Chapter 1060: The Chasm Between Players and Ordinary People
Fifty-one people, plus the two Xu Huo had brought with him, made a total of fifty-three ordinary individuals.
The dust kicked up by the collapsing building was still churning, carried by a wind tinged with the smell of rust, slapping against the faces of every living person.
Some were crying, some laughing, some sitting dazed on the ground, unable to snap out of it. But having survived the disaster, at least at this moment, hope filled everyone's heart.
Xu Huo released the two children from the picture frame. This item had once held a virus-carrying xenomorph in W37 Base City, and its internal space was likely contaminated. When the children came out, they showed signs of poisoning. He had them take an antidote before signaling them to leave.
However, the two children were quite clever. They only moved a few steps away before refusing to go further. Xu Huo didn't force them.
As for Uncle Guan's group, only You Xuewen, the Lin Qiao siblings, the raincoat-wearing man Ruan Qiyan, and Zhou Yuanzhu had gathered. The others, including the injured that Uncle Guan had brought out, were all missing or dead.
All of them were injured, especially Uncle Guan. A chunk of his scalp had been sliced off, and blood was still flowing. The smell of fresh blood made every player's face darken.
The moment they passed through the space channel, they received a game notification. This was a high-risk random instance. A safe landing was just the beginning; the real danger was yet to come!
"Post a message on Under Dimension, have the others transfer items and potions over," Uncle Guan said with a grim face. "There are fourteen days left."
Zhou Yuanzhu moved quickly and said thankfully, "At least Under Dimension and the Bounty Platform haven't been shut down. The message has been sent out. If any companions see it, they'll help."
Compared to them, Xu Huo was in much better shape. Aside from a ring of purple-black bruising on the infant's face, neither the boy nor he was injured.
The two sides exchanged a glance without saying a word and began to survey their surroundings.
Probably because of the noise from the building's collapse, no large animals had approached this area yet. However, the visibility in the woods was even worse than when they had descended. It was pitch black, with only faint glimmers of light visible, and the dense vegetation made it exceptionally gloomy.
Something was falling from the air, black and thread-like, like rain.
Zhou Yuanzhu touched her face and rubbed her fingers together. "It feels a bit like fluff, but it disintegrates as soon as you rub it."
Xu Huo also reached out to catch some. It wasn't falling heavily, and it melted quickly on his palm. He had already put on his protective suit.
Over there, Zhou Yuanzhu had already tested that the substance was non-toxic. Still, he bought a high-grade protective suit for children and a backpack-like protective basket from the game's backstage.
He still had the boy carry the infant, gave them a bottle of antidote to drink, and stuffed a pacifier into the infant's mouth to prevent him from crying. Only then did Xu Huo put away his item umbrella.
"For safety's sake, you should all put on protective suits," Uncle Guan said, turning to look at his companions.
The group geared up and began collecting soil, plants, and dew from the area.
At that moment, someone among the survivors suggested, "Should we go back and see if anyone else survived? We don't know where this place is, and we'll need food."
Falling from a height of nearly ten thousand meters, in that environment, survival was nearly impossible. But with fifty people, food and water were definitely needed.
"It's so hot here. Will it stay this hot?" someone asked.
"If we can find clothes, we should stock up on them too. The weather might change," a few people said, standing up to lead the way.
Zhou Yuanzhu stopped them. "The situation here is unclear. It's best to stick together and not wander off."
The few people turned back to look at her, then lowered their heads and walked away. After they left, others silently stood up and followed. Not a single person thanked those who had saved them.
"So ungrateful," Zhou Yuanzhu muttered. But then a woman at the back of the group turned around and said, "You saved our lives, it's true. But if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have ended up in this situation. Our families and friends are all dead. Even though we're still alive, we can't feel any gratitude towards you."
"But we also know that it was the 002 District government that abandoned us, so we can't hate you either."
These people helped each other and walked away, including a few half-grown children. Like the woman, they were all soberly alive, adhering to the principle of not hating Uncle Guan and the others. Their rationality was in full control, yet they were like a group of mindless ants, living pale and busy lives, a casually drawn line capable of influencing their entire existence.
At this moment, the chasm between players and ordinary people was vividly and invisibly demonstrated.
However, no one came to Xu Huo to ask to take the two children.
The ants, lined up in a row, deliberately forgot about these two little ants.
"We really aren't good people," Zhou Yuanzhu said with a wry smile, sitting back down beside Uncle Guan and the others to get busy. The other four never looked up from start to finish.
Those who remained were a minority. They kept glancing at Xu Huo and the others, their eyes lingering on the boy and the infant.
In particular, two men kept changing positions during their conversations with others, gradually moving closer to their group.
Xu Huo sat on a piece of metal wreckage, wiping his "Eye of the Dead." When the two men cast their gaze over for the fifth time, he spoke up, "Look at me one more time, and I'll gouge out your eyes."
The two men knew exactly what they were doing, but they didn't feel guilty. They looked at them, or more precisely at the boy, with fawning faces. "Can we borrow your gas masks?"
The boy, one of the children once selected by Dr. Zhang, later imprisoned underground by the Snow City government as an experimental subject and named R17, glanced at the men and then turned expressionlessly to Xu Huo. "They're looking at me again. Gouge out their eyes."
Before the two men could even process the boy's words, a flash of white light flew towards them. With a few splatters of blood, both men had their eyeballs slashed out!
Using a silencing item to muffle their screams, Xu Huo walked over and kicked each of the writhing men unconscious. Then he said to the others, "Sound, the vibration of sound, can attract large beasts. If you're lucky, it's just ordinary animals. If you're unlucky, it could be a swarm of xenomorphs. Talking is fine, but everyone, please try to keep your voices down."
With two examples right in front of them, who among the remaining dared to disagree?
Even the two children who had come out of the picture frame couldn't help but retreat back to their own people.
Xu Huo sat back down and took out his "Complete Time" to check the local time. It was similar to District 002, nearing dawn. However, the black fluff rain seemed to be getting heavier, and he wondered if the sky would lighten at all.
He then supplemented the time conditions on Under Dimension and the Bounty Platform. With just the characteristics of the rain, vegetation, soil, and temperature, many districts matched. It was temporarily impossible to confirm exactly where this place was or what kind of high-risk instance it was.
But one thing was certain: the longer they stayed, the more dangerous it would become.
While waiting for feedback and for dawn to break, he led the two children back a bit. After putting some distance between them and the crowd, he used "All Things Want to Cut Everything" to mark a perimeter around them. He handed some food to the boy. "Eat. Finish up and get some rest. We leave in twenty minutes at the latest."
(Chapter End)