"Hmm?"
Jian Jingyu woke up quickly. When he opened his eyes, Wang Tianwei was already fully armed and ready to go.
"The rain has mostly stopped. I have to get going."
She still had a quarter of today's journey left. If possible, she wanted to push a little further ahead; she couldn't just hide in the cave forever.
Still a bit groggy from sleep, Jian Jingyu understood her intention, sat up, and nodded.
"Got it. Be careful."
Rubbing his face with his hands, Jian Jingyu suddenly noticed something.
"Wait!"
Confused, Wang Tianwei turned around, only to see the person behind her scramble up from the ground, hunch over, and cautiously approach the cave entrance.
"What's wrong?"
"Someone is coming."
Wang Tianwei immediately grew cautious, mimicking his posture as she half-crouched and shuffled behind the bushes near the edge of the cave.
She looked around but saw no one, and despite listening hard, she heard no sound.
Jian Jingyu had no reason to lie to her... so was this the advantage of S-rank spiritual power?
The heavy rain outside had turned into a light drizzle. Jian Jingyu closed his eyes and listened for another moment, then quickly walked back into the cave to pack away his raincoat. After hoisting his backpack on again, he kept his head down and moved next to Wang Tianwei.
"There are two squads down there. They're chasing someone."
Hearing that they were chasing someone, Wang Tianwei looked up and met Jian Jingyu's eyes.
"...They wouldn't happen to be chasing just one person, would they?"
Emphasizing the word "one," she seemed to have guessed who it was...
Looking quite sympathetic, Jian Jingyu pursed his lips and nodded.
Well then... it was highly likely the last "guinea pig" among the three of them.
"They're coming this way."
Wang Tianwei sighed.
"Let's split up and run."
"Yeah. There's another squad to the northeast, so be careful not to head in that direction."
"Thanks."
The two parted ways at the cave entrance, heading in different directions.
The ground was extremely slippery after the rain; one wrong step and you would fall.
Pursued and intercepted by three different squads, Huang Yan deliberately chose the hardest paths to traverse!
Right now, he was clinging to a wet, slippery cliff face and climbing upwards like a gecko. The pursuing squad below had tried for a long time but couldn't manage to do what he was doing.
"Damn it! Huang Yan! If you don't come down right now, I'm going to shoot!"
"Yeah! Huang Yan, it's just a few dozen credits, there's no need to go this far! You'll get hurt if you fall from that high up!"
Huang Yan turned a deaf ear to them.
Even such heavy rain couldn't stop you from chasing me, and now you say you're worried about me getting hurt!?
If he hadn't been forced into a corner, who would choose to go rock climbing in the rain!?
The squad below was led by Lu Xiao from S-Class. By a twist of fate, the person they had originally wanted to catch was Wang Tianwei.
But after three days in the mountains, they hadn't found a single trace of her... Who would have thought they would bump into Huang Yan being "hunted" today?
This was also worth 20 points! How could they give up after running into him?
He was just one person; whoever grabbed him first would get the points!
But Huang Yan, sporting his wild, cool blonde hair, could dart away faster than a rabbit!
Braving the heavy rain, he showed off all sorts of crazy maneuvers on the treacherous mountain paths!
Climbing mountains one moment and diving into rivers the next, he ignored everything they said. He was absolutely nothing like the obediently surrendering target they had imagined!
He had even exhausted the squad, causing them to severely deviate from their original route. Now that they had wasted so much time, Lu Xiao was riding a tiger and couldn't get off... It would be a massive loss if they didn't get these 20 credits!
Huang Yan gritted his teeth and focused entirely on climbing higher, a myriad of curses held back in his heart.
It wasn't that he cared about his image; he was just afraid that if he relaxed his energy for even a second, he would fall!
What kind of garbage rules did Yama Chao come up with!?
Making him the target of everyone in this middle-of-nowhere place!?
Although he always had a crowd following him back on Planet Tianshu, at least those people prepared good food and drinks for him, and always spoke to him with smiling faces!
Nothing like these people from S-Class! Every single one of them just wanted to farm credits off him!?
S-Class was one thing... but he had never even seen the other squad before, so why were they chasing him too!?
Speak of the devil; another squad soon gathered at the bottom of the cliff.
The skin on Huang Yan's hands was already scraped raw. The rain had soaked him to the bone. Because he had lined his backpack with a waterproof bag beforehand, it hadn't taken on too much water, but its weight had still increased significantly...
Even with his A-rank stamina, climbing was incredibly strenuous.
Seeing the five-person squad rushing over from the other side, Lu Xiao was a bit puzzled.
"Are you guys from S-Class too?"
The other party merely shot him a sideways glance, then immediately raised the laser gun in his hand toward Huang Yan's direction.
"Don't lump me in with you young masters and misses."
"What are you doing!?"
Terrified, Lu Bai slammed a hand down on the person's gun barrel.
"That's our classmate!"
They had only been trying to scare Huang Yan earlier; why was this guy taking actual aim right off the bat!?
The student in front of him swatted his hand away.
"He's also my credits."
Sun Ye and Hou Weize from Lu Xiao's squad frowned and stepped forward side by side.
"Which class are you guys actually from? Does your class have bonus points too?"
Unexpectedly, the other party wasn't intimidated at all. Three hulking figures walked straight up to the two of them. One of them, a beastman, swept his gaze over the four of them.
"B-Class mission: for every person from another class eliminated, add five credits. Eliminating someone from a class higher than B-Class adds ten credits. You just said you're from S-Class, right? Captain, that's forty points right here."
Hearing this, Lu Xiao's squad immediately gripped their laser guns tightly and took a few steps back. The other party quickly mirrored the action.
The S-Class students had been hunting Wang Tianwei, Huang Yan, and Jian Jingyu for points, but they never expected that they themselves would become the "prey" for another class!
The opposing squad's captain, however, chuckled.
"Look, I've already heard. You guys only get extra credits if you catch three specific people from S-Class, right?"
Lu Xiao's face was taut; he couldn't laugh at all.
"Which means, even if our two squads face off and beat each other half to death, as long as you get eliminated, you get nothing."
As the opposing captain spoke, his eyes darted to the upper left.
"Oh! Did I forget to tell you? Even if we get eliminated, our credits won't be cleared! Every single person here has already accumulated twenty credits. So even if we can't make it to the finish line, we won't lose any credits."
The eyes of Lu Xiao's squad members widened even further!
Every one of them had already gathered twenty points!? How many students did that mean they had taken out!? No wonder the elimination broadcasts hadn't stopped over the last two days!
The opposing captain stepped forward and patted Lu Xiao's shoulder.
"Look, we don't want to fight you guys either. After all, your squad's strength looks pretty solid. But having chased for so long, we can't just return empty-handed, right? So today, we just want him."
Saying that, he pointed his index finger at Huang Yan on the cliff face.
"Don't think I don't know that you guys just came over later to pick up the scraps. If you want to snatch him... it seems we have one more person than you. It doesn't matter anyway; after all, people with nothing to lose aren't afraid of those with something to lose."
"..."
Lu Xiao was already considering retreating.
If it was really as he said, his side would be at too much of a disadvantage.
Not to mention ending up owing 20 points if eliminated, even if they weren't eliminated right away, injuries were unavoidable at such close range, which would affect their performance later on...
The students from the two classes were gathered together, and a dozen or so live streams were showing the exact same situation.
"Hey, hey, hey!? How can you point guns at your own companions? Send them all to the penalty room!"
"That's the rule, there's nothing we can do about it..."
"Unbelievable! Class B actually produced a tactician!"
"These little brats! Getting bluffed by just a couple of words? Take him down!"
