The search for Iron Blood's squad went well, and nothing untoward happened in the process. At least, nothing untoward in the sense that none of the search party lost their lives—they were not spared from encountering the supernatural entities that still roamed within the building.
The reappearance of the sun had temporarily eliminated most of the supernatural entities, but that still left a fair few monsters lurking around.
Thus, even the short journey from the third floor to the second took far more time than usual. Between the fights and protecting the heavily injured Viridescent, by the time Bai Zhi and the Players found Iron Blood and Daoloth, it had been nearly thirty minutes since they set off.
They found Iron Blood, like Traveler, wounded all over, but the difference was that Iron Blood still had a lot more fight left in him. As for Daoloth, her singed sleeve spoke of perhaps having to tend to a raging fire, while her left arm hung limply by her side*.
They had clearly just survived their own tussle with a supernatural entity just before Bai Zhi and the other Players' arrival. The incredulous eyes of the wounded could not help being drawn to Temperance Gentleheart, whose lack of any remarkable injury was itself the most remarkable thing under the circumstances.
While catching each other up on recent events, Bai Zhi could not help remarking, with a frown, "Where's Douchey,SoWhat?"
The Players all knew that, by separating from the group in the orphanage as it was now, Douchey,SoWhat's fate was almost certainly sealed.
After a pause, Daoloth said, "Yeah, we lost track of him about an hour ago."
Meanwhile, her eyes darted nervously to Traveler. He certainly looked like a living person now, but the broken glasses on his face looked eerily similar to the ones she had seen recently, under far more terrifying circumstances. For a moment, she could not help feeling as if the corpse they had burnt on the first floor had somehow come back to unlife, and an imperceptible shudder ran through her body.
"Regardless if the reloads are happening exactly as you say they are, we must hurry! Since the orphanage is overrun by monsters whenever the sun gets blocked out, what happens once the sun sets? Nobody knows, and I'm not sticking around to find out—we have to clear the quest before sunset."
"Exactly, we should thank our lucky stars that the sun is still shining."
Bai Zhi shrugged and went over to Iron Blood, who sat with his back to a nearby wall., tending to his wounds. He was laconic as ever, and the only words he had spoken thus far were during their initial meeting.
As he noticed Bai Zhi approaching, he raised his head, but neither offered a greeting nor raised an inquiry.
"What's your combat strength at right now?" Bai Zhi asked Iron Blood bluntly.
"Fifty percent."
With the particular directness typical of a military man, Iron Blood gave his answer firmly and plainly.
"If you had enough time to rest, where do you think you would be then?"
Iron Blood paused briefly, then said, "Eighty percent at best."
"Great." Bai Zhi snapped his fingers. "Let's go to the sixth floor and find somewhere we can rest for now, and stay put until we're in fighting form again. Till then, everyone, make your battle preparations."
"But the survivors..." Daoloth said hesitantly.
"I told you, I know where the survivors are. But it's not the right time to go looking for them just yet."
Bai Zhi fixed her with an impatient stare.
"We can't afford another reload."
The rooms on the sixth floor had been highly dangerous threats before, but only due to the influence of the main Man-Eating Room entity. Since Bai Zhi destroyed it, the rooms had returned to normal, and were now strewn with various undigested furniture and other debris.
Of the six Players gathered, Viridescent was the most severely wounded, followed by Iron Blood, Daoloth, Traveler and Bai Zhi, in order... whereas Temperance Gentleheart was completely unharmed. Since Douchey,SoWhat had run off on his own, the Players all assumed that he was already dead.
Considering that everyone but Temperance Gentleheart had suffered some degree of injury, the fact that she had managed to retain a full health bar was nothing short of a miracle. After all, she ranked at the bottom of the ladder in terms of raw power, even below Douchey...
She was living proof that picking the right person's coattails to ride made a world of difference.
While they were recuperating, the sun went behind the clouds two more times, but having learned from their last experience, the Players were able to stay safely hidden.
With the passage of time, the sun had begun to slowly drift toward the west. As the minutes noiselessly slipped away, it was soon late afternoon, around 3 to 4 p.m. The whole time, Bai Zhi secretly observed the other Players through half-lidded eyes.
Sadly, there was nothing in their behavior that was clearly suspect—in fact, revealing his findings about the traitor to Temperance Gentleheart earlier now led to her behaving suspiciously jumpy and paranoid.
...Just who is the "werewolf" hiding among us?
Bai Zhi raised a wondering eyebrow as he leaned against a wall.
It was imperative that he root out the hidden threat in the team before they completed the final objective, and he was running out of time.
The only reason he even knew about the Fallen was through his encounter with Lin He; no such thing had ever been mentioned in the Player community. That meant that either the Fallen were really good at staying undetected, or... they had murdered every single person who ever uncovered their identity. Both seemed equally likely.
If that is their modus operandi, then perhaps, during the last reload, the Fallen had come under some pressure from the supernatural entity which forced them to break their cover, in turn causing them to hunt down and kill those who had learned the truth. Could that be why I was forced to trigger the next reload?
Bai Zhi narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he looked at each of the other five Players in the room with him.
