The window wouldn’t break. Everly placed the hamr back in its original spot and returned to her seat, quickly sorting through her mories.
She had just felt that the black-suited man who stood up looked familiar. That probably wasn’t an illusion. With a face like his, if she had ever t him in real life, there was no way she would have forgotten him. So if he seed familiar, it must be because she had seen that face in her previous life.
A handso man with a vaguely familiar face, a mid-sized bus that had suddenly deviated from its route, bulletproof windows that had abruptly locked shut… wait, this setup!
Gathering all the strange events she had encountered so far in her mind, Everly finally recalled a certain movie. In her view, it wasn’t strictly a horror film, but she hadn’t expected to encounter sothing like it in this world…
Rembering the plot, Everly didn’t dare hesitate. She imdiately turned and lowered her voice to Misha: “Misha, hide our identification docunts!”
After speaking, Everly moved quickly, pulling a small plastic-sealed bag out of her luggage.
Inside were all of Everly’s identity docunts—her driver’s license, Social Security card, bank cards, and everything else that could prove her identity. She had a habit of keeping all of them packed together so that if she ever needed to run, she could grab them all at once.
She hadn’t expected that before she even needed to flee with her belongings, she would first encounter a situation where she needed to hide her docunts.
Ti was tight. Everly quickly scanned her surroundings, then pulled a blade from her sleeve. She sliced lightly along the seam of the seat cushion, creating a narrow opening, and stuffed the sealed bag inside along with her powered-off phone. Then she smoothed the cushion back into place and used glue to reattach the outer fabric.
Fortunately, the bus was old and worn-down everywhere, especially the seats, which were in terrible condition and rock-hard to sit on. With Everly’s quick work, unless soone reached inside and felt around, it would be hard to notice there was anything hidden under the seat.
Although she didn’t know exactly what Everly’s actions were ant to achieve, Misha followed suit. She pulled out her own hidden blade, cut open the seat cushion, switched off her phone, and stuffed it together with her various docunts into the padding.
“Skreeeeech—!”
Just as the two of them finished hiding their belongings, the moving bus suddenly slamd on the brakes and ca to a stop in the middle of the road.
Passengers were thrown forward by inertia. Those who had secretly loosened their seatbelts crashed headfirst into the seat in front of them with a loud bang. Even luggage stuffed into the overhead racks tumbled down with a clatter. The cabin quickly filled with complaints, curses, and angry shouting.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Everly hid the blade inside the heel of her shoe, then stood up and pretended to pick up fallen luggage, casually placing both her own and Misha’s bags back into the overhead compartnt.
While she was doing all this, the driver in the front seat had already bent down, retrieved a gas mask from beneath his seat, and strapped it onto his face.
“Mommy, what is the driver doing?”
“I don’t know…”
“Hey, why did we suddenly stop? When will we arrive at the port?”
Amid the passengers’ confusion and questioning, the driver reached out and pressed a small, inconspicuous button in the center of the dashboard.
“Hiss—!”
As the button was pressed, streams of white smoke began pouring from the air vents above the seats, spraying down onto the defenseless passengers below.
“This guy is a terrorist—everyone, run!”
Seeing this, the man in the black suit at the front shouted. He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, quickly rushed down from his seat, and ran to the tightly shut bus door, trying to force it open using the ergency rotary switch beside it.
However, even the windows had been replaced with bulletproof glass, and the ergency rotary switch by the door had clearly been tampered with as well. The man slamd into it several tis, but failed to force it open. Instead, the intense exertion made him inhale too much of the white gas; his body began to sway unsteadily back and forth.
By this point, most of the passengers on the bus had already collapsed.
Everly was slightly better off. The mont she recalled the plot of the movie, she had already anticipated what was about to happen. Knowing that she and Misha had long been caught in a trap with no way out, she didn’t resist. Instead, she used the last bit of clarity before losing consciousness to lean toward Misha and quietly tell her the entire plan for what would co next.
As soon as she finished speaking, the sedative smoke finally took full effect.
Forcing herself, Everly stuffed a small glass bottle containing the “panacea,” along with the dagger-like dog-tooth pendant in her hand, into her mouth and held them there. When it ca to the “Holy Tree bracelet,” however, it felt as if it had fused to her wrist—no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t take it off.
