CH 11

Chapter 11 Arctic World(end)

Walking in the snowy wilderness, with one shallow footstep and another deep footprint, Qian Yue couldn’t help but lament that the world was indeed different from her imagination.

The moment she heard the phrase “Arctic World,” the scene that appeared in Qian Yue’s mind was one that could only be found in the polar regions of a planet.

Glaciers towering, rarely visited by humans, and the only things that could be seen moving, apart from extremely cold-resistant animals, were the scientific research machines.

But the world in front of her was different, it even resembled the background of a fairy tale.

Straw huts, small villages, old transportation, devoid of any high-tech belonging to the interstellar era, not even lighters or winter jackets.

In this situation, heavy snowfall was enough to turn the world into an apocalypse.

…

Perhaps the game heard her wishes. After walking for about half an hour, Qian Yue actually saw the outline of a town again.

This town was obviously much larger than the two small villages Qian Yue had seen before, and most of the people passing by were players carrying backpacks.

This time, Qian Yue did not encounter any disturbances and quietly entered the town.

Afraid of being recognized as someone wearing the cloak of the Item Merchant, Qian Yue deliberately flipped it over and wore it inside out.

The unique player backpack was hidden underneath the cloak, and with a hat on, she looked almost indistinguishable from the natives.

In the evening, the streets were deserted.

Some doors were tightly closed, while others were nothing but empty frames. The cold wind poured into the houses, and the debris on the roadside and the pink snow silently recited the story of what had happened here.

At the end of an alley, Qian Yue found a haystack shed, but to her surprise, as soon as she lifted the hay, she came face to face with three pairs of frightened eyes.

Three extremely thin and weakened children.

“…”

Qian Yue hesitated for a moment on whether to give them some food, but in the end, she quietly covered the hay and walked away.

As expected, right after she left, several beggars rushed up from the corner, saying, “Give it! That woman gave you food, didn’t she…”

Minutes before nightfall, Qian Yue finally found an attic as a place to stay. Through the small window in the attic, she silently watched as night fell, and then shut her eyes to rest.

But not long after, a noisy sound came from downstairs, followed by a strange roar!

“She’s gone crazy, another crazy one!”

“Run!”

…

Outside, there seemed to be a fierce fight. Chaotic footsteps mixed with clanging sounds filled the air, occasionally accompanied by cries of pain.

Qian Yue’s eyelashes trembled, but she did not move.

A few minutes later, the sound gradually faded, and the surroundings became silent again—

Just then, a slight creaking sound came from downstairs, indicating that someone had entered the room below her.

Qian Yue instantly opened her eyes.

Judging from the footsteps, it seemed to be two people, walking hurriedly. But they did not seem to realize that there was someone above them.

The access to the attic was located near the kitchen, making it difficult to spot if entering through the main door.

“Quick, come in and sit down.”

The speaker was a woman, and the other person seemed to be injured, occasionally gasping for breath. When they entered the room, there was another clanging sound.

The woman asked, “What’s your health stat now?”

“…15, with a negative infection status…huk, still losing health.” A man answered.

Woman, “Infection? Luckily, I still have the antibiotics I drew two days ago. Endure it, I’ll give you the meds immediately.”

Perhaps they thought there was no one else around, for the two of them did not intentionally lower their voices when they were speaking. On the contrary, it allowed Qian Yue upstairs to hear everything clearly.

She thought to herself, “Players? The injured person hasn’t used items on themselves and instead waited for that woman to help. She must be a doctor.”

I wonder how they got injured. Could there be wolves in the city too? But the commotion just now seemed a bit different…

After a few minutes, the man’s voice returned to normal.

He urged, “Quick, apply the status effect to yourself. It’s not safe here; let’s hurry and leave.”

He paused and asked, “Damn, do you still have any mental suppressant? That guy scratched me, and my mental point dropped by thirty points!”

Woman, “No, I used them all during the day.”

…

After a while, the sound of the door opening came from below again, and the footsteps gradually faded away, but Qian Yue take this opportunity to get a shut-eye.

Instead, she remained in the same sitting position, leaning against the wall without moving. The surroundings were so quiet that she could be able to hear the sound of a pin drop.

In the next second, Qian Yue suddenly swung her ice pick, and at the same time, the trapdoor to the attic was forcefully pushed up from below.

As soon as that person’s head appeared, they saw a silver shadow swiftly rush toward them face-first!

“Damn it! I didn’t mean to disturb!”

Xu Hongbo instinctively leaned back, but his neck still felt a slight chill. Frightened, he broke out into cold sweat.

He immediately realized that even though he had surrendered in advance, the other party had no intention of stopping. If he hadn’t moved back just now, that thing would have pierced his neck.

The girl downstairs also became nervous and hurriedly explained, “Sorry, we didn’t mean to disturb you. We didn’t know there was someone upstairs—”

Before she could finish her sentence, she heard the person upstairs replying in a mocking tone, “Didn’t know there was someone? I thought you two were here to loot corpses again.”

Shi Wei & Xu Hongbo, … Why is it her again!

The two of them were squeezed at the entrance of the attic, their hands folded on their legs, behaving as if they were elementary school students being lectured.

Facing them was Qian Yue, sitting with one leg bent against the wall, and the ice pick that almost pierced Xu Hongbo’s neck was resting by her leg.

