V2C8

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The car finally stopped in the administration building’s underground parking lot.

“Every other floor has windows, so a sealed parking lot is relatively safer. The effect of the rain forest on it will also be lesser.”

Lin Jue nodded in agreement. “Then?”

“Judging by what happened in the last round, we shouldn’t be in too much trouble until midnight. Before then, we can plan our next steps according to the situation outside.” Song Hanzhang took out a school map from his bag.

The map was divided into six big areas, the top left being the gym and oval area, next to it, Time Plaza and the A-G blocks. In the top right corner were the northern dormitories, in the bottom left, the southern dormitories. Next to that were the library and the southern plaza, as well as the other buildings. Finally, there were the two plazas and theater in the bottom right corner.

“The theater in the south-east is most likely the worst place to go. There are large areas of grassland there, and the greenhouse is next to it. The effects of the rainforest will show up there first. We should, however, go there before midnight to check out the situation.” Song Hanzhang circled the area with a pen.

“What about the dormitory areas? There’s not much vegetation over there, so it should be safer, right?” Lin Jue pointed at the two dormitory areas and asked.

“Gu Fengyi and Liu Qingqing came from the southern dormitories. I’ve asked them; there were a large amount of cockroaches there, but they weren’t difficult to deal with. The density of the buildings however is too high, so in the later stages of the rainforest, it might end up as rubble.” Song Hanzhang made two marks on the areas. “The main opponents there will be cockroaches, and there won’t be any other insects, which will serve as an advantage.”

“Why won’t there be other insects?” Lin Jue asked, confused.

“Think of the hint on the easter egg.”

【They each hold an area, and would rather die than meet.】

“Oh, Chen Lu’s easter egg,” Lin Jue recalled.

“It’s a shame, her power really is quite nice; wind blades. I paid some attention when I was guiding her; the cooldown is extraordinarily short. Liu Qingqing’s fire ability as well is a very useful skill,” Song Hanzhang said a little regretfully.

“Then why did you reject working with Gu Fengyi?” Lin Jue asked.

“I didn’t reject her. If there’s any danger, we’ll help each other on the condition that no harm will come to our own groups. That’s what Gu Fengyi and I came to agree on.”

What? When? Question marks were written clearly on Lin Jue’s face.

Song Hanzhang glanced at him. “We don’t trust each other so it would be impossible for us to completely work with each other. If we pass this round, then we might gain some more trust however.”

“Because of Judas?”

“That’s one reason.”

Song Hanzhang didn’t continue and started writing down the hints from the plaza. “We have a strong advantage this round and the hints on the easter eggs covered most of the important areas that we need information on. It gave another hint about Judas, most likely because the person who held the hint on Judas died in the last round. It seems that this game isn’t the type to withhold key information.”

【More and more, bigger and bigger.】

【The queen bee in her palace says brain is as delicious as honey.】

【On a round table with thirteen people, one will always be lying.】

【Do you dislike insecticide and mosquito coils? Trust me, the insects dislike them as well.】

【Spiders spin their webs, waiting for their dinner.】

【The late-arriving ants gnaw on bone, walking everywhere.】

【The insects buzzed: we are living in a rainforest.】

【They each hold an area, and would rather die than meet.】

“This round is interesting. The survivor number in the plaza was eleven, and there were exactly eleven people at the plaza, meaning that there are three possibilities. One; that Judas has yet to appear, and that all the players at the plaza were normal people. Second, that Judas has already appeared and was within us, meaning that there was one other player outside the safe zone, but did not come to the plaza even as we left. That, though illogical, is uneliminable for now. And third, that Judas had already appeared but did not come to the plaza, either to catch us off guard, or to avoid… certain people.”

Song Hanzhang suddenly thought of something. “Lu Ren killed the body in the northern business district, but how did he do it?”

Lin Jue hesitated. “He choked her to death.”

“There was no blood?”

“No.”

Song Hanzhang frowned. “Lu Ren, that man.”

“Is there something wrong?” Lin Jue asked.

“Gu Fengyi mentioned that Lu Ren smells of blood,” Song Hanzhang reminded him.

Lin Jue reached an epiphany. “Then the blood came from… another player? He didn’t just kill one!”

Everything following that then had a suitable explanation.

“There were only two deaths when we reached the plaza, so if Judas wanted to appear, it would have to have used one of them. The destroyed corpse would definitely not be possible, so it could only have used the other casualty. If it arrived at the plaza though, Lu Ren would definitely recognize it. So on the plaza, Lu Ren was just looking at a joke?

“It fits Lu Ren’s personality very well. Perhaps it didn’t come to the plaza at all as if it did, Lu Ren might have very well killed it on the spot; that would be far too dangerous for it and it wouldn’t have wanted to take the risk. But if it didn’t think of a way to mix into the teams early on, everyone would become suspicious of it as a stranger; a disadvantageous scenario. There is another possibility, and that is that Judas has yet to appear and is waiting for the next person to die to use their body to mix into a team. It would be hard to say; we’ll have to ask Lu Ren the next time that we meet him.” Song Hanzhang rubbed his temple.

Things quickly became convoluted and Lin Jue got a headache simply thinking about it. He moved his focus to the hints Song Hanhang had written down, attempting to summarize some useful information from them instead.

Unfortunately, apart from ‘Song Hanzhang writes very prettily’, he was unable to come up with anything. Hence, when Song Hanzhang ended up asking him what he thought, he ended up bluffing.

