Chapter 650: Looting
Old P hadn't made up his mind yet when he saw players starting to jump out one after another. From the plane's perspective, these players quickly turned into black dots in the sky.
Most players swiftly disappeared through the clouds, but one or two individuals opened their parachutes immediately.
Obviously, skydiving in VR mode was still pretty scary for some people. These two definitely hadn't read the instruction manual carefully, afraid they'd die from the fall, so they deployed their chutes the moment they jumped.
After all, it was everyone's first game. Only a minority actually bothered to read the manual thoroughly.
The player count instantly dropped to 64, with 15 people jumping toward the Airport. Among them, some probably knew the Airport had rich loot, while others might have just thought jumping early gave them an advantage.
A few others went for the wilderness. For them, it might be time to experience the feeling of a hiking trip...
Old P, on the other hand, looked at the map and roughly estimated the plane's flight path. It was heading from south to north, eventually flying toward the upper right of the island. The places it passed along the way were the Airport, School, Y City, Holy Mountain, and K City.
Old P noticed that P City and R City were somewhat off the flight path, but not completely unreachable.
The instruction manual said you could glide a certain distance while parachuting, so these two cities should still be reachable.
"Perfect, I'll jump to P City then."
Old P marked a spot on the map and waited patiently.
P City was a location relatively far from the flight path. Old P chose it partly because he thought there were many houses there, fewer people, and rich resources would be better for looting, and partly because his name was Old P—wasn't P City his city?
Not long after flying past the Airport, Old P saw the distance was about right and jumped directly.
Leaping from the plane, Old P felt himself in a state of rapid descent, wind roaring in his ears as he continuously pierced through thin clouds.
He turned his head with great difficulty to glance at the plane's direction. It seemed not many players had jumped to P City with him. Most were likely concentrated in the main areas along the flight path, like the Airport, School, R City, and Y City.
Still, three people had chosen P City just like him.
Old P felt a bit more at ease. If it was just three people, they probably wouldn't run into each other right after landing. From high above, the entire P City had over 40 houses. The three would definitely avoid each other, and it was possible they wouldn't even meet when leaving.
Old P plummeted down, and his parachute deployed automatically.
He chose a house with a green roof that was relatively farther away. After landing, he looked back to check the positions of the other three.
One landed outside the city, one in the northeast, and one was relatively close to him, just two buildings away.
After a quick glance, Old P immediately pushed the door open and entered the house to loot supplies.
He knew very well that everyone was unarmed right now. They all had to find guns first, get a good weapon to build confidence, before daring to go out and face others head-on.
Just then, various kill feed messages started scrolling in the lower-left corner of his vision.
" killed nightman – 78 remaining"
" killed Liu Lailai – 77 remaining"
...
Obviously, the first batch that jumped to the Airport had already started fighting. A player named Deadfire got lucky, picked up an SKS on landing, and killed two unlucky guys who hadn't found guns.
Besides him, other kill messages were scrolling too. Clearly, in this game, jumping to crowded places was risky but rewarding. As long as you grabbed a gun first, you could kill anyone unarmed.
Old P only glanced at it and stopped paying attention, since these people probably wouldn't cross paths with him anytime soon.
He entered the room and began searching around.
The rooms here were basically civilian houses. Although the buildings were a bit run-down, they still had various tables, cabinets, and furniture. As soon as he entered, Old P found a shotgun on the table—an S686.
Old P quickly picked it up, then grabbed shotgun shells and a can of energy drink from the table.
There was also a red T-shirt, but Old P thought the color was too flashy—basically asking for death—so he didn't take it.
"A shotgun, huh. Not my favorite, but it'll do for now."
After loading the shells, Old P continued searching with the S686.
This gun was based on the Beretta 686 "Silver Pigeon," a double-barreled, double-shot weapon with a fast fire rate, but it needed reloading after two shots. The advantage was that if your aim was good in close combat, two shots would definitely kill an enemy. The downside was that if your aim was bad and the enemy survived two shots, you were pretty much done for.
Old P didn't really like using shotguns, but in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," you couldn't just pick whatever gun you wanted—it all depended on what you found.
At least this gun worked well in early-game street and room encounters.
After searching the second floor, Old P started checking the neighboring house. He found a Level 1 helmet, Level 1 vest, Level 2 backpack, and some miscellaneous items, including sports drinks, bandages, fuel, and so on.
Although fuel took up space, Old P figured he might need to drive away later, so he kept it just in case.
As for guns, he still hadn't found an automatic rifle, only a Thompson submachine gun. But with these two weapons, he was fully equipped for street fights.
The looting process was quite enjoyable. It was essentially a journey from nothing to something—starting from landing naked to becoming well-equipped. Looting gave people the illusion of leveling up, which was a key pleasure in the early game.
After searching three nearby houses, Old P didn't dare to wander anymore.
He knew there were three other people in P City. If he ran around carelessly and bumped into them, he'd be done for. In this game, everyone only had one life, and only one person could survive to the end. Someone without brains couldn't possibly be the lucky one.
So, Old P had a bright idea. He closed the door and went to the second floor, planning to observe the surrounding situation first.
Just then, the blue zone appeared.
Old P was startled and paused temporarily, intending to open the map and study the safe zone's location.
The instruction manual said the blue zone was also a key game mechanic. Players had to reach the safe zone within a time limit, or they'd continuously lose health outside it.
"Good, it's in the middle-lower part of the map... I'm inside the safe zone. No need to move."
Old P continued to lie low on the second floor, carefully watching every move around him through the window.
...
At that moment, in the VR gaming area of the experience center, many players had already come out of their gaming pods.
Quite a few spectators outside the pods gathered around.
These players who had exited quickly explained—they weren't quitting, they had just died in the game and came out for some air, waiting for the second match.
"So, how is it? Is the game fun?" someone asked.
The guy who came out of the pod shook his head repeatedly: "Not fun! I landed and immediately ran into a guy with an SKS. I hadn't even taken two steps before I turned into a crate!"