“Hey, brother, have you been listening?” Pan Feng widened his eyes. “We’ve already told you Anomalies are very powerful, so why do you have to see it for yourself? Do you want to die that much? Isn’t it better for you to follow us to complete the main quest and then leave the scenario?”
“As you said, the level four Anomaly in this scenario is only slightly brighter and more powerful than a final boss like Ashford, right?” Feng Bujue said. “So, what is so unkillable about that?”
“Even so, there is no reason you have to help us kill it, right?” Hwa Xiong fired back.
Xiao Tan revealed a shocked expression as he turned to tell Feng Bujue, “That’s right! We have no reason to go and kill it!”
“The reason you said there is no need for that is because… even if the players go to kill the Anomaly, since it doesn’t count as part of the side or hidden quest and has nothing to do with main quest, the only thing it does is put the players at risk, right?” Feng Bujue asked.
The three nodded and said in unison, “That’s right.”
“The possible reward of gaining mastery level and Skill Points aside, did you realize that you’ve forgotten the most important thing that a game ’should’ be able to provide its players?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Er… what is it?”
“Fun, of course,” Feng Bujue replied with a smile. “Like you said, there is little to no chance of a normal player running into an Anomaly, and this might not happen a second time, but I can queue for Team Survival Mode as many times as I want, so what if I die once?”
He paused before continuing. “It’s so rare to run into an Anomaly, and I have to stand aside and watch two GMs clear the main quest and then be transported out of the scenario just like that? Wouldn’t that be boring? Compared to being killed in a normal scenario, even that would’ve been more interesting.”
Xiao Tan raised his head forty-five degree and looked at the sky. “Now that you put it that day… I suddenly feel like not going after the Anomaly is kind of a waste.”
“That’s because it is. This is an opportunity that not everyone will have, so what if we die in the process?” Feng Bujue asked. “It’s like you’ve been playing more than a million rounds of Contra and suddenly run into a hidden boss during one of the rounds. Even if you might die facing the boss, you wouldn’t consider skipping it, right?”
“Oh, oh! You do have a point!” Xiao Tan said excitedly.
“This guy’s thinking sure is a bit out there,” Pan Feng whispered to Hwa Xiong.
“It’s not only a bit out there. The man is insane,” Hwa Xiong answered back in the same whisper.
“You two are whispering when you’re standing so close to me again! What’s the point?” Feng Bujue commented.
…
At 5 pm, Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi examined the crime scene at the entrance of the gun store.
Both Atobe-sama and Ming Zi had disappeared after dissolving into a pool of white light. After a player was killed, their bodies would not stay inside the scenario. Similarly, if the player transformed due to an infection, when the time limit was up, the player would transform into a white light, and at the same time, the last location where they had been standing would materialize a relatively normal zombie.
In any case, the gaming company would not retain the player’s dead bodies in any way inside the game. The player either left in a pool of white light, or they were still surviving.
Without the dead bodies, it was hard to reconstruct the Anomaly’s murders, but Feng Bujue still walked around the sofa that was torn open and dyed with blood and made some hypotheses. “They were sitting here, holding their guns, each watching an opposite direction.”
As he said so, he sat down on the sofa.
“That is because there is more shrapnel around the sofa, and the blood splatters of the monsters also corroborate that fact.”
He looked down the direction that Ming Zi was responsible for.
“The Anomaly came from that side,” he said as he stood up and walked forward to the junction before walking back. Along the way, he kept his head lowered to study the ground. “The Anomaly should have the appearance of a woman, at least viewed from a far; it doesn’t look like a monster. In fact, it might even be a pretty woman…”
“You can tell that as well?” Xiao Tan asked.
“The blood stains on the ground are very useful. As long as you’ve travelled down this street, it’s hard not to leave behind shoe prints.” Feng Bujue squatted and explained while looking at the ground, “There is a row of prints left behind by a pair of high heels, and it’s very obvious.
“And of all the zombies we’ve seen, regardless of whether they are male or female, none of them wore high heels. Neither do the dead zombies around us. This explains that the owner of these footprints is not currently with us. After it killed two players, it left.”
Feng Bujue stood up and walked a few steps forward. “The footprints stopped when it was around ten steps away from the sofa. This should be where it launched its attack.
