medicine course.”

Lin Jue couldn’t help but laugh.

On the other end, Lu Ren had already received his reward. He scratched his head concerningly at a strange bottle-shaped can before stuffing it into his pocket, taking out the dao he had received from the last round.

“Did the professors mark the roll in any classes in the past few days?” Song Hanzhang continued.

Shentu Ming thought about it. “No, you sure are lucky. Also, you keep skipping classes these past few days. Didn’t you want to keep your attendance at 100%? Or was it because you were dragged into this game?”

Song Hanzhang didn’t answer and asked another question, “Then did you see the ‘asking for easter egg’ ads around the school?”

“There were? Where? Apart from this free egg, I didn’t see anything even remotely related to it,” Shentu Ming sighed. “If I knew that something like this would’ve happened, I would have never been such a cheapskate.”

Lin Jue looked at Shentu Ming in confusion. He had stuck up ads all around the school, so how couldn’t he have seen them? Or did that method of cheating get blocked off by Lilith?

“Hello.”

Lin Jue turned around. It was the two girls, standing not far away.

The tall and mature woman swapped her weapon into her left hand and reached out towards Lin Jue. Lin Jue paused, unfamiliar with such a formal greeting, but still shook it. The other girl with the red hat looked at him timidly, a kind smile on her face, gentle and pretty.

“I’m Gu Fengyi. Are you a survivor from the last round?” the confident one asked, retracting her hand.

“How did you know?”

“You’re very calm, not like those panicked new players. You’ve fought with the insects just then as well right? I can smell it.” Gu Fengyi touched a finger to her lips, speaking with complete confidence.

Smell? Lin Jue raised his sleeve and sniffed it, making sure that no liquid from the insects had gotten onto him.

“You wouldn’t be able to smell it. It’s snake sense, her reward from this round.” Song Hanzhang stopped Lin Jue’s embarrassing actions.

The girl with the red hat watched in interest from the side and laughed sweetly. The embarrassment of losing face in front of a person of the opposite gender made Lin Jue blush without meaning to.

“Hi, I’m Liu Qingqing, I came to the plaza with Fengyi.” Liu Qingqing’s appearance had stayed soft the entire time, and when she smiled, she looked even sweeter.

“Mhm… Hi, I’m Lin Jue.” Lin Jue averted his eyes, unused to talking with the opposite sex.

Gu Fengyi turned and looked at Lu Ren who was standing underneath the clock tower and smiling up at the survivor numbers before turning back to Lin Jue, her face solemn. “The man who came with you, who is he?”

“Lu Ren, another survivor from last round.”

Gu Fengyi frowned. “The smell of insects is strong on him, and most importantly, he reeks of blood.”

Lin Jue fell silent.

Seeing that he didn’t reply, Gu Fengyi said in understanding, “I see. We’ll try to stay as far from him as possible.” Saying that, she led Liu Qingqing and sat down on a nearby flower bed.

Shentu Ming finally realized, “Did he kill?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to stop him.” Lin Jue didn’t know why he apologized, but meeting Shentu Ming’s distressed gaze, he couldn’t help but say it.

“Wait, isn’t this game for everyone to work together to survive? Why would you kill?” Shentu Ming turned and asked Song Hanzhang, his expression disbelieving.

Song Hanzhang pushed his glasses up. “Apologies, but there seems to have been a mistake in your understanding of this game. If we could really have worked together, we wouldn’t have had so many deaths last round, so that only three of us remained at the end of it.”

“What happened in the last round?” Shentu Ming pushed on. “Didn’t you say it was to survive until dawn in a zombified schoolground?”

Song Hanzhang was silent for a while and said only one thing. “Shentu, don’t think that this is a normal game, and don’t think too kindly of human nature. It will cost you your life.”

A light laugh came from the flower bed. Gu Fengyi leant against Liu Qingqing and looked at Shentu Ming. “You see the ‘Judas’ Rules’ on that board right? Heh, the resurrected Judas, a dead man with the skin of the living, surely you don’t think that they’re there to help you survive right?”

Shentu Ming frowned. “But even so, even if it tries to separate everybody, if we can all work together towards the same goal, what can it do to us? The terrifying thing about Judas is not what it will do, but rather that we’ll doubt each other just because of its existence!”

