Chapter 730: Chapter 486: Taking Matters into One’s Own Hands
Since the consumed food would refresh, it could be inferred that they had no need to consume the compressed biscuits that were given to them, and their time to capture the hiders was not limited.
Some even contemplated that, since there was water and delicious food available, there was no real necessity to capture the hiders. They could simply lie down and enjoy life here.
As long as they didn’t proactively hunt down the hiders, they would be willing to stay here for a lifetime.
While some fantasized about lying flat here and never leaving, the captor who had recently gorged on ham suddenly frothed at the mouth, then desperately grasped his throat as if something was stuck in it.
At this moment, Dong Tianyu happened to come by and witnessed the rat poison take the life of the captor.
The captors who were watching nearby instantly changed their expressions upon seeing this, and a few of the smarter captors reached for the ham that had just refreshed.
By the time the others noticed what was happening, the ham had already been divided up by several hands.
Seeing the actions of the "smart ones," the others were somewhat speechless. Although they had realized that the original food might have been poisoned by the hiders, it was assumed that the freshly refreshed food hadn’t been tampered with yet.
But it seemed they had forgotten that once the food in their hands was consumed, it wouldn’t take long for new food to refresh in the kitchen.
The ones who had divided the ham, upon seeing the others looking at them as if they were fools, quickly came to their senses, with a few embarrassingly tossing away the chunks of meat in their hands.
However, even with the freshly refreshed ham, the others were still wary and observed from a distance, as another "Shennong" had emerged.
Thus, everyone at the scene was still waiting to see if there were any "good samaritans" willing to step forward and taste the newly refreshed ham to see how it was.
Alas, by the time the third ham refreshed, no brave soul had stepped forth to taste it, and no one was even willing to take the ham down from the wall.
The kitchen that was once somewhat lively had now fallen into an awkward silence.
Dong Tianyu saw this scenario unfold and didn’t push through the crowd but stood outside using his Divine Sense to observe the situation within.
At the moment, for some reason, even though everyone had the task of capturing the hiders and was aware that the kitchen’s food was likely poisoned by them,
they couldn’t determine which food had been poisoned by the hiders and which might be safe to consume. Therefore, the best approach at this time was not to eat any of the ingredients from the kitchen.
But even though everyone was aware of the situation, there was nothing else to do, and the survivors still stayed in place, not wanting to leave.
In fact, some astute people had also discerned the underlying intent, which was nothing more than to see if anyone was willing to taste the freshly refreshed ham to confirm whether it was safe to consume.
This was crucially important because if the hiders had only poisoned the surface of the original ingredients, then by removing all the ingredients in the kitchen, they could still enjoy the kitchen’s supplies in the Mysterious Realm, as originally planned.
It was also clear to them that despite the game seemingly having no time constraints, various factors indicated that the Mysterious Realm was still limiting the duration of the competition through various means.
In fact, when they saw not only weapons but also water and food in the gifted backpacks, some of the more sinister-thinking captors had already begun to calculate whether it was time to eliminate some of their fellow pursuers.
While eliminating other companions might reduce the efficiency of capturing the hiders, potentially losing the game, for them, this competition was like encountering a tiger in the forest. It didn’t matter if they couldn’t outrun the tiger—just outrunning their companions was good enough.
Moreover, planning the murder of other pursuers was much simpler than searching for those transformed hiders, and killing the pursuers would not only yield food and water but also increase the number of bullets they possessed.
If they had enough bullets, they could roam the manor with impunity, even firing two shots at a mere rock.
Of course, these dark thoughts were for the moment just lingering in their minds, not yet acted upon. After all, the game had just begun, and everyone was still quite vigilant, so the thoughts merely circled in their minds.
As time passed by the minute, not everyone was willing to wait quietly for a hero to emerge; many grew bored of waiting for a volunteer.
So, people began to leave in twos and threes, continuing what they should be doing at this moment—searching for the hiders.
What they failed to notice was that if there was an endlessly refreshing map in the manor, then the layout plans and real-life photos of each setting were surely hidden in some corner of the manor.
Watching the number of people lingering in the kitchen dwindle, Dong Tianyu realized that some people were growing impatient. Having just left on an excuse, he found the location in the manor where the livestock was kept, picked out some creatures, and brought them over.
