Chapter 28: Free Exploration

After experiencing the fish-flying, fish-jumping [Sea Realm—Famine Crisis!], the players received satisfactory compensation, dispersed, and continued with what they hadn’t finished.

Old Li’s group had wanted to browse the other items in the exchange post again to see if there were any useful weapons against the octopus, but they unexpectedly found that the exchange post was closed.
A note was posted on it, the handwriting identical to the sign at the entrance to the outer lands—

[Closed for restocking]

Alright then.

The group could only return to the boundary gate again.

“Charge, charge, charge! We’ll definitely take it down this time!” Hua Yibing shouldered his hammer, cheering for everyone, looking like he was about to dismantle the one-eyed octopus’s home.

But Yan Shuangwen held a different opinion.
“We don’t have much magic power left. The main purpose this time is still to scout the path and test its other attack methods.”

Old Li also nodded his head.
“Number Two is right. My magic power has only recovered by half right now. We can only go to probe the BOSS’s details, but we must be wary of that spiritual tentacle.”

Then, he turned his gaze to Sykes.
“Scott, can I leave that thing to you?”

“I can keep an eye on that tentacle,” Sykes nodded.

After reaching an agreement, the group once again passed through the boundary gate.

The feeling of being squeezed, like passing through plastic wrap, once again enveloped the group.
Hua Yibing even felt like a beef ball being squeezed out.

The group quickly moved forward based on their previous experience and arrived at the vicinity of the shipwreck.
But the place had changed its appearance, almost making the team think they had come to the wrong place.

Old Li had already checked the navigation tool on his wrist several times, confirming that they had not deviated from their course.

But there should have been a wooden shipwreck here, which, although its shape was complete, was in tatters in the details.
Not a patch of dark seawater where nothing could be seen.

“Did we not turn on our lights?” Hua Yibing touched the energy lamp on his head and, refusing to believe it, turned it on again, but it was still to no avail.

“Our vision must be blocked by something. Only this patch of sea can’t be illuminated by the lights,” Old Li judged.

As he spoke, he turned around and looked behind him.
The area illuminated by the light was still clear.

Sykes’s expression darkened.
He swam forward a few steps, reached his hand into the darkness to probe, and when he pulled his hand back, he brought out a few strands of black water.

“It’s the one-eyed octopus’s ink,” he rubbed his fingers.

The gazes of the other three were all focused on him, waiting for an explanation.

“Previously, its spiritual tentacle’s sneak attack failed and it was injured instead. Now it’s spewing ink to envelop this part of the ocean, making it convenient for it to heal,” Sykes recalled his arrow shot.
Although he hadn’t used much force, it had indeed pierced through that tentacle.

That octopus had been too careless.
It thought everyone had the same level of strength and couldn’t possibly detect a mental attack, so in its anger, it chose to retaliate with its spiritual tentacle, not even bothering to disguise it.

It could have succeeded, dealing a heavy blow to the provoking prey.

But it hadn’t expected there to be a Sykes.

“It seems we won’t be able to do anything to this wild BOSS for a short time,” Old Li also touched the ink, confirming this point.

“Don’t waste time, let’s go look elsewhere,” Yan Shuangwen glanced at his health, which was still half full.

In order to increase efficiency, and with the octopus guarding the vicinity, there shouldn’t be a second BOSS-level monster in this area.
The four of them split into two groups, one exploring the left and the other the right.

The result of the grouping was Sykes and Hua Yibing in one group, and Old Li and Yan Shuangwen in the other.

Before they separated, the two people opposite them each cast a glance full of sympathy at Sykes.

Sykes was a little baffled at first, but he quickly understood why they had such relieved expressions when they saw the grouping result.

As soon as they started exploring freely, this pink-haired merman was like he had been freed from some restraint, frolicking in various ways, jumping up and down in the seawater, and poking and prodding every creature he found.