“Here, there’s another footprint. It’s just in front of the sofa. This is where she stood when she killed the two players.”
He turned back to look at the previous print.
“A distance of about seven meters, and it leaped over it easily. This also proves that the Anomaly isn’t a slow creature like the BW Zombies.”
He walked around to the other side of the sofa. “After making the kills, she left from the other direction. After walking for some distance, she stepped on a new blood stain and left some other trace.”
“Brother Jue,” Xiao Tan said, “you still haven’t answered my question. Why does it have to be a pretty woman simple because the offender wore a pair of high heels?”
“Look at the approaching footprints,” Feng Bujue replied. He walked back to the previous side. “These footprints were made from ’walking’, not ’running’, and it’s also not the ’shuffling’ like the zombies did. From the distance between them and the intensity of the pattern, the Anomaly is about 1.6 meters tall, not heavy, and had a certain sway when she walked.”
“Then, why couldn’t it be a monster who had a feminine walk?” Xiao Tan questioned.
“If a monster wearing high heels or a man wearing high heels was walking slowly toward you, would you continue to sit quietly on the sofa and wait for him to come within ten paces of you?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Hmm…” Xiao Tan thought about it and conceded to the point.
“If the Anomaly looked like a monster from a far, then Ming Zi would have delivered the shots already,” Feng Bujue said. “Then, two possibilities might happen. Firstly, the Anomaly might start running and attacking at the same time.”
“We can remove that possibility from analyzing the footprints,” Xiao Tan said.
“Then the second possibility is… the Anomaly maintained its gait, slowly walked over, and then launched the attack,” Feng Bujue said. “But if that was the case… Atobe-sama and Ming Zi wouldn’t have stayed on the sofa. They had enough time to stand up and retreat.”
“Perhaps they were frozen on the sofa by the monster’s power?” Xiao Tan asked.
“If that was the case, then it would overrule the hypothesis that the Anomaly looked like a monster.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” Xiao Tan said. “Then, assuming that the Anomaly has the appearance of a human female, how can you be confident that she was pretty?”
“Calling her ’pretty’ is merely my instinct,” Feng Bujue said. “She could look totally passable for all we know.”
“Tsk…”
Feng Bujue laughed as he sat on the sofa. “So this is what happened… They were sitting here when they saw a woman who didn’t look like a monster slowly sauntering toward them. When the Anomaly was within ten steps of them, they finally realized that something was wrong and instantly thought of mounting a resistance, but it was already too late. The Anomaly lunged forward and finished the battle instantly.”
Touching the leather that was torn open on the sofa, Feng Bujue said, “This trace is like Wolverine just committed a murder here. Plus, the last few footsteps at ten paces away didn’t show any sign of speeding or darkening.”
“What does that prove?” Xiao Tan asked.
“How far can you jump without a running start?” Feng Bujue asked back.
“At most two meters.”
“But the Anomaly covered at least six meters.”
“Hmm…”
“After closing that distance, it used some kind of claw-like weapons or its own hand to quickly tear through the two’s bodies, and the sofa that they were sitting on suffered along with them.” Feng Bujue held his cheek. “That is just about everything.”
Xiao Tan raised his head to shout at Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong who were hiding at a building not far away, “Big Brothers! You have to look closer!”
The two ignored him and continued chatting.
“Don’t worry,” Feng Bujue told him, “they said that as long as the Anomaly appears within one kilometer of them, they’ll receive a system notification and will be able to see the target’s coordinates on their map.”
“I say, this system sure is troublesome as well. Wouldn’t it be easier if it just gave them the coordinates of the Anomaly?”
“That’s why the Anomalies are ’anomalous data’. They must possess some kind of power to help them resist discovery by the system. Even if the system can do what you said, then the system could have channeled thunder to strike them where they stood, yes? Do we still need the GMs?” Feng Bujue asked. “Speaking of which… we cannot trust everything those two said.”
Xiao Tan’s expression shifted. “Why, have they lied to us about something?”
“That doesn’t seem like it; they should be telling the truth,” Feng Bujue answered. “But… they are merely two employees—how can we be sure that the information given to them by their bosses about the Anomaly is the whole truth?”