Chapter 2448: From Eerie to Awkward
Chi Cai also came over to look. Initially, she thought it was someone else trying to target the middle-aged man, but the person standing outside the wooden house was the man himself. He didn’t seem to be out to clear his head either. After circling the prop wooden house once, he headed out of the village.
“Where is he going?” Chi Cai lowered her voice. “Should we follow him out and see?”
Before Xu Huo could answer, the green-haired female player and the missing-eared man had already come out, and Bubble Bean and the others were not far behind.
Just as everyone tacitly began to tail him, a strange swallowing sound suddenly came from the forest on the other side. It was like the noise of food passing through a throat during a meal, amplified and especially noticeable in the darkness. But the players knew in their hearts that there were no people or other animals over there.
Could it be sound mimicry?
Imitating various sounds isn’t difficult for many species in nature. The Hidden Friend might be using this trick to attract living people. If it really was the Hidden Friend, making a swallowing sound was entirely possible.
The players exchanged glances. The green-haired female player and her companion continued following the middle-aged man, Bubble Bean and the other two headed toward the source of the swallowing sound, while Xu Huo and his two companions, who had come out later, followed behind the green-haired female player.
The middle-aged man hadn’t stepped out of Xu Huo’s perception range. Similarly, the place where the sound came from was only about two hundred meters away. It wasn’t anything strange—just a mutated plant that was active at night, feeding. The sound was the noise of a small animal passing through its roots and stems.
As for the middle-aged man, his condition was much stranger. He hadn’t been normal when he came back during the day, and after entering the woods, he became even more peculiar. After walking for a while, he suddenly stopped in place, muttering to himself. But it wasn’t normal conversation—it was like he was reciting something, the content obscure, barely identifiable as related to religion.
While muttering, the middle-aged man’s eyes were somewhat vacant, staring straight at a fixed point ahead. No emotion could be read from his expression, but his body trembled slightly.
“Controlled?” The missing-eared player had already used a detection device to scan the surrounding environment. Aside from Xu Huo and the two behind them, there was no one ahead, not even the expected strange plants.
“Should we go over and wake him up?”
The green-haired female player was mostly hidden behind a tree, her expression cold as she watched. “What for? Let’s see what kind of thing the Hidden Friend really is.”
The five of them, front and back, just watched the middle-aged man recite words for several minutes, until Bubble Bean and the other two came back over.
Just as the atmosphere shifted from eerie to awkward, the middle-aged man, who had been standing there, suddenly broke into a run, dashing into the fog at incredible speed!
“Chase him!”
The players followed closely, but before long, the middle-aged man used a Space Teleportation Item to vanish from their sight. The direction of the teleportation was uncertain, but the distance was at least beyond their detection range—they had lost him.
Xu Huo couldn’t find him either. The middle-aged man’s first teleportation was still within his perception range, but without stopping, he immediately performed a second teleportation, and this time, he was completely gone.
“What the hell?” Yin Yang Master said. “He’s not just putting on an act to mess with us, is he?”
Whether it was a trick or a real problem, the man was gone now. What could they do?
With no other choice, the group had to turn back. When they returned to Zhongmu Village, the game’s player count had dropped to 33.
“Good riddance if he’s dead!” Yin Yang Master sneered coldly.
“Everyone, the issue now isn’t whether he’s dead or not,” Chi Cai called out to stop them. “It’s that out of the thirty-plus people in this instance, we’ve only seen about a dozen or so. Shangmu Village has no one. If the rest have formed an alliance and are hiding in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity, our situation is bad.”
The instance said it was about players playing the role of the Hidden Friend, but so far, they hadn’t had their turn to play. During the day, they would be active in the forest, making them targets for others.
“Could they be in Xiamu Village?” the eyebrow-pierced man said. “Judging from the situation in Zhongmu Village, the Hidden Friend hasn’t taken any locals for a long time. Either it prefers to choose instance players as friends over outsiders, or attacking locals requires certain conditions, and the separated villages have unknowingly cut off those conditions.”
Earlier, Chi Cai had also speculated that the friends the Hidden Friend chose were mostly older people. This might be related to their life experience—the more memories one has in life, the more emotions they find hard to let go. In contrast, children and young people don’t think as much. The people living here had, over the long years, figured out some tricks, which is why Shangmu Village had more elderly people, while Zhongmu Village had more young people.
“I’ve asked about the situation in Xiamu Village,” the green-haired female player said. “It’s similar to Zhongmu Village. Occasionally, older people move to Shangmu Village.”
“But the frequency of elderly people going missing here isn’t high. It’s likely that instance players have taken over the role of the friend.”
“So the Hidden Friend we encounter is different from what the locals encounter.”
“And there’s another thing—don’t you find it strange?” Bubble Bean said. “The villagers are too trusting of the players. I don’t believe no player has ever targeted a local. Unless…”
Unless the players realized early on in the instance that they couldn’t kill the locals.
Although the instance vaguely hinted at this, given the number of deaths in the past few days, it was clear not all players followed the rule. So someone must have tried using a local to test the rules. Why hadn’t such incidents happened frequently, or why hadn’t they spread?
“Most likely, someone tried it and immediately suffered the consequences,” the eyebrow-pierced man said, crossing his arms. “The local villagers don’t know if the players disappeared or left on their own, but the other players can see clearly.”
“Among us here, has anyone killed someone since entering the instance?”
Even if someone had, no one would admit it. However, Bubble Bean suspected the middle-aged man and the missing Yang Tian. Based on the current situation, it was less likely that they were the ones playing the role.
“Hey!” A rough voice came from behind them.
Everyone was startled, various props already in hand. But the figure in the fog immediately stepped out. It was a man nearly two meters tall, with someone slung over his shoulder—it was the previously missing Yang Tian.
The man wasn’t dead yet, but his lips and fingernails were cyan, heavily poisoned.
The big man threw Yang Tian to the ground, clapped his hands, and said to the others, “This young guy was actually sleeping in the woods. If I had been a step later, he would have been eaten by a carnivorous plant!”
Chi Cai injected Yang Tian with an antidote. “His breathing is steady. He should wake up soon.”
The big man slapped his palm-sized hand on her shoulder. “You pale-faced pretty boy, looking all sly, but you’ve actually got some humanity in you!”