Lin Jue’s heart skipped a beat.

It was the truth- doubt everyone, and the team would eventually fall apart. In a team where everyone trusted only themselves, suspicious of everyone else, they would point their hands against each other until they broke.

The horror of Judas was exactly that- even if it did nothing, it had already won half the battle.

Gu Fengyi stood up from the edge of the flower bed. Liu Qingqing also stood, clutching her sleeve and shaking her head at her, obviously not wanting another argument to break out but unable to stop her.

“Oi, can you see the survivor number over there? Two people have already died. According to Judas’ Rules, it could have already appeared, and you’re still here trying to lie to yourself, shouting about being united, being friendly- are you on a holiday or something? To be honest, even if the remaining five people managed to get here, the people here wouldn’t be able to form a proper team. If you want to save everyone- who do you think you are?”

Saying that, Gu Fengyi turned her head to the side. “Another three have come.”

Shentu Ming looked a little shocked at the harangue. “If all of us thought like that, this team would be over. There’s only one Judas, so if…”

Without waiting for him to finish, Gu Fengyi rolled her eyes and left, not wanting to continue. Liu Qingqing stood awkwardly between the two, looking between them helplessly, before finally glancing at Shentu Ming with pleading eyes. He stopped talking.

Song Hanzhang patted Shentu Ming’s shoulder and walked towards the new players. Lin Jue also felt the discomfort heavy in the atmosphere and left with him.

Looking up, Lin Jue saw that Lu Ren had climbed up to the second floor of the clock tower some time ago, and was now sitting on the balcony without a railing, waving at him, a wide grin on his face. Lin Jue pretended that he saw nothing, understanding a little why Gu Fengyi refused to talk to Shentu Ming- they were completely different people.

There were rapid footsteps and gasping up ahead, and the three newcomers ran across the bridge frantically. Among them, the only female fell to the ground, the other two boys not looking much better, leaning against the street lamps. They gasped for breath violently, all of them looking afraid and uncertain.

Lin Jue listened to Song Hanzhang ask about the easter egg advertisement again and be told once again that they had heard of no such thing. He didn’t seem regretful of the fact, just accepting.

He began to briefly introduce what had happened in the plaza, and asked them what had happened to them on their way here. Lin Jue stayed at the side and noticed the girl who fell over still sprawled on the ground, both crying and laughing. He hesitated, wondering whether or not he should help her up, but ultimately did nothing.

Song Hanzhang, however, reached out to the girl courteously.

The girl looked at him, shook her head, stood up, and patted her pants. “Thanks.”

Song Hanzhang looked at her relatively calm appearance and asked, “Are you not afraid?”

She blinked and suddenly laughed. “It’s because I’m so scared that I can’t help but laugh. I don’t know why, it’s the same with watching horror movies- if I’m too scared, I’ll end up laughing even if my legs are still weak. Oh, yeah, I’m Chen Lu.”

“Song Hanzhang. I arrived here somewhat earlier than the rest of you.”

Song Hanzhang turned and started talking to the man who was so overweight that the fact that he was able to run here seemed almost like a miracle. The other man with dyed hair leant against the electric pole and panted, throwing a kick at it and cursing under his breath.

“Oi, what the fuck is going on?” He finally calmed his breathing and called out to Song Hanzhang.

Chen Lu approached Song Hanzhang and whispered, “The one with the dyed hair is Lin Wei, a famous delinquent in my course. He’d just broken someone’s leg the other day, try not to anger him. The fat one is Qin Hanwen, he’s quite nice.”

Lin Wei glared at Chen Lu. “Woman, you talk too much.”

Seeing the large number here, Chen Lu was no longer scared of him and strode off towards the clock tower. Liu Qingqing was already waving at her happily.

Lin Jue looked at the electric board. Remaining Survivors: 11; Remaining Safety Time: 35 mins.

Vera’s Notes:

Didn’t realize it was time to upload until too late… I’m really tired.

1A pun on his own name. The ‘tu’ in his name is also the character for butchering (the verb). By the way, his name is Ming and his last name is Shentu. Vera states that this is weird and foreign to them.

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