At the sight, compounded by the heavy stench of blood, everyone lost their appetite, and dry retching sounded intermittently.
Only after everyone had finally adjusted to their surroundings did the man in glasses speak up timidly:
"If I remember correctly, the person staying in room 201 was... was a fairly burly man, right?"
He put it tactfully, replacing "fat" with "burly."
With that reminder, everyone recalled that when they had all gathered in the corridor a few minutes earlier, there had indeed been a fat man who looked to weigh about three hundred pounds.
He seemed to have a very bad temper. From the moment he left his room, he had been cursing the heavens and the game.
The man in the suit, Liu Shuang, had even been harshly snapped at by that fat man.
They might have been better off without the reminder. Now that he had brought it up, everyone fell silent.
An adult man weighing three hundred pounds would easily have qualified as a great general in ancient times, with muscle beneath his fat.
There had also been weapons in his room, such as an axe and a shield, along with an item of unknown function to help him.
Yet even someone like that had failed to survive the "Hunter." Everyone else's chances of survival were even slimmer.
The schoolgirl tried to lighten the mood. "Ha, maybe... maybe the owner of room 201 was just flabby, with no muscle..."
Did that make any difference?
Liu Shuang made his suggestion again. "That's why I say we should all join forces. I wasn't honest enough yesterday, so I'll go first now.
"My name is Liu Shuang. I'm an employee at a sales company. The item I drew was a piece of lamb jerky. Eating it increases strength by 1 point, but it lasts a very short time, only ten seconds. Since there's only one piece, I can only use it at a critical moment."
Humans were like that. Normally, they were disorganized, suspicious, and wary of one another, but once a powerful outside enemy appeared, they would spontaneously come together as one.
The Hunter's strength had already left a deep impression on the players. Faced now with Liu Shuang's offer to join forces,
although they did not immediately agree, their resistance had faded considerably.
Having dealt with clients for years, Liu Shuang knew that if he pushed a little harder, or someone took the lead, this would work out.
And as the founder of the small team, he would have an easier time securing a say within the group.
Liu Shuang set his sights on the student, who looked the easiest to handle. Just as he was about to strike while the iron was hot, Zuo Cheng'an suddenly cut in:
"Instead of imagining how powerful the enemy is, why don't we all think carefully about why, out of so many rooms, the Hunter chose room 201?
"If the owner of room 201 did something specific that attracted the Hunter, then we just need to avoid doing it the next time night falls."
Zuo Cheng'an said this because he had seen the on-screen comments.
Those people were all discussing the game's rules.
They said the fat man in room 201 had been unlucky, getting caught by a fifty-fifty chance.
The schoolgirl was very eager. "Could it be because he looked through the peephole? I crouched in the corner of my room all last night. I didn't even dare go to the door to look."
The woman still wearing an apron disagreed. "Not necessarily. I'm in room 208. Last night, I kept looking through the peephole and saw the Hunter pass my door with my own eyes. But it didn't stop."
The man in glasses also raised his hand timidly. "I'm in 205... I looked last night too. It probably wasn't because he looked through the peephole."
Someone else guessed, "Then was it because he stayed by the gap under the door? Did the Hunter smell him through it?"
Zuo Cheng'an said, "That's not it either. I stayed right by the gap under the door last night."
Finally, someone suggested that they simply describe everything they had done the night before in detail, then eliminate the things they had in common one by one.
Just as everyone was about to proceed in room-number order, the man in the suit shot a surreptitious, angry glare at Zuo Cheng'an for ruining his plans.
He impatiently asked the woman in the apron and the man in glasses, "Wait. You two said you saw the Hunter yesterday. What did it look like?"
The man in glasses and the woman closed their eyes and thought back for a while.
There had been no light in the corridor at night. The only light came from the bedrooms through the gaps under the doors.
Seeing in such dim surroundings was a major challenge for humans.
The woman racked her brains. "I only saw a blurry silhouette...
"But I'm certain the Hunter wasn't tall. It was humanoid, only reaching an adult's waist. Oh, right! It looked a lot like the monkey picture on the glass!"
The picture on the glass was more abstract than a mosaic. This information was of no value at all.
Everyone was a little disappointed. Fortunately, the man in glasses had more detailed information.
"My item's ability is nothing special, and there's not much point hiding it. It's a pair of glasses with night vision."
As he spoke, the man in glasses pointed to the pair he was wearing. "These are the ones I'm wearing now. I switched to them during the day yesterday. They really are amazing. They even match my prescription exactly."
Unable to stand the man's mosquito-like voice, Liu Shuang cut him off rudely. "Dumbass! Get to the point. It's almost dark."
Whether he truly could not stand the voice or was jealous that the other man's item had a better ability than his own was unknown.
Only then did everyone notice that the light outside the corridor windows had begun to dim. In another minute or two, the Hunter would probably start moving again.
The man in glasses trembled. Not daring to talk back after being insulted, he quietly sped up. "The Hunter looks like a hunchbacked dwarf its whole body is covered in hair and its claws are so long they drag on the floor that's where last night's screeching sound came from and it has no eyes it seems to hunt using other senses."
The man in glasses had spoken the entire sentence without a single pause, all in one breath.
Once he finished, he immediately gasped for air, clearly having held his breath for too long.
By the time everyone had returned to their rooms and digested that information, the game's notification sounded right on schedule:
[The Hunter has appeared. Number deployed: 1]
Having learned that the Hunter had no eyes,
everyone involuntarily slowed their breathing inside their rooms, afraid that breathing even a little too heavily would draw the Hunter over.
Some even began to wonder whether the fat man in room 201, who had seemingly suffered from mania, had brought about his own death last night by failing to hold his axe properly and dropping it on the floor with a loud crash.
If they kept quiet, could they make it through safely?
Unfortunately, the man was already dead, so they had no way to verify their guesses.
"Screee-"
The sound of claws scraping against the floor began again from the direction of room 208.
Dragging its overly long nails, the Hunter slowly walked along the corridor with its back hunched.
He seemed to intend to do the same as last night, passing every room once as though toying with his prey before slowly deciding whom to kill.
Zuo Cheng'an pressed himself to the peephole, doing his best to observe what was happening outside in the faint light.
Since looking through the peephole would not trigger an attack from the Hunter, he would naturally choose this method of obtaining more detailed information.
Those people posting comments either had their minds full of filthy thoughts or were extremists who craved chaos and wished everyone would die.
The information they could contribute was truly limited, and reading too much of it only sullied his eyes.
"Screeeech-"
The sound gradually drew closer.
Suddenly, Zuo Cheng'an's eyes widened.
He actually saw a... health bar?
Could this also be an ability of the Eye of Truth?
Before you continue