Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Warped Jungle
After seeing this, Perry Yates put away her throwing knife. ’Looks like I won’t have to make a move this time.’
Just as she expected, the man furiously kicked at the Prismatic Tiger’s corpse. Instantly, two snake heads struck. One bit his leg, the other his neck.
In that instant, a massive amount of venom was injected into the man’s body.
Watching the man’s veins bulge and his eyes pop, Perry Yates couldn’t help but shake her head. "He’s a goner."
About ten seconds later, likely due to the man’s death, the trap he had set completely deactivated.
The Prismatic Tiger’s body slammed heavily onto the ground with a dull thud.
Seeing this, Perry Yates finally jumped down from the tree.
After approaching the Prismatic Tiger, she first took out her Chopping Blade and lopped off the two snake heads that were preparing to try the same trick on her.
As the two snake heads hit the ground, two beams of white light floated out and formed two cards in front of Perry Yates.
Perry Yates’s breath quickened as she looked at the two cards. The reason was simple: one of them was a two-star card.
After stowing away the cards and the tiger’s corpse, Perry Yates turned her attention to the dead foreigner.
Three cards were scattered beside the man. Judging by their colors, they were one two-star card and two one-star cards.
She picked up the cards to inspect them and found they were all Wind Attribute. ’No wonder the man was so agile,’ she thought.
After stowing the three cards, Perry Yates sighed with a touch of regret.
’It’s a shame the System Space collapses when a player dies, making everything inside disappear,’ she mused. ’Otherwise, my haul would have been much bigger.’
After stowing all her loot, Perry Yates decided not to leave the area just yet.
She had already observed that this area was the Prismatic Tiger’s territory.
Even though the Prismatic Tiger was now dead, its lingering scent would likely keep other beasts from approaching.
In other words, the area was safe.
Having decided to use the spot as a temporary shelter, Perry Yates began to search the vicinity and survey the terrain.
Perhaps because it was the Prismatic Tiger’s territory, few animals ever came near. The tiger itself had also been in the habit of leaving its food scraps scattered about.
Thanks to the ample nutrients, the plants here grew much more lushly than elsewhere.
[Red Bean Fruit: A fruit shaped like a red bean. Consuming it provides a strong feeling of fullness and restores a small amount of energy.
Post-Ascension: In addition to increasing fullness, it restores a large amount of your energy and has a minor healing effect.]
Perry Yates’s eyes went wide as she stared at the huge patch of Red Bean Fruits.
’What a find! An absolute treasure! I have to take all of them. Leaving even one behind would be a loss.’
The Red Bean Fruit looked exactly like a real red bean and felt just as hard in her hand.
The pre-Ascension Red Bean Fruit didn’t taste very good, but luckily it was small enough to be swallowed whole.
After Ascension, however, while it felt no different in her hand, the Red Bean Fruit would melt the instant it entered her mouth.
It wasn’t until the twelfth day of the game that Perry Yates finished harvesting the entire patch of ripe Red Bean Fruits. A few unripe ones remained, but they would likely ripen over the next day or two.
Next, Perry Yates scoured the surrounding area and discovered over a dozen types of wild fruit. After using Ascension to get information on them, she identified seven or eight edible varieties.
However, only two or three of them could restore energy.
The rest, while edible, only provided a feeling of fullness. That wasn’t what Perry Yates was looking for, so she had no choice but to ignore them.
In addition, she discovered a patch of white mushrooms.
The sight of the mushrooms immediately made Perry Yates think of the old saying about poisonous toadstools.
Her first thought was to see if they were poisonous, wondering if she could collect them to use for self-defense.
She never expected, however, that using Ascension on them would lead to such a major discovery.
[White Mushroom: Mildly toxic, inedible. Every morning, its cap secretes a layer of transparent mucus that is highly effective for healing wounds.
Post-Ascension: Mildly toxic. Edible, but consumption is not recommended. The amount of transparent mucus secreted from the cap each morning increases, and its wound-healing effect is significantly enhanced.
The mucus is water-soluble. Dilute with water before use.]
Perry Yates, who had already been quite pleased with the location, was now even more reluctant to leave.
For the next few days, her routine was set in stone: every morning without fail, she would collect the mucus from the white mushrooms, then gather Red Bean Fruits and other wild berries. She spent the rest of her time stripping bark from trees to fashion containers for the next day’s mucus collection.
「And so it was, until the fifteenth day of the game.」
Early that morning, a voice echoed in Perry Yates’s mind.
[Fifteen days have passed. Do you wish to exit the game?
Friendly Reminder: If you exit now, everything you have acquired during this game will be forfeited.]
"I won’t exit."
Perry Yates refused without a moment’s hesitation.
’I’d have to be a real idiot to quit now.’
She grabbed the bark container she’d made the day before and headed to the place where the white mushrooms grew.
"I feel like these white mushrooms are a lot smaller than they were a few days ago."
Perry Yates held her hand up to one of the mushrooms to compare. She wasn’t mistaken—it was definitely a size smaller.
Over the next few days, the mushrooms continued to shrink.
By the twentieth day, the white mushrooms had vanished completely.
Coincidentally, she had also picked the surrounding area clean of wild fruit. It was time for her to leave.
After all, so many days had passed that the Prismatic Tiger’s scent had all but dissipated.
Just last night, she had spotted other creatures poking around the perimeter, as if testing the waters. If nothing changed, their curiosity would surely get the better of them, and they would come to investigate tonight.
Under these circumstances, the smart thing for Perry Yates to do was to make a tactical retreat.
Following a route from memory, Perry Yates arrived at a small stream to replenish her water supply.
She had finished her water supply days ago but hadn’t bothered to return to the stream. She was mainly afraid of running into other people and being followed, so she had been relying on wild fruit to quench her thirst.
Typically, after the fifteenth day of the game, players who hadn’t gained much—or had gained nothing at all—would choose to exit.
The dropout rate was even higher for new players. There were many reasons for this, but the biggest one was fear.
Without sufficient power, the chances of dying by remaining in the game were extremely high.
Comments