novelraw Chapter 292: Carrier
Chapter 292: Carrier
The path through the jungle was somehow more and less treacherous than they had imagined. They had fully believed that even at the slowest speed, they could reach the center of the battlefield in just a matter of hours, but they hadn’t expected the constant diversion they had to take along the way.
The straight 2 kilometers ended up being around 5 kilometers in terms of how much they had to walk.
The pathway was less treacherous because the forest became sparser and sparser as they moved forward, with only a flat grassland remaining as they came to the center.
But at the same time, there were also a lot of different stacks of stones on the path, sometimes hidden in tall grasses, which caused them to slow down. That made the pathway more dangerous.
Stanley walked at the front, one step at a time. He had somehow stopped Rey from blowing himself up on their first 5 minutes of the journey, and since then he has been at the front.
Everyone trusted him not to kill himself, and until now, he hadn’t.
"As much as our plan is to get out of here all alive, that’s not very feasible, is it?" the old woman secretly said to Stanley. "I fear they will try to force us to fight somehow at the end if only us four remain, the chances of which itself are... slim."
Stanley nodded.
The old woman looked at Stanley’s knife. "What will you do when only one gets to survive?" she asked.
Stanley looked back at her. "If you are worrying that I’ll kill you all in the end, you don’t have to. If we are forced to, I’ll just break their rules instead. I don’t know how, but I will."
"That’s quite the confidence," the old woman said. "You’ll do that with just a knife?"
"I would love to have a sword, but I lost mine. I think it broke," Stanley said. "You can make a sword, can’t you? You can make a lot of things."
"I can only make things I’m familiar with," the old woman said. "And it takes things from me to make them. I can make you more knives, but even that will be too much for me."
"Well, if you can, try and make a heavy sword for me. About 100 or 150 kilograms should be plenty," Stanley said.
The old woman raised her eyebrows. "I don’t think a real sword can even be that heavy."
From time to time, they checked on the wall and Stanley commented how it was getting closer and closer. Either more people were dying, or the people watching this death game were trying to get things to end quickly.
"They’re trying to force us to end this death game early," Rey said. "We’ll need to be careful up front."
"We have been careful," Red said in an annoyed voice. "How much more careful do we need to be?"
"It won’t hurt to be—"
"Ssh!" Stanley quickly spoke to shut them up.
"What?" Red looked back and asked with a whisper. "Do you see something?"
All the other 3 looked down at the ground, searching for some more of the stacks of rocks. But there were none.
"What’s wrong? What do you see?" the old woman asked Stanley.
"Not see," Stanley said as he gestured to his ear. "Hear."
Then he gestured to the sky.
Everyone turned their heads around, looking up at the sky, trying to hear whatever Stanley was hearing. They couldn’t hear anything but nature around them, but then a moment later, they began hearing a low whizzing sound.
Then the sound got louder, turning into a droning sound. Then it got even louder and everyone realized what it was.
"It’s a carrier," Red said. "What is a carrier doing here?"
"It’s obvious, isn’t it?" Rey said. "It’s bringing supplies, food, and weapons."
Stanley said nothing and kept looking for it, which it soon became visible.
The carrier was a decently large flying vehicle, twice the size of a flying car, with four large legs sticking out on all sides, at the end of which were thrusters that shot out blue flames.
It moved past them, going toward the center of the battlefield.
"If we want something, this is the time to get it," Red said. "We need to hurry."
They were already getting out of the forest and into the grassland, so if they ran, they could make it easily. They could also get their hands on food and weapons that came along with the carrier.
But that would be the same thing everyone would be thinking about. It wouldn’t just be them that would want it.
"We should remain hiding," the old woman said. "The last thing we should do is show ourselves when we have no intel on our enemy."
"No, we should go," Red said. "This is the last day. We can’t let others have any more supplies if we can. Rey, Blue, say something."
Stanley looked back, seeing the tip of the barrier through the sparse jungle. "The barrier is getting close," he said softly.
"We know that," Red said in a frustrated voice. "That’s why we should go there faster."
"If this is the last day," Stanley said softly. "Then could today be the only day that carrier comes here."
The three looked at him with a puzzled look. "Maybe? Why do you say that?" Rey asked.
"Because we don’t have to win," Stanley said. "We don’t have to do anything. We just need to get on that ship and leave."
The old woman’s eyes widened slightly. "Yes!" she said. "We should do that."
"What?" Red looked at the two. "NO!"
Stanley turned around in surprise. "Why not?" he asked.
"We came here to win. We won’t leave without winning," Red said.
"Don’t you want to survive?" Stanley asked her.
"If survival was what I was worried about, then I would’ve never joined this damn death game," Red said. "I joined to win, and to get my powers improved. I can’t run away now that I’m so close to winning."
Rey looked at Stanley. "I’m sorry, but I’m with her on this one. I can’t run away, not when I have a real chance at fixing my condition."