Mutated creatures?
Qiyu turned his hopeful gaze toward the darkness. Would another wave of mutated creatures appear?
He waited expectantly, but several minutes passed without a sound.
Qiyu was puzzled. Could the rules be different from one zone to another?
Just as he was considering this possibility, the Survival Panel lit up again.
【God Has No Form: My mistake. There aren't any mutated creatures.】
【God Has No Form: Do you guys experience mental pollution at night too?】
【I Love Survival Game: Yes.】
【God Has No Form: After midnight, the mental pollution gets stronger. I thought I heard something moving and figured another mutated creature was coming, but it turned out to be an auditory hallucination.】
Qiyu, who hadn't heard a thing: ……
Still, it wasn't a big deal. He could check the zone chat channel.
Sure enough, people were complaining that the howling and wailing outside had grown even louder.
Some had become so overwhelmed that they'd given up entirely, declaring that they'd had enough of the torment and were going to venture into the darkness to die quickly and be reborn.
The number of players in the zone had already dropped by more than four thousand.
Qiyu glanced at the time. Only thirty minutes had passed since the newbie protection period ended, yet more than three thousand people had died in that short span.
【God Has No Form: I don't know how we ended up on each other's friends lists, but meeting someone from another server must be fate. Want to chat? I'm curious about the differences between your server and ours.】
【I Love Survival Game: Sure.】
The beginning of the game had been virtually identical for both of them. Each had appeared alone inside a shelter.
The only difference was their starting shelter. Players on Qiyu's Server 01 had received small wooden cabins, while those on God Has No Form's server had started with stone houses. Their newbie chests and daily resource chests were more or less the same.
Qiyu wasn't particularly talkative, but he always managed to convey the important points in just a few words.
【God Has No Form: So your safe zone is full of trees and flowers, and even the monsters are just rabbits and piglets? Are all you people on Server 01 ridiculously lucky or something?】
【God Has No Form: The moment we step outside, it's nothing but sandstorms. In three whole days, the only plants I've seen in the safe zone are cacti.】
【I Love Survival Game: Then how do you gather resources to upgrade your shelters?】
【God Has No Form: Mining, obviously. We've got stone mines and iron mines. We get resources from mining, and small monsters randomly spawn while we're at it. Killing them gives us loot.】
Qiyu blinked slowly.
He opened the shelter upgrade requirements and stared several times at the line that read "200 green-quality stone materials, 50 green-quality iron ore."
【I Love Survival Game】 has sent you a trade request.
Dan Xingyu clicked on it, bewildered.
【300g Banyan Plum for 1 Stone.】
【I Love Survival Game: I picked these while chopping wood. Are they edible?】
Dan Xingyu: ??!!
【God Has No Form: Godfather!】
To be fair, banyan plums weren't particularly delicious. They were more tart than sweet.
But supplies were scarce in the desert. Dan Xingyu wasn't short on food, especially meat, but water and vegetables were both hard to come by.
The Survival Game hadn't actually been too harsh on Server 88. Although it was a desert, the temperature never exceeded 30 degrees. It was simply that staring at endless stretches of yellow sand day after day naturally made one crave something fresh and green.
If he listed that handful of banyan plums on the trading channel, he could probably exchange them for quite a few valuable items.
Qiyu ignored his exclamation and stated his intentions directly.
【I Love Survival Game: It seems our two zones have different resources. We can trade with each other in the future.】
Dan Xingyu had been thinking exactly the same thing.
The two then began discussing the mutated creature invasion that night.
Dan Xingyu explained that most of the monsters they encountered were small creatures called fire-tailed scorpions. They weren't venomous, but their stings were excruciatingly painful. The items obtained from Basic Resource Packs were roughly the same, although stone was the primary resource consumed in their zone.
Qiyu thought his new friend was rather talkative.
He couldn't help thinking of his other good friend, Civil Engineering Brother.
Perhaps people from Earth were simply this enthusiastic?
Dan Xingyu, meanwhile, thought his new friend was a little too quiet.
He had originally assumed that someone who chose an absurd ID like "I Love Survival Game" would be something of a goofball. To his surprise, once they actually started talking, the guy turned out to be a man of few words and… surprisingly sincere?
Perhaps because they belonged to different servers, Dan Xingyu felt more comfortable talking to Qiyu than he would have with players from his own server.
Although there were no mutated creatures around at the moment, no one dared to sleep at a time like this. Dan Xingyu decided to pass the time by chatting with Qiyu about whatever came to mind.
He mentioned that before being transported into the Survival Game, he had managed to save a considerable amount of money, enough to cover his living expenses for several years. Then, completely out of the blue, he had been transported into the game.
【God Has No Form: If I'd known I was going to get dragged into a survival game, I wouldn't have been so frugal. What a waste!】
Qiyu didn't know how to respond.
【I Love Survival Game: That's pretty impressive.】
From their earlier conversation, Dan Xingyu could tell that his new friend was a straightforward, down-to-earth person.
And compliments from straightforward people always felt especially sincere.
He thought smugly, Of course I'm impressive.
The money he'd supposedly saved for the next few years was actually meant to cover his college tuition and living expenses.
He hadn't mentioned that because he didn't want anyone looking down on him for being young.
But on this lonely night, he suddenly felt an inexplicable urge to confide in someone.
His new friend's origins were mysterious. Wasn't their meeting itself a kind of mysterious fate?
【God Has No Form: Do you know how I saved up all that money?】
Qiyu wasn't particularly curious, but since he couldn't sleep on such a quiet night anyway, he figured listening to a story wouldn't be a bad way to pass the time.
【God Has No Form: You know that game, right? I made money boosting other people's accounts. Took me just one week to get the hang of it, and within a month, I'd earned six national server titles.】
He waited a moment, but no praise came.
He immediately grew suspicious.
【God Has No Form: Don't tell me you're one of those old-fashioned people who think playing games is a waste of time and strongly disapprove of it?】
Come to think of it, he didn't even know how old his new friend was.
【I Love Survival Game: No. I've just never played that game.】
In fact, he'd never even heard of it.
But Qiyu had no idea how popular the game was. What if everyone on Earth knew about it? Wouldn't admitting he'd never heard of it give him away?
【God Has No Form: You've never played it? How old are you? Pretty much everyone I know plays it.】
Qiyu paused for a moment before cautiously typing a number.
【I Love Survival Game: 29.】
Dan Xingyu immediately pictured a pale, taciturn office worker.
【God Has No Form: What a coincidence! I'm turning twenty-eight in a few days. Just a little younger than you.】
The moment he sent the message, he realized something was wrong.
At that age, wouldn't making a living by boosting other people's gaming accounts sound a little implausible?
To his surprise, his new friend was remarkably understanding.
【I Love Survival Game: I'm a loner and don't have any friends, so I wouldn't know.】
The image in Dan Xingyu's mind promptly changed from a pale, taciturn office worker to a pale, taciturn otaku.
The kind who was somewhat disconnected from society and the world around him.
But why would someone like that choose such a ridiculous gaming ID?
Unable to contain his curiosity, Dan Xingyu asked.
【God Has No Form: Why did you choose that name?】
【I Love Survival Game: Because I'm grateful to this Survival Game. My life has gotten so much better since I came here.】
Dan Xingyu: ???
【God Has No Form: Dude, are you seriously not just trolling?】
【I Love Survival Game: What do you mean by "trolling"?】
Ugh.
Dan Xingyu felt a pang of exasperation.
So he wasn't dealing with some quiet, socially awkward otaku after all, but a poor little bitter gourd who must have suffered a tragic fate.
Oh, correction.
A twenty-nine-year-old, adorably clueless giant bitter gourd.