Chapter 160

"The Captain? Are you insane?!"

"How could we possibly execute the Captain!? He's the only one we can trust for sure!"

"If someone's going to execute the Captain, why not just execute an NPC?"

Inevitable murmurs broke out around the round table, most of them questioning Lin Tu's "absurd" proposal.

Only one or two people said, "Don't rush. What if No. 37 has actually found something?" However, such voices were quickly drowned in the tide of disapproval.

The NPC had to step in once more to restore order, though fortunately, since the situation wasn't severe, it didn't issue any warnings.

But by the time the round table quieted down again, everyone's stance was clear—they trusted the Captain.

For no other reason than his ironclad good-person identity card.

Lin Tu explained, "Doesn't anyone think it's strange that so far, every bad thing that's happened has had the Captain's fingerprints on it? At the very beginning, voting out No. 99—that was the Captain who started it. Later, the [Doctor]'s identity card was also put in the Captain's custody, and only then did revived players turn red-name."

When she put it that way, it did seem to make some sense—but the reasoning was ultimately too flimsy.

Holy Gun raised her hand. "I understand you want to find the traitor hiding among us, but you can't just point at anyone and call them red-name. The Captain knows the identities of most of us here, and yet our identities still haven't been leaked—that's the strongest proof that he's not a traitor."

The others nodded in agreement.

Lin Tu sighed inwardly, knowing she couldn't convince these people. She didn't want to waste Holy Gun's shot, but given the circumstances, she had no choice but to pivot. "Then I ask Holy Gun to shoot No. 99. It'll add a day to your cooldown, but it'll let everyone see that No. 99 is definitely not a bad guy."

Holy Gun nodded. A suspected red-name was someone she wouldn't hesitate to execute if given the chance.

She raised her right hand again, and a gunshot rang out.

Kang Lina waited for the golden light to verify her innocence. The next moment, she saw the bullet's golden glow fly toward her, brushing past her cheek like a spring breeze—and then dissipate into nothing.

The skill activated, yet Kang Lina remained seated at the round table, completely unharmed. That could only mean one thing—

Holy Gun stood there stunned. This was the first time her shot had gone wide. Now, she'd have to endure a four-day skill cooldown.

"So No. 99 really is a good guy..."

"Then who sabotaged the heating system?"

"Who knows? The red-names have tricks like this now?"

"The revived players all turned red-name, so making No. 99 take the fall wasn't exactly out of the question, right? Honestly, I think we'd have been better off shooting the Captain with that bullet."

"Hindsight. I think you're crazy too."

After a brief commotion, Lin Tu announced that while there were still twenty red-names left, the green-names were down to forty—far outnumbered by the enemy. The good-guy faction was on the brink of collapse. But the good news was that they knew exactly who the bad guys were; if they united, they could eliminate them with ease.

Just as Lin Tu was about to propose voting out one of the bad guys first, the Captain rose to his feet again—

"I'm sorry, everyone! It was my fault for being deceived by the red-names, and that's what caused our losses. You're right to resent me, so please, blame me! Especially you, Miss No. 37—thank you for pointing out my mistake." He bowed deeply, then turned specifically toward Lin Tu and bowed again.

"But I also want to make amends by helping everyone get through this and solve the problem." The Captain had the face of a middle-aged man, honest and simple-looking, which made him seem extremely dependable. "We're certain No. 5 is red-name, but as for the others—can we really be so sure?"

"So I'd like to ask everyone to trust our revived comrades and work together to rescue..."

Before he could finish, a harsh gunshot rang out—

Lin Tu turned to see a man slumped over the round table, a bloody hole in his forehead, eyes wide open in death.

"Player killed by Assassin." The NPC's voice echoed before the table, and everyone fell silent.

"He's an Avenger!" someone cried out in terror, then hastily raised a hand. "He's the highest-level Avenger so far—he has a life-for-life skill! The red-names were afraid of him, but the question is, how did the red-names know?!"

The red-names knew, of course, because Lin Tu knew too—and the source of that information was... Lin Tu instinctively looked at the Captain. His face still wore that honest smile, but half of it had frozen stiff, the other half betraying nothing but impatience and disgust.

"Oh dear... what's happened here..." He'd barely gotten the words out before he seemed unable to keep up the act any longer. "Tsk, what's the rush? We could've fattened him up and killed a few more."

