Looks Like I Know a Thing or Two About Close Combat, Too

On his eighty-first Save-Load, Xu Kai returned to the elevator entrance, before he had pressed the button.

He carefully recalled He Yu's movements, including the timing. It had been about three breaths after he entered the elevator.

Once he had prepared his move, Xu Kai pressed the elevator button.

As though he had never been there before, he first used Weird Energy to carefully probe inside, finding no scent of any other "Evil."

Then, as if reassured, he strode in, pressed the button for the second floor, and waited for the doors to close.

The instant the doors closed, however, Xu Kai turned sideways as if he had known it was coming! As he moved, a sharp blade passed in front of him. Its wielder looked stunned, seemingly never having imagined her assassination attempt would be discovered.

Xu Kai backed away, keeping his eyes on the shadow, while his right hand slammed into the mirror. It shattered, leaving the shadow even more bewildered.

Her face emerged under the elevator lights, revealing red lips and almond-shaped eyes. It was He Yu, whom he had met earlier.

He Yu's eyes were full of confusion. She couldn't understand how Xu Kai had known she would come out of the mirror, or why he had shattered it, leaving her unable to slip back inside.

The confusion vanished in an instant, and her expression turned vicious. Seeing that her first strike had failed, He Yu immediately struck again.

Unfortunately for her, Xu Kai had been watching her movements all along. She was too slow. Only that first strike had been highly skilled; once someone saw what came after, they would realize her subsequent strikes followed no method at all.

Xu Kai reached out and grabbed her wrist, glaring at He Yu as if his eyes were about to catch fire.

"Ouch, ouch, that hurts, handsome~ I was just teasing you! You're a grown man, can't you forgive me? Why are you glaring at me? You're so fierce. Are you going to catch fire?"

As soon as He Yu finished speaking, she suddenly felt as if her words had become reality. There really was fire in the man's eyes, and her own body had caught fire too.

Raging flames engulfed He Yu's entire body. Xu Kai released her wrist, and her eyes widened, her heart full of disbelief and fear:

"Is this your Talent? I was wrong, I'm sorry! I was just testing you! To see if you were strong enough to work with me! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine. I was just testing you too, to see how well you could withstand fire."

"Boss, I can't withstand fire! Please stop using your divine power!"

"I only just realized you couldn't withstand fire. Sorry!"

"Y-you can't just apologize! Put the fire out! Are you messing with me?"

"Yes, sorry!"

Xu Kai said nothing else, only apologizing over and over.

He Yu despaired. She had known it: none of the "Evils" who came to this dungeon were kindhearted. She glared at Xu Kai and said:

"Just you wait, I'm at..."

Seeing that He Yu had nothing to say except threats, Xu Kai immediately formed his Weird Energy into a sharp blade and pierced her heart, covering her mouth at the same time. The flames disappeared from sight then, not because they had gone out, but because Xu Kai had directed them to burn into He Yu's internal organs.

"As for your last words, better not say them. Keep me in suspense and say them in your next life."

He Yu died with her eyes open, staring fixedly at Xu Kai.

Just then, there was a clang in the elevator, and a trash can suddenly popped out from behind him. A note on it read, "For corpse disposal only."

The note looked exactly like the one in Xu Kai's hospital room. He guessed this was how the dungeon disposed of corpses. It really was efficient.

He naturally put He Yu into the trash can. The flames had burned everything clean, leaving no blood in the elevator.

Strangely, though, the flames hadn't spread to the rest of the elevator. Even the buttons, which had melted in an instant, were returning to their original shape at an extremely fast rate.

Was this a hidden rule of the Killing Zone? The environment here would slowly recover on its own after being damaged.

Xu Kai didn't want to think too much about it, because it gave him the feeling that the entire elevator was alive.

Ding-dong.

The elevator stopped on the second floor. When Xu Kai opened the doors, he found that the layout was nothing like an ordinary hospital's.

Instead, the entire floor was a cafeteria, with numerous booths packed closely together. Aisles ran between them, all leading to the central serving area.

Xu Kai stepped out of the elevator and carefully examined the area, trying to find the relevant rules.

The whole floor was well ventilated, not much different from a university cafeteria.

If there was a difference, it was perhaps in the dining tables and chairs. Each table had a button and a small light firmly welded to it, and was numbered, from one to one hundred.

Xu Kai looked closely. He noticed small loudspeakers beside the pillars throughout the floor, and a broad, spacious area in front of the cafeteria serving windows.

"You're here to check things out too? Want to cooperate?"

While Xu Kai was observing his surroundings, a patient walked over and held out both hands to show he meant no harm.

Xu Kai looked over and naturally recognized what he was: an "Evil."

Xu Kai said nothing, standing quietly as he waited to hear what the "Evil" had to say.

"My name is Leng Chong. You checked the game panel just now, right? Two people have already died..."

Xu Kai nodded, wanting to hear what else he had to say.

"Of those two, I checked the surveillance footage of the first one who died. He was an 'Evil.' Unfortunately, so was the second, which means..."

"Which means that of the four 'Evils' and three players, we're the last two 'Evils,' right?"

Xu Kai finished Leng Chong's sentence, waved a hand, and continued,

"Unfortunately, that's not enough to persuade me. I don't know how players get into this dungeon, but I know 'Evils' all too well. Wouldn't it be too difficult for us to cooperate?"

Leng Chong smiled and nodded in agreement. For an "Evil" to come to this dungeon, they had to obtain three portions of Source Weird Qi and survive. None of those who made it here alive were easy to deal with.

