CH 3

Chapter 3 Arctic World(3)

Name: Qian Yue

Occupation: Beggar

Level: 1

Health: 45/100 【Frostbite】

Stamina: 62/100 【Hunger】

Mental points: 79/80

The status indication following the first two values has changed, and the colors have also changed accordingly. “Frostbite” is displayed in red, “Hunger” is displayed in orange, while only the last stat remains in healthy green.

【Frostbite】: Injury caused by extreme cold. Reduced mobility, continuous decrease in health until body temperature returns to normal.

As if to correspond to this sentence, Qian Yue watched her health drop a bit again, becoming “Health: 44/100.”

【Hunger】: Stamina decreases 30% faster when moving.

As for the last stat, because it is still green, it has no effect except for the slightly subtle wording of “Mental State: Normal.”

“…Huh, this is pretty complex.”

Qian Yue’s head started to ache again. She rarely had a break from work, thus she really can’t be bothered to use her tiny brain.

She turned her head and opened her backpack.

Qian Yue’s current inventory is as follows:

Hard bread x13, Vitamin C x15, Bandage x1, Mental Suppressant x10, Blueprint (Roasted Meat) x1, Item Fragment (Meat) x2, and 600 yen.

Unknowingly, she had accumulated 42 items that her inventory was almost full.

Except for the ones she got at the beginning, the three extra Hard breads, five Vitamin C, one Bandage, and two Item Fragments were all obtained from the two just now.

Qian Yue had never seen a bandage before, so it was likely a profession-spawn item, but it had the same healing effect as Vitamin C and couldn’t be used multiple times, so Qian Yue lost interest in it.

What a pity for there are many different uses for a bandage besides wrapping wounds.

“Indeed, a game’s not the same as reality.” Qian Yue murmured then used several items.

The effects of these basic items like hard bread and vitamin C restore 10%.

Qian Yue was currently at level 1, and the upper limit of each stat was 100. This meant that these basic items could only help her restore 10 stat points for now.

After using two hard bread, Qian Yue’s stamina stat became 82, and the orange 【Hunger】 status disappeared, turning into the green 【Eighty percent full】, all negative effects disappeared.

Then, after using four vitamins c, her health stat immediately became 85.

However, despite bringing her health stat back to the safe green zone, the words 【Frostbite】did not disappear.

The bleeding buff also remained.

Qian Yue ignored her mental points stat which was originally green.

Qian Yue thought to herself: Seems like keeping warmth needs to be prioritized. Otherwise, if my health stat keeps dropping, no amount of meds can keep me alive.

After settling everything, Qian Yue picked up a random mud block that fell from the wall and started running through her “slack-off” strategy in her head.

She had just taken a nearly three hours nap, which meant that she maintained a low-energy state throughout— Although she may have consumed some stamina from teaching someone a lesson, it was no big deal.

Under the conditions of low temperature, her health stat dropped most rapidly. This is to say, she would lose 20 health stat points every hour and would need two vitamin C to restore it.

Next was her stamina, which decreased by about ten stat points every hour, one and a half hard bread is required.

Her mental points stat decreased the slowest, and at this rate, she could even only use one mental suppressant every two days, which was incredibly cost-effective.

However, her high mental point stat may be due to her “half-day off” hiding indoors.

If she started calculating from now on, there are still nine and a half days left till the end of the instance…

During the process of exploration, Qian Yue would have to engage with the outdoors, and the respective amount of stamina consumed would increase. This meager amount of items probably wouldn’t be enough.

She thought for a while and finally made the following plan:

【Slack-Off Strategy (Temporary)】

【Materials needed to pass the game in a low-energy state:】

Common medicine: 150 doses (12/150)

Common food: 130 portions (11/130)

Mental suppresant: 30 doses (10/30)

*”Common” refers to items that restore 10% stat points.

*”Subjected to daily reviews and inventory count, can be changed at

any time, not hoping to strike it rich, but for the sake of my lazing off happiness!”

After completing the strategy, Qian Yue couldn’t help but exclaim to herself, “I really am amazing!”

03:48:56

Only ten minutes before nightfall, with the snowstorm outside getting heavier…. A group of people are trudging through the deep snow.

These are the same people who teleported to the straw hut with Qian Yue earlier.

Shortly after the game started, they split into two teams for exploration. Right now, a scholar and a doctor walk side by side.

As they approach the camp, their anxious hearts finally begin settling.

“We’re almost there.”

“Thankfully there’s a gnarled tree over there. Otherwise, it’d be tough to find our way back.”

It’s a snowy wasteland out there, with snow piled several feet high.

If there were any suitable shelters nearby, they wouldn’t have bothered to come back.

Of course, they also had their eyes on the information held by the other team.

The scholar asked, “Do you think those two hunters have found a new base and won’t be coming back?”

“It’s highly unlikely. The village is in the direction we went, and they went towards the forest,” the doctor replied.