One moment he was knocking on a hermit crab’s shell, forcing the inhabitant inside to extend its four pairs of large pincers in defense.
The next, he was tugging at a sleeping blind fish in the seaweed, bullying the other for its small size.

But he didn’t expect that blind fish to open its mouth a full half a meter wide, its teeth inlaid in three inner and three outer layers on its upper jaw.

“Holy cr*p! Is this an alien?!”
The pink-haired merman, who had been smug just now, was directly dumbfounded, and then his arm was bitten by the other.

“Scott! Help, ahhhhhh!!”
Hua Yibing looked at his arm, which had been swallowed up to his elbow, and let out a heart-wrenching scream.

Sykes was silent for a moment, then smoothly drew his bow and arrow, shooting through the blind fish’s heart, which was located in its tail.
Only then did he rescue him before his arm was digested.

Because there was no need to push a BOSS, and it wouldn’t reveal the location of the shipwreck, Hua Yibing had started streaming as soon as they were free to move.

Not long after he was freed, he discovered something else and went over to introduce it to the audience—

“See this rock monster? I flattened one with a ‘dong’ before!” he pointed proudly at the well-camouflaged fish on the rock.
“This is called a So… So…”

Hua Yibing got stuck halfway through, what was the name?
He finally cast a pleading look at Sykes.

“Scott,”

“Somofeld,” Sykes said without…

“Right! Somophilip!” Hua Yibing introduced to the stream room with certainty.

[Pfft]

[Pffft]

[Red red fire fire hahahahahaha]

[Did you see Scott’s speechless expression? I’m dying of laughter, why can Huahua be so confident?]

[Confident and misspeaking (confirmed)]

[This is exactly like me when I’m reciting from memory. Open the book: Feld. Close the book: Philip.]

[During the exam: Snape.]

[Is the person above trying to kill me with laughter?]

[I clearly have thalassophobia, but now looking at the outer sea scene, I’m not flustered at all. It’s really because Huahua is too much of a sand sculpture¹.]

[And the little gray fish’s watertight protection.]

The bullet comments had just finished talking about Sykes, and he had already shot a flat fish that was attacking Huahua with an arrow.

“Be careful,” the merman reminded.

Hua Yibing glanced at the fish that had been pierced through by an arrow and pinned to the rock.
He happily plucked it from the rock and offered it to Sykes.

“Scott, Scott, what’s this fish called?”

Sykes glanced at it, and with a touch of his hand, he identified it.
“This is a white knife fish, a species that is small but exceptionally aggressive. Because it always mindlessly provokes creatures stronger than it, its numbers are scarce.”

Hua Yibing was amused.
“Hahahaha, it almost made itself extinct because of mindless provocation? How can this fish be so stupid?”
He picked up the latter half of the fish and shook it in his hand.

“Be careful of its tail,” Sykes reminded.

But it was already too late.

The front half of the white knife fish was no different from a normal fish, looking a bit like a carp from Earth.
But the latter half of its body was like a dagger, and its fishtail was as sharp as a dagger.
Huahua’s hand had only brushed over it, and a very deep, long cut had already been made.

“!!”
Hua Yibing looked at his health drop from thirty directly to five, his face blank.

[Scott never would have thought that his teammate wouldn’t die from a strange fish’s attack, but would be about to die from being too stupid.]

[The person above pierced Huahua’s heart with one sentence. Why are you saying the truth?]

[Just now he was laughing at the white knife fish for being stupid, but the streamer directly performed a live act of being stupid.]

[Scott, we don’t blame you. You really did your best, pfft.]

[Teammate experienced the difficulty of raising a child at a young age.]

[Don’t say it, his expression right now is exactly like my mom’s when she sees my brother being stupid!]

But Hua Yibing ignored the mockery from the bullet comments.

He first stood there in a daze for a while, then quickly jumped up and went to touch the blind fish that had swallowed his arm just now.

“I almost forgot to bring back a souvenir. What if the lord likes one of these!”
He muttered while sweeping the blind fish that had died with its eyes open, the white knife fish that had almost sent him back to the resurrection point, and the hermit crab that he had dismantled until only a shell was left, into his backpack.

