One Step Short of Perfection

People die for money, and birds die for food.

For the points he would earn by completing the Check-In, Chen Feng had to press on even if a dragon's den lay ahead.

At the stall, he received an air gun and ten steel pellets. Then the owner led him into the heart of the forest.

Lights were tied to the trees, so visibility wasn't a problem.

The smell, though.

Most people thought of fresh air and fragrant earth when they imagined a forest. There might be animal droppings now and then, but nothing that smelled too bad.

This balloon forest was different.

Bodies. Bodies everywhere.

Chen Feng rarely used "everywhere you looked" to describe people, but it fit now. Visitors who had failed lay sprawled across the ground amid scraps of balloon rubber and lengths of thin black string. The bloody sight even reminded him of the Human Skin Attic.

This was no joke.

Chen Feng pulled himself together. Things were looking bad. He had used the Sandevistan too many times today to escape the self-immolation curse. If he activated it again, he would probably pass out on the spot.

He would have to rely on his wits.

He had to find a way to survive the game.

Chen Feng began loading the air gun. As soon as he finished, he saw the owner hurry away.

The game had begun.

Chen Feng heard laughter nearby.

By the light of the trees, he spotted a white balloon floating in midair. It bobbed unsteadily, the thin black string beneath it swaying back and forth.

Chen Feng raised his gun without hesitation.

That slight movement caught the balloon's attention. It turned to face him.

A grinning human face covered its front. Its eyes bulged as large as lightbulbs, and its long mouth was packed with sharp teeth.

The moment it spotted its prey, the grinning balloon shot toward Chen Feng. In less than a second, it went from ten paces away to right in front of him!

Fuck. That was actually pretty scary.

Chen Feng thought that, but his hand pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Bang!

Against something moving that fast, he missed, just as he'd expected.

Shit!

Chen Feng cursed inwardly. To his surprise, the grinning balloon, which had already rushed up to him, froze in place at the sound of the gunshot, as though startled.

An opening!

Taking advantage of that instant of stillness, Chen Feng stepped forward and shoved the barrel into its mouth.

"That's the first."

Chen Feng pulled the trigger. The grinning balloon burst in front of him, splattering him with the blood inside it.

"Pah! Pah! Pah!"

Holding back his disgust at the bloody smell, Chen Feng stepped forward to inspect it.

He started with the balloon monster's string tail. He meant to pick it up for a closer look, but the moment he touched it, a sharp pain shot through his hand, like a scorpion sting.

He was bleeding.

How could it be that sharp?

His avatar could inherit all the abilities of his original body. With a C-rank Hero physique, even a man-eating goldfish's mouthful of sharp teeth could only leave a white mark on his skin.

"And this unremarkable bit of string cut my hand?"

"If it caught my neck, wouldn't my head come right off?"

Uneasy, Chen Feng kept searching. He found no sign of the pellet among the balloon's rubber scraps. Instead, one steel pellet lay in the dirt a short distance away.

He had fired twice, but there was only one?

Chen Feng considered this.

"When a pellet hits a balloon, it disappears. But if it misses, I can pick it up and reuse it."

"I think I understand what the rule means by one pellet per monster."

"And that's not all. From what just happened, even a missed shot can freeze a balloon for at least a second."

"Against a target that can't move, even a pig could land a shot."

To test his theory,

Chen Feng retrieved the pellet and began looking for his next target.

The second balloon monster he found was crouched on the ground, devouring the flesh of a visitor who had failed.

The bloody sight would have made an ordinary person wet their pants.

Chen Feng calmly raised his gun and fired a shot into empty space, freezing the grinning balloon. Then he silently counted.

"One second, two seconds, three seconds."

The grinning balloon suddenly moved again and charged at him.

So it lasts more than three seconds?

Unhurried, Chen Feng pulled the trigger, froze the balloon again, then calmly killed it.

"The effect can be used repeatedly. That's confirmed."

"That leaves just one problem."

Chen Feng had found a dead end. One pellet per monster meant that when he reached the last monster, he would have only one pellet left to kill it, with nothing else to freeze it first.

He absolutely could not miss that final shot!

That would be difficult.

Chen Feng asked himself honestly: with the balloon moving so fast, did he have any chance of killing it with one shot? Not even ten percent.

No wonder the three people before him had failed. They must have fallen at the last monster. It all made sense now.

A clumsy solution occurred to Chen Feng: don't kill the monster. Fire at the ground, pick up the pellet, reload, and repeat until time ran out.

It would be an ugly way to win, and he wouldn't get the Game Coin, but he could definitely survive.

After all, the rules of this game didn't say he had to kill every monster.

Chen Feng continued patrolling with his gun. Within five minutes, he killed five more monsters in succession.

"Only three left."

The seventh balloon monster didn't appear outright. It hid in the shadows, giggling, "Hee hee hee hee."

Chen Feng followed the sound and found it hiding behind a tree, with only its thin black string tail showing.

Such an obvious lure had to be the situation Meng Chengcheng had warned him about.

Chen Feng looked up. Sure enough, the end of another string peeked out from among the leaves.

"If Meng Chengcheng hadn't warned me, I'd have rushed in and been attacked from above and below. I probably wouldn't have made it."

The more he thought about it, the more Chen Feng understood how important Meng Chengcheng was.

A medium. What a useful ability.

Chen Feng raised his gun and fired into empty space, stunning both balloons. Then he took them out one by one.

"Only the last one left."

"And I have no spare pellets to freeze it."

Chen Feng loaded his final steel pellet. With only one monster left, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.

The last one was craftier than the others. It didn't even laugh.

The entire forest was deathly quiet.

Without a sound to warn him, Chen Feng found himself wary of every rustle. At any moment, the balloon monster could rush him from some direction and snap his neck with its string.

Don't make a rash move!

Chen Feng waited patiently. Then he heard something in the distance.

Here it comes!

Chen Feng tensed, only to hear the snip of scissors. It was the owner.

Shit! Time's up.

Chen Feng felt a pang of regret. He had come so close. If he had killed just one more, he would have earned the Game Coin.

But he didn't regret his choice.

Going on the offensive was too risky. He wasn't Liu Xiaohu. Getting the Game Coin and completing the organization's mission were incidental for him; the Check-In was what mattered.

All he needed to do was hold out until time ran out and complete the Check-In. There was no reason to risk his life and lose this avatar.

As Chen Feng thought it over, his expression suddenly changed.

Wait. That's not right!