Chapter 77 – Day 2 Part 1 Safehouse Scramble

The sandy tropical shores overlooked a gorgeous lakefront with lush vegetation interspersed with harsher beach areas. I breathed in the turbulent air, caused by a change in air pressure between the lake and the shoreline. It was quite breezy in this area, almost abnormally so, as the wind swept through the beach Immediately, my thoughts went to Luxuria’s hint about the challenge– The lake is not safe at noon.

Currently it was still mid morning, and players were teleporting into the region by the droves, although there were noticeably fewer people now compared to yesterday at the beginning of the competition. Again, I didn’t get the luxury of spawning near Rosalia.

On my player interface, the male bathroom sign figures that indicated remaining player count in the hidden challenge were now prominently displayed in a sidebar that could be minimized and maximized at will. The players that were eliminated yesterday seemed to be blacked out now, so that new eliminations for today could be marked with an X to distinguish them from prior day eliminations. I wondered if Euphemia survived the last round. Doubtful, if she was still low level, but then again I hadn’t encountered her in game for so long that I couldn’t say for sure that she’d definitely get eliminated in the first round here.

I also wondered about the fate of the other players I fought so far. That party of four, with the witch, mage, shieldbearer, and halberdier. Did they manage to pass the trials of the first day? What about that level 90 female assassin that I briefly dueled? And as for the two rankers, Cold Hands and Steel Slice… I could say with a hundred percent certainty that they hadn’t been eliminated yet. Rankers were a force to be reckoned with, and even that ranker [Beezlebub] with the thousand ticket bounty on his head was still alive and kicking.

In the sky in front of us, standing far above the lake on a floating podium, was a familiar white rabbit with floppy ears and a frown on his face. In his hand was a partially chewed on carrot, which he brought to his mouth like a microphone.

“ATTENTION!” Bubs shouted at the top of his lungs into the carrot, causing ripples to appear in the lake water below from the magnitude of his voice amplification.

Silence quickly descended upon the crowd, as everyone learned from the first day not to get on Bubs’s bad side. After all, he was personally responsible for the largest amount of eliminations in the competition so far, even more than that rampaging dragon from yesterday.

“I will explain tonight’s event now. The event is called safehouse scramble. Scattered around this region are safehouse keys of varying tiers. Higher tier keys let you access higher tier safehouses, with better amenities like in-house massages, jacuzzis, pool tables, and more. Your objective is to find a safehouse by midnight, and access it with a key that is high enough tier.”

“All safehouses will be locked until sunset, so you will have to wait until sunset before you can unlock and claim a safehouse. If you are not in a safehouse by midnight, you will be hunted by high level creatures. I don’t expect any of you to survive that, so your best bet is to find a safehouse. And that applies to those of you who have special abilities that grant refuge, as well.” Bubs accentuated his last sentence, as if he was speaking directly to us.

“If you find yourself in a pinch, a higher tier key can also unlock a lower tier safehouse.”

Pulling out the massive chalkboard once more, Bubs left it hanging in the air for everyone to see the rules. At least this time, he let us read the rules first and didn’t put them up after starting the challenge when people were running and screaming.

Day 2 Rules

Objective – Find and claim a safehouse with a safehouse key. Failure to do so will result in a night of terror.

Rule I – Safehouse keys come in tiers. The order of tiers is as follows. Bronze key, Silver key, Gold Key, and Platinum Key. A key may be used to claim a safehouse of the same tier or lower.

Rule II – Players with wolf status that possess a key will be marked with a crown and a key icon. The key icon does not show which tier key you possess.

Rule III – Killing a player with a crown and key icon will grant you that key.

Rule IV – You may only be in possession of one key at a time.

Rule V – Safehouses may be shared if the owner that has claimed a safehouse grants permission for a new player to join. Each new player must offer a key of the correct tier to join a shared safehouse.

Rule VI – The rules pertaining to wolf status are challenge-wide, and will carry over from yesterday.

Additional rules may be added as needed.

There were a handful of rules to digest this time, although I did notice a lack of the bounty for Beezlebub’s head this time around.

Again, there was more tension around being a wolf. It allowed you quick access to keys through pk, but also exposed you to more danger as well. And it seemed like wolf status carried over from the previous day, so I had no choice but to embrace wolf gameplay.

Also, a crucial detail in today’s challenge was the lack of a ticket threshold for survival. That meant that we could spend our tickets in the shop without having to worry about holding on to enough to survive some sort of culling event.

“And now,” Bubs said while clearing his throat. “The second day of the challenge has officially begun!”

He shot a firework cannon into the air, this time spelling out the words GOOD LUCK, STAY SAFE.

Suddenly, all the contestants began to teleport once again. I watched my body deconstruct, then reconstruct just a moment later in an unfamiliar area.

I was in a forested region not far from the lake, which I could just barely see in the distance from this point of elevation.

