Chapter 58. Food tastes better when shared
Arriving at the safezone, Shin and the girls were welcomed by the thick scent of smoke in the air. The moment they passed through the gate, they noticed fire burning from almost every corner. Small stores were destroyed and engulfed in flames. Shin looked around with a calm expression, but the same couldn’t be said for the two girls with him.
Sylvia broke into a sprint the moment she spotted the dwarven blacksmith shop near the gate. She searched frantically through the wreckage, her boots crunching over scorched debris. Nothing. No survivors. Her kin had been reduced to glowing motes, drifting through the air like vanishing embers. The forge was looted clean—every weapon, every blade, stolen.
Yet, she didn’t cry.
She only stood there, her fist clenched tight, her bloodshot eyes fixed on the remains with a simmering sorrow that refused to be loud.
"Stay close to me," Shin muttered as he passed the crumbling smithy.
Sylvia gave one last look at her shattered past, then turned and followed her new master without a word.
"Our world... it’s turning into the outside world," Lilian whispered in dread as she walked beside Shin. "Even the god’s blessing... it’s fading. I can feel it. It’s not as strong anymore."
Shin gave a small nod, his eyes sweeping over the ruins. Piles of mangled flesh and shattered bones lined the cobbled path, still slick with blood. Flies swarmed over them in a frenzy. The remains were too symmetrical, and too sudden like people had simply burst. He remembered the second Elimination Round—those who failed to reach Level 2 in time had imploded into grotesque heaps like this.
These weren’t the result of being killed by other players. This was the system’s doing.
Idiots. He thought grimly. Probably tried to kill others in the safezone. Broke the rules and paid the price.
Yet despite the carnage, laughter echoed through the night.