Chapter 230: Battle Royale (7)

After leaving the pit, Everly and the man still didn’t dare speak.

The man was clearly more familiar with the surrounding environment than Everly. He made a “be quiet” gesture toward her, then pointed at himself, then at her, and moved his two fingers back and forth in a walking motion.

Everly understood—he was telling her to follow him. She quickly nodded, appropriately showing relief and gratitude after surviving a close call.

Seeing this, a flicker of emotion passed through the man’s eyes. The moment he turned around, a faint, self-satisfied expression quickly appeared on his thin face.

This man was naturally Everly’s target on this mission—the participant known as “Bean.” The pig-headed creature that had been chasing Everly was Bean’s older brother, “Cleaver.”

Cleaver had a violent personality, cruel and bloodthirsty, and wasn’t particularly intelligent. The only person he listened to was his younger brother. In order to satisfy Bean’s pathological hatred and desire to t*rture women, whenever Cleaver encountered female players, he would forcibly suppress his urge to kill them and instead follow behind them. By subtly driving them forward, he would steer the female players into Bean’s territory.

Then Bean, who had already been working in coordination with Cleaver, would appear just as he had before—arriving at a critical moment to “rescue” the female player from danger. With his silver tongue, he would win their trust and favor, and then lead them back to his base.

Once they entered his lair, he would drop the act and do whatever he pleased with them.

He went to all this trouble because he greatly enjoyed the moment his true identity was revealed—the distorted expressions of shock, fear, and despair on the female victims’ faces. For that intense rush of excitement that surged straight to his head, he repeated this process over and over, acting out the same scheme with one woman after another, tirelessly and with relentless enthusiasm.

At this point, Everly was clearly the man’s new target… or rather, Everly had deliberately made herself his new target.

Bean led Everly through the dense forest, weaving left and right. Along the way, when Everly passed the roots of a large tree, he even took the initiative to warn her to be careful not to step on a trap set beneath the roots.

If she hadn’t already known his identity, Everly might have genuinely thought he was a good person.

The two of them walked several hundred meters away from the direction of the pig-headed creature. Only when Everly pretended to be exhausted, resting her hands on her knees and panting heavily, did the man finally stop.

“Alright, we should be safe here,” he said, turning around in a relaxed tone.

Everly had actually been secretly observing him the entire time. She was very sensitive to being watched. Even while bent over catching her breath, she keenly noticed that when Bean spoke, his eyes were far from honest—they kept drifting over her face and chest, deliberately or not.

As a woman, Everly knew all too well what he was thinking. A wave of disgust and revulsion rose within her. If it were usual circumstances, she would have done something to teach him what “respect” meant.

Unfortunately, she was currently inside the game and couldn’t reveal her true abilities yet.

So even though Bean’s gaze was sticky enough to make anyone sick, Everly still forced herself to perform perfectly. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes flickered slightly, and she put on the expression of a naive, innocent girl, giving the man a flattering smile.

That wasn’t too difficult—after all, she had just been running, and she was already overheated anyway.

“Um… thank you for earlier. If you hadn’t helped me, I would’ve been killed by that man.”

Seeing Everly’s smile, Bean’s Adam’s apple bobbed. The collar around his neck also visibly rose and fell with the motion.

“You’re welcome. A gentleman like me would never stand by and watch a woman fall into danger,” the man said, deliberately straightening his thin chest as if to strengthen the credibility of his words.

It seemed he was quite receptive to Everly’s act.

Thinking that, Everly covered her still-flushed cheeks and continued flattering him in an exaggerated tone.

“You’re way too modest. In my eyes, someone like you—who steps forward in times of crisis and reaches out to help me—you’re just like a knight in a movie, shining all over…” She paused. “By the way, my name is Lily. What about you?”

“My name is Kurt.”

“Kurt, do you know what that guy from earlier was about? I saw he didn’t have a collar around his neck…”

“I’m not sure. Maybe he’s some hidden character the game developers set up. He’s dangerous—I once saw him chop a male player cleanly in half with a knife.”

Everly shuddered as if recalling the scene. A deep look of fear appeared on her beautiful face.

“Was it a brown-haired man? I accidentally saw that corpse just now and screamed, which is what attracted that masked guy…”

As if remembering something else, Everly turned slightly and hesitated before speaking carefully.

“Um… Kurt, this might be a bit forward, but… can I follow you for the next three days?”

Kurt froze for a moment.

He lowered his head, pretending to think, while actually watching Everly’s expression the entire time. Only when the girl’s face shifted from anticipation and unease into panic and worry—her beautiful features clouded with distress—did his hidden, malicious amusement finally feel satisfied.

He nodded in a very proper, performative way.

“Thank you for trusting me, Lily. In that case, let’s form an alliance… I have a hidden base nearby. Would you like to come with me?”

Everly’s eyes lit up.

“That’s great! Thank you so much, Kurt—you’re the kindest and most responsible man I’ve ever met!”

“Not at all. Lily is also the liveliest and cutest girl I’ve ever met… ah, be careful, there’s another trap here.”

As he spoke, Kurt reached out and pulled Everly aside.

His strength was great, and the timing and angle were deliberately calculated. For an ordinary girl, that pull would almost certainly throw her off balance, causing her to stumble into him and let him take advantage of the contact.