"But players don't have Weird Energy, so they can't sense where the two of us are. If we set up the cafeteria and hunted them here..."

"The two of us could coordinate from a distance and wipe out the players?"

"Yes, exactly! That's what I mean. You really understand me."

Leng Chong nodded in agreement and tried to pat Xu Kai on the shoulder, but Xu Kai dodged.

Xu Kai said,

"We can cooperate, but the players aren't idiots. They might cooperate too. How about this? Let's first tell each other what we know."

"Ahem, of course. As a show of sincerity, I'll first tell you about a player I found. She's a nurse. Her ability knocks opponents back, and it costs her very little to use."

Xu Kai looked at Leng Chong in surprise when he heard that, then suddenly smiled.

"No wonder you thought of working with me. You ran into a player first."

"Ahem, her power is somewhat effective against mine..."

Leng Chong's face reddened slightly, and he went on to say a lot of things that were hard to understand.

Something about how her Talent countered his, how he had been careless and hadn't dodged, and how he would definitely beat her if given another chance, and so on.

Xu Kai said nothing, and Leng Chong's heart tightened. He was a little worried that Xu Kai would call off their cooperation, because Leng Chong had a guess about Xu Kai's strength.

Leng Chong's Talent let him lower an opponent's temperature by touching them, which was why he had named himself Leng Chong.

Earlier, he too had taken the elevator down, like Xu Kai. The "Evil" He Yu had tried to assassinate him as well, but he had been lucky: when her knife touched him, the ice armor close to his body had blocked it.

Actually, the ice armor hadn't blocked it. It had slowed the knife as it entered Leng Chong's body, giving him time to react. He continued using his Talent and scared He Yu off with the power of freezing. As she retreated, He Yu had even complained that Leng Chong was an ice hedgehog.

That was how Leng Chong had narrowly escaped He Yu.

Yet not long after he had arrived to inspect the cafeteria, he saw Xu Kai emerge from the elevator safe and sound, and his eyes filled with surprise. Xu Kai had glanced at him then. He had probably already noticed him at that point.

Leng Chong guessed that since Xu Kai had made it out of the elevator alive and without a scratch, he must have some remarkable means of his own.

"Earlier, you said you checked the surveillance footage. Where did you watch it?"

Xu Kai hadn't imagined that Leng Chong had thought so much about it. Instead, he seized on what Leng Chong had said and asked.

"In the security room. I searched through the elevator footage and saw the first 'Evil' who died."

At that point, Leng Chong's voice suddenly grew grave, as if he had witnessed something serious.

"That 'Evil' died fighting a player."

"A player?"

"Yes. This player was a nurse, and she was strong. She used a long saber, about this long!"

Leng Chong made a gesture, indicating a length of just under a meter.

"You made it out of your room, so you must have passed the test too, right? I was pretty lucky. My floor was the first floor, and the security room was right next door. When I saw the game panel show that the first 'Evil' had died, I pulled up the Killing Zone surveillance footage immediately."

Leng Chong slowly recalled the events. In the first few minutes of the game, he had been able to make such a judgment quickly; his response had already been outstanding.

"Let's call that 'Evil' Tun. The footage showed that at one minute past eight, that 'Evil' came straight out and took the third elevator, also heading to the cafeteria. But then he ran into a nurse carrying a medical chart who was going downstairs too."

"Once the nurse entered the elevator and the doors closed, Tun released his Weird Energy and even opened his mouth wide. That was very likely Tun's Talent. He used it to try to eat the nurse, but she wasn't scared at all. She actually pulled a long saber out from under the medical chart!"

Leng Chong told the story vividly, but Xu Kai frowned and asked:

"You're not fooling me, are you? A medical chart is so short. How could she pull a long saber out from under it?"

"I don't know. It might be a player item, or a player's Talent. That nurse's saber could actually cut through Weird Energy. It took just three strikes to cut Tun down... I was watching the surveillance footage, and she had a task as a nurse, so she got off on the fourth floor. Otherwise, I really wouldn't have dared come down to the cafeteria to check things out."

Hearing the faint fear in Leng Chong's voice, Xu Kai felt that what he said was most likely true.

"So the main reason you want me to cooperate is actually so we can join forces against this nurse?"

"Yes."

Xu Kai was silent for a moment, then suddenly said,

"Since you've told me so much, I'll tell you something too. I killed the 'Evil' in the elevator."

"You... you really killed her!"

Although Leng Chong had already more or less guessed it, he was still startled when Xu Kai said it. The look he gave Xu Kai instinctively turned wary for an instant, then softened again.

"Don't get me wrong, good riddance to that woman! She almost killed me when I came down."

Leng Chong waved his hands. Xu Kai checked the time and said, "It's about time. The dungeon only started a little while ago, so the players definitely haven't formed a group yet. Let's go back for now and meet at the cafeteria at noon."

"All right."

Leng Chong smiled, and the two slowly walked toward the elevators like old friends. Then they parted.

"You said your name was Xu Kai, right? Brother Xu, after you."

"No, no, let's go together. You take the elevator on the left, I'll take the one on the right. How about we press the buttons and enter at the same time?"

"All right..."

Clearly, there still seemed to be some trouble with their cooperation. Xu Kai and Leng Chong backed away facing each other, each going to an elevator before pressing the button.

Not only that, they both waited until the other's elevator had opened before slowly stepping inside.

"Brother Xu, here's to a good partnership!"

"Here's to a good partnership!"