Chapter 69-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 69
Thunder rumbled and lightning flickered intermittently through the black clouds. The young woman's gaunt face looked deathly pale.
Lin Huijun stood with her mouth agape, unable to say a word. She couldn't imagine how the people of Hai City could possibly survive in a world overrun with mutants — without the Talent abilities granted by the game.
Bai Shan's gaze remained frozen for a moment before she finally blinked.
Using game abilities would trigger an attack? Bai Shan had doubts about this claim. She had just used [Tyrannical Command] to levitate the RV onto the rooftop, and no mysterious force had attacked her.
But her [A Diligent Hardworking RV] had indeed been attacked while they were outside.
After hearing Yan An's account of the situation in Hai City, Bai Shan only felt more confused.
She couldn't draw any further conclusions from this one person's testimony alone. Bai Shan ran a hand through her hair, then turned and scanned the apartment. Her nose twitched slightly — she caught the scent of something sour and putrid, a stench that even the howling wind and torrential rain outside couldn't mask.
Was it a smell belonging to this apartment, or one emanating from all of Hai City?
"Is there anyone else in this apartment?" Bai Shan suddenly asked.
"...There was a friend, but she's already dead."
Bai Shan noticed Yan An turn her head away, concealing most of her expression. She followed the direction Yan An had turned and saw a room with its door tightly shut.
Bai Shan strode toward it. Yan An's eyes widened as she moved to stop her, but Lin Huijun beat her to it, stepping in front of Bai Shan to block her path.
"Bai Shan."
Lin Huijun shook her head disapprovingly.
Bai Shan glanced at Lin Huijun, withdrew the hand she'd placed on the door handle, and returned to her usual posture with both hands in her pockets. She turned sideways, her sharp dark eyes once again fixed on Yan An.
"Yan An, I believe there are genuinely good people in this world. But in times like these, when even self-preservation is difficult, sudden acts of kindness always make me uneasy."
"Give me a more convincing reason."
The young woman met Bai Shan's gaze, then hastily looked away.
"..."
"My friend is dead. I need new companions to survive. I happened to spot you two."
Lin Huijun studied Yan An's state for a moment, then asked gently, "Would you be willing to tell us what happened to your friend?"
Yan An was silent for a beat. She turned her back to them and stared out the window at the endless rain, recounting the story slowly, word by word.
*
"Yan An! Catch!"
Zhao Yi stood on a raft, tossing bottles of purified water and medicine up one by one, while Yan An leaned out from the second floor to catch them.
The two had been complete strangers. Yan An was a bank teller; Zhao Yi was a makeup artist. On the day Hai City was struck by catastrophe, Yan An, passing by, had pulled Zhao Yi up when she fell, and in the chaos, dragged her to safety from the attack of mutated vines.
They became companions after that, moving into Zhao Yi's nearby rental apartment and struggling to survive together in Hai City.
Zhao Yi's rental had originally been shared by three people, who had also pooled money to raise a Corgi named "Dundun." The other two roommates never came back.
The one thing that could be called lucky was that Dundun had mutated — becoming a super-Corgi that could scale walls and leap across rooftops. But even after the mutation, it remained affectionate toward Zhao Yi, just as before.
Without the game Tomorrow's Dominator, they had no objectives like "reach Level 5." The only thing the two of them and one dog had to do was stay alive.
The torrential rain continued for over ten days, submerging all of Hai City in water. The area where they were staying wasn't too deeply flooded — just above the knees — still shallow enough to wade through, but extremely dangerous.
They often stood in the fifth-floor corridor, observing the streets below. Strange creatures occasionally glided through the flooded roads — gray fins sometimes poking above the surface, unidentifiable glowing things blinking in the murky water, and sometimes enormous dark shadows drifting slowly beneath, like reflections of the unyielding storm clouds above.
They weren't the only ones in the building, but for safety, they hadn't teamed up with anyone else.
Food dwindled bit by bit. The gray days stretched on with no end in sight. Some people in the building tried venturing out to find rescue, others wanted to cross to neighboring buildings for more supplies, and some had family members injured and feverish — with the pharmacy right across the street.
Yan An and Zhao Yi watched silently from upstairs. The retired old man who tried to seek help had barely stepped into the water when snake-like mutant creatures coiled around his legs and dragged him under. He never stood up again.
After that death, no one dared enter the water directly, but people still attempted to "cross the river."
Large plastic basins, door panels, tables — anything became a vessel. One family's grandmother happened to be a habitual junk collector, hoarding empty plastic bottles that would roll around noisily and had drawn plenty of complaints. When the apocalypse came, she and her family tied the bottles together, lashed on furniture boards, and fashioned a raft.
The creatures in the water were wary of humans using large implements. To them, the crude raft and the person on it appeared as a single, larger organism — bigger than they were, and not worth the fight.
So the family floated across the street and returned unharmed with medicine and food, greatly emboldening the rest of the building's residents, who hurried to follow suit.
But within two days, the old woman's family was murdered in the middle of the night by a group of intruders who took every resource in sight — including the raft.