A heavy wave of drowsiness washed over her. With no choice, Everly had to temporarily give up on the bracelet.
Before losing consciousness, she vaguely saw ard rcenaries suddenly rush out from both sides of the previously empty road. They surrounded the bus tightly and began communicating with the driver through the glass.
Tch. This is bad—so it really is that movie after all…
…
It felt like being pulled into a pitch-black whirlpool, or drifting for a long ti in a lightless deep sea. When a strong, pungent sll finally reached her nose and her consciousness broke free from sleep’s grip, she opened her eyes.
What she saw was a damp ceiling with patches of moss.
She pushed herself up from the cold floor, holding her still-throbbing head, and coughed lightly as if to disguise her movent—first spitting out the glass bottle and the dog-tooth she had been holding in her mouth, hiding them in her palm.
After securing her items, Everly quickly checked her body.
Her clothes were still the sa as before she lost consciousness—a short-sleeved T-shirt paired with work pants designed for easy movent, and a pair of thick-soled athletic shoes suitable for running.
There was sothing around her neck now, an obvious foreign sensation. When she reached up to feel it, her fingers touched a thin tal ring that pressed uncomfortably against her skin.
The mont she confird its presence, Everly beca even more certain: she had been dropped into the horror film Slaughter Island.
Following the line of her neck, she continued checking the items on her body.
While she had been unconscious, soone had clearly searched her. The cross necklace she wore and the keychain and coins in her pockets were all gone. However, the “Holy Tree bracelet” on her wrist was still there—perhaps it was sothing even the searchers couldn’t remove, because she could see a red, irritated ring around her wrist where it had been forced against her skin.
Thinking of this, Everly pressed her right heel down subtly. Inside the flexible sole of her shoe, she could faintly feel a hard object.
It seed their search hadn’t been thorough. The blade hidden in her shoe was still there.
Having roughly assessed her physical condition, Everly lifted her head and began observing her surroundings.
It was a room that felt like a prison cell.
The entire space was only about the size of a security booth, a narrow rectangular chamber. On one of the shorter walls was a tightly shut tal password door. Embedded in the center of the door, about two-thirds up from the floor, was a square screen—currently black.
Aside from the door, the other three sides were all concrete walls. There were no windows, and the only light ca from a single LED tube on the ceiling.
In the upper corner above the door, a surveillance cara sat openly mounted. The mont Everly stood up, it imdiately ca out of standby, its red indicator light turning on as the lens extended and locked firmly onto the girl below.
At the sa ti, the screen on the door suddenly lit up. Accompanied by cheerful music, a surveillance feed of another room appeared at its center.
The footage was shot from a top-down angle. In the center of the screen stood a young girl wearing a T-shirt and work pants, with shoulder-length hair, alone in a narrow room. Her gaze was fixed on a point near the lower-right of the cara.
After a mont, as if realizing sothing, she lifted her head. A delicate, innocent-looking face ca into view as she stared expressionlessly toward the surveillance cara positioned above and to the side.
Yes—the person shown on the screen was herself, captured by that very cara.
For an ordinary person, this would likely trigger panic. That was clearly the intent of whoever was behind this—to intimidate the viewer through this live feed.
Unfortunately, Everly didn’t react much at all… In fact, she had considered pretending to be frightened, but she worried her acting might be unconvincing. If she slipped up, it would only make things worse. So instead, she simply froze in place, like she was completely stunned, standing motionless in front of the cara.
“ZZZT…”
After a brief pause, a burst of static sounded. The surveillance feed abruptly switched, replaced by an animated video.
The protagonist of the animation was a large white rabbit. It had a round, soft face, with two rosy blush marks on its cheeks, making it look almost cute.
“Ta-da~ Welco, brave contestants, to the Killing Ga! I’m your friend, ‘Killer Rabbit’! Now, I will be announcing the rules of this killing ga~”
As the rabbit spoke, the cara slowly zood out, revealing its body below the neck.
Contrary to its cute appearance, the rabbit’s clothes were splattered with blood. Behind its back, it held a bloodstained knife. While it spoke in a childish, cheerful voice, one could also see a dead rabbit lying on the grass behind it.
