Players, Please Board the Train

”You haven’t understood the gameplay of this dungeon. The real danger isn’t actually on each floor, but inside the elevator.”

”This dungeon is an elevator game. We started with one hundred ninety-five people, with each elevator having a capacity of thirteen people. Everyone could be evenly distributed among the elevators, but when going from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth floor, fifteen people disappeared.”

Jiang Yihua and Da Zhi’s expressions synchronized in the darkness as they spoke in unison: ”Weren’t they killed by the spiders?”

Because there were so many people when they entered, they hadn’t paid attention to the exact number at first. They only counted the deaths after encountering the spider attacks on the fourteenth floor, and the survivors didn’t pay much attention either.

”Besides those killed by the spiders, fifteen people should have disappeared before getting off the elevator.” Xu Huo mentioned the Sharp-Featured Man.

”I remember him. He tried to grab food at first, then later wanted to seize the elevator,” Jiang Yihua said.

”He wasn’t among the dead,” Xu Huo stated. ”There are two possible reasons for this situation. First, the elevator was overloaded. Some seemingly insignificant rules in the dungeon are actually very important. Second, from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth floor, only enough people for fourteen elevators were supposed to remain, and it just happened that the selected elevator was overloaded.”

Da Zhi felt a bit confused by his explanation. ”Wait, wait, why would going down to the fourteenth floor require one less elevator?”

”This building has fifteen floors total with fifteen elevators. Under normal circumstances, there shouldn’t be this many elevators, but this is a dungeon game. Our activity range is limited to the floors and the elevators, and the elevators are the only passage between levels. It’s normal for there to be traps here.”

”However, I can’t be certain if my speculation is completely correct. We’ll need to wait until we reach the tenth floor to know for sure.”Currently, only one hundred thirty-one people remained. If one elevator’s worth of people disappeared when they reached the tenth floor, it would prove his speculation was correct.

”No wonder Dai Wenqian said he wanted to cooperate with you on the tenth floor. Did he also guess this possibility?” Jiang Yihua suddenly understood, then added, ”But what if you’re both wrong?”

Xu Huo glanced at her in the darkness. ”It doesn’t matter if we’re wrong. Rather than taking risks to test the game rules, it’s better to solve potential risks in advance.”

Jiang Yihua and Da Zhi understood what he meant—Dai Wenqian didn’t need to confirm whether his guess was correct at all. If he wanted to avoid this risk, he just needed to reduce the number of people in one elevator each time they went down a floor.

”Then how many people would be left by the time we reach the first floor?” Jiang Yihua shuddered.

This was the real reason why Dai Wenqian proposed cooperating with Xu Huo.

”This is ridiculous!” Da Zhi said angrily. ”If the dungeon game isn’t played this way, wouldn’t the people killed be completely wronged?”

This time Xu Huo didn’t speak, because from descending from the fifteenth floor to their return to the twelfth floor, the greatest risk for players was actually returning to the twelfth floor. Ordinary people working together could also kill those spiders. The reason they lost a few players was simply because they were caught off guard. If there hadn’t been so many people at that time, under normal circumstances, other players could have rescued them.

So the current situation was quite clear now.

Jiang Yihua remained silent for a while before asking, ”Why is the thirteenth floor the safest? The windows there are completely sealed, and ventilation has to rely on air ducts.”

”There are no traces of mutated animal activity on the thirteenth floor,” Xu Huo said. ”Whether it’s coincidence or has a fixed reason, we’ll need to test it to know.”

Only then did Jiang Yihua understand what he intended to do with the mantis corpse.

”Alright then, lift me up,” she said.

Xu Huo handed her both the bag and the phone. ”Just throw it in.”

He had Da Zhi below grab the piano wire and sent both of them upward.

Jiang Yihua and Da Zhi worked together to pull open the elevator door. The floor’s air exchange system was still operating, seemingly unchanged from before they went down.

But Jiang Yihua didn’t dare to breathe. She threw the bag forcefully, placed the phone nearby, then quickly withdrew her hand.

Then Xu Huo controlled the piano wire to pull both of them away, grabbed the edge of the elevator himself and jumped up, stepping on the elevator door while swinging the crimson sword, repeatedly slashing forward through the palm-width door gap.

The glass room directly opposite the elevator door could be considered a single unit. Xu Huo only needed one sword strike to cut open the glass room.

The crimson sword’s sword energy cutting range was limited to fifty meters, only enough to slice open the glass room but insufficient to cut across the entire floor and break the windows.

Da Zhi patted the elevator shaft wall, gestured toward Xu Huo with his chin pointing into the floor, then glanced at the mantis leg at his waist, meaning he should go inside and test it.

Xu Huo shook his head, put away the crimson sword, then took out a bow and arrow, shooting toward the floor’s ceiling.

Jiang Yihua and the other man widened their eyes. Although they couldn’t see the situation inside the floor, judging by his arrow angle, how could he possibly hit the windows!

”Bang!” In fact, it did hit—the sound of glass breaking came from inside.

Before the surprise on their faces could fade, Xu Huo controlled the short arrow that had landed inside the floor to shoot the mantis corpse on the ground from different directions, simultaneously creating cracks and small breakages on the windows.

Within just two minutes, he retrieved the item, then used the long sword to climb to the side, signaling Jiang Yihua and the other to come close the door.

After the elevator door closed again, Xu Huo pointed downward, indicating they should return to the eleventh floor.

None of the three spoke, holding their breath as they descended. Jiang Yihua and the other pulled open the elevator door and entered first, then Xu Huo jumped in and closed the elevator door.

”Finally back!” Gu Yu hurried forward. ”How was it? Is upstairs safe?”

Xu Huo looked toward the corpse lying in the corner.

Gu Yu’s face showed concealed anger as she said in a low voice, ”This person tried to steal food just now and was accidentally killed by Sun Mao.”

Sun Mao was the player following Dai Wenqian.

Now Dai Wenqian and his companion clearly maintained some distance from the other players who were also their companions.

Their eyes met, and the other nodded toward him with a smile.

Xu Huo turned to face the anxious-looking crowd and said, ”Didn’t you hear the commotion upstairs just now?”

”We heard it,” Gu Yu pointed at the windows. ”But no one dared to go look.”

Xu Huo nodded. ”Killed one mutated mantis, but then other mutated animals came out from the elevator shaft. Upstairs isn’t safe, so we had to come back down.”

He didn’t mention the thirteenth floor, and Jiang Yihua and the other wouldn’t mention it either.

”You’re injured!” the Tall Woman exclaimed.

From the fighting and collisions, all three of them had sustained injuries.

”I have potions,” Gu Yu quickly took out a healing potion, but by then Jiang Yihua had already handed Xu Huo a bottle of potion first. ”Use mine. It’s specially made.”

When Xu Huo got it in his hand, he found it was an antidote.

Jiang Yihua nodded to him. Although there had been no signs of poisoning so far, having an extra layer of protection couldn’t hurt.

Xu Huo waved his hand toward Gu Yu. ”Thanks, but no need.”