Life Game In Other World
Chapter 198: Meeting an Old Friend in the Ruins (Long - , Please Subscribe, Add to Favorites, Request Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 198: Chapter 198: Meeting an Old Friend in the Ruins (Long Chapter, Please Subscribe, Add to Favorites, Request Monthly Tickets)

In the pitch darkness of the night, He Ao calmly gazed at the somewhat blurry profile of the young girl.

Her pristine skin was covered with a lot of dust and dirt, making her appear disheveled; her gray-white combat suit was also considerably torn.

She pulled He Ao along, dodging from one dark corner to another, barely skirting the edge of the giant octopuses’ trails.

It wasn’t until the sky began to show the first light of dawn, and a fiery sun poked its head over the eastern horizon, that they managed to escape the territory of those octopuses.

"Ha hoo—"

The young girl sat on the ground, panting, and wiped the sweat from her brow.

Although last night was full of danger, they had only traveled twenty or thirty kilometers, which wasn’t a significant effort for He Ao.

According to He Ao’s current physical condition, he could walk more than fifty kilometers in an hour, and even up to a hundred kilometers in extreme situations.

Yesterday, from the starting point to the domain of the octopuses, he walked nearly four hundred kilometers in ten hours.

And yet, he still felt more than half the distance to the high tower remained.

He raised his head to look ahead, where the pitch-black tower soared straight into the clouds.

When He Ao started his journey, it pierced the clouds, and now, it still pierced the clouds.

The tower was indeed very tall, but apart from being tall, it likely possessed some kind of transcendent power.

The radius of the dwarf planet where the ruins were located was only about one thousand kilometers, and He Ao, having walked more than four hundred kilometers, was equivalent to having traversed almost half the planet’s radius.

Because the planet itself is spherical, standing on its surface means standing on an arc, and the line of sight stretching forward actually follows the tangent of the spherical surface.

As such, although the line of sight is straight and does not change, the ground actually bends down a bit with the increase of distance.

Therefore, when observing distant towering structures, one can only see their tops, not the bottoms,

And even this perspective of ’skyscrapers’ has its limits; it’s not as if, given enough height, they would always be visible to an observer.

This is because of the different densities of the atmosphere, causing different refraction of light within it.

Once the distance between the building and the observer exceeds a certain limit, the observer’s line of sight gets obstructed by the sky, and no matter how tall the structure is, it cannot be seen.

In the primary world, this limit is roughly over a hundred kilometers; even towering mountains on exceptionally clear days cannot be seen beyond this distance.

This is still in the primary world, where the radius of the planet is more than six times that of the ruins.

In the ruins, the same distance crosses a greater arc of the planet’s surface, and the planet captures less atmosphere.

Therefore, the limit of human vision in the ruins cannot possibly be farther than in the primary world.

Yet He Ao saw the tower from at least eight hundred kilometers away.

That tower itself might be an external manifestation of a ’transcendent miracle.’

Its ability to be observed, like He Ao’s talent to retrieve objects from the air, does not entirely adhere to common sense in a certain sense.

"So, how did you get here?"

After resting for a while and regaining some energy, the young girl lifted her head to look at He Ao.

"How do you know so much about the habits of those octopuses?"

He Ao did not answer her, but instead squatted down beside her.

"In fact, if you observe carefully, you’ll notice that those Wanderers have limited vision; as long as you don’t actively watch them and stay beyond their field of vision, even if you’re face to face, they won’t see you," he explained.

The girl took out a piece of compressed biscuit from her backpack, took a bite, "It’s normal for you to not notice this the first time you encounter them, of course. After all, you have the ability to kill those creatures. I can only hide from them. If you prolong the encounter, you’ll notice these patterns too."

"Is the Novice Area you entered to get to the ruins nearby?"

He Ao looked at her, puzzled.

"Yeah, every time you enter the ruins, there are always a few unlucky lucky ones who appear near the big BOSS’s nest," she said.

The girl took out the water bottle slung over her shoulder, popped the lid off, took a sip, then swallowed the compressed biscuit with the help of the water.

"So?" she looked at He Ao, "Why are you here? Your ’Novice Area’ isn’t around here, is it?"

"I walked here,"

He Ao stared at the familiar face of the young girl before him.

This girl who he had just met a few days ago, but with whom he had already developed a good ’classmate’ relationship.

Liu Nan.

Liu Nan had also entered the ruins.

It was possible for He Ao to meet another Explorer after traveling more than four hundred kilometers, and that the Explorer just happened to be Liu Nan was also possible.

According to Liu Nan’s intelligence, figuring out the movement patterns of the octopus tribe was reasonable.

Based on the friendship between Liu Nan and He Ao, as well as her personality, it was certain she would risk danger to come and pull He Ao out of trouble.

All of this made sense.

The young girl before him had indeed led He Ao out of danger.

Yes, everything made sense.

The light of dawn spilled on He Ao’s face as he opened a cloth bag on his person, revealing the lizard meat inside.

It was time for breakfast.

Liu Nan, who was nibbling on the compressed biscuit, stared blankly as He Ao started setting up the grill and took out an array of seasonings.

Although... But...

Wasn’t this a bit too much?