Then he lay down on the ground with a ‘thud’, his hands clasped on his abdomen, looking like he was passing away peacefully.

Sykes: “…”

He rubbed his throbbing temples and watched Hua Yibing disappear before his eyes.

‘This is good too. It saves me the trouble of turning invisible and teleporting back to the fountain later.’

But continuing like this would inevitably arouse suspicion—if he was really recognized as an NPC, he believed that with the players’ imagination, they would soon deduce that this was actually another world, not some holographic game.

Because with Earth’s current technology, it was far from being able to create an NPC with independent intelligence that could mix into a player’s team.
At that time, not to mention how humans would panic, he believed that no more players would be willing to log into the game.

This was definitely not what Sykes wanted to see, but he had reasons why he had to do it this way.

Although he could issue quests to let players search for quest items similar to the letter, since it concerned the rules and the mystery of the disappearance of the merfolk clan, he had to be present in person to have a chance of discovering any traces of energy fluctuations on the scene.

Even if it was as strong as the rules, it would eventually leave a trace.

Just as knowledge is never created out of thin air.

He, the merfolk clan, and even all the long-lived species, had been shackled by the rules for too, too long.

Right now, the appearance of the players was an opportunity, a key,

A sharp sword pointing at the rules.

Twenty minutes later, Old Li, Yan Shuangwen, and Sykes met in front of the resurrection point.

“Where’s Hua Yibing?” Yan Shuangwen looked left and right, but didn’t see that conspicuous pink-hair.

Sykes: “He came back a little earlier.”

Then, he told them about Hua Yibing accidentally injuring himself, leading to an early death.

Old Li laughed heartily.
“Hahahaha, that really is something he would do. You’ve worked hard, Scott.”

As he spoke, he patted Sykes’s shoulder with a look of understanding.

“But where is he now?” The merman also didn’t find him nearby.

Yan Shuangwen’s gaze rested on the distance.
“He’s coming.”

The few of them looked over there and saw Hua Yibing holding a full basket of something, swimming towards everyone unsteadily.

The basket was piled so high with things that it blocked his face.
He could only be identified by the pink hair floating on the side.

“Get out of the way, get out of the way, get out of the way!” he shouted as he swam, the things at the very top of the basket teetering precariously.

The other players were first startled by Hua Yibing’s shout, then were shocked by the high-piled basket, and hurriedly made way for him, afraid of being accidentally injured and sent to resurrection.

“What is that?” Sykes looked at the tool on top, which looked more and more familiar.
He had a bad feeling and tilted his body to the side.

Only to hear a ‘clang’.

Hua Yibing fell flat on his face in a ‘大’ shape on the spot where Sykes had just been.
The box in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter, splashing a large patch of mud.

“Did you go thieving?” Yan Shuangwen’s mouth twitched as he looked at his dusty roommate.

“What thieving! These are the things I just snatched up!” Hua Yibing looked up from the ground and protested passionately.
“The exchange post just opened. Do you guys know how hard it is to grab these things?”

Old Li bent down and counted the items he had brought one by one.

A shiny golden hoe with flamboyant patterns carved on its handle; a few transparent glass jars containing colorful granular objects; a few bundles of tied-up aquatic plants, and a few broken pieces of wood…

Sykes’s eyes swept over the things Old Li had taken out, and his premonition was confirmed—weren’t these seeds for underwater plants?

‘Did Ella really put these on the shelves?’

‘Also, do you actually have to snatch… these?’

He looked towards the exchange post and was startled by the long line of merfolk in front of the building.

Footnotes:

1. 沙雕 (shādiāo), literally “sand sculpture,” is a homophone for 傻屌 (shǎdiǎo), which is a vulgar term meaning “stupid d*ck.” Over time, the more polite homophone has become popular internet slang for someone who is silly, foolish, or acts in a comically dumb way.