Chapter 2457: The Mist
The funeral in Upper Wood Village was conducted very simply. After a brief farewell from close friends and family, the family of the missing person would bury some of their favorite items or clothing in a suitable place, considered as seeing them off on their final journey. This last step didn't require many people, so more villagers prepared to leave after the meal.
Upper Wood Village didn't have many people to begin with, and now that the crowd was dispersing, it immediately felt even more desolate.
Xu Huo and the others gathered together. Bubble Bean and Ruler Cai each shared the information they had gathered.
First, of course, was news about other players. They had been staying in Middle Wood Village, and excluding Xu Huo and the other person, there were twelve players. It was impossible that none of the remaining twenty or so players had found their way to the village.
However, the reality was that only three players had appeared in Lower Wood Village over the past half month, and they came separately. The longest any of them stayed was three days before leaving on their own.
Although communication between the three villages was inconvenient, it didn't mean there was no exchange of information. The people of Lower Wood Village definitely knew that there were over a dozen players in Middle Wood Village, and the players who had been there should have asked around. Anyone smart would have come to Middle Wood Village...
Based on descriptions, none of the three players from Lower Wood Village matched the players in Middle Wood Village. In other words, even with the villagers' simple maps, those three players still couldn't find Middle Wood Village.
Perhaps they were killed along the way, or killed by the true Hidden Friend. All sorts of possibilities existed. These three people were no longer worth investigating, but they reminded Xu Huo and the others of another possibility: there might be more than just these three villages in the forest. Due to inconvenient travel and the rampant mutated species, the villagers had never strayed far from home, let alone explored other parts of the forest, so they didn't know if other people lived there.
Given the vast area, it was perfectly normal for Xu Huo and the others not to know about another population center.
This explained why at least half of the players had never crossed paths with them at all.
Next was the issue of getting lost alone in the forest.
Three people on Xu Huo's side had all experienced that kind of "ghost wall" maze-like getting lost, while the green-haired female player and her group of seven had disappeared together. This suggested that even villagers traveling together could encounter the same situation. If many people disappeared together, the legend of the "Hidden Friend" wouldn't be what it was now.
But Bubble Bean hadn't found anything valuable. An old woman in Upper Wood Village laughed after hearing his question and said something quite reasonable: "If people could disappear just by going out in groups, would there be anyone left in our village?"
That made sense.
When it came to going out in groups to hunt or pick wild vegetables, the locals definitely did it more often and in larger numbers. Yet they had never experienced a mass disappearance. There were only two possibilities for this situation: either the players had triggered some rule of the instance, or the seven people had left on their own.
"Left on their own..." The eyebrow-pierced man pondered for a moment. "Doesn't this sound like 72?"
72 was the code name of the middle-aged man from before.
"That's not right either," the Yin-Yang Master said. "One person running off could be explained as it being their turn to play the shadow. But why would a group run? Did they discover that one of us is an impersonator?"
His suspicious gaze lingered on each face, finally settling on Ruler Cai.
"What are you looking at me for?" Ruler Cai said displeasedly. "Don't you find your words ridiculous? If they discovered an impersonator among us, they would just leave together?"
A normal person would grab the impersonator and force them to reveal information after the identity swap.
The Yin-Yang Master shrugged. "I'm just joking." Ruler Cai was quite angry. "This instance is messed up. I think we shouldn't be targeting each other!"
"Who's targeting anyone?" the Yin-Yang Master said directly. "I'm only targeting you. Look, you injected Yang Tian with the antidote and turned him into a cripple. No one's wronging you about that, right?"
"And what about that drilling robot? Weren't you the one who wanted to go after the two surnamed Xu earlier? Besides, you're familiar with them, so of course you know their names. What's strange about targeting someone you know first?"
Half of these speculations were pure sophistry. With the Yin-Yang Master picking a fight like this, even Ruler Cai's good temper couldn't tolerate it. He said darkly, "If you want to pick a fight, just say so. If you think words aren't enough, I'm happy to settle it with a fight!"
The two were at loggerheads, about to come to blows. Bubble Bean had to step in to stop them. "Let's focus on something productive. Will one or two deaths change our current situation at all?"
"Yes, it will," the Yin-Yang Master said stubbornly. "One death gives us one more chance to play the impersonator."
Bubble Bean shot him a warning look. "You might not want to clear the instance, but others do."
The Yin-Yang Master didn't care about that.
The two of them did have some history. After the Yin-Yang Master backed off and stopped talking, Bubble Bean apologized to the others on his behalf before bringing the conversation back.
In truth, they hadn't come to any conclusion. Going out to search was impossible. Since the missing people couldn't be contacted, they shouldn't leave the village either. It seemed there was no choice but to wait.
However, with only seven people left, and conflicts among them, mutual restraint was no longer effective. The previously agreed-upon mutual surveillance was clearly off the table. To protect themselves, they would soon scatter.
Bubble Bean and the Yin-Yang Master were a pair, as were Xu Huo and the Painting Woman. The eyebrow-pierced man had a grudge with Yang Tian, and Ruler Cai was also alone. Going solo was definitely not an option. The best course for the latter three was to team up, since teaming with either Bubble Bean or Xu Huo would put them at a numerical disadvantage.
The eyebrow-pierced man and Ruler Cai exchanged glances and decided to team up. As for Yang Tian, he couldn't trust any of them, so he found a villager and paid to stay somewhere.
"Everyone, whether we live or die depends on luck." Bubble Bean smiled at them and headed off in another direction of the village with the Yin-Yang Master.
The eyebrow-pierced man and Ruler Cai chose the opposite direction and invited Xu Huo to join them.
Xu Huo declined and took the Painting Woman to Yi Granny's house.
Yi Granny's son and daughter-in-law were still silent, but the two children were a bit more lively than before, since they were already acquainted.
Xu Huo chatted with Yi Granny for a while, asking about the seasons and the habits of mutated plants.
The locals should know the forest best. Even if they couldn't go far, they would be aware of any changes nearby. The instance venue was this forest. If there were changes, the mutated plants in the forest might react.
Yi Granny seemed to guess what he wanted to know. She thought the players' disappearance had nothing to do with the Hidden Friend. In her view, the "Hidden Friend" was actually a type of mutated plant. Once a plant matured, its habits were hard to change. For so many years, it had only attacked one person at a time. There was no reason for it to treat outsiders differently.
However, she did give Xu Huo a clue: she sometimes noticed mutated plants growing out of season.