Chapter 198: The Greatest Risk of the Elevator Game
"You haven't fully understood the gameplay of this instance dungeon. The real danger isn't on each floor—it's inside the elevator."
"This instance is an elevator game. One hundred ninety-five people entered, and each elevator has a capacity of thirteen. Everyone could be evenly distributed among the elevators. But when descending from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth floor, fifteen people went missing."
Jiang Yihua and Dazhi's expressions synchronized in the darkness as they spoke in unison, "Weren't they killed by the spiders?"
Since a large number of people had entered, they hadn't paid much attention to the exact count at first. It was only after the spider attack on the fourteenth floor that they tallied the deaths, and the survivors hadn't bothered to keep track.
"Aside from those killed by the spiders, fifteen people should have gone missing before even getting off the elevator." Xu Huo mentioned the sharp-faced, scrawny man.
"I remember him. He started by grabbing food, then tried to take the elevator," Jiang Yihua said.
"He's not among the dead," Xu Huo said. "There are two possible reasons for this situation. First, the elevator was overloaded—some seemingly insignificant rules in the instance are actually very important. Second, from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth floor, only fourteen elevators' worth of people were meant to remain, and it just so happened that the overloaded elevator was the one selected."
Dazhi was a bit confused by his explanation. "Wait, wait. Why would one elevator disappear when going down to the fourteenth floor?"
"This building has fifteen floors and fifteen elevators. Under normal circumstances, there shouldn't be this many elevators. But this is an instance game. Our range of movement is limited to the floors and the elevators, and the elevator is the only way up and down. It's perfectly normal for there to be traps here."
"However, I can't be completely certain if my guess is correct. We'll have to wait until we reach the tenth floor to find out."
Currently, only one hundred thirty-one people remained. If one elevator's worth of people was missing when they reached the tenth floor, it would prove his theory was right.
"No wonder Dai Wenqian told you he wanted to cooperate on the tenth floor. Did he also guess this possibility?" Jiang Yihua suddenly realized, then quickly added, "But what if you're both wrong?"
Xu Huo glanced at her in the darkness. "Even if we're wrong, it doesn't matter. Rather than taking risks to test the game rules, it's better to eliminate potential risks in advance."
Jiang Yihua and Dazhi understood what he meant. That is, Dai Wenqian didn't need to confirm whether his guess was correct. If he wanted to avoid this risk, he only needed to reduce the number of people in one elevator each time they descended a floor.
"Then how many people will be left by the time we reach the first floor?" Jiang Yihua shuddered.
This was the real reason Dai Wenqian had proposed cooperating with Xu Huo.
"How absurd!" Dazhi said angrily. "If the instance game isn't played that way, wouldn't those killed be dying for nothing?"
This time, Xu Huo didn't speak. From descending from the fifteenth floor to returning to the twelfth floor, the greatest risk for the players was going back to the twelfth floor. Those spiders could be killed by ordinary people working together. The reason a few players were lost was simply because they were caught off guard. If there hadn't been so many people at the time, under normal circumstances, the other players could have saved them.
So the situation was now very clear.
Jiang Yihua was silent for a moment before asking, "Why is the thirteenth floor the safest? The windows there are completely sealed off, and ventilation has to rely on the air ducts."
"There are no traces of mutant animal activity on the thirteenth floor," Xu Huo said. "Whether it's a coincidence or has a fixed reason, we'll only know after testing it."
Jiang Yihua finally understood what he was using the mantis corpse for.
"Alright, lift me up," she said.
Xu Huo handed her the bag and the phone together. "Just throw it in."
He had Dazhi below grab the strings and sent the two of them up.
Jiang Yihua and Dazhi worked together to pull open the elevator doors. The ventilation system on the floor was still running, seemingly unchanged from before they went down.
But Jiang Yihua didn't dare to breathe. She hurled the bag in, placed the phone nearby, and quickly pulled her hand back.
Then Xu Huo manipulated the strings to bring the two away, while he himself grabbed the edge of the elevator and leaped up. Stepping on the elevator door, he swung the Crimson Sword, repeatedly slashing forward through the palm-wide gap in the door.
The glass room directly opposite the elevator doors was essentially a single structure. Xu Huo cut through the glass room with just one strike.
The cutting limit of the Crimson Sword's energy slash was only fifty meters—enough to slice through the glass room but insufficient to cross the entire floor and break through the windows.
Dazhi patted the elevator shaft wall, faced Xu Huo, and pointed his chin toward the interior of the floor, then glanced at the mantis leg at his waist, signaling for him to go in and try.
Xu Huo shook his head, put away the Crimson Sword, and took out a bow and arrow, shooting toward the ceiling of the floor.
Jiang Yihua and the others widened their eyes. Even though they couldn't see the situation inside the floor, judging by the angle at which he held the arrow, there was no way it could hit the window!
"Bang!" But it did hit. The sound of glass breaking echoed from inside.
Before the surprise on their faces faded, Xu Huo manipulated the short arrows that had landed on the floor, shooting from different directions at the mantis corpse on the ground, while repeatedly creating cracks and small broken openings in the windows.
Within just two minutes, he retrieved his props and then used his long sword to climb to the side, signaling Jiang Yihua and the others to close the door.
After the elevator doors closed again, Xu Huo pointed downward, indicating they should return to the eleventh floor.
The three of them didn't speak, holding their breath as they descended. Jiang Yihua and Dazhi pulled open the elevator doors and entered first, followed by Xu Huo, who jumped in and closed the doors.
"Finally back!" Gu Yu hurried over. "How was it? Is the floor above safe?"
Xu Huo looked toward the corpse lying in the corner.
Gu Yu's face showed suppressed anger as he said in a low voice, "This guy tried to grab food earlier, and Sun Mao accidentally killed him."
Sun Mao was the player who had been following Dai Wenqian.
Now, Dai Wenqian and his companion were clearly keeping a certain distance from the other players who were supposedly their allies.
When their eyes met, the other person smiled and nodded at him.
Xu Huo turned to the anxious crowd and said, "Didn't you hear the commotion from upstairs just now?"
"We did," Gu Yu pointed to the window. "But no one dared to look."
Xu Huo nodded. "We killed a mutant mantis, but then other mutant animals came out of the elevator shaft. The floor above isn't safe, so we had to come down."
He didn't mention the thirteenth floor, and Jiang Yihua and Dazhi wouldn't say anything either.
"You're injured!" the tall woman exclaimed.
From the fighting and collisions, all three of them had sustained some wounds.
"I have potions." Gu Yu quickly took out a self-healing agent, but Jiang Yihua had already handed Xu Huo a bottle of potion first. "Use mine. It's specially made."
Xu Huo took it and found it was a bottle of antidote.
Jiang Yihua nodded at him. Although there were no signs of poisoning so far, adding an extra layer of insurance couldn't hurt.
Xu Huo waved at Gu Yu. "Thanks, but no need."