And just like that, what had started as a cute animation instantly turned into sothing grotesque and unsettling.
“Everyone present is currently part of a survival ga that uses killing as its thod. There are a total of 59 participants in this edition of the ‘Killing Ga.’ As you may have already noticed, a tal collar has appeared around each of your necks.
“This collar is equipped with a tir. Starting from the mont this instruction video ends, a 24-hour countdown will begin. When the countdown reaches zero, the explosives packed inside the collar will detonate—like this.”
The cartoon rabbit stretched its neck and leaned toward the screen, showing the tal ring around its own neck. At that exact mont, the countdown on the ring flickered and jumped from 00:00:01 to all zeros.
“Boom!”
A loud explosion ca from the screen’s built-in speaker. The white rabbit was blown apart, its head and body separating as bright red blood splattered across the display.
“Yes, that’s right. When the tir runs out, you will all be killed by explosion. Of course, violent tampering is also not allowed. This collar is extrely sensitive, so please avoid forcefully pulling it—otherwise, you’ll end up like …”
The rabbit’s head arced through the air, landing on the ground, still wearing its cheerful smile as it continued speaking to the viewers.
Everly stood in front of the screen, staring without blinking.
She had already seen Slaughter Island before, and even played a ga adaptation of it, so she was thoroughly familiar with the rules of the killing ga. There was no need to listen again. The only reason she was still watching was to study the map and determine her own “spawn point.”
“…All participants are currently located on an unnad island in the Atlantic Ocean. Next, a one-minute map of the island will be shown, with star markers indicating each participant’s current location. Each participant has a different starting position, and there are no other participants within a 2-kiloter radius. Please rest assured.”
After the preliminaries were finally over, the map Everly had been waiting for appeared on the screen in front of her.
“The primary objective for all participants is to survive for 72 hours and reach the helipad at the summit in the center of the map. This location is marked with a triangular symbol. At the 72-hour mark, a helicopter will land on the helipad. There are three available seats on board. The helicopter will remain for one hour and will take off imdiately once the ti is up…”
The rabbit continued chattering through the long-winded rules. Everly, anwhile, seized the opportunity to morize everything on the map using rapid note-like recall techniques, engraving it into her mind.
The island was quite large, featuring beaches, rocky coasts, hills, mountains, rivers, and various terrain types. In addition to dense vegetation, there were also scattered buildings.
Among them, the small grid-like structures represented each participant’s current “cells.” The slightly larger buildings marked on the map were supply points. Each of these buildings contained resources necessary for survival and combat. To survive for three days on the island, these supply points were almost unavoidable.
Everly observed carefully. Her current position was at the southwestern edge of the island. Moving north or east for a certain distance would both lead her to buildings containing supplies.
Thanks to these supply points, the map looked quite complex. The rabbit only had ti to skim through its explanation before the one-minute display ended. It imdiately moved on to explaining new rules such as air drops and hunting. The screen content switched again, the map disappeared, and was replaced by an image of an airdrop.
Everly had seen the movie before, so of course she knew exactly what an airdrop looked like.
When the map disappeared, she no longer divided her attention to the screen. Instead, she imdiately crouched down and picked up a sharp-edged fragnt of broken concrete from the shattered floor. Using it as a makeshift tool, she began sketching the island map on the ground based on her mory.
After finishing, she lifted her foot and sared the markings away with her sole. As the pale traces vanished, a three-dinsional model of the island had already begun to form in Everly’s mind.
For an ordinary person, this might have been difficult. But there was a fortunate coincidence—Everly had played the ga Slaughter Island in her previous life. At the ga’s launch, she had even grinded relentlessly for a free high-tier skin, playing obsessively enough to climb to the highest rank.
The in-ga map was a one-to-one scaled-down reconstruction of the movie’s map. As a high-ranked player, she had naturally morized it. Although reincarnation had made those mories sowhat blurred, the brief reinforcent just now was enough for her to fully recall the layout again.
Since she had already obtained the information she needed, Everly no longer intended to stare blankly at the screen like an idiot.
She turned around and began tapping and knocking along the walls of the room, searching for anything useful.
User Comments
0 comments from readers