Life Game In Other World
Chapter 350: Shadow (Please Follow, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 350: Chapter 350: Shadow (Please Follow, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

The furious snowstorm cut through the secluded canyon entrance, with the howling wind echoing mournful hues.

A speeding snowmobile burst through the storm’s barrier and entered the tranquil gorge.

The snowmobile stopped on the sparkling, pure white ground.

A middle-aged man who looked honest and dependable jumped down from the snowmobile. He walked toward the snow-white spider in front of him, now dead, piled up like a small mountain, blocking the entrance to the gorge.

He swallowed nervously.

At this moment, several young Wilderness Wanderers also jumped down from the snowmobile, looking up in shock at the massive carcass.

"Is this the Blood Spider?"

The leading young Wilderness Wanderer tilted his head back; he couldn’t even take in the entirety of the colossal corpse with his gaze. He lowered his head to glance at the middle-aged man in front of him and said, somewhat dazedly, "Lord Wick, is this the Eagle?"

Wick was taken aback for a moment. When he had previously assessed that He Ao was an Eagle, he hadn’t expected He Ao to manage such an easy kill of one of the most terrifying exotic beasts near their camp.

Was this the Eagle? This was a freaking Giant Dragon!

"Ahem," he coughed discreetly, "you believe in my judgment now, right?"

Without waiting for the young man to question further, he continued, "Let’s get to work. He’s drawn away the nearby powerful exotic beasts for us. Once those beasts come back, we won’t be able to take the Blood Spider’s corpse."

"Okay."

Two more snowmobiles drove into the canyon.

Everyone quickly set to work.

----

In the gently swaying dark carriage, He Ao leaned against the inner wall, watching the dim light seeping through the cracks of the door.

It was the glow of bright streetlights shining on the carriage door and peering through.

Such bright lights would never be found on the wilderness.

The vehicle had already entered the city.

He Ao glanced at the walkie-talkie on his chest.

At this moment, the walkie-talkie was out of communication range and couldn’t reach Wick, but He Ao knew that the contingency plan he had put in place was still in effect.

The corpse of a C-level exotic beast held a great attraction for other beasts of similar abilities.

However, each part of its body could be used for special purposes. If sold in the black market, it would fetch a substantial sum.

He Ao had only taken the heart, but that didn’t mean he had given up on the other parts.

He had used the scent of the Secret Medicine to draw away nearby exotic beasts that could be attracted by the Blood Spider’s carcass, creating time for Wick and the others to transport the remains of the Blood Spider.

Wick would help He Ao sell the carcass, taking a certain service fee from the proceeds, which would then be transferred directly into He Ao’s Cryptocurrency account.

Although the beast tide also had a formidable oppressive force, He Ao did not intend to advance during the beast tide.

Firstly, there were no C-level exotic beasts in the beast tide, and based on He Ao’s previous experience with the ritual, the stronger the opponent in the ritual, the better the effect.

Secondly, the pressure from the beast tide wasn’t enough; it wouldn’t push He Ao into an absolute predicament.

Therefore, the most suitable place for the ritual was still within the city.

The shaking carriage slowly came to a stop, and voices of the working staff gradually emerged from outside the door.

This was still a convoy of the Mining Group; He Ao had ’coincidentally’ encountered this convoy on the road and hitched a ride.

This convoy was the very same one He Ao had used to leave the city.

Although He Ao had timed it, estimating that the convoy’s round trip would take about three days and had specifically waited according to the route previously mentioned by Nell’s father, he had successfully intercepted the convoy.

He Ao had already acquired the convoy’s password, so slipping in was easy.

The convoy was a small one, and most of the carriages on the return journey were loaded with rare ores or some furs.

He Ao was now leaning against the furs.

Just like last time, after the vehicle came to a halt, the carriage was unlocked but not opened.

He Ao set down a stack of banknotes as the fare and then gently pushed open the door and stepped out, into what seemed to be a fur warehouse district.

The vicinity was still patrolled by security personnel, but He Ao was no longer as cautious as he had been on his first visit.

The physical prowess and various skills that came with being a "Martial Artist" enabled him to easily slip through the watchful eyes of the security, finding himself back on the streets.

He lifted his gaze toward the brightly lit skyscrapers in the distance.

This city was not as prosperous as Dawn City, not even comparable to Kaye City. Under the flickering lights was an oppressive twilight, and the ongoing heavy snowfall draped the city in a layer of silvery white.

It was like a splendid quilt thrown over a corpse filled with the stagnation of death.

He Ao had left Rock City as day neared Daybreak, and now upon his return, the night had deepened.

He needed to wait for daybreak in this pitch-black city, all on his own.

He Ao took a few steps forward, passing an anomaly in the dark corner.

It was a man in a tattered overcoat, his features obscured by a disheveled beard frosted with glittering ice particles.

He appeared young, no more than thirty years old, curled up in a corner of the street.

His shoulders were covered with snow, concealing his cracked shoes.

This was a homeless man, frozen in a huddled position, motionless.

He Ao slowly squatted down and reached out to touch his skin.

A sensation of icy stiffness swiftly returned from the touch.

It seemed that He Ao’s touch disrupted the body’s delicate balance, causing the rigid form to tip to one side and crash to the ground. He Ao now saw the man’s face under the beard, he was "smiling."

This was a frozen homeless man.

As his body fell, a long plastic bag that had served as his ’bed’ became visible underneath him, and the worn overcoat was all he had for warmth.

He Ao righted the homeless man’s body and continued his way toward the city center.

By the next morning, municipal workers would take him away for cremation; Rock City’s government provided a special subsidy to crematoria to cover the expenses of incinerating homeless individuals.

The subsidy wasn’t much, and to keep costs low, crematoria would stack dozens of bodies together in a large furnace for mass cremation.

Afterward, these ashes wouldn’t be placed in privately rented gravesites. Instead, the crematoria would collectively dump them in the wilderness for burial.

Some cost-saving crematoria even secretly poured the ashes down the sewers.

In life, these homeless had lost everything, and in death, no trace of them remained.

Not long after He Ao departed, a mother with a child emerged into the night.

Staggering forward, she approached the deceased homeless man, touched him to confirm his death,

and then laboriously stripped him of his ragged overcoat. She rummaged through the dead man’s pockets for any spare change and pocketed what little money she found.

Once finished, she knelt down, drew a cross on her chest before the homeless man’s corpse, pressed her hands together in apparent contrition.

After a little while, she stood up, wrapped her child in that tattered overcoat, and left with difficulty.

In the shadows in the distance, He Ao stood at the end of the street, watching the mother walk away.

If Nell were still young, and there were no older siblings at home after their father’s death, he and his mother might also have met this same fate.

In Rock City, there are thousands of miner families just like this one,

and more and more people are gradually becoming homeless, freezing to death on the streets.

He Ao turned away and continued walking.

A massive and burdensome shadow was enveloping the city, with innumerable dark tentacles stretching out from it, reaching every corner of the city.

These tentacles pressed down on the back of every impoverished person, so heavily they could barely breathe.