She put out two more chairs.
“If you want to trade, come in one by one.”
“Don't fight over it.”
The somewhat restless crowd gradually quieted down again.
The first to enter was a scrawny, shriveled man.
He seemed up there in years, with sunken cheeks, but his eyes gleamed with shrewdness.
Before entering the barrier, he cast a deliberate look back at the other players.
Cen Yao sat at the table, with Pei Tinglan beside her. Zhu Lingxi sat slightly behind them, while Xie Zhouxing leaned against the other side—though blind, he was listening intently.
After sitting down, the shriveled man first glanced at the instant noodles and bread on the table.
Only then did he speak. “This dungeon is a faction-based versus dungeon.”
“We belong to the test subject faction, while the other half of the players are in the human faction. The human faction's quest is to eliminate all monsters. Our quest is to survive until the end.”
He finished and added, “I ran into a dying player outside earlier, and he told me right before he kicked the bucket. He was from the human faction and had the quest prompt on him.”
They already knew some of this, but the specific differences between the faction quests were indeed new information.
Pei Tinglan picked up two packs of bread and a bag of instant noodles from the table, handing them over.
“Fair enough.”
The shriveled man immediately stuffed the items into his backpack.
His movements were so fast it seemed he feared someone would rob him. The moment he left the soundproof barrier, he headed straight for the furthest corner, hugging his backpack tightly to his chest as he glared warily at everyone.
With the ice broken, the others began to step forward one after another.
The second player traded for a bottle of water and a pack of biscuits.
He mentioned a polluted area to the northeast of the factory building. Upon entering, the interface panel would experience minor glitches, and staying too long would trigger hallucinations.
The third player traded for two ham sausages.
He revealed that the human faction didn't consist entirely of ordinary players; some seemed to have secured help from native factions in the dungeon, possessing devices capable of temporarily freezing monsters in place.
The fourth player's information wasn't of much value, only mentioning a hospital building in the south of the city that contained medicine, though it was filled with intense malevolent energy and baby crying sounds could be heard at night.
The trading continued for a while.
More and more people came in, and the food on the table dwindled.
Until a man wearing glasses walked into the soundproof barrier.
He looked to be in his early thirties, with a lean build and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Though just as disheveled as the rest, his demeanor was far more composed than most players.
One of his lenses had a crack, but he had wiped it clean.
After sitting down, he didn't look at the food right away, but focused on Cen Yao first.
“I'm Lu Yao.”
Cen Yao nodded. “Let's hear your information.”
Lu Yao didn't waste any words either.
“This dungeon should also involve a nuclear pollution element.”
The moment he spoke, a palpable silence fell over the space inside the soundproof barrier.
Zhu Lingxi looked up, and Xie Zhouxing also tilted his head.
Cen Yao and Pei Tinglan looked at him simultaneously.
“How do you know?”
Under the weight of three intense gazes, Lu Yao remained perfectly calm.
He raised a hand and pushed up his glasses with his index finger.
“Players who can enter an A-rank dungeon are definitely no fools. We all have experience, and the monsters in this dungeon are clearly, for the most part, artificially mutated through human experimentation.”
Lu Yao continued, “But human experimentation has a fundamental constraint: limited test subjects and limited experimental cycles. No matter how insane a research institute is, it's impossible to turn an entire nation's population into test subjects.”
“Unless this transformation wasn't a localized experiment, but a large-scale spread.”
Pei Tinglan tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest.
“Contagion?”
“Yes.”
Lu Yao nodded.
“In the real world, I have a PhD in biology.”
“A species mutation of this magnitude is simply impossible to achieve through the transmission of a normal virus alone. It doesn't just cause human aberrations; it also causes anomalies in plants, animals, aquatic life, and even parts of the non-living environment.”
“This looks more like a chain mutation triggered by a specific type of pollution layered on top of human experiments.”
Xie Zhouxing frowned. “Special pollution?”
“Nuclear pollution,” Lu Yao said in a steady tone.
“And when you factor in the track record of this small island nation, along with recent news from the real world, it's very easy to deduce this outcome.”
Cen Yao caught the key point. “Recent news?”
What recent news? Could it be news about Japan?
After all, ever since the Horror Game descended, connections between countries had been severed. It was incredibly difficult to find news about other nations on the internet, and at most, one could only glean bits of it from the player space.
So, how did Lu Yao know about Japan's recent news?
Lu Yao glanced at her but didn't speak immediately.
He hesitated with a look of difficulty, a very subtle pause.
Cen Yao's expression remained unchanged. “I'll count it as two pieces of information.”
Lu Yao shook his head, however, causing Cen Yao's brows to twitch slightly.
Through his cracked lenses, Lu Yao's eyes burned with intensity as he looked at her.
“I want to use this information to trade for your protection to help me leave this dungeon.”
Before Cen Yao could even answer, Pei Tinglan let out a cold sneer.
“You expect us to protect you over a piece of trivial information?”
He swept his gaze up and down Lu Yao. “You've got quite a massive face.”
“So massive I can't even see the whole thing from where I'm sitting.”
Lu Yao acted as if he hadn't heard the mockery.
His gaze remained fixed on Cen Yao.
“I have more than just this information.”
“I guarantee you will be interested in the rest.”
Being ignored, Pei Tinglan's face turned visibly colder.
His thin lips pressed into a tight line, and his finger, resting on the armrest of his wheelchair, tapped lightly.
Zhu Lingxi looked at Lu Yao, then at Pei Tinglan, and finally at Cen Yao.
She vaguely felt that the atmosphere was somewhat off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Thus, she could only blink her eyes and sit there quietly.
Sensing Pei Tinglan's frustration, Xie Zhouxing was secretly gloating.
Cen Yao felt a chill run down her spine under Pei Tinglan's glare, which felt sharp enough to pierce right through her.
Wait, what?
Why is Pei Tinglan glaring at me?
Cen Yao cleared her throat.
“I can't agree to this.”
She tried her best to keep her tone businesslike.
“I'm not the only one in our team. If you want protection, you'll have to see if they are willing as well.”
Only then did the chill radiating from Pei Tinglan dissipate slightly.
Cen Yao secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
But before she could fully relax, Lu Yao spoke again.
“Then I only need your protection. Would that be alright?”
Cen Yao: “...”
Her breath caught in her throat again.
Cen Yao's scalp tingled. “Uh, that probably won't work.”
She gave a dry laugh, trying to make her words sound casual.
“Look at my teammates. One has no sense of direction, one is a cripple, and the other is blind.”
“I have to protect them first.”
The air fell dead silent.
Zhu Lingxi raised her head a beat late.
She blinked, seemingly processing Cen Yao's words.
Wait, what?
No sense of direction... is she talking about me?
Zhu Lingxi gave it some serious thought, and it seemed she wasn't wrong.
And so, she quietly sat back down.
Aside from Cen Yao and Zhu Lingxi, the faces of the remaining three men darkened completely.
Pei Tinglan's eyes were gloomy and dark.
Xie Zhouxing had a look of utter disbelief.
Even the corner of Lu Yao's mouth twitched imperceptibly.
Rate on N.U.