“‘More and more, bigger and bigger’ says that the situation is going to get worse as time goes on. Bees, ants, and spiders will appear in the game. The rainforestation of the environment, the insecticide, the Judas, and this ‘each hold an area’ means that the insects will each have their own domains. That should be all.”

Song Hanzhang sighed. “You missed the most important piece of information.”

“What information?” Lin Jue asked in embarrassment.

“‘Spiders spin their webs, waiting for their dinner’. From this sentence, we can infer that the spiders will live in groups and will most likely create traps; we’ll need to be cautious otherwise it will be difficult to escape. ‘The queen bee in her palace says brain is as delicious as honey’; this reveals the preferred food of the bees, and the mention of a palace suggests that the bees will have an… unusual place of habitat; most likely not the beehives that we’re used to. They should be the main monster in an area, most likely in the southern plaza or the theater. Those two are fine- they’ll have an obvious domain, so if we’re careful, we’ll be able to avoid them.” Song Hanzhang pointed to another hint. “What worries me the most is this- ‘The late arriving ants gnaw on bone, walking everywhere’.”

Lin Jue understood immediately. “The ants do not belong to an area, but cover the entire school?”

“Not only that. Even though I don’t want to dwell on the details, ‘late-arriving’, ‘bones’ and ‘walking everywhere’…” Song Hanzhang wrote two words on the back of the map.

——Army ants.

Lin Jue’s face immediately paled.

Those creatures were like what piranhas were in water, leaving a trail of bodies wherever they went; the assassins of the rainforest.

“Fortunately, they won’t appear immediately; likely a thing to worry about for late midnight. All we can do now is pray that their numbers won’t be too large, and that their speed won’t be too fast. Normal army ants travel at twenty to thirty metres an hour, so even if that speed increases due to their magnification, it shouldn’t be too much to deal with.” Song Hanzhang put down the pen and leant back into his seat, looking at the dim carpark through the window. “It’s fine, we still have time. The difficulty of this round shouldn’t be much higher than the last; a bite wouldn’t cause immediate death either, especially now that we have healing.”

Song Hanzhang’s brows slightly furrowed as he closed his eyes. Lin Jue watched him and for some reason, he felt a sense of exhaustion coming from him.

Was he too tired?

Lin Jue was suddenly reminded of one of the nights in the real world- of Song Hanzhang’s silhouette as he looked out the window.

That hidden loneliness, the seemingly nonexistent weakness and despair.

Lin Jue wanted to believe that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he knew they were not.

“We’ll survive,” Lin Jue said amidst the silence.

Song Hanzhang opened his eyes and looked at him calmly, the faint light falling into his eyes behind his spectacles, the black like a lake reflecting the moon, calm with an unbelievable gentleness.

Lin Jue immediately started to stutter. “Really, if it was just me then there would be no way I could live through it, but… you’re here, right?”

At that moment, Lin Jue felt as if he saw Song Hanzhang smile, only to see he was still just as expressionless as before.

They were both silent for a while before Lin Jue thought of the insecticide and asked, “What about the insecticide? Did you tell Gu Fengyi not to use it too much because it’ll lose its effect if you use it too much? Or will it make the insects develop resistance like with antibiotics?”

“From how the zombies were evolving in the last round, that will likely be true. If we rely on insecticides, then the ending is a certain death. It might even increase how fast the insects evolve; if it’s unnecessary, it will be better to avoid using it, though it’s fine to use it for self-defense.” Song Hanzhang’s brows furrowed again. “Now I’m concerned that Shentu’s team might overuse it since they lack experience.”

Lin Jue’s impression of Shentu Ming was fairly nice, even though he didn’t completely agree with some of his opinions.

“There are a few nice new players with Shentu,” Lin Jue said.

“So-so. Qin Hanwen most likely gained some manner of vision strengthening skill; Lin Wei received a machete, perhaps with an additional substat like yours; Shentu got healing like me; and Dan Liang… most likely received the least simple gift of them all.”

Dan Liang? That baby-faced, minor-looking pretty boy? Lin Jue’s first impression of him was pretty good, since he took Xia Huan with him as he ran and saved her life.

“Is there a problem with him?”

“His reward is definitely not just a simple insecticide,” Song Hanzhang said confidently. “He received the reward then stuffed it into his bag before leading Shentu away to ask him about it- he changed it.”

“What if he stuffed it into his bag subconsciously?” Lin Jue didn’t want to believe that such an innocent looking boy would plan so far ahead.

“Another thing- Xia Huan said that she was trapped in a supermarket and that Dan Liang rescued her. The location was a supermarket, take heed, a supermarket,” Song Hanzhang repeated meaningfully before adding on. “Even though there might be many normal looking items in the rewards, such as the dagger that I received in the last round, I have yet to see anything that is a replica of something in real life.”

Lin Jue nodded, moving the baby-faced boy into the column of dangerous people.

A thought suddenly came to him. “How do you know their rewards?”

Song Hanzhang took a long and meaningful look at him. “What did you think I was doing at the plaza? Socializing?”

“…” Lin Jue had indeed been socializing.

“I’ve more or less tested out everyone’s reward, except for Lu Ren’s… which doesn’t matter.”

Song Hanzhang looked at the time, 21:15.

“Let’s organize this carpark first. We’ll see how bad the situation at the theater has become afterwards.”

Vera’s Notes:

‘Song Hanzhang writes very prettily’

S I M P.

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