“Other means… could it be…” Xia Li suddenly shuddered, while recalling the scene when everyone had gathered during the day.
At that time, the players recruited by Baron Xushinige, including her, had assembled outside the Death Game area, yet unexpectedly had not gathered the fifty-person number required to enter here.
As a result, Nefiria had found two pairs of fellows who had unauthorizedly gone missing from the thickets; their appearance at that time…
“Yes, it is exactly as you are thinking,” Weeping of the Shadow’s tone had already become rather joyful. Clearly, this bastard broken sword was thoroughly enjoying itself, “While carrying out… that kind of dual exercise, they emitted large amounts of special pheromones. And because you unintentionally got too close to them, it caused large-scale contamination, and you developed a ‘feeling’: this led your body to also begin secreting small amounts of similar substances, with the result that at night you unexpectedly attracted the sleep-muddled Lunene.”
“Mm… but, girls and girls…”
“This is actually the mainstream among beast-form people,” Weeping of the Shadow said, “Of course, I must clarify one point, and that is that beast-form people do have male individuals; it is simply that you have not noticed them.”
“Ah ah?”
“Because after beast-form people are parasitized, the hormone secretion inside their bodies is completely altered—this point is very similar to crabs parasitized by crab barnacles.”
“What?”
“In short, if a male is subjected to this kind of modification, that is a true ultimate humiliation in the genuine sense: his body will become thin, slender, and feminized because of the enormous changes in internal hormone secretion; the male sexual characteristics will disappear, and the original reproductive system will also decline and become sterile. In the end, they will become even more petite and soft than ordinary females…”
“Uh… so terrifying…” Xia Li suddenly felt a bit fortunate—although the current her was female, at least this body was still rather robust.
If she truly turned into a fragrant soft little cake, she would definitely go crazy!
“Yes, but it is said that in the past, there seemed to be quite a few people who were still very willing to do this… of course, the people of that era played far too elaborately; we cannot understand it now,” Weeping of the Shadow expressed, “In this era, aside from an extremely small number of people of the heavens sentenced to exile, it is basically already very difficult to see male beast-form people. Among the beast-form people produced by natural reproduction, 98% are female; they cannot leave behind their own genes, and within the beast-form people community also belong to the marginal figures… although sometimes they are treated as mascots by the beast-form people community.”
“In other words, the reproduction of beast-form people is… between females and females…”
“Correct. In short, we call it ‘JIAO.WEI’—oh, that’s right, in the literal sense,” Weeping of the Shadow said in high spirits. Xia Li had a feeling that if this thing were not a sword but a person, it might already be laughing out loud with a “jejeje” right now! “Mm, previously when approaching those two pairs of girls, your ears and tail produced a little special ‘feeling,’ right?”
“Mm-mm, could it be…”
“That was the parasite detecting the external hormones emitted from their bodies… in short, the reason those two pairs of little sisters were hiding in the thicket at that time was indeed not swimming, but rather… ehehehe…” Weeping of the Shadow muttered, “In short, the tail of beast-form people, that is, the main external structure of the parasite, after receiving hormone stimulation, will begin producing special gametophytes. By having the tails of two individuals intertwine with each other, and then…”
“Wah leh?! Stop talking stop talking!” Xia Li’s face instantly burned scalding hot, just like a soldering iron that had been roasted in a fire for a while, “This kind of thing…”
“…Actually it is not so worth making a fuss over. As long as the parties involved have no intention, the probability of a gametophyte carrying dual exogenous genes—that is, the genes of the other party’s parasitic organism and its host genes—successfully combining with the other party’s reproductive cells and implanting is zero. Therefore, this kind of behavior can be completely healthy and safe, and also does not require wasting large amounts of rubber to manufacture that thing.”
“Whew… then that’s still fine.” Xia Li breathed a sigh of relief.
She did not wish that one day when returning to the Federal Empire, she would be dragging a whole string of cute beast-eared little fur balls by her side.
In that case, just the strange gazes of everyone would be enough to make her unable to hold on!
However…
“Eh wait, after saying so much, we seem to have forgotten to discuss a very important question, right?” Xia Li suddenly said, “Before going to sleep, didn’t I tell you that your task was to maintain vigilance and prevent danger from approaching me?”