"We've already won, so why wait?" Another man chuckled. "I really don't get why you had so many worries. What was the point of all that acting? We could've just started killing the moment we left the courtroom."

"Right, right. You've all worked so hard." The Captain flashed that honest smile again, but now everyone felt a chill run down their spines.

"What the hell is going on, Captain!?" Even now that the Captain had torn off his mask, someone still couldn't believe what they were seeing and raised a hand to ask, "Is this some kind of act...?" The man forced a smile. "Just say it's not true, and we'll still trust you!"

"Heh..." The Captain sneered contemptuously. "You fools. I'm the Captain, sure, but the game is fair—does it only give me one option, forcing me to stay in the good-guy faction and do their bidding?"

Lin Tu recalled the cannibal invasion incident, where every monster wore medieval crew uniforms. Actually, she'd had a vague suspicion back then that the [Captain] profession, tied as it was to ships, wasn't so simple.

[Captain: When you betray the good-guy faction, you can only win through the bad-guy faction. You cannot reveal any information about the good-guy faction to the bad-guy faction; you carry no knife, but you will have certain tasks to harm good guys, and these good guys may be killed by anyone...]

"Do you know why I chose the bad-guy faction?" The Captain crossed his arms, looking down at the group. "Because you're stupid. Three cobblers are no match for one Zhuge Liang—you lot gathered together are nothing but a cage of pigs. Choose the good-guy faction? I'd rather not be killed by your incompetence!"

"Damn it!"

The truth was once again ruthlessly ripped open in front of everyone. Only then did they realize they'd been completely played from start to finish.

The biggest mole of all was none other than the one whose profession name sounded the most noble, whose profession description sounded the most like a good person—the so-called ironclad good guy!

"As for you?" The Captain's gaze shifted back to Lin Tu, and he scoffed. "You're an [Idiot], aren't you? I really was too impatient—ate the hot tofu too fast. Getting seen through by you was just my bad luck, but it doesn't matter anymore. I'm going to win."

His companion laughed. "Right now, your votes can't kill anyone. The strongest [Avenger] is already dead, and most of the righteous killers have already used their attacks. Only the Sheriff... damn it, which rat is the Sheriff anyway? But can one person turn the tide alone? So now... it's red-name hunting time!"

Just as the Captain predicted, everyone voted unanimously for him—but the vote failed. The fifteen revived players had indeed all been swapped to red-name, and with the [Missionary]'s influence, the green-names simply didn't have enough votes.

"Everyone, hide well tonight! See you in the day!" someone shouted.

A flash of white light, and everyone returned to the hall.

But this time, it wasn't Lin Tu and Kang Lina facing off against other players. When she opened her eyes, Lin Tu saw red-name players already slashing around wildly with knives. Those who had just used their skills and were still on cooldown had almost no way to fight back—they were chased and scattered in all directions.

Lin Tu picked out a few she remembered and fired several shots—bang, bang, bang—but they were all blocked. She didn't linger to fight the red-names, though. Grabbing Kang Lina, she sprinted toward the dormitory.

"We can't fight here, not at this time!" Lin Tu shouted at Kang Lina, who was about to charge into the fray. "The temperature's too low right now—in a little while, we'll get the [Partial Freeze] negative effect. We need to get back to the dorm! Secure a home ground! Besides, it's nighttime; red-names can kill whether they carry a knife or not! It's not worth it!"

Kang Lina snapped back to her senses, and the two quickly fled down the corridor back to the dorm.

"What about Black Ace!"

"We'll get negative effects, and so will Black Ace. We'll just outlast her—see who can endure to the end!"

Kang Lina almost wanted to give a thumbs-up. Then she quickly realized a problem—she didn't have that many supplies to outlast anyone! Not just her—supplies hoarded tended to get more and more varied, harder and harder to store. Wouldn't others also not bring so much stuff into a disaster world?

When they returned to the dorm, Kang Lina discovered—it was only her.

Yi Ying, Luo Yongzhi, and the others each brought out sleeping bags, hand warmers, and charcoal. And Lin Tu was the most extravagant—she hauled out a half-meter-tall, chubby stove for heating. Kang Lina could swear that stove was so big she couldn't even wrap her arms around it alone.

