Players, Please Board the Train

It was an ordinary magazine. After flipping through it, Xu Huo had nothing to do. He had also tried to open the door, but the lock wouldn’t budge. He didn’t attempt to break out of the safe house, just paced around twice before returning inside.

Half an hour later, the safe house door opened on its own.

Sounds came from outside, but the overall environment was completely different from District 011. His expression shifted slightly, and he immediately pushed the door open, only to find himself standing in a barren, abandoned city. Slippery moss covered the ground beneath his feet, and as far as the eye could see, there were scratch marks left behind by massive beasts.

”Roar!” The sound of a beast’s cry came from not far away. Xu Huo turned around and happened to see a player standing on top of a toppled giant mutated beast, blowing open its throat with a single gunshot!

Blood and flesh splattered, but the player simply bent down, reached into the Mutant’s chest cavity, and pulled out a glowing stone. At the same time, several players controlling flight devices rapidly approached from behind, chased by a swarm of Mutants. They picked up the player and instantly swept past right over Xu Huo’s head!

The safe house behind Xu Huo had already disappeared, but thick dust rolled from the right side. Those Mutated Animals had completely lost any trace of what species they had once evolved from. Their bodies were enormous yet eerily agile, able to sprint at high speed and scale objects with ease. Some were especially massive, covered in thick armor, charging through like nothing could stop them!

There was no need to think twice when facing a Mutant swarm. Xu Huo turned and ran.

His speed doubled within a hundred meters, but even that was getting strained here. He had no choice but to maintain distance while taking down Mutants from afar.

However, these grotesque Mutants would lie in ambush throughout the abandoned buildings, pouncing out unexpectedly from the sides. Even though Xu Huo could sense them through space, they still slowed him down.

He detoured around a hollow street. No sooner had he passed through than several tentacle-like things burst up through the pavement, lashing in every direction. Whatever they touched, they wrapped around and dragged back. A player piloting a flight device and several Mutants were pulled under!That player must have escaped using a train ticket. The moment they went underground, they vanished, while those Mutants became food. Along with the sounds of massive chewing, only some blood splattered to the surface.

With a whistling sound, a thin chain flew down from above, wrapping around Xu Huo’s waist and yanking him into the air. Just then, Mutants lunged from both sides. Xu Huo didn’t resist, instead using the momentum to soar upward, grabbing the piano wire and rising straight into the sky.

The one who had pulled him up was the same player who had killed the Mutant earlier. She tossed out a flight device, jumped onto it from behind her companion, and lagged a few steps behind. She gestured for Xu Huo to get on, then asked, ”What’s your name? You sensed the underground Man-eating Flower earlier?”

Xu Huo didn’t answer her question. Instead, he asked, ”What place is this?”

The female player looked surprised. ”Don’t you check the address before using your train ticket? This is District 004... But how did you end up here? Mutant-active zones don’t have dungeons...”

Well, there it was. No train ticket. Half an hour had transported him to District 004.

”Qingcai, don’t talk so much.” Someone beside her spoke up to remind the female player, but she waved it off carelessly. ”Guests from afar deserve proper hospitality... Qingcai is my name. What’s yours?”

The last sentence was directed at Xu Huo. He was just about to speak when suddenly a wave of darkness surged from ahead. Before he could even collect himself, he and Qingcai crashed into a safe house together. Neither had time to defend as they slammed against the wall panels. Xu Huo was fine, but Qingcai’s flight device jammed into her sternum, and two crisp snapping sounds of broken bones immediately followed.

”Are you alright?” Xu Huo didn’t rush to help her up. He asked first.

Qingcai’s eyes were wary. ”What happened?”

”No idea,” Xu Huo said. ”I was inexplicably sent here, and now I’ve been inexplicably packed right back in.”

Qingcai studied him for two seconds, then relaxed. ”Fine, I’ll trust you. I’m already hurt anyway. Can this room get us out?”

Xu Huo tried the door. Still no luck.

”Then this is probably some kind of spatial teleportation item,” Qingcai said. ”But spatial items that can teleport to a fixed location are usually expensive or single-use consumables. This one might be random teleportation.”

”But sending someone out and then packing them right back in is something I’ve never heard of before. How bizarre!”

Qingcai pressed her chest and walked over to the table, flipping through the magazine on it. ”This is a magazine published in District 004. The exit for this room should correspond to District 004, right? District 004 is famous for producing gems... This is last year’s issue.”

Xu Huo pinched the bridge of his nose. What he cared about now was whether he could get back to District 011.

More than half an hour had already passed. Jin Feixue and the base were probably wrapping things up by now.

The injured Qingcai, on the other hand, was surprisingly carefree. ”When you’re in a place, make the best of it. As long as the item’s owner doesn’t want to kill us, we can survive no matter which District we get thrown into. By the way, which District did you come from?”

”District 011,” Xu Huo answered. He saw her expression shift dramatically, so he added, ”What’s wrong with District 011?”

”You’re a local from District 011?” Qingcai asked with a darkened face.

Xu Huo paused. ”Your attitude is obvious enough that even if I were, I’d say I’m not.”

”Then you’re not.” Qingcai sat down before continuing. ”Haven’t you heard about the reputation of District 011 players out there? Anyway, in District 004, we call them locusts.”

”No matter which District they go to, they always swarm in groups. If they can beat you, they rob you outright, not even leaving you a pair of underwear. If they can’t beat you, they’ll buy you out, even buying up half a District’s worth of supplies.”

”A few days ago, I heard they nearly destroyed a small District. Apparently, they dug out the outer wall someone had built for a safe area over some kind of ore, which led to several cities being slaughtered by Mutants in less than a single night.”

”District 011 has been celebrating the Harvest Festival recently.” Xu Huo noted. ”What kind of ore is so precious that they’d strip away even the stones used to build walls?”

”It’s not some particularly precious ore. Its only selling point is that it’s fairly hard.” Qingcai said. ”But District 011 players are just that vicious and greedy, which is exactly why they’re called locusts.”

She was missing the point. If it were just an ordinary ore, District 011 wouldn’t be celebrating so grandly. Scraping up a bit of resources didn’t qualify as a bountiful harvest.

There were many precious ores in the game, some of which were raw materials for making items and weapons. Could this commotion in District 011 be about ores?

But then why was the base involved?

Or were the two things purely coincidental?

Seeing that they wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon, Qingcai drank a healing potion and then took out the green gem she’d just obtained to admire it. ”This kind of gem is the best quality among sub-gems. With this, the trip wasn’t a waste!”

Xu Huo also glanced at the green, translucent gem that was nearly the size of a human head. ”What’s a sub-gem?”

”Evolution stone,” Qingcai said. ”Simply put, it’s a stone that has been permeated by some substance and changed its properties in a short period of time. If you’re lucky, you might even find one or two sub-stones that can be used to craft items.”