Ye Shu had just turned around when she ran into more hunters.
“Don’t any of you dare try to take this sika deer from me!”
“I haven’t caught even a single prey this round—why should I split with you?”
“That Lin fellow already snatched up all the prey—there’s not even any scraps left for us! This deer is mine, hands off.”
The hunters eyed Ye Shu as easy pickings, sure she wouldn’t dare run. Instead, they started arguing among themselves, right in front of her.
If not now, when? She should run! But, oddly enough, she didn’t move at all.
Big Beauty was simply fished out of her hiding place and used as a weapon—her innocent appearance deceived them all.
[Ding! Hunter No. 998 has been eliminated!]
[Hunter No. 234 has been eliminated!]
Another string of notifications rippled through the chat room, leaving the players shaken to their core.
Who did it this time?
It was one thing to evade a hunter, but to fight back—killing hunters, no less? More than one?
“Absolutely ruthless! Please, let me team up with that big shot.”
“When other folks are fighting back, all I can do is cower in the mud, not even daring to make a sound.”
“I’m nearby and I saw... a sika deer, and a black tiger— the tiger... swallowed the hunter whole...”
“Oh my god—do players eat people now? Is it not just their shapes that have changed, but their appetites too?”
“Maybe so?”
Black... tiger.
Su Bai immediately thought of the one always beside Ye Shu.
Shushu actually brought that little cutie into the game too.
With something as strange as that tiger around, these hunters were nothing but weak targets—a snack, really. Smug, Su Bai dug herself deeper into the soil to avoid being discovered by any hunter nearby.
Fu Jingchuan was still in the morgue, lingering as she read the chat.
Finally, she connected the dots—the sika deer just mentioned was Ye Shu.
And the small black cat on her shoulders was anything but ordinary!!
That aura... ominous, almost like the monsters in a cursed dungeon.
There was only one person she knew of who could bring a contracted beast in and out of dungeons at will.
Aside from Ye Xiaoshu, there was no one else.
……
Deep in the thickets behind the hospital, a pack of hunters surrounded a lone sika deer.
“Don’t even think about running!”
“Come back, and maybe we’ll make your death a little easier.”
Ye Shu paid no mind to their rabid taunts and kept fleeing at full tilt.
Suddenly, the alarm sounded.
[Beep—beep—beep—Prey No. 10096, you’re about to exceed the one-kilometer boundary!]
Rifle-bearing hunters gave chase behind her.
She couldn’t leave the area, nor could she stay—caught between hunter and hard place.
Ye Shu gathered herself and leapt—outside the boundary.
She was prepared to be knocked out of the game, but to her shock, nothing happened. She stood unharmed, even though she’d crossed the initial selection’s one-kilometer ring.
The rules only stated the alarm would go off; there was no mention of an actual consequence. It was a paper tiger, just meant to scare them.
As expected, most players had been tricked, unwittingly confining themselves inside.
“Thud-thud-thud...”
Ye Shu, still in deer form, vanished from the hunters’ sight.
But leaving the boundary came at a price: each time she crossed the line, the alarm sounded, broadcasting her location to all the hunters.
Ye Shu quickly shared this revelation in the player chat.
[Sparkling Strawberry Clip: Turns out you CAN leave the circle! I thought going out meant instant loss.]
[Moldy Cashew: I’m already one with the mud, nobody can find me here.]
[Wild Boar: Thanks, Deer Boss! I’m making a run for it—oh, I just took down two hunters, even got shot once.]
[Black Tape: I’m stuck to the ceiling, nobody sees me.]
A flood of thank-you messages—over 99 of them—poured in, and Ye Shu barely had time to read.
Then, a whole mob of hunters converged on her at once.
With nimble elegance, the sika deer dodged through a hail of bullets and calmly tossed a grenade.
As the hunters gaped, unable to comprehend why prey would be armed, the answer came in a roaring blast.
“BOOM—”
A detonation echoed through the woods—three more hunters wiped out.
The hunting grounds’ public screen displayed their numbers as logged off.
“Wow! Several hunters killed—Deer Boss, you're amazing!”
“Isn’t this too humiliating for you hunters? Ha ha ha...”
“Any spare weapons? I’ll take a whole crate!”
For the prey, everything seemed breezy, while the top-ranking hunters seethed with rage.
For the first time, the prey dared to openly hunt the hunters.
Eighteen had been killed already!
It was nothing short of a slap to their faces.
They swore to hunt down that sika deer and grind her to dust.
The chat channel never stopped updating.
Morale soared among the players—many pledged to turn the tables and hunt the hunters. After all, getting found meant elimination anyway. Why not seize the initiative?
[Sika Deer: I’ll bring the pistols, you bring the men! Let’s take them down together, what do you say?]
Ye Shu’s message, and Su Bai was the first to leap in.
[Dinosaur Egg: Count me in, absolutely!]
[Caterpillar: Boss, let's fight back together!]
[Big Bear: I agree. Of all the games, this feels the most suffocating.]
[Rabbit: Believe it or not, I’ve hitched a ride with Deer Boss. I haven’t been found in the past few games, so I’ll go be bait and lure them your way.]
[Spider: What’s wrong with just hiding? This is already the fourth round—we shouldn’t tire ourselves out. I’m out, not joining.]
[Tortoise: Same here. I’ve been knocked out the last two times—I can’t afford to lose again. Showing up in front of hunters is just asking for it. I, Yamamoto Sakura, voice my opposition first!]
[Sparrow: I, Xiao Han Mingguo, disagree as well. You Chinese players can cause trouble all you want—just don’t drag us along with you to die.]
A barrage of comments revealed players from distant countries.
It dawned on Ye Shu—she wasn’t the only one from Huaxia competing in this game of survival.
Turning the tables on the hunters was no easy feat; of course there would be dissenters.
Ye Shu gathered her loyal band of animals. They set simple traps in the thickets, each member handed a grenade—bulk purchased from the system’s clearance sale.
Nineteen for just nine points—cheap, durable, and, most importantly, lethal enough to obliterate a hunter.
The rabbit, playing bait, dashed through the underbrush, feigning a panicked escape straight into the hunters’ path. Drawn into the trap, the hunters rushed in—only to be greeted by a hail of grenades. In one blast, a dozen hunters went offline.
[No. 238 eliminated.]
[No. 786 eliminated.]
The ranks of hunters in the hunting grounds dwindled.
The hunters grew desperate. Watching comrades fall, their anger boiled over into malice—they saw this prey uprising as the ultimate provocation.
Lu Xiao was dumbfounded.
He only wanted to catch that tiny mouse—who would have thought her pocket had plenty more surprises? First the strange black tiger, now hot weapons...
Lin Qingyue, on the other hand, watched the ever-thinning numbers on the display with delighted amusement.