“Ah… ehehehe… but I feel that Lunene probably does not belong to the category of ‘danger’…”
“Good fellow, so you just watched from the side?! Hmm? Even when her situation was clearly abnormal?!”
“Uh… being influenced by hormones while in an unconscious state, then instinctively doing a little of the things one loves to do, does not count as a particularly abnormal situation… right?!” Weeping of the Shadow argued, “Moreover, in theory I have the function of ‘auxiliary scientific research recording.’ In order to observe the physiological activities of beast-form people, therefore I considered…”
“As expected! It is necessary to send you to the scrap recycling station!”
“Eek eek eek eek eek eek eek eek—Your Highness please forgive me! I do not want to stay together with rusty scrap copper and iron, as well as all sorts of garbage! The previous two times after you sold me, I was thoroughly violated from head to toe by those terrifying things!”
“Hmph, you also know the word ‘violated’?”
“Uh, you fundamentally cannot imagine how terrifying the situation inside the recycling station is! One time I was even thrown beside a pile of discarded lead-acid batteries that were leaking fluid, surrounded by a pile of sticky zinc oxide and greened bronze blocks…”
“And then what?! Anyway, when you are automatically teleported back, the stains and garbage stuck on you will not be brought back together,” Xia Li said, “Moreover, ordinary sulfuric acid alone cannot corrode you, right? Unless—”
Just as the one person and one sword were busy bickering inside their minds, the door of the dormitory was suddenly pushed open, and a fox-eared loli holding a simple pistol walked in: “Miss Xia Li and Miss Lunene? Are you there?”
“We are, what’s the matter?” Xia Li asked, “I remember it is not yet our turn for duty.”
“It’s not duty!” The fox-eared loli swung her large tail and shook her head, “It’s… uh… a good thing!”
“What good thing?”
“Do you still remember the text we saw in front of the red light wall of the ‘Limbo’ area when we entered? It wrote ‘Whether advance prepayment of rewards is allowed: Allowed.’”
“Ah… it seems there really was such a thing,” Xia Li answered while waking up the Lunene who had just fallen asleep again, “So?”
“‘Advance prepayment of rewards’ is a kind of rule in Death Games; approximately 60% of Games allow doing so,” this time, the one answering her was Xushinige’s confidant Nefiria, “In short, it is providing a portion of the rewards at the end of the Game to the players in the early or middle stage of the Game. To a certain degree, this can simplify the difficulty of the Game.”
“Oh?”
“However, these prepaid rewards are rarely blatantly laid out for everyone to take. A more common practice is hiding them somewhere inside the Game scene,” Nefiria said while leading the two down the stairs of the dormitory building, “In addition, if a Game participant dies before obtaining these rewards, the prepaid rewards originally belonging to them will also disappear.”
“Is that so…”
“That’s right. But the rewards settled uniformly at the end of the Game can be obtained by the survivors belonging to the same team—in short, it is ‘the living take all,’” Nefiria said, “After clearing out the enemies in this school, we spent quite a bit of time before finally finding the location of the ‘prepaid rewards.’”
Under Nefiria’s lead, Xia Li, Lunene, and that fox-eared loli arrived at the first floor of the small teaching building.
At the end of the corridor, inside a stairwell disguised as a utility room, they saw the secret passage found by Baron Xushinige and his assistants: its entrance was covered by a disguised floorboard, and a water bucket with a mop inserted had deliberately been placed on top.
Clearly, Xushinige and the others must have spent quite a bit of effort before finding it.
The secret passage itself was extremely narrow, and the space below was also dark and small.
However, fortunately, Xia Li did not need to go down there—because the things hidden inside had already been brought out by Xushinige and the others, and placed in the music classroom of the teaching building.
“This… isn’t this a gacha machine?!”
“Correct, that’s right. It seems you have also heard of this kind of machine from ancient Earth,” Xushinige, who was currently examining this machine, said. Beside him, the more than thirty people who currently had no duty or patrol tasks had already gathered in the music classroom, “Your broad learning and multiple talents truly leave a deep impression on this one.”
“Mm… however, this thing is said to require inserting coins before one can twist for eggs, right?” Xia Li looked at the coin slot on the machine and muttered, “Our money…”
“Of course one cannot insert money into it. However, no problem; every one of you is already carrying specialized currency on your person.”