【Regional Channel 666 (Abandoned Forest) 9983/10000】
In just one morning, seventeen people had died.
No one knew how they died, but it was certain that this forest was far more dangerous than Lan Qingyou had imagined.
This served as a fresh warning; she had to be even more cautious when heading out from now on.
“I'm so hungry. Has anyone found a supply chest? Can anyone spare a bite?”
“You can find one or two chests just by looking around outside. You haven't even left the house, have you? You lazy beggar, go die.”
“Have internet panhandlers followed us all the way to Karim?”
“Help! My shelter is in a tree, at least thirty meters off the ground. Someone save me!”
No one can save you; you'd better find some vines nearby and climb down yourself.
“There are wolf packs in the forest. Everyone be careful when you're out collecting.”
So it was a wolf pack watching her last night, not some unknown magic creature.
“Whatever you do, don't drink the water from the creek. I took one sip and felt terrible. I'm still stuck with diarrhea.”
Hmm?
The creek water is undrinkable?
There was no reason for that; didn't it look perfectly clear?
Seeing this message, Lan Qingyou instinctively sat up straight.
Although she hadn't planned on drinking it, she had been considering using the creek water for bathing and washing clothes.
If it was contaminated, her hopes of staying clean would be dashed.
Lan Qingyou immediately swiped her finger to continue reading.
“Diarrhea? Does your shelter have a toilet?”
“I found a chest.”
“What! You actually found a chest! Big shot, tell us what's inside!”
“Just a 500g loaf of bread, a bottle of water, and a box of tissues.”
“You found water, so why did you drink from the creek?”
“I drank it before I found the chest.”
“Will you sell the bread? Two basic units.”
“Scram. Do you want the chest I used as a toilet instead?”
“Big shot, why are you so sure it was the creek water? It looks clear and unpolluted.”
“Hmph, just fearmongering. I drank it too and felt fine.”
“I only realized something was wrong after I got back with the chest. I checked my personal info, and it said my body's mana concentration had exceeded the limit.”
“Excessive mana concentration? Does that mean the water's mana content is so high that the human body can't handle it?”
“How should I know? Get lost, all of you! Don't bother me while I'm on the toilet!”
“Is that a toilet, or just a chest?”
“Hahahaha...”
For a moment, the chat channel was filled with a jovial atmosphere.
Excessive mana concentration?
That was a fresh perspective.
However, recalling the world will's words when they first arrived—'even the air is saturated with mana'—it made sense that the creek water would have a high mana concentration.
In fact, it was lucky they could even breathe the mana-filled air without being poisoned.
No wonder the supply chests were full of Blue Star products. Was this a buffer period granted by the world will?
Lan Qingyou frowned in thought.
Suddenly, someone burst into the channel and started cursing, using incredibly foul language. It wasn't clear who the target was.
Judging by the profile picture, it was a man with a large beard and a cloth wrapped around his head, a typical South Asian look.
After he ranted for a while and the others questioned him repeatedly, the man finally shared his experience.
“Damn it! Everyone listen up, that guy James Bellboman is a liar! That dog said he'd trade me a pickaxe yesterday, but after he tricked me out of my pickaxe, he never gave me the axe!”
Well, that explained it.
Lan Qingyou still remembered the talk about trading last night. It turned out someone had been scammed.
To trust a complete stranger in such an alien environment... Lan Qingyou could only say he deserved it.
“A liar? You're talking about yourself, aren't you, Asan Singh? Don't think I don't know you were thrown in prison for fraud two years ago. You have the nerve to call someone else a liar?”
Before James could even speak, someone else jumped in to confront Asan Singh.
After that, the conversation took a sharp turn.
“Yo, yo, yo, isn't that Na Lin? What, did you stop smuggling and decide to become the moral police?”
“Heh, I wondered who was barking. Isn't this Wu Gang, who was almost beaten to death for illegal logging?”
“Hahaha, I didn't notice last night, but seeing everyone today, there are quite a few familiar faces!”
“Shut up, Pihu. You still haven't given me that money from last time. You just wait; don't let me find where your shelter is, or I'll kill you.”
“Ha! Capone, do you still think you're some kind of Godfather? We're in another world now. Let's be realistic, alright?”
“Holy crap, what kind of Villain's Valley is this? There are so many criminals.”
“666, is the Karim world will trying to raise a Gu by putting all these criminals together?”
“What heavenly law did I break to be put in the same district as these animals?”
“Not bad, not bad. I'm looking forward to seeing what new tricks you scum in the Abandoned Forest pull off.”
“Heh, dog eat dog. I love to watch it.”
“Good. I've remembered your faces. Be careful when you go out; if I run into you, there'll be hell to pay.”
“Oh, I'm so scared! My little heart is thumping! If you're so tough, why don't you follow the magic desk's connection and come kill me!”
“Fuck!”
“Damned terrorists! Blue Star has been unified for how many years now, and you still haven't died out!”
...
Watching the chat logs, even Lan Qingyou couldn't help but pinch the bridge of her nose.
Good grief.
Looking at the circle, at least half of the ten thousand people in the Abandoned Forest were criminals.
Robbery, theft, murder, fraud, embezzlement, poisoning, espionage, arson, drunk driving, smuggling, poaching, human trafficking, extortion, intimidation, counterfeiting, forging documents...
Whatever crime you could think of, District 666 had the 'talent' to match it.
It was all there.
The rest were mostly trolls looking for entertainment.
Lan Qingyou even spotted the profile pictures of the tall, lecherous man and the short, scarred man who had sneaked into her room last night.
To borrow someone else's words:
This Abandoned Forest was more of a Villain's Valley than the actual Villain's Valley.
Still, as long as she was careful and lived her life away from everyone else, it wouldn't affect her much.
After finishing a loaf of coconut bread and an apple, Lan Qingyou cleared away the trash. She went out and used Collection Technique once to gather more vines from the tree trunks before returning to her shelter.
【Vines +20】
Hmm! Still 20?
Recalling the amount of vines from earlier this morning, Lan Qingyou frowned slightly. She flew out again and used Collection Technique on a tree.
Perhaps because the tree was so large, a single use of Collection Technique was like a mere scratch. Several pieces of wood fell to the ground.
Lan Qingyou made sure to count them as she picked them up. It was still twenty pieces.
She tried it on a rock afterward; still twenty units.
Did this mean the basic yield for the 【Collection Technique】 was exactly 20 units?
If that were the case, it perfectly matched the mana cost.
With her 80 mana and a recovery rate of one point per minute, she could gather 80 basic units every hour and twenty minutes.
Collecting over three thousand units of materials would only take forty to fifty hours—about two or three days.
If she used a weapon to chop them manually, the time might be shortened even further.
Unfortunately, unlike the others, she couldn't just swing a weapon once her mana was gone.
She had to rest for over an hour to fully recover her mana.
This was also why she had brought back the alchemy handbook.
Lying around doing nothing and being unable to do anything was truly painful.
Even though she now had the magic desk to read the chat, she couldn't just stare at that mindless drivel forever.
She didn't know what the alchemy of this world was like, but at least it could serve as a diversion.
As for the E-grade magic creature cores... if all went as expected, they probably came from the creatures that had been watching her last night.
That meant she would have to fight...
This was a bit tricky.
She had no offensive capabilities.
Forget it. I'll just recover my mana first and worry about the future later.
Rate on N.U.
