Players, Please Board the Train

Twenty-five pounds was enough to change the Teenager’s attitude. That showed just how dire the situation was for people abandoned in the base city.

“So pitiful.” Shangguan Xi roughly ruffled the Teenager’s hair, then grabbed the food on the table and handed it to him. “It’s all yours.”

The Teenager angrily turned his head away. Food clutched in his hands, he nevertheless stared at Xu Huo. “You can really give me twenty-five pounds of food?”

Xu Huo nodded. “Is there a suitable guide in W18?”

“There is.” The Teenager hesitated before saying, “But I can’t make the decision for him. You’ll have to talk to him yourself… But I still want my ten pounds of food!”

“You’ll get it.” Xu Huo smiled faintly and gestured for him to fill his stomach.

The Teenager tore open the food and stuffed it into his mouth. He probably figured that if he didn’t eat it, he wouldn’t be able to take it with him, so he ate quickly and didn’t stuff any into his pockets.

“Have you eaten in the last few days?” Shangguan Xi said. “Don’t stuff yourself and end up bursting.”

The Teenager couldn’t even be bothered to answer him. He turned his back and kept eating.

Shangguan Xi pricked up his ears and listened to the sounds outside again. “The insect swarm seems to have moved farther away.”

Xu Huo opened the door and went outside. The swarm on the rooftop had already retreated into the distance, though some poisoned insects remained on the ground. He took out a box, put two insect corpses inside and stored them in his luggage compartment. Then he put 101 away and turned to the other two. “Let’s hurry. We’d better set out before daybreak.”

They were in the eastern part of W18. The swarm was moving east from the south, not toward the city center. So although it hadn’t completely gone underground yet, they could still leave safely, as long as they didn’t provoke it into hunting them.

The Teenager was extremely cautious. He had no intention of taking them along the “secret passage” he used to go out hunting. Instead, he insisted that Xu Huo take them across the city through the air.

“As long as you don’t make too much noise, you usually won’t attract flying Mutants,” he emphasized.

“Do you think we’re stupid?” Shangguan Xi said. “Mutants have taken over so many buildings, and those things that look like insect eggs are everywhere. Items that can fly can’t be used an unlimited number of times, either. Just lead the way properly. If there’s a guide to W19, who’d want to stay here? What could players possibly want from you native residents who’ve undergone Mutant transformation?”

The Teenager instinctively touched his arm.

The native residents who had survived all had some signs of Mutant transformation. That was why other base cities were unwilling to rescue or take them in. It was also why even Player-Eaters wouldn’t choose to eat them.

The native residents left behind in the base cities were simply surviving.

The Teenager hesitated, but still refused. “I don’t trust you!”

At that, Xu Huo took a closer look at him. He raised a hand to stop Shangguan Xi. “We’ll do as he says. We’ll take a safe route, even if we have to go around a bit.”

Seeing this, Shangguan Xi said no more. He took out an item shaped like an arrow, hooked it onto the rooftop railing, and pressed it down. The arrow shot out like a real one, pierced the railing on the opposite rooftop, and lodged itself there. Then the thin cable connecting the two ends snapped out a palm-sized metal plate on either side, forming an aerial walkway two palms wide.

The buildings were far apart, making the slender walkway look rather wobbly.

Shangguan Xi patted the walkway and looked back at the Teenager with a grin. “Come on, if you’ve got the guts!”

With that, he stepped onto the walkway as lightly as a swallow and jogged all the way to the opposite building.

“Nice moves.” Xu Huo applauded from afar in appreciation, then took the Teenager with him and used Go to Destination to bypass Shangguan Xi, teleporting to a rooftop several hundred meters away.

They were too far apart, and without any fixed communication device, it was difficult for them to communicate. But judging by Shangguan Xi’s bowed head as he retrieved his item, he didn’t look as confident as he had when he first stepped onto the walkway.

Although his item allowed him to travel back and forth through the air, its range was limited, and using it took more time than Xu Huo’s item. Xu Huo could take a step and pause, while Shangguan Xi had to keep repeating the same process: setting up the item, crossing the walkway, and retrieving it.

After walking a little farther, Xu Huo suddenly spotted a library at a street corner.

The library was grayish-white and especially conspicuous among the abandoned buildings. It showed no signs of damage, and no mutated plants had grown over it. Apart from its somewhat faded color, it looked utterly out of place in the city.

“Wait here for him. I’ll be right back.” He set the Teenager down and teleported straight to the library entrance using Go to Destination.

The door reached all the way to the ceiling. At the top was a clock that moved, displaying standard A1 Time, the time at the A1 wormhole point. It was said to have been calibrated against the Starting Point of the Stars. Xu Huo didn’t really understand what the Starting Point of the Stars was, of course, but using this time as decoration showed, to some extent, how important the library was.

A square, lock-shaped electronic authentication screen in the middle automatically opened and prompted him to present his library card.

Xu Huo placed his library card, marked with his number and nickname, on it. The door opened in response. Just as he was about to enter, Shared Positioning on his glasses alerted him again that the person he was tracking was approaching. Shangguan Xi thought Ding Wei had shaken him off, but she hadn’t. She had been nearby the whole time they had encountered each other. When they headed toward the city center, she followed, and now she had followed them to the library.

She was still two or three hundred meters away. Xu Huo had no intention of letting her in, so he shut the door after entering the library.

Like an ordinary library, this place was filled with enormous bookshelves. But the books on them weren’t real. They were book-shaped holographic projections. The shelves were all curved, wrapping around from both sides toward the center. In the middle stood an isolated reading pod. As soon as Xu Huo sat inside, a projection screen appeared in front of him:

“What information about this area would Player E556688 like to learn? You may choose from the following:”

“1. Politics; 2. Culture; 3. History; 4. Ecology.”

He chose history first.

The next second, the reading pod rose into the air. Relevant information from the library appeared beside him in the form of a directory. Selecting any entry would immediately play the stored video and audio materials, as well as dynamic scenes simulated from images and videos.

Xu Huo stayed in the library for the next hour, browsing through the most recent information the library had to offer in each of the available categories.

W37 Base Station had originally been made up of several countries. After the first Mutant tide broke out, the weaker countries were almost completely wiped out. The remaining major powers built secure bases, but things didn’t improve much. There were too few places and too many people, and internal conflicts never stopped.

After discussing it, the leaders of several countries decided to build more secure bases.

Since they were going to build new secure bases, and the outside world was so dangerous, they would have to drive people out.