Players, Please Board the Train

After a moment of silence, the Curly-haired Female Player said with a fierce tone, ”Let’s cut to the chase. I didn’t expect someone to strike so hard this time—going after others on the very first night. Don’t want to clear the dungeon? Fine! Then nobody clears it! Let’s see who lives and who dies!”

”What do you mean by that?” the female player following the middle-aged man said with displeasure. ”Who are you implying?”

”You know exactly who I’m talking about!” the Curly-haired woman spat. ”I didn’t come here to argue with you. I won’t bother those who don’t bother me. Since someone won’t follow the rules, don’t blame me for playing dirty!”

With that, she turned to leave. The male player who had returned with her swept the group with a dark glare.

”Wait,” Xu Huo called out to them. ”How are you sure they targeted you? Did you see the person?”

”Who are you pointing at?!” the female player who had argued with the Curly-haired woman shouted, seeing him gesture toward herself and the middle-aged man. She pulled a dagger from her waist.

”What are you doing—” Xie Ling started to yell, but before she could finish, that female player’s head flew off on its own!

Blood sprayed out, and the female player’s body swayed before collapsing. The crowd instinctively warily looked at Xu Huo, who had been confronting her.

It wasn’t Xu Huo who had struck. He tilted his chin toward the Curly-haired woman. ”I hadn’t even finished speaking. No need to kill so hastily.”

The Curly-haired woman tucked a thin blade-like item back between her fingers and pointed at her reattached left arm. ”I nearly lost a hand here. Taking her life isn’t too much.”The middle-aged man’s face darkened. Not just Xu Huo—he, too, could see that the Curly-haired woman was targeting him and the female player. Now that she had been killed right in front of him, it was clear this woman had some real skill.

”Yesterday, the five of us had three die in the Corpse Hotel,” he said. ”We were nearly wiped out. There was no way we had the energy to attack anyone else.”

”Who knows if they died in the Corpse Hotel or at my hands?” the Curly-haired woman said, staring coldly at him. ”The Corpse Hotel faces the Beheaded Cemetery. Every floor of the hotel overlooks the cemetery. I saw a player kill someone and then enter the Corpse Hotel. From the silhouette, it was one of your people.”

”So you didn’t even see their face clearly, and yet you’re saying it was us?” the middle-aged man gritted his teeth in anger. ”We’re all strangers here. Who has nothing better to do than target you instead of clearing the dungeon? I could just as easily say you killed the three who died in the Corpse Hotel!”

”Even if I did kill them, so what?” The Curly-haired woman clearly had no patience to argue with him. She sneered, ”Want to fight? You can try!”

The middle-aged man’s face showed caution.

In truth, it wasn’t just him. The remaining players also carefully put distance between themselves and the Curly-haired woman.

”Crazy woman!” Long Aotian stepped forward and said to the Curly-haired woman, ”So I get it now—you got attacked last night, huh? And just because you saw a shadow run into the Corpse Hotel, you decided it was this old guy and his crew?”

”No wonder you’re someone else’s pawn. Didn’t it occur to you that there might be other players here besides us?”

”There are no other players here,” the Curly-haired woman said firmly.

”How do you know?” Long Aotian retorted. ”There are some in the Wax Figure Hall. They arrived before us, but they’re already dead.”

”What did you say?” The middle-aged man spun around in shock.

”There were players in the Wax Figure Hall who arrived before us,” Xu Huo interjected. ”When we went in, they were already dead.”

Compared to the possibility of other players in Museum City, the Curly-haired woman was clearly more interested in the fact that they had found corpses. ”Does finding the corpses help?”

”If it helped, would we still be standing here?” Xu Ruosi said nonchalantly. ”Do you have any leads?”

Silence answered her. The Curly-haired woman swept her gaze over them. ”At least you all came back in one piece.”

Compared to the others’ disheveled states, Xu Huo’s group was relatively fine.

But only Xie Ling and the other two knew what had really happened last night. Without Xu Huo, at least two of them would have been dead or injured, and whether they’d be standing here today was anyone’s guess.

The attention of both the Curly-haired woman and the middle-aged man had been diverted. But now it was three against four, and no one was certain they had a sure win. The Curly-haired woman gave a laugh. ”There are only a few of us left. How about we stick together? Where are you planning to go next?”

Talk about a quick change of heart.

Xie Ling and Xu Ruosi glanced at Xu Huo without making it obvious. He didn’t speak, but Long Aotian chimed in, ”No way. You guys are way too fierce. You start a fight over the slightest disagreement. We’re peace-loving people here. What if you stab us in the back?”

The Curly-haired woman’s smile was cold and fake. ”That’s fine too. We’ll each go our own way.”

The words were blunt, but shaking off these three would be impossible unless they killed them all.

And given last night’s events, having more people was indeed relatively safer.

”Did you come here last night?” Xu Huo turned to ask.

Trying to build rapport, the middle-aged man said, ”We came out in the middle of the night. The other three went missing one after another. We didn’t dare stay in the hotel, so we came out and waited around here. They arrived later.”

He meant the Curly-haired woman and the male player with her.

Xu Huo nodded. So that meant not every venue in Museum City closed at night. The Wax Figure Hall was a special case because it was a large-scale item.

If that was true, it made perfect sense for the Curly-haired woman to suspect the other players. In a non-enclosed space, escaping danger was entirely possible, and finding a moment to slip out and kill someone wasn’t hard either.

But still, for the first day, the death rate was far too high.

”Are the dead people really dead?” Xu Ruosi asked at this point. ”Did you see the bodies?”

The male player beside the Curly-haired woman said coldly, ”We ran into Player-Eaters. Those people were chewed up beyond recognition.”

Player-Eaters were normal enough. If someone could take down two or three players in one go, it proved they were very strong.

Xie Ling and the others immediately turned their gaze toward the middle-aged man.

Xu Huo swept his eyes over the three of them. ”Take a rest. Replenish your energy.”

The players each had their own food and water. After a night of exhaustion, they did need rest. At his suggestion, everyone found a spot with a clear view and sat down.

”Do you trust them?” Xu Ruosi sat down beside Xu Huo. ”I think that woman seems anything but simple.”

Xu Huo was chewing on some dried meat. He glanced at her. ”You didn’t bring food?”

Xu Ruosi looked a little embarrassed. ”I came in a hurry from the last dungeon. Forgot to prepare.”

Xu Huo shared some of his with her, and she seemed to trust him enough to take it without hesitation.

Xie Ling had food in her hands as well. From the look on her face, she seemed to want to share, but after a moment’s hesitation, she decided against it.

After resting enough, they drew lots to decide which venue to go to first.

All the items from the Travel Guide were written down, and in the end, Long Aotian drew the Mannequin Building.

The Mannequin Building was to the right of the entrance, so they had to head back toward the center. On the way back, Xie Ling unconsciously wiped the sweat from her forehead. ”Is it already noon? The sun’s so strong!”