You Give It to Me~

With a grim expression, Feng Xue put away his ID badge and finally realized how serious the situation was.

He didn't know what was special about the Administrator profession, but he did know a thing or two about Old Li.

Although the man seemed to be nothing more than a Novice Instructor, the fact that he possessed the ability to wield the Hermit element was enough to prove he was hiding plenty of secrets.

Compared to mere stealth, the Hermit element was undoubtedly a higher-tier, more advanced ability. Yet even Old Li was planning to pack up and leave. It was easy to imagine how thorough this search would be.

Stealth alone certainly wouldn't be enough to protect him.

Old Li didn't know what had happened that night, but Feng Xue was certain it had something to do with the Omen he'd killed. Perhaps the local gang wanted the Phantom Object that had killed the Omen. Or perhaps they simply wanted to eliminate an unstable factor. Either way, Feng Xue wasn't about to sit around and wait for them to come for him.

He had considered the possibility that they might only want to recruit him, but in the end, it was a gamble he couldn't afford to take.

He was too weak. He had no power.

The Disassembly Madonna was decent enough against a single enemy, but its shortcomings would become obvious if he were surrounded.

He had no area-of-effect skills, no control skills, no defensive skills, and his only movement skill was the Assassin's Step granted by the Assassin Tag. In a sense, Feng Xue was now a Phantom Assassin without Blink Strike or Battle Fury—someone who'd be caught and killed the moment a team fight started.

Run!

Once he'd sorted out his thoughts, Feng Xue knew it was his only option. Only by leaving this Landfill Area and getting out of the local Administrator Gang's territory would he have the chance to keep growing.

Having made up his mind, Feng Xue immediately opened the map function on his ID badge, zoomed out, and looked for the nearest Landfill Area.

He'd actually considered this possibility as soon as he discovered that the map could be zoomed in and out. Now, he was simply following through on the plan he'd come up with back then.

The outer ring of Infinite City was made up of over a thousand Landfill Areas, each a little more than three kilometers in radius. Each one was roughly the size of a municipal district, and a side road connected it to a main road. Infinite City had four main roads in total, each extending outward from one of the four large Landfill Areas surrounding the Residential Area.

If he could reach one of those main roads, he could safely take a side road to most of the surrounding Landfill Areas, or head straight to one of the four major Landfill Areas and reach the fabled Residential Area.

Although the Administrator Gang had monopolized this important side road, the walls around the Landfill Areas imposed no restrictions on leaving. As long as one wasn't afraid of the dangers in the wilderness, there was nowhere one couldn't reach.

From Feng Xue's Landfill Area, there were three others less than two kilometers away once he crossed the outer wall. But Feng Xue still had a bit of the pride of someone with a Golden Finger. He didn't plan to head to the outer Landfill Areas; he'd rather move toward the Residential Area.

He knew that the closer a Landfill Area was to the Residential Area, the longer it had existed, and the stronger its local administrators would be. But that wasn't enough to make him back down.

People always climbed toward the top.

With that in mind, Feng Xue chose the Landfill Area to the east and began preparing to set out.

He hadn't been in this world for even twenty days, so he didn't have any bulky belongings. He'd stuffed all his odds and ends into his Storage Bag. As his white hood once again shrouded his face in shadow, Feng Xue slipped back into his low-presence state.

He pushed open the Room Door and immediately heard a commotion. It seemed that because the Omen had appeared in the eastern part of the city, the search was starting there, giving Feng Xue more time to react.

Instead of taking the usual route, Feng Xue climbed straight onto the roof. With the Assassin Set's lightness and the Boots of Silence's soundless effect, he moved like an elegant cat, leaping from rooftop to rooftop across the crumbling slums.

The houses in the slums were mostly condemned, but Feng Xue wasn't affected by that at all. In just ten minutes, he'd reached the tall wall on the western side of the Landfill Area. The whole journey had gone so smoothly that he was a little surprised.

Leaving through the West District to reach the Landfill Area to the east meant taking a much longer route. But compared with heading into the East District, which was already under lockdown, Feng Xue thought the risk was worth it.

With a hiss of escaping air, an opening appeared in the wall, allowing Feng Xue to leave. He looked into the pitch-black passageway, took a deep breath, and walked in without hesitation...

The passage behind him silently closed. Feng Xue had once again entered the world outside the city. The instant he stepped beyond the wall, the biting wind made him realize that something was different.

Unlike the Landfill Area, where the temperature barely changed, as if controlled by central air conditioning, the wilderness beyond the wall had distinct temperature shifts. He raised his head slightly and gazed at the pale blue full moon overhead, feeling a little wistful. There was no moon in the Landfill Areas.

Or rather, the sky above the Landfill Areas was actually a giant dome, and the so-called blue sky and white clouds were nothing more than a fake sky projected onto a screen.

Even the top of the wall that Feng Xue had seen was just an illusion created by a projection. It wasn't hard to guess, after all. If the wall were simply tall, how could it stop an Omen with Flight Ability?

Having seen the "real" Landfill Area, Feng Xue had little time to dwell on it. He looked around, then set off along the wall toward his destination.

Although the wilderness felt more real than the inside of the Landfill Area, the utter silence, without so much as an insect or birdcall, still made his scalp tingle.

Of course, he now knew that the lack of sound wasn't because of an ambush. There simply weren't any living creatures in the wilderness outside the Landfill Areas apart from Omens—if Omens even counted as living things. Even the things that looked like trees and forests were merely False Things with the appearance of trees.

They didn't grow or wither. They simply stood there looking like plants.

Walking through the dead wilderness, Feng Xue felt lonelier than ever. In less than twenty days, he'd left his comfort zone for the second time. It was a real pain for a former shut-in.

Just as Feng Xue was indulging in a rare moment of poetic melancholy, the faint sound of footsteps reached his ears.

The sound was already extremely faint, but in the open, silent wilderness, it stood out all the more.

Feng Xue took a deep breath and pressed down on his hood, making sure he was still under the effects of stealth before continuing forward. But what entered his field of vision wasn't the Omen he'd expected, nor a corpse collector out at night. It was...a field of farmland.