What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C40.1

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Chp40. part1

The man in the black T-shirt froze, staring at Pei Han’s wrist. After a long pause, he said, “Well… there’s nothing we can do. We have to make you get off. If you refuse, everyone in this carriage will die.”

Owen, realizing what had happened, immediately spoke up behind Pei Han.

“You let him off the bus? If he hadn’t been there, everyone in this carriage would have died during the spider search, right?”

It was Pei Han who, while the others were brawling, had pointed them toward the Giant Spider by holding it up.

The Black T-shirt denied it. “Not necessarily. Didn’t the broadcast give hints too?”

They had clearly found the Giant Spider thanks to Pei Han’s clue, yet now no one wanted to admit it.

Someone in the carriage immediately chimed in, “Right! The broadcast gave hints too. I heard it—it said there was something in the side door and told everyone to check.”

“We didn’t need his help at all! We would have found it ourselves following the broadcast!”

Ning Ge suddenly spoke up. “The broadcast gave that hint with only seven minutes left. You guys started searching for the spider at the twelve-minute mark and didn’t kill it until the twenty-seventh minute, right before the timer ran out. That took fifteen minutes.”

Because Owen had insisted on dragging her along to watch them kill the spider, Ning Ge remembered the details vividly.

Clearly, relying solely on the broadcast’s countdown wouldn’t give them enough time before it ended.

The carriage fell silent.

The Black T-shirt turned to face the group. “Stop listening to her nonsense. I think we killed that spider pretty quickly.”

The crowd murmured in agreement.

“Exactly! I thought we finished it in no time.”

“It was just a small spider, not an Alien. With all of us here, we took it down in a few hits.”

The middle-aged man in a jacket beside the Black T-shirt pondered for a moment before speaking. “Even if you weren’t lying about the time, without him showing us the spider clue, we might have found it ourselves before the broadcast even gave us the hint.”

Ning Ge: “……”

Ning Ge: Okay. Flawless logic. You were all arguing so fiercely earlier, practically coming to blows. It’s entirely possible you would have had time to discover the spider.

The Black T-shirt grew impatient. “Besides, he offered to show us the spider himself. We didn’t ask him. Now he’s acting like we owe him big time.”

A chorus of “Exactly!” rose from the carriage.

Pei Han watched the group with a detached expression.

He still wanted to convince them.

“Listen to me. I’m an Alpha, and I’ve run many Dungeons. Based on this instance’s style, there’s always a way for everyone to survive each stage without anyone having to die…”

Before he could finish, someone interjected, “What’s an Alpha? I’m an Omega.”

No matter how skilled an Alpha might be, it was useless when the entire carriage was full of newbies who didn’t know a thing.

Someone shouted, “Look at the countdown! There’s not much time left! Don’t let him stall!”

The countdown on the display continued to tick down frantically.

Panic spread through the crowd.

“Don’t listen to him! He’s just trying to stall so he can win by outlasting us. Only he gets to survive!”

“Exactly! Don’t fall for his nonsense!” The carriage erupted in clamor.

The middle-aged man in the jacket gently urged Pei Han, “We don’t want to harm you, but we have no choice. If you die alone, everyone else can live. You should think about the greater good.”

Many nodded in agreement. “That’s right! You can’t be so selfish!”

Ning Ge suddenly understood how people turned evil.

Now, she only felt regret.

He shouldn’t have let Pei Han show the spider to the people in this carriage.

If they hadn’t told them where the spider was and let the Masked Man clear the carriage directly, things would be much easier now.

Amidst the chaotic clamor, Pei Han gave up.

He turned to glance at Owen, silently gesturing towards Ning Ge with his eyes.

Owen nodded slightly and stepped in front of Ning Ge.

Pei Han turned back and chuckled softly.

He no longer wanted to persuade them.

“You all want me off the train?” he asked.

The man in the Black T-shirt replied, “That’s right.”

The middle-aged man in the jacket said, “Brother, if you get off, we’ll set up a memorial tablet for you after we get out. We’ll burn incense and paper on holidays. You’ll be everyone’s savior.”

Pei Han chuckled again, casually tossed his single-shoulder bag onto Owen’s shoulder, rolled up his sleeves, and asked, “But I don’t want to get off. What do you do?”

The Black T-shirt man and the others exchanged glances, exchanging silent signals. Several burly men surged forward.

Pei Han looked like he might be tough, but they had numbers.

“Everyone! Attack him! If we don’t get him off, we’ll all die!”

With someone taking the lead, the entire carriage surged forward in a chaotic rush.

Everyone lunged at Pei Han, tearing at his clothes and grabbing his arms, desperate to drag him out of the carriage.

The middle-aged man, following behind the Black T-shirt, tentatively reached out as well.

Before his hand even brushed Pei Han’s side, a powerful force yanked his arm and twisted it backward.

A searing pain shot through him.

His back hit the floor with a heavy thud, his vision went black, and he tumbled to the ground. His belly, grown soft from years of sitting, cushioned the fall.

