Chapter 710 - 334: Shadow Mutation (Part 2)
Starlight assessed the situation immediately, "Retreat, no time left." By then, it was too late to make the cut. At that moment, Shana had made up her mind to do so, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to make the first cut. The only one encouraging her to take action was Horse Soul, while everyone else was noisy, with all sorts of ideas and opinions being thrown around, some even trying to pry open the rocks to pull Horse Soul out.
In the end, amid Starlight’s roars, everyone abandoned Horse Soul, who thus left Hardcore Mode. As an elder of Shadow, the loss of Horse Soul hit everyone hard, and Snow Egg couldn’t help but blame Shana for assigning him to pick people up. Shana didn’t respond. Dashuang answered for Shana, "Because you guys were taking so long to return."
Snow Egg retorted, saying that before they went down to the coal mine, Shana had clearly stated that everyone must return within a specified time and that she wouldn’t send out any rescue; she asked everyone to be careful on their own.
Seeing the situation escalating, Stone stepped in to mediate the conflict. Starlight made a suggestion, given the chaos in Shadow People’s staffing and low morale, they should employ delay tactics during the event. That meant stopping whenever possible, using up as much time as they could; no mishaps would happen as long as they didn’t reach their destinations.
There could be substantial delays at each stop. During these stops, they could scavenge for food resources in the wild and also dig for coal.
Shana accepted Starlight’s suggestion, and so Shadow No. began to slack off in their movements. There were quite a few locations in the wild to obtain coal for the event, though the quantities were small since the coal was meant to offer a chance for the coal-empty trains to refuel. But with the Shadow’s innate ability to utilize resources, once they stopped, several people would run forward, and several would head back, scouring the area thoroughly for food and coal. With some luck, they might find five coal hiding spots.
By the fourth day, the activity on Shadow No. concluded, and they entered vacation mode.
Back at Doomsday Fortress, Shana’s enthusiasm for managing affairs began to wane. When Stone noticed this, he called a meeting where he reiterated that until Maya returned, Shana was the only Deputy Commander of Shadow, and everyone should follow her orders.