What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C37.2

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Chp37. part2

There was no loophole to exploit.

Ning Ge sighed silently and leaned back against the carriage wall.

Being among the most vulnerable, Pei Han and Owen shielded her in the innermost corner of the carriage.

The two men stood guard, casually knocking out anyone who dared approach. No one could gain an advantage.

The Ticket Checker Masked Man worked his way down the car until he reached Ning Ge and her companions.

Three short beeps, and the three of them were cleared.

They were at the very back of the car, the last group to be checked. The carriage had already fallen quiet, with about half the passengers having been thrown off.

Most of the remaining passengers were young and strong.

Having already been checked, they no longer fought. Each clutched the ticket they had desperately fought to keep, their bodies covered in blood as they sat on the floor, gasping for breath.

Among them were those who had stolen tickets from others, those who had been robbed but fought back to reclaim them, and those who had hidden in corners during the chaos, scheming to survive.

Whatever their methods, this group had all survived the first round.

The Ticket Checker Masked Man stepped off, and the subway doors slowly closed.

A crisp chime rang out:

“Ding-ding-ding-dong—”

“Long-distance passengers, please move to the rear. Give up your seats to those who need them. This train’s final destination is Loop Line Station. Next stop: Yongning Road.”

The subway lurched into motion, and the once-packed carriage suddenly felt spacious.

This was the first time Ning Ge had witnessed such brutal conditions during her dungeon missions.

The previous few instances had all been cooperative, where everyone worked together toward a common goal with aligned interests. They had never truly faced a life-or-death situation like this.

Blood splattered across the floor in crisscrossing patterns.

What was interesting was that none of the bloodstains had been made by the Ticket Checker Masked Man.

The Masked Man from earlier hadn’t said a single extra word beyond the two words “Ticket Checker.”

It was all player-on-player slaughter.

Before entering the dungeon, Pei Han had warned that team-ups were forbidden in dungeons with survival limits. The fact that team-ups were allowed here meant everyone had a chance to survive; it wasn’t truly a life-or-death situation if they could find a way.

Ning Ge pondered and concluded that the best way for everyone to survive this round was to charge the Ticket Checker Masked Man head-on.

However, the people in the carriage didn’t think so.

Competing with other players—especially the elderly and infirm—for survival chances was far easier than confronting the Ticket Checker Masked Man.

People always choose the path of least resistance.

Only after the fighting stopped did Owen lean against the carriage wall and say softly, “When I saw the two of you each holding a red and a green, I knew the key wasn’t the color. Then I noticed the symbols on the tickets were different.”

Ning Ge looked at him with a hint of exasperation. “Pei Han saw me take a red card and deliberately chose a green one. He did that to remind you that color isn’t the key.”

Pei Han’s lips curved into a smile, and he narrowed his eyes at Ning Ge.

She knew exactly what he was thinking.

Curious, Ning Ge asked, “Pei Han, you said you participated in the Wheat Harvest Game during your first dungeon. What was it like?”

“Arctic Survival,” he replied. “We were in sub-zero temperatures, minus forty degrees Celsius, with limited supplies. We had to fight to survive.” He continued, “Out of two hundred people, only seven made it out alive. I was the only rookie among them.”

“I was only seventeen back then, still a minor,” Pei Han said, glancing at the high school student shivering and crouching by the seat. “About his age.”

Ning Ge was astonished. “You’ve been running dungeons for so many years?”

From seventeen to now, he must have entered a dungeon at least every seven days, and likely far more often to maintain his Alpha Ranking. How many dungeons had he run in total?

Pei Han’s focus shifted entirely.

“What do you mean ‘so many years’?” he retorted, annoyed. “It hasn’t been ‘that’ long. Are you calling me old?”

Ning Ge’s mind was elsewhere.

Pei Han now navigated the dungeons with effortless skill, yet he hadn’t managed to hold the top position in the Alpha Ranking for ten consecutive months over the years.

He seemed to know Lu Juan, who ranked second, quite well, and it was likely that all the Alphas on the leaderboard knew each other. Yet, for some reason, these exceptionally strong individuals hadn’t united.

There had to be either rules Ning Ge didn’t know about, or some hidden machinations she was unaware of.

Moreover, the System had been in existence for so long.

After all this time, the players hadn’t devised a way to completely solve the problem. They were like wheat in a field, flattened by the wind, falling in waves.

The broadcast announcement suddenly blared, startling everyone.

A female voice announced: “The subway will soon arrive at Yongning Road.”

The passengers looked up, clutching their tickets.

The subway slowed again and, as before, stopped in the chaotic darkness. The doors hissed open with a hiss.

This time, no one boarded.

The outside remained eerily silent, the doors left wide open as if waiting for something, showing no sign of closing.

After several minutes of waiting, the broadcast finally spoke again.

“Passengers, please note that this subway is over capacity. Those who are not in a hurry may disembark and transfer to another service.”

The carriage was silent.

Everyone knew what getting off meant.

The darkness below was like a meat grinder—anyone who went down would be ground to dust.

Owen muttered, “This is a joke, trying to fool me? Subway carriages are designed to withstand being packed to the brim. You could stuff them full and they still wouldn’t overload. How can this empty carriage be considered overloaded?”

The previous carriage had been full and hadn’t been declared overloaded, but now with half the passengers gone, they were insisting it was overloaded.

They’d announced an overload but hadn’t specified how much—it was a trap waiting for someone to jump.

No one spoke, no one moved.

The broadcast spoke again: “If the overload condition is not resolved within thirty minutes, all passengers must disembark and transfer to another train. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

A thirty-minute countdown appeared on the display screen ahead.

The passengers exchanged uneasy glances.

If the overload wasn’t resolved, they’d all die together. So how could they resolve it?

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