Chapter 83: Mouse Maze: From Companion to Food
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
Compared to the previous game with the grids, the arena was surrounded by a creepy darkness at that moment.
The temperature didn’t change, it was still very hot. However, due to their prolonged hunger, all of their cold hands and feet trembled slightly as if soaked in ice water.
“Can anyone start a fire?” Lara’s eyes shone dimly in the darkness. Gulp. She swallowed a mouthful of her own saliva and added, “If we have some salt, it’ll be better.”
Hearing that, Old Wang lifted one of his hands pressing on B.Rabbit and searched his side and back pockets. “Water entered my lighter, so I threw it away,” he suddenly remembered this with regret.
“I can’t be bothered anymore. Let’s skin it first. If we run out of options, I’ll even eat it raw!” Lara couldn’t resist her hunger any longer, she pulled a motionless B.Rabbit over and thrust it over to her boyfriend. “You have a knife, right? Quick, skin it!”
Zhong Junkai was hesitant: “This is Miss Lin’s rabbit…” he stammered, “I don’t think we should eat i—” Before he could finish his sentence, his stomach suddenly rumbled loudly.
He did not dare to look at the rabbit on the ground for fear that he could not curb his insane hunger. He could feel the waves of hunger pangs clawing at his stomach — this was the first time in his life that he had felt such intense hunger.
“If we don’t eat it, we will all die.” Lara frowned as she eyed him. “Can you bear seeing me die of hunger? I mean, this isn’t even your rabbit!”
Zhong Junkai gritted his teeth and said nothing.
“Quick! Pass me the knife!” Lara pushed him roughly. Seeing that her boyfriend was still unwilling to take action, she couldn’t help yelling at him: “You’re afraid of that woman! You’re useless!”
Zhong Junkai stared at her in shock — this was the first time he heard his usually gentle and demure girlfriend using such a tone. Meanwhile, Lara was already reaching out for his fanny pack with her trembling arms. She wasn’t trembling because of her lack of conviction to eat that rabbit but due to her dangerously low blood sugar which was causing her to feel faint.
All this time, Old Wang’s pair of hungry eyes never left B.Rabbit. Compared to Lara, his condition was not any better. His cheeks were deep-sunken, and his pot-belly was visibly smaller.
Lara quickly found a switchblade, and a weak smile suddenly appeared. She placed the rabbit in a supine position, then she held the blade to its throat; the knife slowly sunk into the rabbit’s brown fur…
Her fingers trembled as she pressed the blade down. Just then, a metallic whip-like sheen suddenly came at them. Lara didn’t dodge in time, so she took a direct hit. She staggered as she lost her grip on the switchblade. The switchblade was flung a long distance away from them. Then, blood slowly seeped out from a gash on her face.
“My face!” Lara howled like a she-wolf as she lifted her head and held the wound on her face.
Within that time, Old Wang quickly picked up the rabbit and stuffed it in his pocket as if he already anticipated that someone would chase up to them. Just as he was about to turn and run, he fell forward unexpectedly on his hands and knees on the ground. He looked behind and realized that Lara was grabbing the leg of his trousers.
“Where are you taking my food?” she asked with a sinister expression.
At that point, Lin Sanjiu walked out from a narrow path just around the corner, she was still holding the duoluozhong’s mouthpart. Even though she managed to disarm Lara with a single blow, her condition was actually the worst among them. She thought that she had already used quite a lot of strength in that previous attack, but it merely scraped Lara’s face. Lin Sanjiu breathed heavily as she tried to stop her legs from wobbling and to control the burning hunger in her stomach.
[I’m hungry. So hungry. I don’t care what it is, I just have to eat something…]
Lin Sanjiu leaned against a wall as she threatened with a hoarse voice, “Put that rabbit down. Otherwise, don’t blame me if I start killing…”
This situation could only be explained by what had happened ten minutes — no, ten days before.
After the second game had ended, the grid and the screen melted away like ice-cream. The arena returned to the normal half-red, half-white circle. The only difference was that there was a dead body on one side and an almost dead, paralyzed person on the other side.
The members of both teams wore terrible expressions as they waited silently for Mr. Dot to introduce the next game. However, this time, Mr. Dot said nothing even after a long time. As everyone started becoming restless due to the confusion, slits on the ground opened up, and multiple walls ascended from the ground.
Like tree saplings growing up, everyone watched in shock as the walls grew taller and taller until they could not see their edges. The thick, black walls blocked off almost half of the natural lighting from the sky, creating a seemingly endless number of narrow paths.
The walls blocked the contestants’ view of each other, so Lin Sanjiu only realized that there was no one near her when she heard Mr. Dot’s voice. The walls seemed to have segregated her from her team members.