A coppery taste filled his throat. He struggled to turn his head and saw Pei Han wasn’t even looking his way. He had already twisted another man’s arm and kicked him flying.

Owen, following Pei Han’s instructions, stayed out of the brawl, diligently guarding Ning Ge in the corner.

This was the first time Ning Ge had ever seen Pei Han fight seriously.

He was calm and decisive, his movements swift and brutal. Even surrounded by a mob, he remained completely composed.

The elderly, weak, and infirm had all died in the first wave of the struggle and the ensuing brawl. Only the young and strong remained, but under Pei Han’s assault, they were all trash.

Pei Han fought against multiple attackers simultaneously, holding his own without the slightest disadvantage. He was the one doing the attacking; no one could touch him.

Ning Ge watched Pei Han.

He had resolved to protect her from harm. If her Imposter identity were exposed, he would not only have to fight the entire carload of people but also shield her carefully.

So he devised a better strategy: drawing all the attacks to himself, he fought with abandon, unburdened by concerns and minimizing the risk of her being endangered.

As the crowd attacking him gradually thinned, Ning Ge felt a surge of relief. She lowered her head to examine the bracelet on her wrist when suddenly Owen shouted, “Pei Han! Watch out!”

Startled, Ning Ge looked up and saw Pei Han sidestep an attack from behind, then casually grab the assailant and hurl him across the floor.

It turned out to be the high school student who had been trailing them.

The student clutched a wrench he’d picked up somewhere, aiming to strike Pei Han from behind.

But he never even got close. Pei Han sent him flying, the student landing hard on the floor with a bloodied nose.

“Brother, I’m sorry!” the student cried. “But I didn’t do it for myself, I did it for everyone! You have to go down here! If you don’t, everyone in this car will die!”

Pei Han didn’t even glance at him as he turned his full attention to the next attacker.

In just a few minutes, the entire carriage lay in a heap.

Everyone was injured, and no one dared to step forward.

The middle-aged man in the jacket remained on the ground, pleading with Pei Han, “I have children at home, and their middle school entrance exams are coming up soon. My parents both have chronic illnesses, and I’m the only one who can support them. I can’t die, I really can’t.”

Pei Han ignored him. After dealing with everyone, he stepped back and said to Ning Ge, “Your turn.”

Ning Ge had already figured out how to get everyone through.

She crouched down and pulled out the red marker Pei Han had used from her tool bag.

“Hold out your hand. Left hand,” she said to Owen.

Owen obediently extended his left hand, the one with the bracelet.

Ning Ge first glanced at his bracelet, then peeled off the tape and drew a small circle on his wrist.

She compared it to the circle on her own wrist.

The two red circles were identical.

There was no difference in the thickness of the strokes or the color; the mark on Owen’s wrist looked as if it had been drawn with the same pen as the one on Ning Ge’s.

After finishing, Ning Ge checked Owen’s bracelet.

Sure enough.

A tiny, inconspicuous circle now appeared in the upper right corner of the bracelet’s screen.

While Pei Han was fighting, Ning Ge had been examining the bracelets.

She had always felt that Imposters should have a more definitive mark than just a red circle that looked like it was drawn with a marker.

As expected, the System had indeed placed a true Impersonator Mark on the Imposter.

Instead of sending an obvious message that others might notice, it left a tiny, inconspicuous mark in the upper right corner of the bracelet’s screen.

If one pressed their finger precisely on the small circle, three characters would appear: “Imposter.”

Ning Ge had just noticed this mark on her own bracelet. Owen’s bracelet hadn’t had it originally, but as soon as the red circle was drawn on his wrist, the mark instantly appeared in the corner of his bracelet’s screen.

He had successfully been registered as an Imposter by the System.

“Let me see your bracelet.” Ning Ge pulled Pei Han’s hand and checked his bracelet; a small circle had also appeared in the corner of his screen.

Ning Ge tapped it, and the three characters “Imposter” materialized.

Ning Ge hadn’t been entirely confident in her method for passing the challenge, but now she was absolutely certain it would work.

She put the red marker back into her shoulder bag and zipped it shut.

The black shoulder bag in the carriage lay discarded on the floor, its mouth gaping open and empty. All the tools that could have been used as weapons had long since been scavenged, leaving only useless remnants.

Ning Ge quietly approached and rummaged through the bag until she found an identical red marker.

Clutching the red marker, Ning Ge returned to Pei Han’s side and said, “The announcement only said ‘there’s an Imposter hidden in each carriage,’ not that there’s only one.”

“Even the red marker for drawing the circles was prepared for us in the shoulder bag. The method to pass the challenge is obvious.”

Owen understood. “So the solution is to turn everyone into Imposters?”

“Exactly,” Ning Ge replied. “According to the mission rules, if the Imposters are still alive after the thirty-minute countdown ends, we win the game and don’t have to get off the train.”

Ning Ge had already figured this out when Pei Han drew the red circle on his wrist and she noticed it was identical to the one on her own.

But there was no point in mentioning it before Pei Han had taken control of the situation.

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