The Siberian tiger had a huge face, a huge voice, and an even louder way of speaking. The moment it opened its mouth, spit sprayed all over Fang Yuan's face.
Fang Yuan went completely blank. For a moment, he could not decide whether he should be more shocked that the driver was a Siberian tiger or more concerned about the saliva covering his face.
The other players were stunned too.
Jiang Heng explained, "Instance buses are usually like this. Each one has an unusual driver."
Lu Jin asked, "Then why didn't ours have one when we arrived?"
Jiang Heng answered, "That bus was an exception."
But how many exceptions had this instance already produced?
What other instance had its supposedly weakest player survive all the way to the end while practically carrying the entire team? What other instance upgraded from D-rank to C-rank and still stuffed itself full of newcomers?
Jiang Heng was exhausted. Too many unexpected things had happened. He no longer even knew what deserved surprise. Compared with everything else, a bus arriving without a driver was barely worth mentioning.
Lu Jin did not ask further. The Siberian tiger was clearly losing patience. Not only was it sitting with one leg crossed, it had started bouncing the other while staring hungrily at Fang Yuan.
Under the tiger's predatory gaze, Fang Yuan forced himself to board.
The players remained behind to wait for the other buses.
While they waited, Lu Jin asked Jiang Heng, "What happens in the real world to players who die inside an instance?"
If they died here, what happened outside?
Surely the people around them would notice something.
Jiang Heng swallowed. "They're listed as missing. Nothing else happens. But to prevent public panic, the authorities suppress the information."
That explained it.
Before long, another bus arrived. This driver was far gentler: a plump snow-white rabbit. After opening the door, it twitched its ears impatiently. "Hurry up, hurry up! This bunny wants to go home and eat carrots!"
The bus was headed to Mountain City. Jiang Heng did not dare delay and hurried aboard.
The third bus was bound for the Capital. Its driver was a round, short-legged cat sprawled lazily across the seat, controlling the vehicle entirely with its unusually long tail hooked around the lever.
The door opened. The moment the cat saw Jiang Sui standing outside, its fur inexplicably puffed up. "Hmph! So what if your legs are long? You still need this kitty to drive you! Hurry up and get on!"
Jiang Sui smiled helplessly and was just about to step forward when, with a sharp whoosh, a metal rod shot through the air and punched straight through the step he was about to use!
Jiang Sui's expression did not change, but the short-legged cat yowled in terror, its white fur exploding outward until it resembled an enormous fluffy ball.
It shrieked indignantly, "Aaaaaah! Kitty's bus! Kitty's bus!"
Lu Jin stood behind Jiang Sui with an icy expression. One hand still held the posture of having just thrown the metal rod before relaxing and slipping into his trouser pocket.
"So why were you tracking me?"
Jiang Sui lowered his gaze to the metal rod embedded in the step, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Using metal against me doesn't seem particularly wise."
A second later, the rod hummed and moved without anyone touching it. It ripped itself from the step and shot toward Lu Jin like an arrow!
Lu Jin tilted his head and dodged perfectly. The rod buried itself in the soil behind him, directly beside Xu Moyang's foot.
Xu Moyang jumped violently.
Seriously? They had already cleared the instance, and these two still wanted to fight?
Jiang Sui turned around and looked at Lu Jin.
Lu Jin pulled the tracking device from his pajama pocket and crushed it into powder in front of him.
A flash of surprise crossed Jiang Sui's eyes before disappearing.
He clicked his tongue.
"What a shame," Jiang Sui said sincerely. "That tracker was expensive."
The short-legged cat finally poked its head back out. When it saw Lu Jin, it became even more irritated. "Why are there so many long-legged people in this instance?!"
It yelled at both men, "If you want to fight, fight down there! Don't damage kitty's bus!" Then it turned toward Jiang Sui. "And you! Are you getting on or not? Hurry up! Kitty still has other people to pick up!"
In the end, Jiang Sui boarded the bus and departed under Lu Jin's watchful gaze.