Then she pulled out an entire box of charcoal. Compared to the small amounts the others had, it looked like she'd just come back from a shopping spree.

Lin Tu mixed everyone's charcoal together, put it in the stove, and lit a fire. Soon the charcoal was burning, and the whole room gradually warmed up.

Yi Ying took out a thermometer and measured it frequently. The indoor temperature rose from the initial -30°C, slowly climbing to -10°C, then up to 2°C.

Kang Lina felt her body loosen up almost immediately—the [Slowed Movement] negative state seemed to be gradually receding. Before long, sitting by the fire, she even started to feel a bit too warm.

She watched the others laying out sleeping bags and couldn't help but wonder—do we really even need the sleeping bags?

"It's 7°C now. If we stay in this environment and lie in the sleeping bags for a bit, the negative state should be fully cleared," Yi Ying said with relief as she saw the temperature climb.

Lin Tu noticed Kang Lina sitting there dumbfounded and tossed her a pack of instant noodles. "Eat something, get some sleep. Tomorrow, we go find No. 42."

"Oh..." Kang Lina caught the noodles reflexively, then froze. "I'll just have a bento—I've still got quite a few stored."

"That pre-made stuff?" Lin Tu's tone was full of disdain, which left this player—who had been rather satisfied with the disaster world's food—quite incredulous.

"Pre-made?"

"Yeah. There's clearly preservative in the sauce of the stir-fried beans and the braised pork ball. And the kung pao chicken—even the lettuce tastes like preservative. The green vegetables are so 'crisp' it's awkward; you could hardly call it crisp, more like impossible to chew..."

Kang Lina, who had just gleefully retrieved a bento from her communicator, fell silent.

She looked down at the lunchbox in her hand—every time she took one out, the dishes were randomly refreshed. Each time she opened it, it felt like a wonderful surprise.

But Lin Tu's scathing review just now forced Kang Lina to take a closer look at the food.

It was true... the potatoes in this curry chicken—no matter how she looked at them, they didn't taste of starch at all. You might as well say they were made of plastic. And this braised pork belly—completely lacking in meat aroma. Honestly, it wasn't much different from plastic either.

Then Kang Lina saw Lin Tu, who had just come out of the bathroom, pull a whole stack of steaks out of her backpack, along with a bundle of vegetables.

Kang Lina: "???"

She leaned in to look. The steaks were thick, with clear marbling—they didn't look like the synthetic meat circulating in Doomsday Town at all.

"They won't go bad, will they?" She leaned in and sniffed them. There was no sign of spoilage—instead, she caught the primal aroma of fresh meat. In Lin Tu's other hand were rosemary, garlic, and greens for the instant noodles, all exceptionally fresh, still dotted with water droplets. You'd think they were just picked.

"Black pepper beef noodles—they deserve to be paired with a black pepper steak." Lin Tu pointed at the instant noodles in Kang Lina's hand.

Kang Lina looked down... and the corner of her mouth twitched. Sure enough, they were black pepper beef flavor noodles. But she wasn't someone who had never eaten instant noodles—since when did beef-flavored noodles actually contain beef?! And if she could be frank, the steak on the noodle packaging wasn't even as big as the one in Lin Tu's hand.

"Food is the first necessity of the people. People are iron, food is steel—skip a meal and you'll be weak. We still need to stand watch later; eating before intense activity prevents sprains." Kang Lina was about to say she didn't need to eat so well, when Lin Tu slammed a whole spiel of logic in her face.

Kang Lina: "..." What does standing watch have to do with sprained ankles?! But... fine, consider it my repayment for saving your life, Scientist!

The others had already gotten used to Lin Tu's ways. They even pulled out food to match—watermelon preserved with a prop, sealed chocolate petit fours. You could say that since surviving disasters with Lin Tu, no one had ever gnawed on black bread again—they just couldn't. Their Engel coefficient kept soaring, their wealth kept dropping, but their standard of living kept rising.

Then again, what was the point of living, if not for those two words—happiness?

Even in a disaster world, you just cherished the rare delicacies of life all the more.

"Guan Suixing?" Lin Tu knocked on the door of one of the compartments.

She had originally planned to leave the noodles, steak, and other food by the door, but in a moment, the door opened.