As the sizzling sound of the meat cooking rang out and the rich aroma, mingled with spices, drifted with the breeze to Liu Nan’s position,

She glanced at the compressed biscuit in her hand, then at He Ao’s sizzling and oily grilled meat.

Uncontrollable tears trickled down the corners of her mouth.

He Ao seemed to notice Liu Nan’s gaze as well, he looked up at her, sprinkling cumin on the meat as he gently said,

"This meat is contaminated; you can’t handle it, only I can bear it."

Although that was the logic, this person was so asking for a beating.

Liu Nan bit her silver teeth, turned her head away, and fiercely bit into a large chunk of compressed biscuit.

"By the way," He Ao said as he finished roasting the meat and began to pack up the seasonings, "how much do you think I spent on these seasonings?"

"Huh," Liu Nan was startled, turned her head back to look into He Ao’s eyes, then asked somewhat puzzled, "Aren’t these seasonings given to you by me?"

"Oh,"

He Ao packed all the seasonings, reached out for his dagger, sterilized it over the fire, cut a piece of meat from the grill, and put it into his mouth, "I remembered incorrectly."

Liu Nan watched him devour the meat voraciously, glared at him fiercely, "Eat, eat, eat, you’re not afraid of choking to death."

Then she turned around and continued fiercely biting her compressed biscuit.

He Ao smiled without saying a word, and continued to eat the barbecue in large bites.

Soon, He Ao finished the last piece of Lizard meat, which was much larger than the previous two pieces; he almost had to force it down.

As the Lizard meat entered his stomach, the energy in He Ao’s Dantian was once again filled to the brim.

He compressed and consolidated it, and soon, a new strand of ’Qi’ appeared in his Dantian.

He clicked open the attribute panel, although he had spent the entire previous day in battle or evasion, it did not affect his cultivation.

His physical stats had grown from 201 to 213—a twelve-point increase in eleven hours.

After surpassing two hundred, it became increasingly difficult to improve physical stats.

He Ao packed up his things, extinguished the flames, and looked towards Liu Nan, "Where do you plan to go next?"

"I don’t have a specific destination; I’ll just explore around."

Liu Nan thought for a moment and looked at He Ao, "What about you?"

"I plan to go check out that tower there."

He Ao looked at the distant tower that seemed to prop up the heavens and said slowly.

"Then we might have to part ways here,"

Liu Nan slowly got up, "I plan to return to a safer place near the Novice Area. I don’t have as much ability as you and can’t keep up with your pace."

"Let’s go, together."

He Ao shook his head; the area was very dangerous, and since the newbie protection time had passed, the Novice Area no longer had any safety guarantees.

If she returned now, Liu Nan, a Transcendent newbie who just reached F rank and whose Talent wasn’t combat-related, would have a much higher probability of dying than surviving.

She was clever, but not all monsters had obvious and easily discoverable weaknesses like those octopuses.

If she followed He Ao, although there was still a chance of encountering danger, at least He Ao could look out for her a bit.

It would prevent her fate from being a D-rank monster’s snack and saying goodbye for eighteen years.

"But I can’t keep up with your···"

Liu Nan seemed to hesitate, as she also appeared to understand the situation.

However, her concern might be about her poor physical condition, fearing that by the time the exploration ended, she wouldn’t even reach the tower with He Ao.

"It’s okay," He Ao shook his head, "If we can’t make it, that’s fine. After all, it’s just an exploration."

"Ah?"

Liu Nan was surprised, then she saw the smile in He Ao’s eyes, laughed, and said, "Okay then."

——An hour later——

The two walked about ten kilometers under the fiery sunrise.

Liu Nan couldn’t go any further, so they rested on a hillside. Just when they had settled down for a bit, Liu Nan suddenly stood up, pointed to the distance,

"He Ao, look, that one over there."

He Ao looked up and saw a huge Beetle with black and white stripes running towards them at high speed.

"That’s an Assault Carapace Bug," Liu Nan said excitedly, "the Research Institute’s compendium says this kind of Beetle can be tamed to be used as a means of transportation. With it, we could reach the tower,"

But she then seemed to remember something, and her mood fell, "However, this kind of Beetle is D-rank, we most likely won’t be able to catch it."

"It looks like we’re in luck."

He Ao glanced at Liu Nan with a smile.

Then he leaped out fiercely to confront the huge Beetle.

The method to tame a Beetle was simple, just knock it down.

After He Ao forcibly picked up the Beetle and slammed it to the ground over a dozen times, the Beetle finally chose to give up.

It bent low, gently rubbing its legs against He Ao’s side.

——Ten minutes later——

Liu Nan climbed cautiously onto the back of the Beetle, somewhat puzzled, looking at He Ao, "Aren’t you coming up?"

"No need."

He Ao shook his head, "I’ll come up if there’s danger later. I’ll lead the way; you just follow."

With that, he ran straight forward, leaving his back to Liu Nan.

With the help of the Beetle, they made much quicker progress.

He Ao encountered quite a few D-rank exotic beasts on the way; he pierced them all through with the sharpened bone sword he had taken from the octopus, and took the good meat off them.

By midday, He Ao found a desolate hillside, ready to set up for barbecue.

Woo—

Just then, a painful yet oppressive mourning sound suddenly rang in his ears.