Chaos reigned for several days afterward. Yan An and Zhao Yi barricaded their doors and windows and hid in the pitch-dark apartment.
It wasn't until long after the screaming and shouting had ceased, and the building had been silent for what felt like an eternity, that Zhao Yi finally moved the furniture blocking the door and mustered the courage to step outside.
Looking down from the corridor, she saw the bottle-lashed raft floating alone on the water's surface, surrounded by a wide slick of blood. A hand still clung desperately to its edge, but soon it slipped and slid into the water. The splash it made quickly settled back to stillness.
Yan An and Zhao Yi found two laundry poles and bound them together, then took the extended pole and a length of rope down to the second floor.
They used the pole to hook the raft and pull it close. Zhao Yi summoned the courage to jump from the second floor onto the raft, while Yan An tossed a rope down from above. Zhao Yi tied the rope to the raft, then climbed back up via a drainpipe. Together, they hauled the raft out of the storm-battered, drifting water and up into the building.
That was how they obtained the raft.
They were the only two left in the building. In fact, it seemed they were the only two people left on the entire street.
A few more days passed, and the building's purified water supply was completely exhausted. They decided that one person would take the raft out along the streets to search for water and food, while the other stayed on the second floor to manage the tow rope.
"We took turns going out to scavenge. We didn't dare go far — just circled the nearby area."
"Dundun would go out often too, sometimes bringing back dead rats or little snacks. We had to towel it dry every time it came back from the rain."
"Two days ago, I came down with a fever and broke out in a rash. So Zhao Yi took the raft to the pharmacy to get medicine."
"...She'd actually already made it back to the building with the supplies. She'd thrown everything up to me... but then she — she..."
Yan An's hoarse voice dropped to nearly a whimper. Her body remained turned away from the two strangers, her expression hidden from view the entire time. The chubby dog nuzzled its wet nose against her pant leg.
By this point, both Lin Huijun and Bai Shan understood — Zhao Yi had met with an accident on the raft.
Most likely, a mutant lurking in the floodwater had killed her.
For people with no supernatural abilities to have held out this long — Bai Shan felt genuine admiration. She also knew this was the moment to give someone space to process their grief. But she couldn't help asking:
"If you've been holed up in this building the entire time, how do you know about what's happening 'out there'?"
Yan An's slightly trembling shoulders went rigid. She took several deep breaths, then turned around. Her deeply sunken eyes stared straight at Bai Shan and Lin Huijun as she answered:
"Because the people who murdered the old woman's family were outsiders — just like you."
"Their car broke down on this street, so they came into this building and took over the fourth floor. The soundproofing in this building is terrible. I overheard a lot."
"Any more questions? Outsiders."
Yan An's tone turned acerbic, clearly unwilling to answer more. Bai Shan earnestly raised one hand and said, "Yes."
"A city like Hai City — hasn't there been any organized rescue, any response at all?"
Yan An lowered her eyes. "I don't know. Maybe. But this area is on the outskirts of Hai City. The city's enormous — they can't reach everywhere."
Bai Shan nodded. She pulled a gun from [Personal Space] and offered it to Yan An.
Yan An accepted it with a look of shock and bewilderment.
"Thank you for your help and your answers. This is our gift in return."
A smile finally broke through Bai Shan's cold exterior. "But I'm sorry — we can't become your companions, because we still have to push forward."
"However, there's no rush just yet. If you don't mind, we'd like to stay the night."
As she spoke, Bai Shan's gaze drifted toward that tightly shut room. Yan An noticed her looking.
Yan An gripped the gun tightly, staring at the closed door for a long while before finally speaking. "Fine."
"You two have a seat. Let me go tidy up."
With that, she walked toward the closed room, pushed the door open, and pulled it shut behind her.
Bai Shan didn't follow. She sat obediently on the sofa, but her gaze never left Yan An's direction.
Through the wall — she could see everything on the other side with perfect clarity.
[Talent: "Eagle Eye, Wolf Instinct" (C)
Skill 1: One minute of X-ray vision per day.]
Although Yan An had warned them not to use Talent abilities, saying some unknown force would attack, Bai Shan had already used her abilities when levitating the RV onto the rooftop. One more time wouldn't make a difference.
The wall became transparent decoration. Yan An's every move was laid bare before Bai Shan's eyes.
She was gathering things into a bag inside the room — booklets from the desk, papers from the drawers, small items like that. Her movements were quick.
If this was her deceased friend's room, tidying up personal belongings seemed perfectly normal.
But among the several books on the desk, why had she picked out only that one particular booklet? Could it be Zhao Yi's diary or something?
"All done."
"That room's yours now. Go in and rest whenever you want."
Yan An emerged with the bag, noticed Bai Shan and Lin Huijun watching her, and offered an explanation. "I packed up her belongings."
"Remember — don't use any abilities in the room. I don't want to attract any danger, and I don't want to be collecting more bodies."
She pressed her lips together hard, then from deep in her throat came a sound of grinding teeth:
"...I despise you people and your special powers."
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