The explosives had been delivered to the camp before eight that evening. The engineering team then drilled twenty-nine ice holes, each three meters deep, and packed them with explosives. By the time they had nearly finished, it was already eleven o'clock.
The second group had taken over watch from the first, keeping an eye on the pool, while the man in sunglasses was inspecting the explosives when a player codenamed Parrot came to find him.
The man in sunglasses raised an eyebrow at the little girl behind Parrot. "Where did you find her?"
"Behind a slope. When I went over there, I saw her sleeping there alone," Parrot said. "But she wouldn't tell me why she was there. Uh... actually, she wouldn't answer any questions at all. But there were some children's things in that old man's cave earlier, so I guessed they belonged to her."
"A native of this mountain?" The man in sunglasses nodded, too lazy to make things difficult for a little girl. He waved a hand. "Give her some food and water. Once she's full, send her back. We've already frozen Simon in the lake. Everyone else is irrelevant."
"Got it," Parrot said.
But just as he turned to leave with the little girl, a cry suddenly came from the engineering team. Then someone threw down the drill in his hand and stumbled toward them.
The ice beneath his feet was too slippery, and he was running too fast. He even fell midway, but he did not bother wiping the blood from his face. He scrambled to his feet immediately and kept running.
The man in sunglasses realized something might have happened at the pool. His heart sank, and before the engineering team player reached him, he asked, "What happened?"
"We... we found something. You might