[You have received a gold invitation goodie bag]

[The goodie bag contains the following items]

[1x Tracker’s map]

Not a complete goodie bag this time around, but then again gold invitation holders were only supposed to get complete goodie bags between rounds.

Tracker’s map seemed like an item that could be immediately useful, and it seemed to be the ubiquitous item that gold invitation holders received, much like [Dragonnip] from yesterday. I took the item out of my inventory and examined it.

[Tracker’s map]

A map designed specifically for today’s challenge. It will burn to ash when the clock strikes midnight.

This map will fill itself in as you move through the challenge grounds. It is not guaranteed to be complete, so please be aware of your surroundings at all times.

There were already a few icons showing up in my vicinity, and a small stick figure drawing representing myself was fixed on the map. When I moved, the stick figure also moved.

I checked the map legend to get a better understanding of what the different icons meant, although some of them were rather self explanatory.

A bazaar looking icon indicated a hidden outpost shop, where I could spend tickets and purchase equipment and armor.

A small house icon represented a safehouse, with a bronze color corresponding to bronze tier safehouse, and so forth and so on for silver, gold, and platinum tier safehouses.

Icons that were not uniform were set to depict environmental hazards. For example, there was an icon that I recognized as a rock faerie warning not far from here. Interestingly enough, there was no warning on the lake.

And finally, there were icons that depicted other players. The legend also left a special note for this particular icon.

If you happen to walk across a path another player has taken, that player’s previous location will be revealed if they are still within tracking distance. The location for players will be updated every three minutes, and is only an indication of where they were previously. Do not rely upon this information for real-time updates. It is meant for tracking purposes only.

What an interesting perk. From a cursory glance, I couldn’t figure out how exactly to use the player tracking function well, but at least it gave some vital information about environmental hazards, shop locations, and safehouse locations.

After finishing my reading of the map, I stayed quiet and examined my surroundings, seeing if other players were already stalking nearby. Since I didn’t notice anything for a minute or so, I decided to carry through with the first step in my plan.

Pulling the map back out, I started hiking towards the icon of the rock faeries, while thinking about the bestiary update that Rosalia read out last night. As long as I showed that I wasn’t a threat to their territory, and offered some sort of exotic food item to them, it was possible to befriend the otherwise aggressive rock faeries. After all, the bestiary entry did say that elves commonly befriended rock faeries using similar tactics.

Hacking through the forestation with my adamantite poleaxe and using dimension ripper here or there if a vine was too thick to cut through, I took a linear path straight towards the faerie icon on the tracker’s map.

As I expected, soon the forestry cleared up, and there were indications of a rock mass or cave nearby. I unsummoned my weapons and took out a special item from my inventory.

[Gravy in a Jar]

A rich and flavorful meat gravy, stored in a jar for later consumption. Consider spreading it on mashed potatoes, rice, or even steak.

Holding the jar up in the air, I walked towards the rock outcrop with my hands in the air while speaking loudly. “I come as a friend, with an offering of delicious gravy.”

Nothing happened at first, but soon I caught a flash of movement from behind the rock outcrop. A gray faerie about the size of my hand popped her head out to examine me, before darting back and whispering to another faerie behind the outcrop.

A moment later, several skimpily dressed rock faeries cautiously flew out from behind the rock outcrop and examined me curiously. Despite being small and skinny, they were surprisingly sexual, with huge tits that would be E or F cups if compared to regular human girl proportions, and clothes that were rags that barely covered their modesty. Then again, I couldn’t judge fairies by human cultural standards, so maybe this was normal for them.

“Oooooh~” one of the busty faeries said in a baby voice while she flew closer to the gravy in a jar I was holding. “What’s this?”

“It’s meat gravy,” I said. “Do you wanna try it?”

The faerie looked expectantly at me with puppy dog eyes, and nodded yes furiously. I unscrewed the lid and held it out to her, and she dipped a finger in and licked it. Instantly, her eyes lit up and an intense blush appeared on her face.

“So good~” she said in contentment.

Now, the other faeries were also approaching with less caution than before. They were all curious about the novel culinary item that they hadn’t seen before. “Meat gravy~ meat gravy~” one of the faeries chanted in excitement.

I stuck my arm out, offering them to try it. “If I give you guys this meat gravy, can we be friends?”

One of the faeries put her hand on her chin in thought. “Human give us meat gravy, so we friends? Hm…. okay!”

[You have befriended a clan of rock faeries]

“Take it,” I said, handing the gravy in a jar to them. About a dozen rock faeries flew under it and carried it with their small arms holding the bottom of the jar, flying it into the rock outcrop.

They returned a moment later with something in their hands. “Human friend give us meat gravy, faeries give human gift~”

[You have received 18 tickets.]

The faeries gently flew over to my face and began to touch me with their tiny hands, stroking my face affectionately and kissing me. Two of the faeries pressed their boobs onto my face while trying to hug me.

“Human, take this too~” one of the faeries said, bringing over another item.