Chapter 264: Giant Creatures 22
Little did Perry Yates and Amber Sheridan know, a pair of eyes was indeed watching them from the outside.
However, these eyes didn’t belong to a human, but to a golden eagle with a wingspan of over ten meters.
It was a well-known fact that birds of prey possessed excellent vision, and the golden eagle, a top predator, was no exception.
In fact, the main reason Perry Yates and Amber Sheridan had only encountered two rabbits and no other animals on their journey the day before was that this entire area was the golden eagle’s territory.
The other animals, intimidated by the eagle’s power, had chosen to leave.
After the entrance to the air-raid shelter was blocked, the golden eagle, having lost its targets, circled in the sky a few more times, trying to locate the two vanished humans.
This golden eagle was one of the animals that had escaped from the zoo.
Once tamed in the zoo, the eagle’s hatred for its domestication and confinement grew daily after regaining its freedom. It had locked onto Perry Yates and Amber Sheridan the very moment they appeared.
It hadn’t attacked immediately, likely because its past experiences with humans had left a significant impression. Even though its body had grown immense, it chose to observe rather than act.
And it was this surveillance that the perceptive Perry Yates had happened to notice.
Unable to find the two humans, the golden eagle could only depart resentfully with the two rabbits it had caught.
Meanwhile, after venturing deeper into the cave, Perry Yates suddenly heard a "DRIP, DRIP" sound.
"That’s the sound of water. I wonder what the quality is like."
Their supply of bottled water was nearly depleted, leaving them with only soft drinks.
Following the sound of dripping, Perry Yates located the source.
Her eyes lit up as she saw a familiar white liquid slowly dripping from a stalactite above.
But she felt a pang of regret seeing the liquid disappear into the cracks in the rock below.
Perry Yates quickly pulled out an empty water bottle and placed it under the drip. Then, she found a length of rope, tied one end to the dripping stalactite, and placed the other end inside the bottle. This would speed up the collection process.
After setting this up, Perry Yates searched the area again, hoping to find other similar formations.
Unfortunately, a thorough search yielded nothing.
When Perry Yates returned, Amber Sheridan asked, "Did you find a water source?"
Perry Yates shook her head. "It’s not water."
"The water we have should be enough to last us the next few days," Amber Sheridan said without looking up. "Don’t waste your energy."
Perry Yates nodded. "I know." Then she lowered her head and began to process the rabbit pelts.
The fire blazed, and a grilling tray sat atop it. On the tray, meat sizzled and oozed fat as it cooked.
This wasn’t rabbit meat. After all, rabbit is too lean to sizzle and ooze fat like this. It’s a well-known fact that a person would starve to death on a diet of only rabbit meat.
「Day 27 of the game.」
Perry Yates put away the full water bottle and replaced it with an empty one.
At the current collection rate, she could fill a bottle in about half a day, which was quite fast.
And this was no small bottle.
Perry Yates wasn’t using a small, several-hundred-milliliter bottle; she was using a large, five-liter jug.
During this time, Amber Sheridan had asked about it, but Perry Yates always gave her a vague answer.
While the two of them enjoyed a quiet, peaceful existence, the world outside was a completely different scene.
As the game neared its conclusion, the city’s animals and plants began to attack humans with frenzied aggression.
The greatest threat to humanity came not from the former beasts of prey, but from mutated rats.
Have you ever seen a rat the size of a tricycle?
Not only were these rats enormous, but they were also fast and agile. Most importantly, they carried a variety of deadly pathogens.
Much like a Komodo dragon, a single bite from one of these rats—even a small wound—could be fatal. The victim would die from an untreatable infection and raging fever within hours.
Furthermore, the changes to the world seemed to have strengthened the viruses as well. Existing medicines were completely ineffective against this type of infection; at best, they could only delay death.
「Day 28 of the game.」
Liam Yates, a player from Cerulea, ID 2233. Croupier number 003.
He was currently being hunted by a stray dog, along with a dozen or so other survivors. The group was a mix of players, Croupiers, natives, and even a Dealer Hunter.
Staring back at the red-eyed stray dog in hot pursuit, Liam Yates knew this couldn’t go on.
After a moment, he said to the others, "Running like this isn’t a solution. We have to work together. I suggest we put our old grudges aside for now and kill that dog behind us. What do you say?"
Liam Yates directed this question to the Dealer Hunter in their group.
This Dealer Hunter had only recently taken up the mantle. The two Croupiers he’d killed hadn’t yielded any particularly powerful Skills, or else he wouldn’t be here getting chased down by a stray dog.
Sensing the stray dog closing in and his own stamina rapidly draining, the Dealer Hunter nodded. "Alright. What’s your plan?"
"How should I know? I just said we need to cooperate."
Liam Yates felt like he was about to collapse from exhaustion; how could he possibly have the time to come up with a plan to deal with the dog?
Still, it wasn’t as if he had no ideas at all. The only plan he could think of was for someone to act as bait to draw the dog away. Then, while it was distracted chasing the bait, the rest of them would attack together.
If the plan worked, they could turn the tables and kill the stray dog. But the bait would almost certainly not survive.
Under these circumstances, no one was willing to be the bait.
Just then, as he was running, Liam Yates suddenly felt something entangle his feet. The next second, he lost his balance.
Liam Yates’s eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at the culprit.
He had considered the possibility of being attacked by a native, or even the Dealer Hunter. He never imagined the first to betray him would be a fellow Croupier.
Liam Yates stared at the man, searching his eyes for any trace of guilt. There was none. All he saw was schadenfreude.
They weren’t from the same planet, but they had worked together for several rounds of the game. You could even say they had a life-or-death bond, which was exactly why he had trusted the other man so completely.