There was approximately the distance of a whole attic between the two sides, which goes to show how nervous Xu Hongbo and Shi Wei were.

At this moment, Xu Hongbo was explaining the entire matter to Qian Yue.

“We originally planned to stay in a nearby warehouse for the night. There are many players there, so no one dared to cause trouble.”

“But unexpectedly, one of them suddenly went crazy, and that guy injured several people. In the end, four or five of them went insane.”

Went crazy?

Qian Yue was stunned.

After two seconds, she realized that there seemed to be a setting in the game where a low mental points stat would cause someone to go completely insane.

—Forgive her, it wasn’t that her memory is bad, but she has been living comfortably, and Qian Yue hardly ever worried about her mental points. So naturally, she forgot about the related rules.

However, what does scratching people have to do with it?

Thinking back to Xu Hongbo’s complaint downstairs about “that guy” scratching him and causing him to lose thirty points of mental points, Qian Yue roughly guessed the answer.

She asked, “Insanity can spread to other people?”

Xu Hongbo was taken aback. Although he did not know why Qian Yue would ask that, he truthfully replied, “After going crazy, players will indiscriminately attack the people around them until they completely die after an hour.”

“During this hour, when an ordinary player is scratched, not only do they lose health points, but their mental points also drop.” In fact, it drops even more than their health stat.

“Once their mental points are depleted, that player will also go insane.”

Qian Yue understood now. It was somewhat similar to the zombies in the apocalyptic movies she had seen before—not only would they go crazy themselves, but they could also infect others.

She instinctively said, “You city-dwellers are really terrifying.”

Xu Hongbo, “…”

Seeing that Qian Yue’s mood seemed to be fine, Shi Wei, who had been quietly staying on the side, cautiously spoke up, “Now that everything has been explained, shall we go first?”

As they were about to get up, moving quickly, Qian Yue suddenly spoke up.

“Go where?”

Both of them froze, and in their minds, they involuntarily recalled the nightmare of their previous encounter.

” We’re sorry!”

Thinking that she was angry, Shi Wei, with a mournful face, said,

“We shouldn’t have let our curiosity get the better of us and disturbed your rest, but we really don’t have any items—”

Qian Yue interrupted her in surprise, “Why would I need your items?”

Both of them were puzzled.

“Well…”

Qian Yue said, “Shh.”

She raised her chin towards the small round window, and after hesitating for a moment, Xu Hongbo slowly leaned over to take a look.

On the empty street, a few people with strange postures staggered by, as if they had been drinking fake alcohol.

A wild wolf sneaked in from somewhere and wanted to attack any living creature it saw, but before it could make a move, those “drunkards” suddenly turned around and pounced on the wolf directly—

Moments later, a scream that did not belong to a human tore through the night sky.

Day eight, it began to rain.

Xu Hongbo and Shi Wei had reached their limit after spending the night in the attic with Qian Yue. As soon as it was daylight, they jumped up as if their butts were on fire and ran off.

Qian Yue leaned against the window and watched them go, then slowly made her way downstairs.

As previously mentioned, those who went crazy would only completely die after an hour of madness. The zombies that had wandered the streets last night died one by one before the sun rose, now lying on the streets with little difference from ordinary people.

Rainwater poured down, hitting the roots, corpses, and stone steps, eventually gathering on the muddy road. There was a putrid smell in the air.

If this continued, not only would there be floods in the outskirts, but it was likely that an epidemic would soon break out within the city as well. The players probably wouldn’t be spared.

Although the town was large, the resource points were also far away.

Under the current circumstances, it was impossible for any more supplies to be brought in from outside. The situation would likely become even more chaotic…

Qian Yue stood inside the house and watched for a while before putting on the hood of her cloak and stepping into the curtain of rainfall.

Since this resting point had been discovered by others, Qian Yue had no intention of staying there any longer.

She found another concealed place, where no one would disturb her this time.

Although there were occasional sounds of fighting nearby, Qian Yue was unfazed and focused on eating and drinking as necessary.

Day nine…

Day ten…

When the first ray of dawn on the eleventh day illuminated the earth, the world before Qian Yue suddenly changed, returning to the pure white space it was initially.

Even Qian Yue couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement at this moment. Finally, she had cleared the game! She could leave this game!

“Congratulations to player Qian Yue for completing the first round of the instance challenge.”

System: “You have leveled up. Here is an introduction to the levels…”

Qian Yue, “Skip, skip.”

System: “You have obtained 30 attribute points that can be allocated now or temporarily stored.”

Qian Yue, “Store them.”

“Remaining items in the backpack: Hard Bread x2…”

Qian Yue, “Got it, got it, skip the rest.”

Right now, she just wanted to quickly disassociate herself from this game and go back to enjoying her wonderful vacation.

The system calmly finished the last sentence:

“You have successfully advanced. The next round of instances will open in three days. Please pay attention to the email notification and participate on time.”

Qian Yue was taken aback.

What did it mean by successfully advanced and participate on time?

“Wait…”

Before she could finish her sentence, the world before her suddenly darkened, and then additional lines of notifications appeared:

【You have advanced.】

【The next instance opens in 3 days.】

【Please wait patiently.】

Qian Yue, “…”

[T/N: Anndd… it’s a wrap! This is the end of the Arctic World arc, next will be a filler chapter and then a new adventure begins! Hope you’ve all enjoyed this so far :)] Ruisi at eruisreads dot com