Chapter 3 - Two Pairs of Eyes

T/N: Starting this chapter, I’ll translate the name of Shu Jun’s strategist (aka his crush) as ‘Haze’ rather than leaving it in pinyin ^^. I’ve also fixed mentions of the name in previous chapters.

Shu Jun woke up for the second time with an empty stomach. The sky in an erosion zone was cloudy as always, the fog on the ground hadn’t cleared, and the surrounding area was as quiet as an ancient cemetery.

He yawned and felt the inside of his lips tingled with pain and the smell of blood filling his mouth.

Shu Jun frowned and touched the wound with his fingers. Another problem had arisen — his canine teeth had become a little too sharp; if he really bit that mutated monster last night, he might have pierced through its throat.

His mood yesterday was mostly helpless, but now Shu Jun felt really angry. More and more unusual things had happened and almost 24 hours had passed, yet he had received absolutely no support from outside. The team behind [Erosion] shouldn’t have such a basic issue.

His protective equipment had completely broken apart, while his Strength and Energy stats were not displayed anymore. The air quality here was okay, but it was still the air inside an erosion zone. He had no idea what might be the consequence of dying twice in the game, so it would be better to leave as soon as possible.

Shu Jun crawled out of the cave and started to move in the direction of the NPCs’ stronghold.

As his state stabilised and his strength recovered a little, Shu Jun tried to activate his skills. The calm air around him started to ripple and a familiar wind blew into his ears. Since his special ability was undamaged and the stronghold wasn’t far away, if he encountered a powerful monster, he should still be able to escape intact.

Thinking of his lovely holidays ahead, Shu Jun hastened his pace.

According to his estimation last night, it should take five or six hours to reach that stronghold. The journey turned out to be much smoother than he thought. He met no other dangerous monsters on his way, and even before he left the rocky forest, some voices could be heard from a distance.

Two NPC soldiers were patrolling nearby.

Shu Jun raised his hand in surprise and greeted them loudly: “I’m Shu Jun, captain of the Blackbird combat team, No. S-001. Please take me to your base. Misters, if it’s convenient, can you please lend me your communication device…”

Before he could finish his words, a bullet flew by and a fiery sensation burnt right above his ear. As the gunfire continued, Shu Jun, an experienced combatant, subconsciously called upon the wind, and a spontaneous gust of wind quickly pushed him away.

If he had slowed down for only half a second, the bullet rain that followed would definitely have poked thousands of holes though him.

His right fingers twitched a few times out of reflex as Shu Jun gritted his teeth — the familiar weight of his usual companion wasn’t in his hand now. Without his broadsword, without his mechanical armour and wearing these shattered clothes, Shu Jun couldn’t carry out any defensive move and was forced to hide himself in shame.

But even if his image at of now was embarrassing, the NPCs should be able to recognise him as a human. An attack this intense was utterly unreasonable. Shu Jun had to use his four limbs like a monster and retreat behind a rock. [Erosion] had emphasised many times that anyone dealing damage to NPCs would receive an extremely severe punishment, and now wasn’t the best time to take that risk.

“Hey!” Shu Jun raised his voice. “Stop your attack, I need to contact the game manager, emergency code 40721…”

But the patrolling soldiers still had no intention to let him finish talking.

The two men took out an unfamiliar weapon and smashed the rock into pieces. Shu Jun wanted to continue keeping a distance from them but found himself unable to move at all.

A faint light glimmered under his feet, and he recognised it. It was a high-grade hunting net used to capture large-sized monsters, which carried a price tag so ridiculous that most people would be lost for words. Even Blackbird, one of the best combat teams in [Erosion], didn’t have more than three pieces of those high-grade nets in their storage.

How on Earth did those NPCs get this?

Facing such an item, Shu Jun thought he could fight using his equipment, but regrettably, at this moment, he was almost naked with only two bare hands. The claws on his fingertips could tear away the string, but this hunting net was so tightly entangled that his struggle was nothing but a drop of water in the wide ocean.

Shu Jun’s back arched up as an electric current sizzled along the net. He forced himself to stay conscious under the continuous shock waves of the electricity and insistently tried to rip open the net.