Now that the server has just started, it’s the time when most people are online. The closer they get to the village, the more limited the number of shelters, so the two of them had considered moving their base when they entered the village earlier. However, they immediately gave up the idea after witnessing a bloodbath.

The village is great, but you need to be lucky to survive there.

On the other hand, places like forests may have shelters like caves or hunters’ cabins, but they are also very dangerous, even if no one is trying to take them over.

So overall, the thatched cottage they are currently living in is the safest place available for the first few days of the game.

While they were talking, they saw another team in the distance.

But there was only one person.

“What’s going on? Where’s the other person?”

As they approached, the person’s poor condition became obvious. He wearily waved his hand and said, “Let’s talk about it after we get back. It’s almost dark.”

Upon hearing this, the two did not probe further. The three of them quickly made their way to the straw hut. The doctor suddenly recalled that there was still a person who hadn’t left the hut.

“I wonder if that woman has woken up yet.”

“It’s been so long, she’s probably dead.”

“Wait.” The hunter grabbed the other two and pointed to the messy footprints at the door, whispering, “Careful. Looks like several people have been here.”

The three held their breath and mustered up their energy, exchanging glances and then slowly approaching the door.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice came from inside, “Attempting a nighttime robbery by blocking the entrance?”

The three entered the room, feeling a bit awkward. When they saw

Qian Yue still sitting in the corner, their expressions became even more complicated.

Finally, it was the hunter, He Junmin, who broke the silence, “Has anyone been here?”

He had just used several doses of Vitamin C hence his pale face had visibly recovered slightly, but his voice still sounded very tired.

Qian Yue nodded casually and said, “Yeah, but they’ve run away,” though it may have sounded dismissive, her words were not spoken lightly.

The phrase “they’ve run away” could serve as a warning to let these people know that she wasn’t a pushover and to deter them from having any inappropriate thoughts.

He Junmin wasn’t surprised, but the scholar Jian Lecheng and the doctor Ah Kai exchanged subtle glances.

Someone had already found this straw hut, and it was likely that they would come to steal it soon.

It seemed like their previous plan had fallen apart, and they needed to find a chance to leave tomorrow.

Just then, the sky outside suddenly darkened.

He Junmin checked his watch and said, “It’s time.”

04:00:00.

The moment the time struck four, the world outside was cast into darkness as the light dimmed and the shadows fade.

Only the clear moon in the sky emitted a faint glow, illuminating the snowy world.

The wind and snow grew heavier, and the straw roof rustled, giving an inexplicable feeling that something major was about to happen.

“This feels strange…” Jian Lecheng couldn’t help but rub his shoulders and shiver. “Has the temperature dropped again?”

The next second, he screamed, “My character’s status has changed, my health and stamina are dropping even faster!”

Qianyue also checked her character’s stat window and confirmed that her stats were dropping faster, but they hadn’t fallen below 60 yet.

She did not use any items; she wanted to see how much health she could lose from freezing overnight.

“My stats are also decreasing. We need to get warmth first,” Qian Yue said.

Ah Kai turned to He Junmin and asked, “Did you find firewood in the forest? I have a flintstone.”

He Junmin nodded and shook his head. “I did find some, but I don’t recommend starting a fire.”

He turned to look through the wall opening at the outside world, and the other two followed suit.

In the darkness, the distant cedar forest looked like a witch in a fairytale cloak, making them feel an inexplicable bout of uneasiness.

“There are wolves in the forest, and if nothing unexpected happens, the red-named monsters tonight should be them,” He Junmin said.

Both of them were startled.

A “red-named” monster, to explain in terms of online gaming, refers to those small monsters that wander around the map and initiate battles.

Before entering the game, both of them had been on the forum and heard rumors about red-named monsters roaming around at night, but they did not expect it to be true.

He Junmin also explained the situation where he and another person encountered a wild wolf in the forest during the day.

“Just like ordinary monsters, they will actively launch attacks and drop item fragments or materials after death, and the rewards are quite rich.”

Jian Lecheng’s interest grew as he listened.

After several hours of exploration, they had also roughly mastered the rules of the game. Although the “monster” setting was similar to that of ordinary online games, the NPCs were completely different.

Ordinary NPCs do not even have time to protect themselves and would not give them any reward-based tasks.

It was even harder to find the special NPCs who were rumored to release “hidden tasks”, as this wasn’t a traditional web game and

NPCs wouldn’t have a big golden question mark above their heads.

The two of them walked around the village today and watched other players digging graves and opening coffins to find “treasure chests”, but they did not gain much themselves.

Instead, they used up quite a few items which caused their ‘wallets’ to shrink in size.

Jian Lecheng worried, “But we are unarmed, it’s no easy task to kill a wild wolf, ain’t it?”

He Junmin pursed his lips, “That’s not the case.”

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, “Although these wolves are intelligent, this is but a game after all.”

As he said this, he suddenly seemed to realize that he had accidentally let slip and immediately stopped talking.

But the other two were aroused by his words.