Chapter 26: Interrogation

"I have nothing to say," the woodchopper replied with a grim expression. "I don't know anything about 'players' or 'stragglers.' I've lived here my whole life."

Xu Huo made a clicking sound with his tongue. His face was obscured by shadows, making his expression unreadable, but a second later, the sharp edge of a shovel pressed against the other man's throat. His tone was cold. "Players have some peculiar traits. Let’s see if your head can grow back after it’s been chopped off."

The woodchopper panicked, blurting out, "You can't kill me! If you kill me, you'll never clear the game!"

"I thought you said you didn't know anything?"

The woodchopper forced a smile. "I can give you a hint on how to clear the level, provided you don't tell the other players about this..."

The shovel pressed down without mercy.

Blood trickled down his neck, and the woodchopper let out a guttural, discordant sound. He glared at Xu Huo with wide eyes, struggling for a moment before he was forced to cave in. "I... I'll talk..."

Xu Huo released his grip and shoved the unfinished cigarette butt into the man's mouth. "Go ahead."

The woodchopper inhaled the cigarette butt greedily before beginning his story.

He had entered the Hot Spring Mountain Villa station two and a half months ago. Having already completed two E-rank instances, he considered himself a veteran. However, he hadn't expected the players in his third instance to be so abnormal. Apart from those who died at the hands of the Head-Chopper, the other players had mostly killed each other. He had only managed to save his own life by surrendering all of his items.

He kept his life, but when the instance ended, he didn't receive a train ticket or a return ticket. Unable to leave, he was forced to remain stranded at the villa. To obtain tickets from later players, he disguised his identity and lived in the woodshed.

With the physical condition of a standard evolver, it shouldn't have been difficult to kill players and steal their tickets by taking advantage of the element of surprise. But after staying at the villa for half a month, green pustules began to erupt on his body, his physique wasted away, and his physical strength plummeted to that of an ordinary human.

Dozens of players had come and gone, but he only dared to target those who looked the weakest. As it turned out, those people were even worse off than he was—forgetting about tickets, they had neither items nor potions. Furthermore, because their corpses didn't vanish when the instance refreshed, he was forced to bury them near the woodshed.

"Is the illness on your body because you missed the instances?" Xu Huo asked after listening.

"How would I know?" the woodchopper complained irritably. "The first time I missed an instance, the game informed me that I would be forcibly teleported into a B-rank random instance after three months. The more sessions I miss, the higher the danger level of the instances becomes. I barely survived the E-rank instances; wouldn't a B-rank instance just be a death sentence?"

"But I have no choice if I can't get a ticket. Do you think I want to kill people? Everyone was a decent, honest person before they entered the game..."

"What is your game objective?" Xu Huo interrupted, unmoved.

The woodchopper gritted his teeth. "Protect our head."

Xu Huo frowned slightly. They had the same objective, yet the woodchopper had survived until the end of the instance without receiving a return ticket, which meant he hadn't cleared the game.

So, simply surviving until the time limit was not enough to clear the level.

"How long has it been since you last drank an evolution potion?" he asked again.

"Three months..." The woodchopper suddenly realized. "So it was the evolution potion! I only got this strange disease because I stopped taking it!"

Xu Huo ignored his wailing, his mind occupied by something else.

Given when the woodchopper entered the instance, he had developed symptoms at least a month after stopping his potions. Players with an evolution rate below ten percent were required to consume one bottle of evolution potion every month. Was this a side effect of low-grade potions, or a weakness inherent to evolution itself?

If it were merely a problem with the potions, finding a higher-grade one would solve it. But if the act of evolution itself created a dependency on the potion, then a player would never be able to escape the control of these drugs for the rest of their lives.

This game really went out of its way to dig pits for evolvers.

However, he could set this aside for now; completing the instance objective was the priority. If he couldn't clear the level and obtain a return ticket, his only options were to remain stranded in the game or head directly into the next instance.

He asked a few more details about the instance, and once the woodchopper could no longer provide any useful information, he cleanly and efficiently sent him on his way.

[Congratulations, Player Passerby A, for killing a Black Player. You may claim the deceased player's property, items, and tickets. Please receive the player's remains.]

The moment the woodchopper breathed his last, the game's notification rang in his mind. Xu Huo opened his personal panel, which now listed the woodchopper's player information.

[Player Nickname: Professional Talent]
[Player Type: Black Player]
[Profession: Mourning Actor]
[Player Level: E]
[ID Number: 285471]
[Evolution Rate: 8%]
[Property: None]
[Trait: Rise from the Dead]

[Items: 1. Weather-Prediction Belt 2. Floating Balloon]
[Ticket Holder: Empty]

The player information was simplified; beyond property, items, and the ticket holder, the other fields were grayed out and could not be selected for viewing.

The trait that interested Xu Huo most had no detailed description, but since he couldn't acquire it, it wasn't particularly important.

He took out the items, and two realistic icons immediately appeared in his own item slot:

[Weather-Prediction Belt (Note: A belt that is more accurate than the weather forecast. Pay attention to the smile on the belt buckle; a big smile means a beautiful sunny day.)]

[Floating Balloon (Note: A balloon that loves the sky, but it cannot move more than one hundred meters away from the person who inflated it. A perfect item that is passionate, dreamy, and loyal.)]

A weather belt with no precision and a locator balloon with a limited range—they were indeed two mediocre items with little use in actual combat, though small trinkets had their own clever applications.

After stowing the items and burying the body, Xu Huo returned to the villa.

According to the woodchopper, the Head-Chopper had never appeared after the instance began until the players arrived at the villa. Although he was also a player, through several resets of the instance, the Head-Chopper seemed to ignore him as an outsider and had never actively attacked him.

He had assumed this was because he wasn't a player in the current instance, allowing him to kill outside the rules, but that wasn't the case. He simply provided evidence that the Head-Chopper must be among the current participants.

Most of the murders in the villa involved decapitation, though some victims were missing limbs. Huang Junjie believed these were imitative crimes by players; the hunter and the prey were evenly matched, which explained the signs of struggle and fighting.

That speculation held some weight, but Xu Huo had a different idea: the missing limbs were merely a cover for one's identity.

Beyond Black and White players, there were also Cannibal players. It was likely that the player acting as the Head-Chopper was also a Cannibal; to cover up the traces of their feeding, they had intentionally hidden those limbs, which was why there had been a concentration of dismembered corpses during a specific period, matching the timeline of the instance.

He looked up toward the villa.

The lights there had flickered out once, but they had come back on after Huang Junjie and Yuan Yao returned. If the Head-Chopper had been active, there would be some clues by now.