“Um…”
Thinking of the mother and son’s fate in the film, Everly hesitated for a mont. As the mother passed by her, she called out softly.
The mother’s eyes shifted and briefly t Everly’s gaze in the air.
What kind of eyes were those?
Like hard glass beads—dead silent, hollow, devoid of light, without any trace of living presence.
Yes. From the mont her child died before her eyes, this mother had already beco a shell of despair.
Everly’s throat felt dry, and she suddenly found herself unable to say anything else.
She couldn’t save her.
Keeping soone alive was difficult, but dying was far too easy. She wasn’t a psychologist, nor could she, with a few words, rekindle that woman’s will to live. And given her current mission, she also didn’t have ti to expend energy on her.
Within 20 hours, she had to obtain the remote control and et up with Misha.
So, despite feeling uneasy, Everly stopped speaking. She stood where she was and watched as the mother staggered out of the forest, walking blankly toward the distant sea, until she disappeared beyond the edge of sight.
…
After this encounter with the mother and child from the film, Everly continued forward and did not et anyone else.
Instead, she ca across three scattered buildings.
Following the principle that every encounter is a kind of fate, whenever a building was not too far off her path, Everly would go inside to search it.
One building was empty, its supplies already taken. The other two, however, had not yet been visited.
From them, Everly managed to obtain a total of three packs of biscuits, two bottles of mineral water, one sowhat dull knife, one utility blade, and two blind boxes.
Just by looking at the amount of food, it was clear that both buildings were minor, inconspicuous supply points. Blind boxes found in places like these rarely contained anything valuable.
Everly opened the boxes and took a look.
As expected, one contained a lighter—barely useful, but at least sothing.
The other, however, was absurd.
Inside it was a football, personally signed by a certain star player.
And it wasn’t even inflated. It was completely deflated, sagging and useless—totally unsuitable as a weapon.
What made it even more ridiculous was that the player had been exposed the year before for m*lesting a boy and had already been fired by his club and socially “dead.” In theory, the ball would have no resale value even if taken off the island.
Everly genuinely could not understand why sothing like this would be put into a blind box. Seriously, what even was this supposed to be for?
Although she couldn’t figure out what use the football might have, she decided to keep it for now.
She still had to go find Bean later, so carrying too many items would be inconvenient. After leaving the two buildings, she ate a little to fill her stomach. The remaining supplies, as before, were buried along the edge of the forest in separate spots, to be retrieved after she dealt with the neck ring issue.
And so she continued traveling and exploring. About an hour and a half later, a river appeared before her.
It was wider than expected—nearly three ters across. Where it flowed through the boundary between forest and lowland, the sound of rushing water could be heard clearly.
This river originated from the mountainside of the central peak and flowed downhill toward the sea. There were three similar rivers on the island, dividing it like a cake into three large sections.
The one before her was in the northwest direction, so Everly simply called it the Northwest River.
Following it upstream, she would eventually reach a hidden building at the foot of the mountain.
That building was the base occupied by the brothers Bean and Cleaver, and it was Everly’s destination.
After spotting the river, Everly changed direction and began moving along its edge, heading deeper toward the center of the forest.
This route had to be handled with extre caution. Rivers were rare water sources, and if any players were running low on supplies and hadn’t found enough water, they would likely co here to drink. Knowing this, the Hunter would certainly have set up a large number of traps along the way.
As expected, after turning toward the river, the number of traps on Everly’s path increased dramatically. In general, every short distance brought her across one or two traps. Considering she might need to return this way later, she triggered every trap she encountered—destroying those she could, and marking the ones she couldn’t with conspicuous branches so she would not fall for them again.
She hadn’t gone far when a deep, rumbling roar ca from overhead.
Everly moved to a spot where the trees were relatively sparse and looked up. A helicopter was flying in from the west.
As it passed over the island, it lowered slightly in altitude and released a wooden crate from its cargo bay. A colored smoke flare had been fixed to the top of the crate, spewing thick red smoke that traced a vivid streak through the air as it fell.
When the crate reached about one-third of its descent, a “whoosh” sounded as a red parachute suddenly deployed.
The parachute itself was also red, emblazoned in the center with a cartoon image of the “Killer Rabbit.” The oversized rabbit head grinned down at the island below with a mocking expression, silently provoking irritation from anyone who saw it.
Having seen both the film and its ga adaptation, Everly imdiately recognized it as the supply drop that was deployed every six hours in the ga.
Like in battle royale gas, the killing ga periodically provides airdrops to participants.
According to the introduction video at the start of the ga, each airdrop contained a fixed set of supplies: six packs of compressed biscuits, four bottles of mineral water, one lee weapon, one piece of protective gear (either a bulletproof vest or helt), one firearm, and a quantity of compatible ammunition.
Just by looking at its configuration, it was clear that the supplies in the airdrop were better than anything spawned in the island’s buildings.
In particular, the guaranteed firearm made it one of the only ways to obtain a ranged weapon on the island—aside from blind boxes or robbing the “Turret.”
Of course, compared to its rich rewards, the danger of retrieving an airdrop was equally high. After all, only twelve of these would appear during the entire competition. The number was extrely limited and nowhere near enough for everyone. The ammunition for firearms was also strictly capped; each gun only ca with a single magazine, and once it was used up, the weapon beca useless.
With resources like this, anyone near the landing zone would almost certainly not let it pass.
And once all those people gathered in one place to fight for it, the intense battles the audience expected would naturally erupt.
Everly narrowed her eyes and silently estimated the drop point.