“You are seriously violating the [VR Game Management Regulations]. Ouch ouch —”

Seeing him fiercely picking at the net, the soldiers tied his four limbs with a restraint device and gagged his mouth. Shu Jun quite literally became a fish desperately flapping inside a net and could only raise his middle finger at the two NPCs.

“Contamination index?”

“It’s the same as before, maybe the machine is broken.” 

The NPCs ignored him and muttered a few words from behind the gas mask.

“Bring it back first, we’ve never seen such a… thing here.”

Because of this, Shu Jun reached the stronghold earlier than expected. It was just that instead of walking through the gate with his own feet, he was put into a metal cage and transported into the place by a cart.

The metal cage’s bar was thicker than his wrist.

This was no longer a problem that could be solved by sending a complaint. After successfully exiting from the game, he would definitely find a lawyer — the cell he was thrown into was as narrow as a cargo box and even smaller than the cave earlier. With his four limbs locked to the wall with chains, Shu Jun was forced to stay in a pretty uncomfortable position.

The group of NPCs didn’t even bother to give him decent clothes.

Shu Jun looked around to see that the ground was entirely wet, without any dust in sight. The only opening of the cell was a window made of a thick panel of glass, and two fully armed guards were standing on both sides.

A pale light poured down from the top of his head. Through the reflection of the water on the ground, Shu Jun saw his current appearance for the first time.

His game character was supposed to be 100% in line with his image in reality. His facial features hadn’t changed. Looking at his body that had gone through proper exercises and training, there seemed to be no unusual bulging of blood vessels of muscles, at least for now.

Brushing his sharpened teeth and nails aside, the biggest change was actually his hair and eyes.

Shu Jun used to have black hair and black eyes, but now his hair and iris had both turned into a shade of ash-grey, and his round pupils had transformed into two thin slits. Shu Jun had never seen anyone with this appearance in the game, but he still looked like a person, not any sinister mutated monster. The NPCs’ attitude was indeed very suspicious. 

I’ve got to find a way to escape.

This was a cell similar to those used to contain dangerous monsters inside the game. Haze was a meticulous strategist who had educated Shu Jun on plenty of different matters, so Shu Jun had at least a basic understanding of this damn item. This type of cell was usually equipped with a mental signal monitor, thus pretending to be dead or sick wouldn’t work. He was already in a bad state, so the longer he dragged this on, the less favourable the situation would turn out.

Shu Jun glanced at the security camera and suddenly had an idea. A gust of wind whirled upward and cruelly twisted the camera off its frame, causing the camera to smash into the the glass panel on the cell. As the glass started shaking, waves of alert sirens pierced through he air.

The protection mechanism was immediately activated.

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It started with anesthesia shots, but they all flew off-track because of the wind and failed to hit Shu Jun. Right after that, real ammunition were fired, at which point Shu Jun pulled the chains on his wrists to barely block his vital organs. Several gunshot wounds quickly appeared on his arms and shoulders.

His blood dripped down and turned black the moment it touched the ground.

But Shu Jun didn’t have time to look at the ground now because another unusual thing was taking place before his eyes — had his special ability ever be this strong? 

The shattered camera was thrown around by the wind like a giant bullet, which nearly hit Shu Jun himself a few times. It crashed repeatedly into the window, leaving many net-like cracks on the thick glass. The anchor broke off with a head-splitting snap as Shu Jun pulled the chains off the wall.

I started it, so I might as well finish it. Shu Jun was well aware of his physical strength and knew that he had no spare energy to do this all over again.

He took a breath, pulled out the chains with all his might and bolted into the center of the glass panel. Amid loud cracking sounds, shards of glass splashed around him, then Shu Jun gathered the wind to surround the soles of his feet and threw himself out of the cell.

The guards tried to stop him, but one was stunned by his elbow and the other was sent flying with a vicious kick. The two fell to the ground and stopped moving.

The whole process lasted less than thirty seconds.

He compromised with their ban on attacking NPCs before, but such a thing was meaningless now.

Shu Jun knew he had to get this over with and quickly stripped off one of the guards’ clothes, then he picked up the loot and ran. Wherever he ran to, a wind preceded him, destroying all the security cameras and lighting within the vicinity.