In his human form, Lu Jin could not defeat Jiang Sui. If he truly wanted to beat the man into the ground, he knew he would have to use his Reaper form.
But he merely disliked being followed and tagged with a tracking device. He was not particularly obsessed with discovering Jiang Sui's identity.
Jiang Heng had mentioned that the game was enormous, with tens of thousands of players dragged into it. The chances of two players meeting again in another instance were therefore extremely low. If they were unlikely to see each other again anyway, Lu Jin could not be bothered pursuing the matter further.
The cat bus had barely left when the bus to Shanghai arrived. Every previous vehicle had been in a hurry, their drivers rushing around as though moving between appointments. This one, however, crawled forward like a sightseeing shuttle for elderly tourists, its wheels seeming almost reluctant to turn.
When the door finally opened, Lu Jin and Xu Moyang saw the leisurely driver——a capybara balancing an orange on its head.
Lu Jin: "…"
Xu Moyang: "…"
The capybara remained perfectly calm. It did not rush them. It simply waited for the players and, when bored, played with its oranges, balancing them one by one on its head.
*
Elsewhere, on the Siberian tiger bus.
Compared with the capybara's peaceful, almost meditative manner, this driver was loud, talkative, and arrogant. Throughout the journey it either opened its massive mouth to yawn or entertained itself by poking Fang Yuan with its tail.
Fang Yuan spent the entire ride on edge, his legs trembling.
Why exactly were the bus drivers animals? And why could they speak human languages?!
The Siberian tiger noticed his nervousness and patted his shoulder with its long tail in what was apparently meant to be comforting.
"Buddy, nervous because you just came out of your first instance? It's nothing! Just look at me more. Keep looking at me and you'll stop being nervous!"
Fang Yuan asked, "What does that mean?"
"Why do you think the game puts fluffy animals like us on the buses? We're here to calm you people down! Heard humans love fluffy things!"
The tiger proudly swished its long tail. "What? You're still nervous? How come you're different from all the other humans?"
Fang Yuan: "…"
Was it possible that the problem was that this particular fluffy animal was different from the others?
Afraid the tiger would keep chatting, Fang Yuan hurriedly changed the subject and insisted he felt much better. Unfortunately, the Siberian tiger was extremely sociable and clearly nowhere near finished talking.
There were only two of them on the bus, so it seized Fang Yuan as its captive audience and kept rambling. "Everyone's like this after their first instance! You'll get used to it!"
"Still, buddy, your instance had a pretty good survival rate! A lot of people made it out!" It had glanced at the group earlier. Five of eight players survived, a rate above fifty percent, which was excellent. "So only the danger-zone players died, right?"
Intimidated by the enormous tiger, Fang Yuan could only answer honestly. "Only one danger-zone player died. The other two survived."
"Oh! The weakest one died?"
Fang Yuan thought for a moment. "It was the third-lowest. The other two people who died weren't danger-zone players."
The tiger's paw froze. "How's that possible? The lowest-ranked one survived?" It had transported countless players and had never encountered an exception. The mortality rate for the lowest-ranked danger-zone player was supposed to be one hundred percent.
"You definitely remembered wrong!" the tiger declared.
Fang Yuan opened his mouth. "I didn't…"
The tiger shook its head. "You're obviously a newcomer. Silly thing, don't know anything! Did an NPC bash your brains in?"
Fang Yuan answered seriously, "Brother Lu really survived!"
The tiger scoffed. "The weakest danger-zone player survived to the end? Why don't you tell me you know that newly famous expert Blank from the forum too? I might almost believe that!"
After all, the sealed instance had been C-rank, and Clear River Guesthouse had also been C-rank. At least the rank matched.
Fang Yuan shook his head blankly. "I don't know Blank." It was his first time playing, and he barely knew anyone.
At that moment, the bus arrived in Ice City and stopped outside Fang Yuan's residential complex.
The Siberian tiger waved a paw. "Go home and get some rest. You've gotta enter another instance next week!"
