Apocalypse Descends: I Win Effortlessly by Turning Trash into Treasure

Meanwhile, after a good night’s sleep, Perry Yates woke up on the third day of the game and stepped out of her tent.

The bonfire had already melted a good deal of the surrounding ice and snow, but when she had hunted and sealed the great hand, the blood that splattered from its body had once again caused the ambient temperature to plummet.

But now, ever since she had sealed the great hand, it was as if the ice outside had lost a Seal of its own and had begun to melt. Paradoxically, the temperature was dropping even further.

This was a normal phenomenon, however, since melting snow absorbs heat from the air.

’By the looks of it, I should be able to stay here for a while longer.’

Perry Yates used an item to analyze the rate at which the ice was melting. She concluded that if it continued at this pace, she would have no problem holing up here until the late stages of the game.

This was, of course, assuming there were no unforeseen incidents and no other players found the cave and disturbed her.

She wasn’t afraid of the cold. As long as the ice here didn’t melt away completely, she could stay indefinitely.

With this in mind, Perry Yates decided to make some modifications to the cave. After all, she was planning to stay for a long time.

There wasn’t much she could change, really. The entire place was made of ice, and chipping away at it might just make it melt faster. Instead, Perry Yates simply set up some traps on all six surfaces of the cave—the floor, the ceiling, and the four walls. That way, she would be immediately alerted if anyone tried to approach.

However, no sooner had Perry Yates finished setting her traps than someone triggered one the very next day.

「The fourth day of the game.」

With the immediate pressure of survival lifted, Perry Yates had spent the past two days in comfort. Besides being unable to tell day from night, her routine was simple: wake up whenever she pleased, tidy up, get some exercise, and then eat.

Since she couldn’t distinguish day from night, Perry Yates simply designated the moment she woke up as ”morning.”

This ”morning,” Perry Yates had just stepped out of her tent and was enjoying a long stretch, her joints popping and cracking with a satisfying RATTLE.

Just then, she heard the sound of digging.

’Someone’s coming!’

Perry Yates’s first instinct was to pack up her tent. Then, she strained her ears, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sound.

After a moment of careful listening, Perry Yates determined the sound was coming from beneath her feet.

Perry Yates located the exact spot the noise was coming from, drew her weapon, and braced herself, her expression grim.

About ten minutes passed, and the sound continued. ’This long and they still haven’t dug through? How pathetic.’

’Then again, maybe they don’t have the right tools for digging,’ Perry Yates mused, pulling some food from her Space Backpack and starting to eat.

The early morning noise and the ten minutes of suspense had her on edge, and she hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet. This was the perfect time to grab a bite and fill her stomach.

’As for helping them dig? Not a chance.’

The digging was probably quite difficult. The sound would continue, but it paused for a short while every half hour or so.

A few hours passed like this. The sound of digging grew louder and more distinct until, suddenly, a crack appeared in the spot below her. A moment later, a hand thrust through the opening.

Seeing this, Perry Yates thought, ’Finally.’

Then, as if struck by a thought, her eyes flew open. The next second, a white Claudia Vance appeared in her hands.

Perry Yates reached out and embraced the floating cloud, and in the next second, the ground beneath her feet vanished. Immediately after, a slender, elegant man with a noble air strode gracefully from the other side of the cave.

The instant the man stepped past the cave’s threshold, the ground returned to normal.

Watching the approaching man, Perry Yates did not immediately come down from Claudia Vance.

’If I saw that correctly,’ she thought, ’back in the cavern he just came from, there were two gruesomely killed beasts. That area was also much larger than any I’ve seen before; it held those two beasts with room to spare, and the walls were covered in signs of a battle.’

’It would have to be, I suppose. How else could it have held two beasts?’

Considering the wretched state of the dead beasts and then looking at this man—his clothes spotless, his aura refined, without the slightest hint of disarray, not even a speck of dirt on his cuffs—it was clear he was a formidable individual.

Meanwhile, Alan Usher, having just emerged from the other cavern, was also looking up at Perry Yates hovering in the air.

This was the first time he had encountered another player in this game.

”Hello, my name is Alan Usher.”

A friendly, gentle smile spread across Alan Usher’s face.

Perry Yates watched the man smiling so gently at her, her eyes narrowing slightly.

To be fair, Alan Usher was conventionally handsome. His features were soft and disarming, and he had a pair of those charming, almond-shaped eyes that seemed to gaze affectionately at whomever they fell upon—the kind of eyes that could captivate any female from eight to eighty.

Perry Yates, however, was unmoved. The class president back in her school days also had a pair of those eyes that could look at a dog with deep affection, but he was the ”central air-conditioning” type—warm and attentive to every girl, constantly moving between several of them and watching as they fought over him.

Seeing Perry Yates’s guarded expression, Alan Usher couldn’t help but wonder if his charm was fading.

But then he remembered this wasn’t the real world; it was a survival game fraught with danger.

The player survival rate in these games was already low, and to make matters worse, the system had introduced a Dealer Player this time, raising the danger by another level.

’Under these circumstances, it’s only natural to be wary of strangers.’

With that in mind, Alan Usher decided to make a gesture of goodwill.

After all, he had just expended a great deal of energy digging through the wall. He wouldn’t be able to move on to the next cave any time soon and could only rest here for now.

He had no idea how strong the person before him was, but even if she were weak, he would struggle to deal with her in his current, exhausted state—especially since she clearly possessed the ability to fly.

As for Perry Yates, upon hearing Alan Usher’s name, she felt a flicker of familiarity in addition to her wariness.

It didn’t take her long to remember why.

’No wonder that name sounded so familiar.’

Alan Usher. He was one of the very first players in the survival games, the founder of the survival game website. Before Phantom Street and The Card Tavern existed, he was the one who organized the offline trade meets.

This Alan Usher was a person of considerable influence among the players.