Mist
The funeral in Shangmu Village was simple. After friends and relatives had come to pay their respects, the families of the missing would bury some of their belongings or clothes in a suitable place, giving the missing one a final send-off.
There was no need for many people to be present for this last part, so most of the villagers prepared to leave after the meal.
Shangmu Village had never had many people to begin with. Now that everyone was dispersing, it seemed even more deserted.
Xu Huo and the others gathered together. Bubble Bean and Chi Cai each shared what they had found out.
First, of course, they discussed the other Players. They had all been staying in Middle Wood Village, where there were twelve Players besides Xu Huo and his companion. Surely at least one of the remaining twenty-odd Players had found their way to a village.
The truth, however, was that Lower Wood Village had seen only three Players in the past half month, and they had arrived separately. The longest any of them had stayed was three days before leaving on their own.
Communication between the three villages was inconvenient, but that didn't mean they had no contact at all. The people of Lower Wood Village definitely knew that there were more than ten Players in Middle Wood Village, and the Players who had been there should have asked them about it, too. Anyone with a bit of sense would have gone to Middle Wood Village...
According to the descriptions, none of the three Players from Lower Wood Village matched any of the Players in Middle Wood Village. In other words, those three Players hadn't found Middle Wood Village, even with a simple map of the villages.
Perhaps they'd been killed along the way, or