Rose, Get Out of the Convoy!

"Your Sequence awakened? What Sequence did you awaken?" At Rose's words, both Niu Dagang and Zhao Chunfeng looked delighted.

For the convoy, naturally, the more people who awakened a Sequence, the better its chances of survival.

So a new Sequence awakening was good news for the entire Hope Convoy.

Whether it was a lifestyle Sequence or a combat Sequence, both were equally important.

"I awakened the Spell Sequence."

Rose raised her palm, and mysterious energy gathered in it, forming an egg-sized Missile.

This Missile was naturally much smaller than the one Luo Xiaohai, the son of the Luo father-and-son pair, had used.

But hers was only a newly awakened Lv1 Sequence, so that was understandable.

"The Spell Sequence? Nice, very nice. Now our convoy finally has a proper ranged damage dealer."

"Melee, assassination, support, and spells. Our squad's combat lineup has every role covered now."

"That's the last piece of the puzzle in place." Zhao Chunfeng was delighted as he looked at the Missile in Rose's hand.

Indeed, although Sequence awakenings granted supernatural power, each class had its own characteristics. Fighting alone naturally couldn't compare to working together as a team.

"Yeah, from now on, I'll focus on drawing the attention of Fierce Beasts and Weirds, while Luo Fan and Rose deal damage." Niu Dagang was delighted too, and nodded.

"Zhao, what do you mean by a proper ranged damage dealer? My bow and arrows don't count as ranged damage, huh?" Luo Fan, standing nearby, couldn't help complaining about Zhao Chunfeng's remark.

"Luo Fan, are you jealous?" Zhao Chunfeng raised his eyebrows slightly and teased him.

Luo Fan rolled his eyes at Zhao Chunfeng without answering, then looked toward Rose. "First of all, congratulations on awakening your Sequence and becoming a Spell Sequence User."

"Thank you. Actually, I have you to thank for awakening my Sequence, Luo. If you hadn't saved my life, I couldn't have awakened it. From now on, we'll be teammates fighting side by side." Rose gave Luo Fan a sweet smile.

"Courtesy before confrontation. Now that I've offered my congratulations, don't blame me for being blunt. I think you'd better leave the Hope Convoy."

Luo Fan waved off Rose's thanks, then his expression darkened as he spoke without courtesy.

At those words, everyone inside the bus looked at Luo Fan in surprise.

"Luo Fan, you..." Niu Dagang grew anxious.

But Zhao Chunfeng tugged at Niu Dagang, signaling him to keep quiet, then looked at Luo Fan. "What's your reason? Is there something else you want to say?"

"Yes."

Luo Fan nodded, then looked at Rose. "You want to know why I'm asking you to leave the Hope Convoy too, don't you?"

"Luo, let's hear it." Rose became much more serious as she asked him.

Although she had awakened her Sequence, she was only Lv1, and her strength was only a little above an ordinary person's. Rose understood that she would definitely be in danger on her own.

Why was Luo Fan forcing her to leave the Hope Convoy? Naturally, Rose wanted to know the reason too.

"All right, then I'll lay it out. First, before we entered Jiangxin Town, you asked us to help you go Treasure Hunting. You remember that, right?" Luo Fan asked.

"Of course I remember. But didn't we run into danger at that Black Refinery? We didn't have time to go Treasure Hunting, did we? Is that why you resent me?" Rose nodded, then explained.

Her words made Luo Fan frown slightly. He continued, "When we entered that refinery, everyone was focused on the fuel tanker. Yet you were the one who discovered that there was plenty of refined fuel in the factory buildings."

"Why? Why were you searching all over the factory buildings when everyone else was focused on the fuel in the tanker?"

"Was it because the place where you originally wanted us to help you go Treasure Hunting was inside that refinery?"

Rose shook her head. "Taking every opportunity to search for supplies-isn't that what every survivor should do? Isn't that connection you're making a little forced?"

"I hope I'm overthinking it too. But at the end, when the second floor was burning, you went in even before I did to collect the Monster Tree's petals. How do you explain that? Were you just curious and wanted a look? That explanation doesn't hold up."

"If I'm not mistaken, the treasure your Money Rat wanted you to find was that Monster Tree's flowers. Or, to be more precise, the fruit it bore, right?" Luo Fan continued.

Yes, Rose had disappeared for a while partway through, but when the second floor was burning, she had gone upstairs to collect petals even earlier than he had.

Luo Fan had realized that Rose must have been hiding in the shadows all along, waiting for an opportunity to act.

Otherwise, why would an ordinary person who wasn't a Sequence User risk her life to rush upstairs at the first opportunity?

It simply made no sense.

Rose fell silent. Faced with Luo Fan's reasoning, she fell silent. Clearly, his deductions left her unable to find any reason to refute him.

"Even if I hid the fact that the place where I wanted to go Treasure Hunting was actually that Black Refinery, there's no need to kick me out over it, is there? It's not a big deal, is it?" After a moment of silence, Rose spoke to Luo Fan.

Yes, even if that Black Refinery had been Rose's original Treasure Hunting destination, that hardly counted as serious deception, did it? Surely it was only a harmless omission?

"That's right. If that were all, I wouldn't say anything. It's human nature."

"But do you remember that monster that was neither human nor ghost?"

"Originally, she was lying on the roof, staring at me with hatred. She was going to attack me because I had killed her. That made perfect sense."

"But after she spotted you, she actually set aside her hatred for me and turned to attack you."

"At first, I thought perhaps she'd seen that you were alone and wanted an easy target."

"But when she attacked you, she shouted that she was going to kill you, her voice full of hatred."

"So what grudge did she have against you? Why did that hatred outweigh even her hatred for me, the person who killed her?"

"Then let me make a bold guess. For instance, an ordinary survivor actually dared to argue with me, a Sequence User, and demand a share of my gasoline. That was unreasonable to begin with. Could someone have been egging her on behind the scenes?"

"What's more, after we found the gasoline in the tanker, we were ready to leave. It was you who said there was plenty more gasoline inside, making the whole squad stay."

"And considering that you had intended to go Treasure Hunting at that refinery all along, how could you have stayed behind to go Treasure Hunting alone if we all left?"

"So my bold guess is that you revealed there was more gasoline in the factory and egged that woman on to argue, all to stall for time. You had a perfectly plausible motive, too."

As Luo Fan spoke, his deductions linked together one after another, and Niu Dagang's expression turned ugly as he stared fixedly at Rose.

He had to admit that although he had personally experienced what happened in Jiangxin Town too, he hadn't noticed any of this.

Yet Luo Fan had been so observant?

"So? If you hadn't deliberately stalled for time to make everyone stay, all those people wouldn't have died, and neither would Xiao Wang. Is that right?" Niu Dagang stared at Rose, anger showing in his eyes.