Those words were even more terrifying than the tiger's enormous mouth. Fang Yuan snapped fully awake. "Again?"
"Obviously! Players have to keep entering instances! If you don't understand, look at your phone. Everything's in the game app!"
Fang Yuan stepped off the bus in a daze.
He had heard Jiang Heng say that once someone was dragged into the game, they had to keep entering instances without end… but he had not realized the next one would be as soon as next week!
Even exploited office workers were not worked that hard!
Standing outside his residential complex beneath bright sunshine, Fang Yuan felt dizzy from the sudden shift in time and space. For a moment, he hardly knew what day or year it was.
Only twelve hours had passed in the game. Time inside the instance synchronized with reality, so it was currently ten in the morning. Yet to Fang Yuan, it felt as though an entire week had passed.
His phone suddenly rang. A coworker was calling repeatedly in panic. "Why aren't you at the office yet? We have to report to the boss today! I can't handle it alone if you don't come!"
Fang Yuan rubbed his aching temple. He had spent the entire night fighting for his life, and now he was expected to go to work the next morning. Apparently this was the true everyday life of an office worker!
Far too realistic!
But Fang Yuan was exhausted. He could not keep pushing himself.
"Please help me ask for leave. I'm not going to the office today."
*
Back inside the instance, once the capybara felt the players had had enough time to recover, it finally asked, "Are you getting on?"
Xu Moyang came back to his senses and was about to step forward when Lu Jin grabbed him. "No."
"Oh… okay then."
The capybara calmly closed the door and slowly drove away again as though continuing a sightseeing tour.
"Brother Lu, aren't we leaving?"
"Aren't you supposed to go to the Netherworld and complete the procedure to return to life?"
Only then did Xu Moyang remember. They had originally been heading to the Netherworld when they were dragged into the game by accident. They still had unfinished business there.
"I've pretended to be human around the other players for so long that I almost forgot!" Xu Moyang rubbed his hands excitedly. "Then how do we get to the Netherworld?"
"Call a bus," Lu Jin said.
The buses that transported players for the game looked almost identical to the soul buses used by the Netherworld to transport ghosts. That resemblance was precisely why Lu Jin and Xu Moyang had boarded the wrong one.
In that case, they only needed to summon the correct soul bus and have it take them back to the Netherworld.
Xu Moyang stared at Lu Jin expectantly, practically sparkling with excitement.
"Summon one? Is it some kind of magical formation? Or a talisman? Maybe long-distance telepathy? I've seen things like that in novels. They're incredibly cool!"
Lu Jin looked at him in silence. Two seconds later, he took out his phone and quietly opened an app——Netherworld Services.
Xu Moyang: "?"
Lu Jin said, "What century do you think this is? The Netherworld keeps up with technology too."
Xu Moyang: "…"
That was perhaps a little too technologically advanced!
The Netherworld Services app had a polished interface, somewhat like a modern government-services app, except it lagged terribly. Lu Jin spent a long time trying to pass the facial-recognition check before it finally verified him and allowed him to submit a request for a soul bus.
"Brother Lu, how long will the bus take?"
"Not long."
Under normal circumstances, whenever a Reaper requested a soul bus through Netherworld Services, the nearest vehicle would be dispatched. Every city had at least one. At worst it took half an hour; if one was nearby, it could arrive in five minutes.
This time, they waited less than five minutes.
The bus door slowly opened. It was the same bus, the same capybara, and the same orange balanced on its head.
Lu Jin: "…"
Xu Moyang: "…"
One human, one ghost, and one capybara stared at each other for a long moment before the capybara finally spoke, neither anxious nor irritated.
"Still not getting on?"
Lu Jin's expression turned cold. "I'm going to the Netherworld."
The capybara blinked. "What's that?"
Lu Jin clarified, "The Netherworld where souls go for reincarnation."
The capybara's eyes widened slightly. It looked surprised, though only mildly.
"There's a place like that in this world? All right then! Good luck. I'm heading off first!"
