Song Yu swiftly stowed the bedding and quilt on the ground into her backpack slots, executing the entire process without generating a single sound.
Even had she produced a noise, the players outside likely wouldn’t have noticed.
The volume of the noise they were making was hardly low to begin with, even though they were trying their absolute best to muffle it.
The rustling footfalls stood out with striking clarity inside the hollow expanse of the storm drains. Hiding in the shadows, Song Yu and Xiao Hei locked onto their conversation, listening to every word clearly.
“Real or fake? The folks over in the Old District are planning to shake down the NPCs?”
“Of course it’s real. They’re prepping for it three days from now.”
“Just think about what kind of life we’ve been living ever since entering this game—can’t eat our fill, can’t sleep in peace.”
“Ten thousand players, yet how many resources are left in this city? Nearly all of them are sitting in the hands of those NPCs.”
“Chased by zombies day in and day out—what kind of ghost life is this!”
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“And those NPCs? Living it up, eating like kings and drinking like fish every single day, yet how do they even have the face to set their trade prices that absurdly high!”
“If you ask me, we might as well pull off one massive score!”
The male voice speaking carried a fierce, ruthless edge. Song Yu couldn’t make out his facial features, but judging by his unsteady, floating footsteps, she could deduce one thing:
His combat prowess was nothing to write home about.
“But how on earth did this kind of intelligence leak out for us to find out?”
“You think this is some kind of lucky break?”
The player who had spoken first let out a cold chuckle, casting a dismissive glance toward his companion.
“Isn’t it?”
“Those NPCs possess firearms. Just that single fact alone is enough to leave us without a burial plot.”
“The players engineering this operation naturally want as many people to participate as humanly possible.”
“The more chaotic the scene gets, the higher the odds of fishing in troubled waters.”
Still, all the players were likely operating under the exact same thought process.
Song Yu stroked her chin, deep in thought.
Stated that way, she actually didn’t need to rush. Three days from now—roughly landing on the 10th day of the game—would be the sweet spot.
Song Yu had originally considered moving against this group of players. The visibility in the storm drains was abysmal; launching a stealth ambush in the pitch-dark could at least secure one or two kills.
Yet hearing them talk like this, she felt inclined to retract her previous notion.
Rather than fixating on these seven or eight players, it would be far wiser to bide her time until the players formed mass syndicates to loot the NPCs…
Naturally, should a prime opportunity for violence present itself, Song Yu wouldn’t let it slip by either.
Gripping her nail gun, she pressed her back flat against the tunnel wall, holding her breath while Xiao Hei’s breathing grew exceptionally faint and slow as well.
That group of players was marching steadily closer toward their position. If Song Yu initiated an attack at this exact moment, extricating herself cleanly would prove exceedingly difficult.
While she could undoubtedly eliminate one or two of them, she risked leaving herself open for other players to reap the spoils.
She wouldn’t be able to carry away the player inheritances and corpses.
Wait a little longer. Even if she had to strike, she needed to secure the optimal timing.
The group of players remained entirely oblivious to the presence of Song Yu and Xiao Hei lurking in the dark. Not only did they brazenly march straight into the shelter chosen by the two of them, but they also began preparing to build a campfire and rest.
Who could tolerate this??
Song Yu had already been prepared to let them off the hook!
The open space where she and Xiao Hei slept at night connected two separate storm-drain tunnels, featuring recessed alcoves along the walls on both sides.
The space inside these alcoves was quite roomy—more than spacious enough to house both Song Yu and Xiao Hei.
The two of them stood right inside the alcove, casting an eerie, silent gaze toward the group of players preparing to start a fire.
To speak frankly, at such a close distance they hadn’t even detected the presence of Song Yu and Xiao Hei, yet they still harbored dreams of wading into a chaotic melee to pick up scraps.
It was a miracle they hadn’t been hacked to death from behind already.
Xiao Hei glanced up at Song Yu, and Song Yu nodded.
Lifting her hand, she fired an arrow straight into the cluster of players who were still chattering incessantly!