If she wasn’t mistaken, it was heading toward the southeast second-to-third ring area of the island—not too close to her current position.
That was good news for Everly. She had no interest in the valuable, attention-drawing airdrop anyway. In this situation, the farther it landed from her, the more it would draw people away and further reduce her chances of encountering danger.
However, the appearance of the airdrop also indirectly told her that she needed to speed up.
The ga’s start ti corresponded to real-world ti, but without tools like a watch, Everly couldn’t be certain what it was exactly. When she left the prison, judging by the sun’s position, it was likely around nine or ten in the morning.
Now, six hours had passed since the official start of the ga. If she delayed any further, the forest would begin to darken, which would work against her plan.
Perhaps because the airdrop had drawn away so players, Everly didn’t encounter a single person for the rest of her journey as she continued deeper into the forest.
While staying alert and moving forward, after nearly another half hour, Everly passed a small building that had already been thoroughly looted. This structure functioned like a landmark. Beyond it, just a short distance further, she crossed out of the third ring and entered the northwest second ring.
Once she stepped into the inner area of the second ring, a strong scent of blood suddenly drifted into her nose.
Her expression tightened. It felt like sothing she had long been waiting for had finally arrived.
Following the sll, Everly raised her wooden stick, stepped over the rustling layer of thick fallen leaves, pushed aside the dense bushes blocking her view, and looked inside.
She saw a corpse that had died with its eyes still open.
It was a stranger in his early thirties. He had been cleaved in half from top to bottom by so kind of blade. The two halves of his body lay crookedly at the base of a large tree, a miserable sight. From Everly’s angle, she could see the cleanly split white bone fragnts, flesh mixed with blood, and scattered internal organs spilled across the ground.
Such an even cut could only have been made by sothing extrely sharp in a single strike.
“Ahhh—!”
Like any fragile girl terrified by a grueso corpse, Everly dropped her wooden stick, grabbed her head with both hands, and let out a panicked scream.
That scream was like a bright beacon lighting up the dark forest, quickly drawing in the instigator of this massacre—a terrifying killer wearing a pig-head mask, wielding a large cleaver.
The killer’s upper body was bare except for a butcher’s leather apron. His lower body was clad in blood-stained black jeans. His exposed trapezius, deltoids, biceps, and other muscles bulged in an exaggerated manner, veins standing out sharply, making his entire fra resemble an inverted, bulky triangle—radiating a suffocating sense of pressure.
Following Everly’s scream, the pig-masked man pushed aside the bushes blocking his view with one hand, while dragging a blood-soaked cleaver in the other. His footsteps were fast and powerful as he charged straight toward her.
The massive cleaver—taller than a person, with a blade back nearly two centiters thick—looked like a heavy block of iron. Yet in the pig man’s grip, it moved as lightly as a toy.
“Eek—! Y-you, you who are you?! Stay away from !”
Seeing the sudden appearance of the pig-masked figure, Everly’s face turned pale with fear. She scread loudly and imdiately turned to flee in the opposite direction.
As she ran, she didn’t forget to act panicked, wildly swinging her wooden stick in front of her, sweeping across the ground as if terrified of accidentally triggering one of the Hunter’s traps while running.
“Grrr!”
Seeing her flee, the pig man let out a roar, hoisted the cleaver from the ground onto his shoulder, and took long strides after her.
Strangely enough, despite the fact that in terms of pure physical ability the pig man far surpassed the “frail college girl” version of Everly, the distance between them never seed to increase or shrink no matter how long he chased.
Everly ran through the forest like a headless fly. At any mont she turned her head, she could see the blood-soaked figure clinging to her like a ghost.
Then Everly’s eyes flickered.
She suddenly changed direction, pretending to be disoriented and fleeing at random.
The mont she turned, however, the pig man abruptly stopped his leisurely pursuit. In a single explosive step, he surged forward, swung his massive cleaver through the air with a sharp “whoosh,” and struck down in front of her path—blocking her route and forcing her back onto her original course.
Yes, that was exactly it. The pig-masked man known as “Cleaver” was not actually trying to kill her—instead, he was subtly forcing Everly in a certain direction.
As for the reason…
When Everly ran past a thicket of trees, a pair of hands suddenly reached out from the side. One arm grabbed her wrist and yanked her forcefully inward, while the other covered her mouth precisely before she could scream.
“Shh—! Shh, quiet, don’t speak!”
Only after being pulled into the bushes did Everly realize that this low, seemingly impossible-to-hide thicket actually had hidden depth. Beneath the cover of branches and leaves, there was a concealed pit.
The small pit was just large enough to fit both her and the man who had pulled her in.
Everly widened her eyes, staring in alarm at the person in front of her.
It was a young man in his early twenties. He looked very ordinary—thin, the kind of person who would disappear in a crowd. His face was a bit dirty, but his smile was friendly, and in this dangerous environnt it strangely gave off a sense of reassurance.
Noticing Everly looking at him, the man’s smile widened. He raised a hand in a calming gesture, signaling her to hold her breath and stay still.
Sensing his friendliness, Everly’s tense body slowly relaxed. With grateful eyes, she nodded quickly and followed his instructions. She lowered her breathing, pressed close to him in the cramped pit, and quietly waited.
Before long, accompanied by heavy footsteps, the pig-masked man holding the cleaver rushed past. After scanning the surroundings and failing to find anyone, he continued forward.
The two of them remained crouched in the pit until the pig man had fully left. Only then did they climb out one after the other.
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