Desert Island Survival Arc (6)

Desert Island Survival Arc (6)

So this really was just a game?

In reality, once Starfish's time reached 00:00, Zhang Heng would enter frozen time. Yet now, the sea breeze still blew past his ears, coconut trees swayed behind him, and aside from the voice that had suddenly appeared earlier, nothing had changed.

Zhang Heng had previously tried playing several computer games while in the frozen state.

According to the Contact Recovery Principle, as long as they were not connected online with other people, every one of them ran perfectly well.

But this was not the time to dwell on that.

Just when victory seemed within sight, the game's difficulty had suddenly risen to hell mode.

When Zhang Heng realized that he still had to remain on this deserted island for 500 days instead of 20, he no longer even had the strength to force a bitter smile.

He sat by the sea and stared at the distant horizon, doing nothing until the sun set. For the first time, he felt that life was truly full of malice.

But now that things had come to this, complaining was meaningless.

Even if he wanted to settle the score with someone, he would first have to survive until 500 days later.

Before nightfall, Zhang Heng finally pulled himself together again. He had never been someone easily crushed by hardship. Following Ed's teachings, he gave up intermittently and vented all his negative emotions, gradually regaining his calm.

He brought the fish and crabs he had caught back to the cave for a hearty meal. Early the next morning, he threw himself back into his struggle against nature.

Fire could cook food and heat raw water, and it could keep him warm at night. But at the same time, keeping the fire burning had become one of Zhang Heng's responsibilities.

Every day when he went out, he not only had to gather food and fresh water, but also find firewood that burned easily. Especially soon after rain, this task became incomparably difficult.

Zhang Heng had always wanted to gather more firewood and store it in the cave to deal with long stretches of rainy weather. But all his energy had previously gone into finding food. Now that Ed was gone, the amount of food he needed each day had been cut in half, and he finally had time for more things.

Besides gathering firewood, Zhang Heng also tried making several stone axes. Ed was not particularly skilled at making tools and had only roughly explained the principles of stone axe construction to him. Before this, Zhang Heng had used sharp-edged clam shells to chop down trees, but the results had not been great. Even a small tree took him at least two or three hours to saw through.

Now he wanted to try the stone tools so highly praised by primitive people. Yet he had no idea what went wrong. Either the axe head flew off somewhere when he swung it at a tree, or the axe split apart after only a few chops.

Zhang Heng could only comfort himself with the saying that failure was the mother of success.

Another twenty days passed in the blink of an eye, and that familiar voice sounded by Zhang Heng's ear.

Mission complete...

You will return in 480 days...

Neither sentence had any problem on its own, but put together, they sounded a little like a bad joke.

Zhang Heng ignored the mysterious voice. Having just finished lunch, he wanted to find a few more clam shells by the sea to hold water. The one he had been using had just been burnt through. He was picking through the goods at the free market when he inadvertently looked up and saw two small black dots in the distance.

Huh?! This plot seemed a little familiar.

Even more familiar were the two people struggling amid the waves.

Wasn't that Explorer Man from option B and Shorts Kid from option C?

"..."

Zhang Heng was speechless. What kind of people were these? Their vitality was far too tenacious. He had worked so hard just to survive on this island, yet these two had drifted at sea for forty days and were still alive and kicking.

Thinking of Ed, who had already passed away, Zhang Heng remembered how Ed had thanked him before he died, saying that at least he could die on land instead of being buried in the bellies of fish like the other two. Zhang Heng instead felt a little sorry for him.

If he had not "saved" him, perhaps he too would still be happily drifting at sea.

This was not Zhang Heng's first day playing games. He knew that he had encountered a bug.

At its root, it was because of those extra twenty-four hours he had gained, which had disrupted the operation of this instance.

Theoretically, the plot after forty days should not have existed at all. The other players would already have returned to the real world by then, while he alone was still painfully holding on here.

In an ordinary game, it would probably freeze or crash at this point. The fact that this game could keep running was already incredibly impressive in itself.

Bartender Lady had said that this was the greatest game in human history. Zhang Heng was starting to believe her. Since arriving in this world, everything before his eyes had felt incomparably real. The plants and animals on the island were exactly the same as those in the real world, and Ed, whom he had interacted with, had been no different from a real person.

But now, this flawless world had finally revealed a tiny crack.

"Because there was no more plot afterward, it could only repeat itself?"

However, unlike a mechanical loop, Ed, whom Zhang Heng had personally buried in the small woods, had not appeared again. That meant the basic logic was still functioning.

Zhang Heng stripped off his clothes as quickly as possible. Of course, he would not pass up such a free bonus.

Compared to forty days ago, when he had only recently arrived on the island and was physically weak, he could now eat his fill and even exercise in his spare time.

His physical condition had more or less recovered to its peak.

Zhang Heng estimated the distance between himself and the two men. This time, he decided to choose Shorts Kid, who was farther away, because according to the game designer's usual logic, the more he put in, the greater the reward he would receive.

With Ed's help, he had now basically escaped the problem of food shortages. He wanted to know what changes Shorts Kid, whom he saved this time, could bring to his life.

Ten days later, Zhang Heng looked at the brick kiln and tiled house before him and decisively fell to his knees.

There really were people in this world who could build houses with their bare hands! Zhang Heng followed Shorts Kid the whole way, watching him start by finding clay, then build a frame, stack a kiln and fire bricks, finally completing a half-meter-tall model of a tiled house. Besides that, Shorts Kid also demonstrated how to properly make stone axes, build wooden shelters, make pottery, craft shrimp traps and sandals, weave cloth from bark fibers, and make bows, arrows, and slings.

This time, with no need to worry about food, Zhang Heng could devote all his time to learning like crazy.

Unfortunately, Shorts Kid never spoke from beginning to end. He merely silently demonstrated all kinds of toolmaking and house-building techniques according to Zhang Heng's requests.

Then, on the nineteenth day, he died in the woods after accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms.

A... scripted death?

Zhang Heng understood now. The game was determined to make him spend the latter half of his time on the island alone. Therefore, neither Ed, who had originally been injured, nor Shorts Kid, who had been perfectly fine afterward, could make it to the twentieth day.

With his previous experience, Zhang Heng dug a pit beside the earlier grave and buried Shorts Kid there as well.

Unlike Ed, Shorts Kid had not spoken a single word throughout the journey. Zhang Heng had not formed a particularly deep bond with him, and after learning that all of this was just a game, he would not feel quite as sad anymore.

Still, teacher and student for a time, Zhang Heng properly laid his body to rest.

Afterward, he began trying to absorb everything Shorts Kid had taught him over those nineteen days. During that time, the remaining Explorer Man drifted over twice more, but Zhang Heng did not go to "save" him.

If he left him alone, he would drift over again next time anyway.

If he saved him, he would only have nineteen days left to live.

On the 130th day after arriving on the deserted island, the notification sounded in Zhang Heng's ear again.

Tiled house successfully constructed. Wilderness Survival Skills increased from Level 0 to Level 1. Game points +5. Relevant information can be viewed on the character panel...

Wow, thank you all for the tips~