In the darkness, Shu Jun probed the surroundings with his hands and found a storage room. He swiftly changed his clothes and tightly covered the wounds to prevent the dripping blood from revealing his whereabouts. The NPC’s standard clothes were not fitting his body nicely; the shoulders felt a little too tight and the waist felt a little too loose. But luckily, that was no major issue.

In [Erosion], the players’ base was located at the border of the contaminated area. The structure of this stronghold was similar, so it wasn’t difficult to find an escape route. But before escaping, he had to get some supplies and try to contact the outside world again.

Since his cell was on this level, there must be a lounge where the guards changed their shifts around here.

He didn’t even have time to breathe out a sigh of relief. Since the alert hadn’t reached the highest level, now was the prime time to make his moves. Shu Jun muttered all his energy and quickly ran along the corridor.

There was no one in the lounge.

Shu Jun swept the gadgets that he could use into his pocket, then turned on the contact screen on the table. In order for players to deal with unexpected situations, [Erosion] issued them with an emergency code. As long as they reported this code to the NPCs, a customer service staff would intervene from outside. Unfortunately, looking at what happened earlier, the talk-to-the-NPCs route was no longer an option now.

A simple string of ‘40721’ blinked as Shu Jun typed it into the input box. The clock continued ticking for a while, yet no customer service appeared.

Shu Jun quickly entered his team’s channel to find that no one was online. He opened his Friends panel and the entire list had greyed out.

Wait, someone’s name was lit up. The system showed that the person was online and that person’s location was clearly marked on the map. On the positioning display, the person was moving.

…Haze was nearby.

This is weird, Shu Jun raised his eyebrows. Haze resided in the urban area, a place that was often out of reach for the combatants, and never turned up at the stronghold. Due to the long distance between the two of them, the game had never pinpointed Haze’s exact location. Shu Jun had always assumed that he or she was just a casual player who took up a layman’s occupation.

But how could a casual player appear in this kind of place?

But since Haze was nearby, it would also be good to go see him or her —  in such an exceptionally odd situation like this, he could feel safe around a familiar face. My account has totally malfunctioned, but perhaps Haze will be able to contact the outside world.

The game wasn’t reality, but the game character and the real person actually looked the same. Meeting for the first time under this sort of circumstance is embarrassing, Shu Jun laughed bitterly.

According to the positioning display, the point belonging to ‘Haze’ was moving to a certain room on the top floor. Shu Jun dexterously crawled out of the window and relied on the force of the wind to bring himself to the top floor.

“You’d better go back first.” An anxious voice rushed into his ear.

“I’m fine.”

“That thing has run away, and its contamination index hasn’t yet been determined. In case the situation gets out of control, this stronghold will likely be blocked off. You’ve just arrived here, your private car hasn’t left yet. It’s better to leave now.”

“I said, I’m fine.” 

That icy voice sounded familiar. Shu Jun grabbed the window sill but still couldn’t hear clearly because the curtain was fully covering everything from inside.

Haze’s location was just a few steps away.

…Looking at this, is Haze the assistant of some VIP?

Haze’s positioning point stopped by the window, merely a few steps away from Shu Jun. To hear their words more clearly, Shu Jun held his breath and climbed onto the window sill. His mutated nails really made the job a lot easier.

“Anyway, let’s find it first. If I remain here, you’ll have a reason to act faster.” The icy voice continued: “I brought a lot of special equipment. You have a whole base under your command, it shouldn’t be that you can’t even catch a mutated creature.”

The voice was getting closer and Shu Jun suddenly had a bad feeling.

Damn.

The person inside the room opened the curtain, and two pairs of eyes stared straight into each other.

The nervous person who tried to persuade someone to leave just now was standing at the door, so he was obviously not the ‘casual player’ that Shu Jun had been thinking about. There was only one other person in front of the window — An NPC in marshal uniform was looking directly at Shu Jun, a hint of confusion flashing on his pale face.

Zhu Yanchen: “…” 

Shu Jun: “…?”

Is this bug of [Erosion] just getting worse and worse?

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