But Everly was, of course, not an ordinary girl.

Having already sensed his intention, she reacted before their bodies could collide. She quickly extended her other arm, grabbing onto Kurt’s arm instead. Her fingers curled inward like an eagle’s claws, seemingly casual but actually aimed precisely at the inner side of his elbow—the ulnar nerve, commonly known as the “funny bone.”

She squeezed hard.

“Ghh—!”

A sharp, numbing pain shot from his elbow through his entire arm. Forget about taking advantage of her—Kurt immediately grabbed his own arm, baring his teeth and twisting his face in pain. His already average-looking features became even more distorted and ugly.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought I was going to fall, I panicked and used too much force…” Everly quickly apologized, her tone sincere, though her expression carried a hint of satisfaction.

Kurt didn’t have the time to respond.

He clutched his arm and needed a while before the unbearable numbness finally eased. He had intended to reprimand the girl in front of him, but when he lifted his head and saw her—those sky-clear innocent blue eyes and sunlit golden hair—the words that were about to come out of his mouth suddenly stuck.

No… not yet. He had to endure it. Soon, he would reap his reward.

Malice slithered like a snake across his pitch-black, filthy heart. Its venom seeped into his blood and spread through his entire body, making Kurt tremble slightly with suppressed excitement.

Thinking about how, once they entered the base and saw the corpses of those girls, Lily’s expression would change made him feel almost uncontrollably excited.

It was simply too thrilling to anticipate…

“Faster. A bit faster—we’re almost at my base,” Kurt urged, forcing himself to suppress his physical reaction.

“Mm.”

Everly responded and obediently quickened her pace.

She was also tired of this charade. If it weren’t for needing to perform her “naïve and simple-minded” persona in front of the surveillance—so that her upcoming “departure” would look natural—she wouldn’t have bothered acting this much.

Now, she was more than ready to send Bean off for good.

…

Bean and Cleaver’s base was located beneath a cliff.

The cliff face was curved, and together with a winding river, it formed a shape like “( )”, enclosing a small, single-story low house in the center. Unless someone deliberately walked to the riverbank and went around the protruding cliff, it would be very easy to overlook the building hidden behind it.

Precisely because of how concealed it was, the brothers had chosen it as their base.

Under Bean’s lead, Everly successfully arrived at the entrance of the small house.

By this point, seven and a half hours had passed since the start of the game. Through gaps in the trees, the sun could be seen hanging low in the west, glowing a deep orange-red, on the verge of setting.

Once night fell completely, Cleaver would stop his activity and return to the base to rest. Before that happened, Everly had to end everything and obtain the remote control.

Replaying her plan repeatedly in her mind, Everly followed Kurt and stepped into the base.

It was a low concrete structure, roughly half the size of a basketball court. There were two windows on either side, their glass shattered and crudely patched with large plant leaves. At the center was a rusted iron door.

Creak—!

Kurt pushed open the iron door and stepped aside, signaling Everly to go in first.

Everly pretended not to notice the sinister smile at the corner of his lips. With an innocent, clueless expression, she stepped into the concrete house.

The windows were covered with leaves, letting almost no light through. On top of that, Kurt’s body blocked the entrance, making the interior extremely dim.

Before her eyes could adjust to the surroundings and take in the layout, a thick, nauseating stench of blood reached her nose first.

“What’s that smell…” Everly muttered, taking a couple of steps further inside.

Kurt followed closely behind her, slipping into the concrete house and shutting the door with a click as it locked.

Snap.

A match was struck. Soon after, an oil lamp hanging on the wall was lit. A weak, yellow glow spilled downward, illuminating the dark room.

Under the warm light, Everly finally saw the source of the blood smell—

Two female corpses, hacked into pieces, limp and broken on the floor.

“AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

A terrified scream tore through the silence inside the room.

Despite the screaming, Everly’s expression remained completely calm, unaffected in the slightest by the gruesome scene. And before Kurt behind her could make a move, her eyes quickly darted around, scanning the room.

Before being taken over by the butcher brothers, this concrete house had been a supply point. The evidence was still on the floor—beneath the thick layer of bloodstains, a faint red circle painted with oil paint could still be seen. That red circle marked where supplies had been placed.

Where there was such a marker, there would inevitably be supplies.

At the same time, supply points also typically came with surveillance equipment. The game developers used these cameras to monitor supply locations and track item movement in real time.

With that in mind, Everly followed her instincts and looked up at the ceiling.

She easily found the camera.

It had been smashed to pieces, dangling loosely from a wire on the wall. Its light was off—it had long since been destroyed and rendered useless.

The one who destroyed the surveillance, of course, was Bean.

Before being selected as a butcher, while still a spectator, he had loved watching other butchers brutally torment female players.

But when it came to his turn to become a butcher, due to a certain hidden possessiveness, Bean was unwilling to let others witness his own private moments of pleasure. So after occupying this place, he had long ago destroyed the room’s surveillance camera, turning it into a kingdom that belonged only to him.

And that suited Everly perfectly.

It was already known that the collars worn by the butchers had no monitoring function. And as a supply point, the concrete house’s surveillance had also been destroyed.

That meant the only remaining monitoring device in the entire room was the collar around Everly’s neck. As long as she found a way to remove it, Kurt would be completely at her mercy.

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