Boom!
When the muffled sound of an explosion finally reached Everly’s ears through the dense forest, night had already fully fallen.
Hearing the long-awaited explosion, Everly quickly finished the remaining biscuits in a few bites, clapped her hands, and jumped down from the tree.
Good. That ant there was no need for a “redo.”
She adjusted her mask, took out a device from her backpack that resembled an electronic radar, glanced at it, then turned and headed toward the small “grave mounds” where she had buried supplies earlier that day.
Without a doubt, the traps in the stronghold had been set by Everly.
After killing Kurt, she had thoroughly searched the base and unexpectedly discovered that the brothers had brought a large amount of gasoline onto the island. That was when she ca up with the idea of using gasoline to kill “Cleaver” and, incidentally, destroy the body afterward.
Concentrated sulfuric acid and gasoline are two immiscible liquids. When mixed together, they naturally separate due to density differences. Gasoline, being less dense, floats on top, while sulfuric acid, being denser, sinks to the bottom.
Taking full advantage of this property, Everly designed a trap specifically for “Cleaver.”
The first step of the trap was the oil lamp hanging on the door handle.
To ensure that “Cleaver” would keep holding the lamp, Everly had removed all objects near the door that could hold it. She even broke off the wall-mounted lamp bracket and threw it away.
The second step was naturally that fishing line.
When it ca to setting traps, Everly could be considered an old hand. This trap had been carefully calculated in advance. As soon as “Cleaver” triggered the fishing line, gasoline and concentrated sulfuric acid hanging above his head would inevitably pour all over him.
To prevent him from hearing the sound of the barrel tipping and dodging in advance, Everly placed many thin wooden sticks in the trap as distractions. These sticks were aid at various parts of “Cleaver’s” body, and their tips were coated with a small amount of potassium cyanide solution. As long as they managed to scratch him, he would be poisoned and collapse, causing the oil lamp to fall to the ground.
Even if “Cleaver” was lucky enough to perfectly avoid the wooden sticks, as long as they could distract him and cause a montary misjudgnt—making him forget to watch out for what was above his head—then the sticks had already served their purpose.
The remaining task of making the oil lamp fall could be handled by the concentrated sulfuric acid mixed into the gasoline.
Everly had calculated everything precisely. As long as nothing went seriously wrong, the sulfuric acid at the bottom of the gasoline barrel would land right on “Cleaver’s” hands. In the intense pain, he would very likely loosen his grip on the oil lamp.
In addition to these two steps, Everly had also set up a third fallback step in a place no one could see—
In the event that “Cleaver” was so kind of chosen one, and even after the combined attack of the wooden sticks and sulfuric acid, he still managed to hold onto the oil lamp without injury and escape the dangerous shack smoothly.
In that case, “Cleaver” would most likely go to the water to wash the gasoline off his body. He was only reckless, not brainless—he understood how dangerous gasoline was. That was also why Everly didn’t pour gasoline throughout the entire house in advance; she was afraid the sll would be too strong and stop “Cleaver” from entering at all.
Gasoline is sothing that anyone who has ever soaked in it knows well: once it gets on your skin, it’s greasy and hard to clean. Rinsing with water alone won’t remove it—you need to scrub it off with a towel or sothing similar.
For this fallback step, Everly’s contingency trap was to apply potassium cyanide solution onto the wooden barrels placed by the river, as well as the rags on their rims. She also treated all fabrics in the stronghold that could be used as makeshift towels in the sa way, adding a bit of the “special ingredient” to each of them.
The wooden barrels by the river were used for drawing water, and during bathing they would likely be used for rinsing. Even if the barrels weren’t used, “Cleaver” would still need a towel—after all, his clothes would also be soaked in gasoline and couldn’t be used for scrubbing his body.
With this third layer of contingency, even if the spikes and gasoline trap failed to kill “Cleaver,” he would still be poisoned through skin or mucous mbrane contact with potassium cyanide.
Of course, as always, potassium cyanide was a very distinctive substance that could easily point back to Everly. Because of that, she deliberately waited in the second ring of the forest, planning to leave only after everything had settled.
If the stronghold ended up exploding, that would be ideal. Given the amount of gasoline stored in the base and the narrow structure of the cent house, the explosion would certainly be large enough to burn all the corpses inside into ash, erasing the evidence.
Without bodies, there would naturally be no need to worry about autopsies.
If the explosion never ca, then “Cleaver” was most likely killed by the third layer of poison.
In that case, Everly would have to put in a bit more effort—return to the stronghold, find “Cleaver’s” corpse, drag it back inside, and set it on fire to reduce it to ashes.
There was also an extrely rare possibility: even after all three layers of her plan were executed, “Cleaver” still did not die. That wasn’t a major issue either; she had already rested and would be able to personally finish him off.
The reason she hadn’t acted directly in the forest earlier was that the body would be too heavy to carry back for burning, and pouring gasoline in the forest to burn it would be too conspicuous. Now, however, “Cleaver” had returned to the stronghold himself—poisoning him, then moving his body back inside to burn it, would not be difficult.
That was the entirety of Everly’s plan.
Fortunately, fate was still on her side. Since the stronghold had exploded, it ant the gasoline trap had succeeded.
That ant she could leave this unlucky place without any further burden.
With that thought, Everly took out an electronic radar, while her other hand pulled a stiff finger from her pocket. She pressed the fingerprint against the area beneath the radar screen, then slightly adjusted her direction according to the map displayed.
