From the killer’s stronghold in the northwestern Second Ring, it took Everly half the night to walk to the border between the southern Second and Third Rings.
And from the southern Second–Third Ring area to the northwestern river estuary, the distance was even farther than the first half of the journey. Coupled with more than ten hours of continuous walking, Everly was already feeling exhausted. No matter how urgently she pushed herself, it wasn’t until the next morning that the familiar river flowing northwest finally appeared at the edge of her vision.
On the way from the Third Ring to the Fourth Ring, Everly clearly noticed that there were fewer buildings along the roadside.
The Third Ring already didn’t have many buildings to begin with—one would only appear every three to four kiloters. After crossing into the Fourth Ring, they beca even sparser. After walking the entire night, Everly only encountered three buildings in total, and all of them were extrely small.
Perhaps because of this, most players on the island mainly operated within the First, Second, and Third Rings, and very few ca to the Fourth Ring.
As a side note, there were also very few surveillance caras in the wilderness at the island’s edges. Most of the ti, Everly didn’t need to detour at all—she could just head straight toward her target. Situations that required changing her route were rare.
Every supply point had fixed surveillance. Worried about being captured on cara, Everly focused entirely on traveling the whole way and did not enter any buildings to take supplies.
By the ti she finally reached the river estuary, the sun had already risen.
The river mouth was a shallow wetland mixed with silt and sand. At the edges of the shoal grew vast stretches of lush green grass taller than a person.
The grass looked sowhat like reeds, but was shorter and grew in dense, vigorous clusters. Everly had encountered this type of grass on her way here before—its long blade-like leaves had sowhat sharp edges, and one had to be extrely careful when passing through, or one’s fingers and cheeks could easily be cut.
She stood at the edge of the tall grass and took out her radar, using Kurt’s finger to unlock it before glancing at the screen.
The radar showed that a player was located dozens of ters to her northwest.
That area was deep within the grass… Soone who would be camping in a place like that was probably no one other than Misha.
Everly didn’t really want to push into the grass, so she crouched outside it instead. She brought both hands together in front of her lips and blew an “owl whistle.” Not long after, from sowhere separated from her by a stretch of grass, another similar whistle sounded in response.
Hearing it, Everly finally relaxed.
Misha still had a neck collar on. Everly wasn’t sure whether she had covered or obstructed the surveillance cara on it, so after they made contact, she imdiately tapped on a stone, sending a Morse code ssage: “hide .”
Misha’s response was another owl whistle.
Soon after, Everly heard a rustling sound coming from within the grass. She stood up and saw the dense vegetation parting rapidly to both sides like Moses splitting the sea. In the middle of the grass, a figure wearing a black hood was walking toward her, holding a stick with a sickle tied to its end, cutting through the grass as they advanced.
The hood was similar to a bank robber’s outfit. The black fabric extended from the top of the head down to the collarbone, just enough to conceal the neck collar. Only four openings were cut into it—for the eyes, nose, and mouth—making the person look unmistakably sly.
“…”
At the mont their eyes t, not only Everly, but Misha too was startled by her friend’s striking pig-head mask and instinctively leaned back in awe.
The two stared at each other in silence for a mont. Then Misha pointed in a direction to the left. Everly nodded.
And so the two of them moved forward in single file, silently walking along the edge of the island.
Misha led Everly to a nearby reef flat. Everly noticed that Misha was carrying nothing except a wooden stick with a sickle tied to its end, and she guessed that Misha might have, like her, hidden the supplies she had collected earlier on the reef flat.
She took out her electronic radar, confird that the direction they were heading had no outdoor surveillance or traps, and then followed Misha with confidence. Together, they climbed over jagged reefs and rocks, eventually arriving at a concealed sea erosion cave.
Because the neck collars had listening functions, the two communicated entirely through gestures.
From Everly’s interpretation, Misha had discovered the cave by accident while searching for food on the reef flat. The cave wasn’t large; its entrance was only wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and its depth was about two ters.
The structure sloped upward overall. The entrance passage was subrged in ankle-deep seawater, but the further inside they went, the shallower the water beca. At the very back of the cave, there was a large flat dry rock, where all of Misha’s collected supplies were placed.
What was rare was that the cave not only had a side entrance, but also a hollow rock fissure at the top, providing good ventilation. Even if the tide suddenly rose and the entrance was subrged, as long as the water level wasn’t too high, the ventilation opening at the top would prevent anyone inside from being trapped to death.
Everly climbed onto the large rock, took off her backpack, and then removed all the food and water from her apron, placing them on the stone. After that, she reached up and took off her pig-head mask, turning her back to Misha and signaling for her to help remove the neck collar tied around her neck with a rope.
This collar had been taken from the killer’s stronghold and originally belonged to the first female player killed by Kurt. After Kurt’s death, in order to complete the disguise of Kurt’s identity, she took the collar and, using a rope to bind both ends, forcibly wore it around her own neck.
