Survival at Sea (Playwright) — Chapter One Hundred and Two: The Pact

On logical analysis that had nothing to do with feelings, Wu Hui’s mind worked at astonishing speed.

So she had been completely seen through. Wang Xiaodie felt a deep, bitter sting of hurt. In front of Wu Hui, she really did seem as gullible as a child. And yet her intelligence was not exactly low; she had even served as the brain of a team in some games before.

How had she ended up like this?

"Um..." Wang Xiaodie gave up struggling altogether. "Aaaah, Master, I know I was wrong. I should not have tried to scheme against you. Almighty Lord Wu Hui, please forgive me."

"If you complete the request and break the slave contract, that will do. If you fail to complete it... then I’ll extend the contract’s duration. One month," Wu Hui said.

Wang Xiaodie felt a little stabbed in the heart. So in the end, she still had to walk this road? It felt kind of like a trap.

"Help me gather ten gold coins and three different potions. Then I’ll解除 your contract," Wu Hui said.

Xiaodie thought it over.

It seemed manageable. If she worked hard, she should be able to finish it. So this guy preferred practical benefits over simply having a female slave.

At once, she felt overflowing with fighting spirit.

Wu Hui, like a boss who had just finished painting a rosy future, expressed satisfaction with his employee, now thoroughly energized. The two of them even signed a trade contract.

Her affection level rose again, successfully reaching seventy-one.

This thing was so easy to farm...

Wu Hui remembered that back when it was Li Xiaojing and the others, their affection levels had also shot up to the seventies and eighties without much effort.

Could there be some little trick here that I don’t know about?

Fighting side by side caused feelings between people to rise quickly. At the very least, comradeship from battle easily reached seventy. Affection did not mean only romance; it also included family love, friendship, and so on. Du Ziming’s affection for Wu Hui was also in the seventies. Apart from the number, one also had to look at the note attached to the affection level.

Wang Xiaodie’s note for Wu Hui was: a strong and handsome man.

Well, that was not exactly an unfair description, was it? Wu Hui did not mind. Riding the dire wolf, he moved closer to the shore and returned to the raft.

The bear did not come up for now. Its smell was too strong, and it was too heavy. Wu Hui planned to make a separate tow barge to drag behind them, where it could stay together with the beetle.

He still had a little moral line when it came to people, but with animals he showed no mercy at all. As long as it was convenient, that was all that mattered. He never considered how these creatures felt. For animals, having such a master was probably just bad luck.

The next day, Wang Xiaodie was again left behind to watch the ship. She suddenly felt a bit deceived. At this rate, did she not have any chance at all to explore the map? Where was she supposed to find gold coins and potions for Wu Hui?

Damn it!

Wang Xiaodie, suspecting once more that she had been tricked, squatted on the deck drawing circles on the floor.

Wu Hui and Zhang Dingyang split up to move across the island. Traveling together was certainly much safer, but far too slow. Wu Hui left the bear on the shore to keep Wang Xiaodie company, while he himself rode the dire wolf at a gallop through the woods and hills.

He gathered quite a lot of potion materials. The glasses were truly useful in this kind of environment. There was no need to compare one image after another against the potion recipe’s illustrations; if he could see it, he could just pick it.

He came to a cave and stopped. The dire wolf first roared into it, and several bats fluttered out.

Looking through the glasses, he found no signs of large animals moving inside. So this was a puzzle section? Or perhaps some kind of trap.

There was always a chance it had simply been an ordinary cave from the beginning, but either way, going in carefully would not hurt, no matter what he encountered.

This time, there was someone to talk to. Wu Hui no longer needed to speak to himself every day as he had on the deserted island just to keep his social skills alive. It had to be said: even if no collaboration was involved, simply having someone to chat with each day was already highly valuable.

Human beings were, after all, social creatures. Their psychological needs could not be changed.

Wu Hui walked into the cave. Dodging a few very obvious mechanisms, he found a skeleton deep inside.

Far from being afraid, he was invigorated. This was the first human corpse he had seen in the game. It might be of great significance for studying the world’s lore.

Of course, he was not exploring the world out of curiosity, or not only because of curiosity. The main purpose was to understand the setting of these marked beasts, and even the Demon God himself.

If the world before his eyes had been created by the Demon God specifically for players to use, then there was not much more to say.

But what if this world had once truly existed, and only the people in it had all died out? Would Earth be next? Could the Demon God’s game plunge the entire world into destruction?

Players still knew far too little about the Demon God. Perhaps those experts above level eleven knew more. But Wu Hui, as a low-level player, urgently needed answers.

He stepped closer and first examined the dead man’s clothing. The skeletonization showed that he had been dead for many years. The fabric and cut of the clothes were very similar to the items he had found on the sunken ship earlier, clearly modern. The dagger at the corpse’s side had a compass and an engraved mark on it.

It seemed that marks were a very common thing in this world.

Wu Hui began searching the corpse’s pockets. Time had worn everything down too much, and the cave had apparently served as a place where even spoiled provisions had been stored at some point; most things had already molded or rotted away. Only the small knife bearing an engraving remained intact.

But inside the inner lining of the corpse’s clothes, Wu Hui still found a map wrapped in plastic.

First, one thing could be confirmed: this was absolutely not Earth. It was a world map with national borders. Through the unfamiliar writing on it, and by studying the coastlines and boundary lines, Wu Hui began to infer the climate of different regions and his own position.

This was no simple task, and in a world influenced by supernatural forces, it might not even be accurate. In the end, all Wu Hui could do was put the map away first and think about it later during his rest, as a way to pass the time.

Besides that, the only other things on the man were two potion recipes.

Eagle Eye Potion. It would not be very useful if he drank it himself. He could give it to Ren Yin.

Bloodthirst Potion. The side effects felt like they might be a bit severe... If necessary, he could use Wang Xiaodie to test what it did.

On the raft, Wang Xiaodie started sneezing.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Zhang Dingyang saw two empty rafts.

So someone else had landed on the island?

He should remind Wu Hui and the others when he got back.

By his nature, he might be cautious, but he would never back down.

Earlier, while killing the bear, the crude spear in his hand had been damaged. Wang Xiaodie had agreed to make him another one, but in exchange she demanded a gold coin.

Zhang Dingyang had eight gold coins on him, and since he still had no idea what they were for, he had agreed readily enough. They clearly were not that rare, so exchanging one seemed fine. Saving a great deal of time was worth it.

Wu Hui left the cave with the map in hand.

The human beings of this world probably did not differ too much from those on Earth in terms of physiology. Their vocabulary and culture were also similar to modern civilization, though with slight differences.

The information provided by that corpse was still too limited, and it may also have been delayed by twenty or thirty years, making it hard to judge.

The dire wolf suddenly let out a howl.

A feathered arrow skimmed past Wu Hui’s body, leaving a streak of blood behind.

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