“Oh, this is the third game, Mouse Maze.” Mr. Dot laughed out. “This is a rather large maze, the Red Team will be at the entrance on this side, and the White Team will be at the other entrance. The goal of this game is very simple. You will just have to reach a specific small area in this maze to win this game and get the +1 point reward.”
“Third game: Mouse Maze
“Rules: None
“Instructions: The members of the Red and White Team will start from their own respective entrances. Once a member reaches a specific area, the team will get a +1 point reward regardless of who reaches first.
“There will be a dinner table covered with white cloth in that specific area. However, there will only be sufficient food for four people, and only those who reach first can start eating. However, if the people who reach first leave any food behind, the others can still eat.” Mr. Dot laughed at his own words, “But I highly doubt that anyone can resist such delicious food.”
[You’ve gotta be kidding. Who would dare to eat the food you provide in such a place?]
Lin Sanjiu criticized inwardly. Suddenly, she heard her stomach growling.
[Huh?] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself.
“Ah, there is something that I still haven’t told all of you,” from Mr. Dot’s tone, Lin Sanjiu could immediately tell that it was something bad.
“Within this parallel world, there is a barrier between the time here and the outside world. In other words, time flows differently from the world outside. I think you should have heard of that saying that ‘One day in Heaven is equivalent to one year on Earth’ or the tale of Urashima Taro going to Dragon Palace[1].
“One minute in this Challenge is equivalent to one day outside. Ever since all of you entered this challenge, it has been 43 minutes. That is… umm… 43 days outside.
“For this third game, I will remove the time barrier between this space and the outside world. You will still experience the same flow of time within the game, but you will find that your body will change accordingly to the world outside…”
Mr. Dot seemed to be still explaining, but Lin Sanjiu could no longer hear him clearly because she suddenly felt faint. Her limbs grew weak, she leaned on the wall and slid to the ground uncontrollably. She only regained her consciousness when her face touched a warm puddle on the ground.
It was only then that Mr. Dot’s voice made sense to her ears again: “It must feel horrible to suddenly experience hunger accumulated over 43 days! I hope that all of you will put in your best efforts! After all, every minute here will be one day for your body. That’s one day without food. But since all of you have enhanced body, you shouldn’t die from one to two months of hunger. But you can’t just continue without food… I hope all of you can survive till you reach the specific area in the maze. There is already a delicious spread for four prepared! “
[That means, only the four people who find the dinner table will survive?]
“There is another thing that everyone should take note of. There are no rules against killing in this game, so please work with your team members and stay on guard against your opponents.” After Mr. Dot said that, he immediately announced, “Alright, now the game officially commences!”
After hearing Mr. Dot’s crappy announcement, Lin Sanjiu didn’t waste another precious second on the floor, she quickly forced herself to stand up. Before she had even entered this pocket dimension, she had already been unconscious for one week. During that time, Hu Changzai could only feed her liquid food made of biscuit crumbs and water. Thus, even with her Overall Body Enhancement, Lin Sanjiu wasn’t stronger than anyone there.
As she scanned the area, she only saw various paths stretching out, but they all looked the same. The black walls on both sides of the paths were so tall that they seemed to reach the clouds. The paths twisted and turned, seeming to extend aimlessly to nowhere.
Lin Sanjiu turned behind hoping to somehow meet up with her team members again, but she spotted no one navigating through the paths behind her. She felt her energy draining with every passing minute.
She sighed and gave up on reuniting with B.Rabbit. She decided to choose a direction and continued forward.
[This is too frustrating!] The first two paths that Lin Sanjiu chose led her to a dead end after a few minutes. After that, she kept reaching walls after walls of dead ends in the same direction. Navigating through such mazes actually required some amount of stamina and energy, but this was made worse by the days of hunger… Lin Sanjiu could only continue forward in a daze as she fantasized uncontrollably about the food which awaited her on the dinner table.
At that point, she suddenly heard a vague high-pitched scream. She was very familiar with that voice. That scathing, uncouth tone could only belong to B.Rabbit. “F*ck! Why are you attacking me!”
Due to the walls, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t hear the conversation properly. She could only make out someone saying the word: eat.
Suddenly alerted, she immediately rushed toward the direction of the voice. “I WILL KILL ANYONE WHO DARES TOUCH HIM!” she shouted as loudly as she could, she didn’t even know how she had managed to muster that energy.
There was an instant silence.
When the old woman lost the duel in the previous game, she offered Chen Fan’s ability, [No coincidence. No story.]. When Lin Sanjiu received that ability from the chest, she found out that she could only create minute coincidences due to the uniqueness of her name.
But right now, even a tiny coincidence was useful in this situation. Lin Sanjiu held a fountain pen in her left hand as she chose a small path randomly; unexpectedly, that narrow path led her to the Red Team members.
As she saw Old Wang and the others running away from her, she stopped thinking and just chased after them.