This radar was also taken from one of the two butchers.
As ntioned before, butchers could use their portable radar to see the positions of nearby participants. The device in Everly’s hands was the sa type of radar issued to all butchers.
It functioned as a center-based tracker: with the user at the center, it displayed all participant coordinates within a 2-kiloter radius in real ti. Every participant appeared as a green dot on the screen.
In addition to that, the radar had several other functions.
First, it worked as a simplified compass and map, showing the cardinal directions as well as nearby resource points and special terrain. Second—perhaps to prevent butchers from killing each other—the radar conveniently recorded all traps set by the “Hunters” on the island, marking them clearly in bright red wavy lines, making it easy for Everly to avoid them. Lastly, and most importantly for Everly, it displayed the coverage areas of wilderness surveillance caras as pale green solid circles.
The surveillance system in this killing ga was divided into three types: the neck collars worn by players, fixed caras in prisons and resource points, and the wilderness surveillance caras scattered across the island.
The first two types were relatively easy to avoid. The third type, however, was particularly troubleso. These caras were usually installed high in tree canopies and disguised as bird nests or branches, making them very difficult to detect unless one looked carefully.
And right now, both Everly and Kurt were officially considered “dead” by the system. Under these circumstances, if Everly continued wandering around in Kurt’s appearance and happened to be captured by wilderness surveillance, there was still a real risk of exposure.
The third function of the radar perfectly solved her concern.
All Everly had to do was take it out every so often while traveling, check it, and plan her route accordingly. In this way, she could avoid the island’s widespread wilderness surveillance caras and beco a “ghost” that clearly existed, yet could not be perceived by anyone.
As a side note, in order to prevent participants from killing butchers and taking their radars as powerful tools, the ga organizers designed the device to require butcher fingerprints to unlock.
The fingerprint sensor was hidden beneath the pattern, in a very inconspicuous position. If Everly hadn’t seen it in a movie beforehand and learned its purpose and usage—and cut off one of Kurt’s fingers to carry with her—the radar might have ended up as nothing more than an unusable “brick.”
The radar really was extrely useful.
With its help, Everly avoided potential encounters with players and traps, and moved swiftly through the forest at night. In just half the ti of the dayti journey, she reached her first hidden supply cache. Finding her pre-marked location, she dug through the sand and soil, retrieved all the supplies, and packed them into her backpack.
During this ti, the second supply drop since the ga began also arrived. Everly observed it quietly: the helicopter was still flying from west to east, and unlike in the afternoon, this drop was released in the northeastern part of the island. After releasing the supplies, the helicopter turned midair and flew westward again.
Everly naturally had no intention of going for the drop.
Her goal was clear—she continued toward her second supply cache.
This ti, she was a bit unlucky. As she approached, Everly realized with so frustration that the place where she had buried her supplies lay directly under a wilderness surveillance cara.
It was too dark; she couldn’t locate where the cara was installed. anwhile, she herself would be imdiately captured by its night-vision lens the mont she stepped into its coverage area.
So, to avoid exposure, Everly had no choice but to abandon that supply cache (which contained that signed football!) and detour far away, heading toward a third stash instead.
That supply point contained items taken from an abandoned hospital—by far the largest and richest cache she had prepared. As she moved, Everly kept silently praying that it would not be within a surveillance zone.
Perhaps her prayers were heard. By around 23:00, Everly successfully reached the third supply point and retrieved the supplies she had buried there.
By this ti, her backpack was already full.
Food and water that could not fit inside were stuffed into the front pockets of her leather apron.
After collecting all the scattered supplies, Everly changed direction once again, heading toward the northwestern part of the island, setting off on the journey anew.
This ti, her target was the estuary of the northwest-flowing river on the island.
On the bus earlier, due to the urgency of the situation, Everly had only managed to say three sentences to Misha.
The first sentence: “The password is 1693. Act it out, leave early.”
This was ant to tell Misha the lockroom password so she could leave as soon as possible and start collecting supplies.
“Act it out” ant that, in order to avoid drawing the attention of the ga organizers, she should not simply enter the correct password directly. Instead, she should pretend to search for clues, enter a few wrong passwords, try elimination thods, and only input the correct one once it felt natural enough.
Although her wording was sowhat vague, Everly believed that with Misha’s quick wits, she would be able to understand.
The second sentence: “There are traps outside, and the collar has listening and surveillance functions.”
This was partly to protect Misha by informing her of the dangers on the island, and partly to urge her to be cautious with her words and actions, so she would not accidentally expose herself.
The third sentence: “Avoid everyone, gather supplies along the edge of the island, and then et at the mouth of the S-shaped river.”
“Avoid everyone” ant everyone—including both players and butchers. So this sentence was not only telling Misha that her task was not to compete for ti, but to focus on gathering more supplies; it was also an indirect way of protecting her.
Likewise, having Misha collect supplies along the edge of the island would maximize her chances of avoiding conflict and allow her to focus on gathering the food and water she needed.
As for the “S-shaped river,” it actually referred to the river near the stronghold. At the ti, Everly had only just recalled that movie, and many details were still blurry in her mind. She couldn’t clearly rember the river’s flow direction, but she did recall that it wound back and forth in a very distinctive S-shape.
In Everly’s plan, no matter where she might spawn on the island, she would go to the stronghold to get the remote control from Bean. In that case, setting the rendezvous point downstream of the river was the best choice.
And now, everything had been collected—it was ti to et up with Misha.
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