Chapter 1369: All Roads Lead
Dai Song no longer had the hostility toward Xu Huo that he had before, but his attitude hadn't changed much. He replied, "The other three are already dead. I didn't run into Qiu Ming or Cao Qinglin."
Xu Huo said nothing. If Qiu Ming and Cao Qinglin hadn't gone looking for the other Dr. Duo Er, they should have already arrived at the secondary city. If they hadn't made it, they had most likely run into trouble.
But even if the two had reached the secondary city, they probably wouldn't follow along to the New District Government.
After asking, he put the matter aside. According to their previous agreement, he wouldn't ask how many people would come to protect Dr. Duo Er; Twin Cities would handle the arrangements themselves.
Twin Cities hadn't sent many people—just Dai Song and those two players. The three of them followed him to find the Scar-Handed Player and his group, where they were mistaken for new recruits and allowed to stay without much questioning.
Zone 023 was overrun with Xenomorphs, making shortcuts difficult. The safest way was to take the passages established between cities, but even those were only relatively safe. The roads had little protection around them. Those with resources might occasionally spray some Xenomorph-repelling potions, while those without simply had a dirt road trampled flat. However, since many people traveled these routes, they were slightly safer than other areas.
Thus, the Righteous Man and the Scar-Handed Player and his group had settled on a route connecting about a dozen cities. With suitable transportation and everyone taking turns to rest, they could reach the city where the New District Government was located in as little as twenty days.
Compared to the time needed to travel between the two Twin Cities—whether taking a detour or not—crossing the entire high-temperature zone in twenty days wasn't long. Of course, this was assuming they used ordinary transportation and encountered no other accidents along the way.
No one said they had to travel together, so most players still preferred using items. They would just agree on a time or place to meet up. Those who arrived first could scout the situation and gather information.
"Twenty days is enough time to do another Instance," the Burn-Faced Man said. "Let's set a time. If anyone hasn't reached the Government City within ten days, they don't need to bother joining the operation. After all, if someone can't even afford a Teleportation Item or a Speed Item, they probably aren't that strong anyway."
The words were harsh, but they were true. At C-rank, many Instance locations were enormous. Without a long-range Teleportation Item, it was really inconvenient. However, perfect items were not only expensive but also rare. Most players used Teleportation Items with conditions and limitations.
Even with limitations, they were still much faster than ordinary transportation.
After everyone had made their positions clear, the players began leaving the city one by one.
Xu Huo had two Teleportation Items on hand. One was "Fifty-Fifty Vent," which allowed a single teleportation within a certain space outside of Instance mode. It could only be used once per space. For escape, it was a fifty-fifty gamble—the teleportation destination was not fixed.
The other was "Destination Arrival," which allowed him to teleport himself and one other person a thousand meters at a time, with no usage restrictions.
Zone 023 was too vast. "Fifty-Fifty Vent" had a fifty percent chance of backfiring, so he set it aside for now. "Destination Arrival" was good, but it was inconvenient to use.
However, the player from the Winter Wind Laboratory took the initiative to say, "We have a teleportation item that can carry people between cities, but it needs a cooldown of over six hours each time."
"Are there other restrictions?" Seeing the other person hesitate, Xu Huo asked.
"It can't choose the city," the player said. "I can mark a city on the map, but if there are other cities between the two, the item will prioritize teleporting to the nearest one."
"Does that include any small towns or abandoned cities along the way?" Xu Huo immediately understood what the other person meant.
The man nodded. "And it can only teleport from city to city. If we spend the six-hour wait traveling through the wilderness, the item won't work."
In other words, only cities that had been or were currently recognized by the government could meet the item's activation conditions.
Xu Huo looked at the map again. "Do you know how many small cities exist between the current ones?"
"We don't have that detailed a map," Dai Song said at this point. "Even when players from Zone 023 explore the wilderness, they don't go too far. Most of the maps used in cities now are updated versions. Abandoned cities or destroyed small towns usually don't appear on the maps."
Small cities didn't have the resources to update their maps. Generally, larger cities took the lead. Regardless of why these abandoned cities had been removed from the maps, players from other cities probably wouldn't bother to fill them in. So Twin Cities only knew about a few small towns that weren't too far away. Anything farther was beyond their reach.
Although this Teleportation Item had quite a few activation conditions, having a map would make it much more convenient.
Players from Zone 023 lived within the cities, but the Ya Clan people lived in the wilderness.
Xu Huo took out the contact method Bai Jing had left behind and opened the communicator to dial.
Hearing his request, Bai Jing was silent for a second before asking, "Why are you so confident I'll lend you the map?"
"Never mind, then." Xu Huo was about to hang up, but the other side called him back, mentioned a bounty method on the Game Panel, and said, "I only have a partial map. I can lend it to you."
After hanging up, Xu Huo opened his Personal Panel and paid to purchase the map.
The other party was decent enough. What they gave him was a partial map of the route from Twin Cities toward the New District Government. The range wasn't large, but it happened to cover the beginning of the route that the Righteous Man and his group had planned.
"There's a forested area here. It should be a Xenomorph-active zone." Xu Huo compared both maps and picked a straight road. "Are there any towns in this area?"
Dai Song and the other two weren't sure either.
Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any cities nearby. Even before the evolution, such a large forested area would have been a nature reserve. Plus, the terrain was uneven and not suitable for habitation... But sometimes, unexpected situations arose.
"I once crossed a snowfield, thinking I could go straight to the next city. But I didn't expect to run into a relay station midway—a small wooden cabin where messengers used to rest. Places like that, recognized and recorded by the local government, even if it's just a single house, count as a city." The player holding the item said helplessly, "That time, I was surrounded by Xenomorphs in the snow and almost froze to death in an ice lake."
"You get what you pay for," the Scar-Handed Player said, having listened nearby. He laughed and came closer. "Looks like my item is much better. But it can't carry people. Lao Si, let's meet outside the New District Government."
Xu Huo waved his hand, then turned back to Dai Song and the other two. "Places like villages or hunting cabins that count as cities are rare. If there aren't any such places in between, taking this direction could let us cut through a third of the distance. It's worth a try."
(Chapter End)