Pick the softest persimmons to squeeze; if Song Yu lacked the capacity to handle high-tier zombies, could she really fail to deal with a bunch of NPC-wannabe human players?
With the body armor provided by the Watchers organization equipped, as long as those players didn’t carry firearms, Song Yu had zero fear of them.
With the players clustered tightly together, the crossbolt fired off struck home with fortunate precision, nailing one of the players squarely!
“Aah—!!!”
A piercing, miserable shriek instantly exploded inside the storm drain, echoing back and forth in repetitive waves!
“Are you out of your mind?!”
A noise this loud was bound to attract zombies!
Instantly, another player lunged forward to clamp a hand over his mouth, yet this chaotic scuffle immediately alerted the remaining players that something was deeply wrong.
The stench of fresh blood permeated the air as Song Yu loosed her second arrow!
“There’s someone here!”
The successive volley of flying arrows finally exposed Song Yu’s existence to them, but due to the pitch-black environment, they had zero clue where Song Yu was positioned.
Firing off several arrows guided purely by sound and tactile estimation, Song Yu shook out her wrists—she really needed to acquire a pair of night-vision goggles.
Yet utility gear of that caliber fetched exorbitant prices at Chen Su’s marketplace, starting at a baseline of Tier 3 or Tier 4 mutated blood.
Relying on its razor-sharp sense of smell and athletic build, Xiao Hei darted swiftly back and forth among the players, dealing a substantial amount of damage to their ranks.
Even when those players wanted to retaliate, they couldn’t lock onto the figures of Song Yu or Xiao Hei anywhere!
Song Yu subscribed to the philosophy of striking while the getting was good. The moment Xiao Hei retreated back to her side, she knew another player had checked out.
She immediately led Xiao Hei in preparing to evacuate, only to find that the group of players was likewise preparing to flee in a panic.
“Move, run!!”
Amidst the panicked, chaotic screams of those players, Song Yu collided directly with them.
With the two factions clashing, Song Yu stood alone on her side, making it crystal clear to her that everyone outside her immediate circle was an enemy. Without hesitation, she drew her small knife and slashed straight across a player’s throat.
As for the counter-attacks launched by other players, the 15 defense points provided by her body armor proved more than sufficient to deflect the majority of the incoming damage!
Even so, her health pool plummeted at a rapid pace.
Song Yu swiftly packed that corpse into her spatial storage and bolted from the scene with Xiao Hei in tow!
Unlike this bunch of players, she actually possessed a flashlight.
To be honest, this single detail laid bare just how excruciatingly scarce resources were across Yangliu City.
Seven or eight players, yet they lacked even a basic flashlight, candle, or match.
Had Song Yu not possessed the good fortune of taking down a few other players earlier, she wouldn’t have possessed them either.
Two adult males—estimating roughly, their combined weight had to hit at least two to three hundred catties.
Handing these corpses over to Shuyuan would fit right in with picking up animal-tending quests while the players initiated their raiding operation, right before she headed off toward the seaport.
It timed out perfectly.
The hollow storm drains reverberated with the footfalls of a human and a dog as they departed, yet the chaos left behind in the clearing was far from over.
That group of players remained completely in the dark, unaware that Song Yu was operating entirely solo. Operating on survival instinct, every single one of them assumed an aggressive defense, training their weapons directly on their own companions.
Curses, screams, and wails intertwined with fresh blood and panic as the turmoil escalated. By the time the madness was forcibly suppressed, they realized the player who had orchestrated this entire spectacle had already vanished long ago.
They had essentially been terrifying themselves over nothing!
Yet by that time, they had already drawn the attention of zombies tracking the sounds and the scent of fresh blood right to their doorstep.
For high-tier zombies, scaling down into a basement passage presented zero difficulty.
Within the pitch-darkness, the pupils of the zombies glowed with an eerie, unsettling red light that stood out with glaring prominence.
When the player who had been spouting bravado moments earlier felt a chilling, razor-sharp point press against his neck, it was already far too late.
“Aaaah—!!!”