Players, Please Board the Train

”Ever since I woke up, I haven’t seen her,” Xu Huo said. ”This foggy forest has problems.”

”No wonder I fell asleep so quickly,” Zhuo Wangsun couldn’t help but think the worst. ”Could it be that Xin Hui deliberately led us here?”

As he spoke, he took out his own navigator. ”Could she have tampered with it?”

Xu Huo took a new navigator out from his luggage compartment. ”Mine is fine.”

Zhuo Wangsun was slightly surprised, then said, ”You did it on purpose. You started suspecting her a while ago?”

”She said she’s not a player from Clown City, but she knows quite a lot about the cleanup area. It’s too far-fetched that merely seeing other warriors eat dried mushrooms could allow her to match them with the fungi in the river. Even if her observational skills are exceptional, a cautious person wouldn’t directly drink the river water unless she already knew the water was safe,” Xu Huo explained.

Zhuo Wangsun pondered and said, ”No wonder she wasn’t the least bit anxious when we told her the truth about the cleanup area, and even planned to continue the cleanup mission. It seems she already knew the inside story... Could she be a spy sent in by Clown City, with the goal of eliminating us who discovered the truth?”

Xu Huo couldn’t be sure about that, but he had already used the ”Friendly Handkerchief” to locate her earlier. Even if she ran first, he could still catch up.

Following Xin Hui’s direction, the two went deeper into the foggy forest. Humanoid figures still appeared around them from time to time, but each time they got close, the figures would vanish again. They didn’t obstruct or attack, and even their stalking was done half-heartedly.

”These people constantly following us isn’t a solution,” Zhuo Wangsun lowered his voice. ”Haven’t you noticed there are more and more of them?””They don’t seem like living people,” Xu Huo said gravely. ”They might be items or mutated plants in the foggy forest. As long as they don’t interfere with us, it’s fine.”

They had already scouted the path earlier. Even if they threw a branch over, those humanoid figures would quickly move away, completely lacking offensive power. Thus, the two of them became increasingly bold in their movements.

Just as they were about to catch up to Xin Hui, a row of humanoid figures suddenly appeared ahead. Unflinching and unyielding, they waited ahead like ghosts. Xu Huo sensed these were different from the figures earlier, so he grabbed the piano wire a step ahead, ascending into the air to avoid them. Zhuo Wangsun, however, couldn’t stop his momentum in time and crashed right into them!

Unlike the previous shadows that would disappear, these ”people” stood rigidly upright. Zhuo Wangsun crashed into them with a hollow ”clang,” then tumbled into a vast expanse of white mycelium without making a single sound.

The kite string flew out the instant he rolled down, likely having pierced through someone. However, after falling a certain distance, Zhuo Wangsun suddenly stopped in place, and Xu Huo couldn’t pull him back up.

The fog was simply too thick to see anything clearly. He could only release a micro-monitor into it. Under its faint light, he saw large swathes of hollow sacs beneath the mycelium, all layered and composed of mycelial threads. The edges of the hole Zhuo Wangsun had smashed through didn’t break either, but instead stretched like a distended film bag, hanging directly down into the depths below.

The space below was clearly more than ten or twenty meters deep. Zhuo Wangsun, his entire body wrapped and stuck in the ”mycelial bag,” was being constricted tighter the more he struggled.

Through the gaps in the mycelial film, one could also see the underground filled with structures resembling root systems and veins, covering the back of the film like blood vessels. There were many connection points in the middle, from which rootlets grew. These rootlets connected to other films, creating layers upon layers of interwoven, suspended films all linked together, looking like a massive mycelial cavern.

Just seeing that Zhuo Wangsun couldn’t even speak indicated the mycelium’s strong adhesive properties. Xu Huo lowered his altitude, took out the lighter, and held it to the humanoid-shaped mycelium standing on the ground. Although the reaction was slow, it wasn’t completely unresponsive. So he took a few pieces of cloth, lit them, and threw them down.

As soon as the fire started, the suspended mycelium immediately retracted in all directions, allowing Zhuo Wangsun to struggle free from the silken cocoon. He grabbed the kite string and actively climbed upward.

The cloth below hadn’t finished burning yet. It fell layer by layer along the mycelial film, actually descending dozens of meters, still not reaching the bottom even after the fire went out.

”There’s actually a mycelial cave down there!” Zhuo Wangsun said with lingering fear. ”Are you sure Xin Hui came this way?”

The direction was definitely correct, but where Xin Hui went from here was unknown.

”There might be tunnels nearby.” They had seen people living in underground fissures before.

”We definitely can’t go down from here. Let’s search for a good spot nearby,” Zhuo Wangsun said.

Xu Huo was certain Xin Hui had gone underground. However, he hadn’t noticed any special markers along the way and wasn’t immediately clear which path she had taken. They could only search slowly nearby.

During this time, ”humanoid figures” were still following them.

Now knowing these were just a type of mycelium, Zhuo Wangsun said, ”These figures don’t seem to appear randomly but have been following us all along. For mutated fungi to react to living people is truly unheard of.”

”They are herding us in one direction,” Xu Huo said. ”Plants also have hunting instincts. Many fungi use decaying animal corpses as nutrients.”

Taking another look at the ”figures” jumping around nearby, he decided to head towards the edge of the foggy forest.

No matter what, going deeper inside would definitely be more dangerous.

”Aren’t we looking for Xin Hui anymore?” Zhuo Wangsun asked.

”Finding her is secondary,” Xu Huo replied. He was just curious about the secrets on her person. ”If she intends to continue clearing Mutants, she’ll definitely leave the foggy forest. Waiting for her outside is the same.”

Zhuo Wangsun nodded.

The two then proceeded towards the outskirts of the foggy forest. Perhaps due to the failed ”trap,” the number of mycelium figures gradually decreased. By the time they reached the edge of the foggy forest, the figures had disappeared.

With the navigator in hand, they originally planned to continue along the edge of the foggy forest towards Clown City. However, shortly after the mycelium figures disappeared, the mycelium on the ground began to writhe. Snow-white fine filaments wriggled like worms, ejecting fine threads over a large area, quickly covering the green grass on the ground and turning large swathes of the jungle white.

Simultaneously, rustling sounds rose from within the foggy forest, resembling chewing or corrosion. Soon, a green mist seeped out from the ground.

Xu Huo quickly left the ground, bringing Zhuo Wangsun along.

After completely leaving this stretch of forest, the heavy fog inside had been replaced by green mist, appearing quite eerie under the night sky.

”No wonder even the Mutants refuse to enter,” Zhuo Wangsun remarked with emotion.

Xin Hui had already moved out of the item’s tracking range. Xu Huo’s expression darkened, and he turned to leave. ”Let’s go block her path ahead.”

The two hurried without rest, traversing the foggy forest area. They encountered Mutants twice along the way, but he dealt with them the moment they met, not even stopping to waste time. It looked no different from slicing melons and chopping vegetables, causing Zhuo Wangsun, who was following behind, to frequently glance at him. Finally, he couldn’t help but ask, ”Are you really a D-level player?”