Chapter 78 - To Gather Everyone

[Remaining time: 01h 29m 55s]

Hiro was still able to run to gather the survivors that could still be rescued and destroy all the Eliminator Rockets he could find along the way. He had thought about doing them even before the game started.

He had to win no matter what. He didn’t know what Anonymous was planning next, but his first task was to do a private investigation outside the legal investigations and win the event.

What does the legendary pet have to do with Yuujin’s death? He didn’t know, but he only needed to focus on winning for the time being.

Time quickly flew by, and several hunters who were unlucky enough to meet Hiro were swiftly eliminated.

Hiro was relieved whenever he checked his opponents’ equipment and found that none of them owned legendary weapons or armor. None of those he met so far did, at least.

Even so, he couldn’t let his guard down.

After witnessing Hiro eliminate the hunters, the survivors who had been following him trusted him even more and even felt more confident in themselves.

With the simple tasks he gave like lighting up torches and destroying the Eliminator Rockets, most of them were very cooperative.

Still, some didn’t care even though Hiro had rescued them and wanted to go after the first place instead.

It would also be hard for him to bring so many people anyway, so he let those who didn’t care leave.

Tap tap tap!

“Hiro!”

From afar, a figure could be seen waving with his back facing a lit torch. Hiro recognized that silhouette.

Jacob.

Jacob quickly ran forward with a wide smile after realizing who he was looking at. However, that smile quickly disappeared when he saw the sheer number of survivors behind him.

“Was it you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about the eliminated hunters. It was you, right?” Jacob knew well that Hiro was the type to have such out-of-the-box ideas.

Hiro nodded.

“Do you have anything that can be used to fight?”

Jacob took out a greatsword with a black metallic blade, and Hiro immediately checked the weapon details with his HUD system.

[Nightmare Greatsword (Level 20) – Tier S]

[Damage 280 Accuracy 18 ASPD 18 CRIT 12]

[Special game event weapon]

Hiro’s eyes widened in amazement.

“Great! You can fight with me!”

He didn’t know how Jacob could be so lucky. It seemed that he found one of the jackpots the game master prepared.

“Always, my friend.”

The total of lit fire torches as of now was already over 70%. There were still over one and a half hours left, yet they only had 30% of the torches left to light up.

For the early game, the survivor team was indeed at an advantage as they only needed to light up torches. Even though it required a minute, it was still far easier than catching players, tying them to the Eliminator Rockets, and making sure they stay tied for three minutes.

A lot of things could happen in three minutes, and Hiro proved it with his rescues.

[1st. Survivors]

[Total game points: 701,010]

[2nd. Hunters]

[Total game points: 427,680]

The hunter team had now eliminated approximately 15% of the total survivors in the game.

Still quite low. There were still 85% of them left.

‘Looks like they haven’t realized it,’ Hiro thought as he looked at the number of points accumulated.

As of now, he had managed to reach second place, right below Noah.

[Survivor: 1. Noah]

[Game points: 210,303]

[Contribution to the survivors’ total points: 30%]

[Survivor: 2. NightFall]

[Game points: 175,252]

[Contribution to the survivors’ total points: 25%]

[Survivor: 3. MyPhantom]

[Game points: 63,090]

[Contribution to the survivors’ total points: 10%]

“Tsk.”

Hiro was unwilling to lose. He still needed a lot of points to catch up, and if he only eliminated hunters, he wouldn’t get anything in return.

“Jacob, can you do me a favor?”

“What is it?”

“Lead the survivors south. You’ll find an area covered in snow. I haven’t seen many hunters there because of how freaking cold it is, so I think you guys can hide there for a while.”

“How about you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll save more survivors and send them there.”

Hiro looked at the survivors waiting behind him and nodded before telling them to follow Jacob.

It was unusual for Hiro to entrust something so important to someone else, but he couldn’t do everything on his own this time.

“All right.”

“But how can I know you’re still in the maze?” Jacob asked a very basic question.

Hiro smiled helplessly.

“We’re in the same party, Jacob. If my name in the party status has no HP or changed colors, it means that I’m out.”

Jacob fell silent with his mouth open for a moment, his eyes focused on Hiro. But then he was checking his HUD system to check what Hiro just told him about.

“I found it.”

“Nice. I’ll be back soon!”

Tap tap tap!

Hiro continued looking for caught survivors and rescuing them. Finding places where the survivors were caught was not that difficult as most of them shouted for help, and he prioritized rescuing the survivors nearest to him.

…

Time quickly passed, and Hiro once again saved tens of survivors.

With the number of unlit fire torches that continued to decrease, Noah’s accumulated points became stagnant as he had been focusing on getting points from lighting up torches.

Hiro directly told the survivors he saved to head south. Despite the countless turns in the maze, he was sure that they would end up in the same place if they kept heading that way.

However, not few of them protested.

“Take it or leave it! If you get caught, you’ll be eliminated!” Hiro hissed. This time, he was a little more strict.

The more time passed, the more pressure he felt. He was still left behind, and by quite a lot of points at that.

“Just go!”

The survivors hummed unhappily, but they still reluctantly did what Hiro ordered them to. It seemed that they still had their competitive spirit, and he was glad because of it.

He observed the crowd of survivors running south until he could no longer hear their footsteps. However, before he could move to leave, he heard what seemed to be a serious discussion.

Hiro hurriedly hid himself behind the giant tendrils covering the maze walls and his eyes moved to observe the direction of the voices. After a short while, the shadow of people walking entered his sight.

“They destroyed the eliminators.”

“Someone even eliminated the hunters. How crazy is that!”

“I think it is time for plan B.”

“Come on, man, I’m tired of waiting. Why didn’t we start with plan B from the beginning?”

“My sister doesn’t like it.”