All neck collars in the killing ga are single-use items. Once they are removed—whether automatically or manually—no matter how much ti remains on their countdown, they can never be fastened again. At the 73rd hour after the ga begins, once the winner is determined, all collars across the island will explode.
The first female player died very early. The collar she wore showed a countdown of 22:09:56—aning there were still a full 22 hours left.
In addition to that collar, Everly also carried another one with a countdown of 19:33:12, which should have belonged to the second victim.
Everly handed both collars to Misha, signaling for her to find a place to extend the survival countdown first, to prevent it from accidentally timing out.
After receiving the collars, Misha left the cave for the ti being to relocate and transfer the survival tirs. Everly used this ti to pour out all the items she was carrying and mix them together with Misha’s, beginning to sort them one by one.
After a thorough inventory, their combined supplies were as follows:
42 packs of compressed biscuits, 9 energy bars, 8 and a half bottles of mineral water, 2 empty plastic bottles, 1 bottle of gasoline, 1 Nepalese curved knife (kukri), 1 sickle, a small bottle of potassium cyanide powder, 1 sharp dagger, 1 axe, 1 whip, 1 outdoor folding pot, 1 windproof lighter, 1 Disney turtle keychain, 1 air-cushion comb, and 1 wooden 3D cat scratch board.
Among these, 18 packs of compressed biscuits, 9 energy bars, 1 bottle of gasoline, the sharp dagger, the axe, the folding pot, and the windproof lighter had all been taken by Everly from the strongholds of the two killers.
Those two had co to the island purely to kill people and had no intention of enjoying life. The food they brought was just enough for survival, and they didn’t bring a single bottle of drinking water—instead, they collected water on-site and boiled it before drinking.
The killers’ base contained mostly gasoline and a wide variety of cold weapons. Everly searched through everything but only found a chainsaw that barely qualified as a ranged weapon. It was clear the two brothers were fundantalist murderers—rather than using guns or explosives, they preferred close-range slaughter with lee weapons.
The chainsaw was indeed highly lethal, but it was also far too heavy.
Everly and Misha’s goal was to leave the island and return to the mainland, not to engage in combat. So it wasn’t useful to them. In the end, when they left, Everly only took a plastic bottle of gasoline and a sharp dagger. Everything else was left behind in the base and blown up.
After finishing the inventory, Everly began calculating.
The compressed biscuits issued in the killing ga were not true military rations, but ordinary comrcial products. Their compression efficiency was lower than military food, so they were less filling.
Using Everly herself as an example, she needed two biscuits per al to feel about 80% full. Misha’s appetite was similar, aning the two of them would consu roughly 12 biscuits per day for three als—this is under the assumption that they rested at night and did not travel continuously. If they stayed awake and traveled overnight, their consumption would be even higher.
By this estimate, 42 biscuits would last them about three and a half days at sea.
In the killing ga movie, the male protagonist and a group of passengers were abducted after being knocked unconscious and transported to the sea by helicopter. Based on Everly’s limited knowledge, a transport helicopter has a speed of roughly 120 to 240 km/h; assuming a mid-range value of 180 km/h for a larger transport helicopter seed reasonable.
When she woke up yesterday morning, judging by the sun’s position, it was probably around nine to ten o’clock. At that ti, although Everly was hungry, she still had the ability to move and was not particularly weak. From this, it could be inferred that only one day had passed between her being knocked unconscious and waking up.
The hijacking had occurred at around 10 a.m. the day before yesterday. By the ti Everly woke up yesterday morning, roughly 24 hours had passed. It was clearly impossible for all of that ti to have been spent on the helicopter alone.
Before boarding the plane, the ga organizers had to conduct full-body searches on all the captives and discreetly transport the soon-to-be players to the helipad. After arriving on the island, they also had to fit everyone with neck collars, register each person’s alias in an underground casino system to set up the betting matches, distribute everyone into randomly assigned prison cells, and further calibrate and test all equipnt…
All of this combined would take a considerable amount of ti. Even with a large workforce, spending around eight hours on these procedures wouldn’t be unreasonable.
That would leave about 16 hours spent on the flight.
16 × 180 = 2,880 kiloters… wait, that didn’t seem right. That was almost enough to reach Europe across the ocean. The island definitely wasn’t that far from the U.S. mainland.
There wasn’t enough information for Everly to estimate the distance between the island and the mainland.
Her plan was to gather enough supplies first, then build a simple “small boat,” load it with provisions and leave the island with Misha, letting the ocean currents carry them toward land.
Since she couldn’t calculate how long the drift would take, she had to prepare as much food and water as possible for the journey.
It was better to overprepare than to run out—because hunger and dehydration could be fatal.
Considering she might be able to obtain so seafood with relative ease once at sea, she could reduce food supplies slightly, aiming for about seven days’ worth. Water, however, was the most important and scarce resource at sea; Everly felt they needed at least half a month’s supply.
Clearly, the supplies they currently had were far from enough—they would need to gather much more.
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