Chapter 249 - 248: Offering Table

Chapter 249: Chapter 248: Offering Table

Xu Yiming took out a micro-camera. Near the T-junction, he found a streetlamp, and after gauging the angle and position, he secured the camera to the post.

"During the last cleanup operation, every Hunter who participated was issued a micro-camera. We submitted the footage via our phones after returning home, so we got to keep the cameras. They still work."

As he spoke, Xu Yiming looked at Feng Ling. "You must have gotten one too, right?"

Feng Ling grunted in acknowledgment. "I lost it."

The thing was tiny, smaller than a fingernail. Her clothes had been torn to shreds when she transformed into her second form in Daling Forest, so it was perfectly normal to have lost a micro-camera.

Later, when she came to Guangshan City, Su Yuqing had prepared a micro-camera setup for her. She’d given it to Huangfu Miaomiao to use, and that got lost during their escape from the KTV.

"Alright, it’s set. Let’s get out of here," Xu Yiming said, giving his phone a little shake. "We can watch the Divine Travel Team’s reaction remotely."

The world was peaceful again, and both Feng Ling and Ye Zheng were very satisfied.

The group walked on, following the perimeter of the urban area.

The farther Feng Ling walked, the more familiar her surroundings seemed. At first, she thought it was just because the streets all looked alike, but after walking two or three kilometers, she felt like she was back at the Maze entrance.

Just as she was thinking that, a familiar caw came from above: "CAW!—"

The Crow was perched securely on a streetlamp, watching them come back.

Li Qing said, "It thinks we want to leave the Maze, so it’s asking if we need it to open the entrance."

Feng Ling glanced back the way she had come.

From this perspective, the distance between the Maze entrance and the safe house really wasn’t that far.

She had just gone the wrong way at the start.

If she hadn’t headed deeper into the city after entering the Maze, and had explored along this main road at the perimeter instead, she would have found the safe house in under half an hour.

’...Wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right, either.’

’If I hadn’t activated the safe house by worshipping the god, it probably wouldn’t have mattered which way I went; the result would have been the same.’

Feng Ling quickly put it out of her mind. In her view, agonizing over whether past decisions were right or wrong was a waste of time.

She led the team past the Crow and continued onward.

They occasionally encountered Mouse Monsters along the way.

Compared to the swarms of Mouse Monsters inside the city proper, the ones on the outskirts were few and far between. They never encountered more than five at a time, making them easy to deal with.

Feng Ling had the Cat Spider and Cat Owl eat as many of the dead mice as they could. She threw the leftovers into the shrubbery or trash cans—anything to keep the Divine Travel Team from easily discovering them.

As for whether other Mouse Monsters might find them and deliver them to other offering tables, Feng Ling couldn’t worry about that.

After walking another two or three kilometers, Feng Ling found an offering table, just as she’d hoped.

The table was empty. Without a word, Ye Zheng rushed forward and started smashing it to pieces. Feng Ling wasn’t idle either; axe in hand, she patiently chopped the table legs into small chunks.

As she worked, the Illusion of Wind Mother stood beside her, watching her with a stern gaze, just as she remembered.

Perhaps it was a change in her mindset, but not only was Feng Ling not nervous, she even started joking. She said to the Illusion, "Wind Mother, I’m not destroying public property. I’m maintaining public safety~"

A Mouse Monster suddenly darted out. Feng Ling’s sharp eyes caught it, and with a SWOOSH, her Bone Blade took off its head. Feng Ling let out a relaxed breath and said, "And I’m not bullying my classmates. I’m eliminating an invasive species."

The Illusion remained stone-faced, its gaze filled with reproach.

Feng Ling stopped looking at the Illusion and sighed softly. "I should have gone to see you last year. It’s a shame..."

I never got the chance.

’Now that I can see this Illusion... I wonder if this counts as some sort of compensation.’

"Feng Ling, let’s go!" Ye Zheng called out from a short distance away.

"Coming!" Feng Ling called back, unable to stop herself from complaining, "Next time we come into the Maze, I’m bringing a skateboard. My step count is already over twenty thousand."

Xu Yiming chimed in, "It would’ve been great if the truck’s tires hadn’t been destroyed. A drive around the perimeter would’ve taken less than an hour."

Feng Ling looked at Xu Yiming. "Oh, right. The camera should have recorded something by now. Want to take a look?"

"Let’s watch while we walk," Xu Yiming said, pulling out his phone and opening the camera feed.

The screen was empty at the moment, so he scrubbed the playback timeline back a little and finally saw something.

"The Divine Travel Team took a detour..." Xu Yiming said, a little confused, and handed the phone to Feng Ling.

Feng Ling took the phone and saw the Divine Travel Team reach the spot where the offering table had been. Instead of stopping, it made an incredibly smooth turn and headed down the other arm of the T-junction.

If the entire Maze were seen as a giant clock, the Divine Travel Team was moving clockwise, while Feng Ling’s group was moving counter-clockwise.

After watching, Feng Ling passed the phone to Li Qing so he could see as well.

"They’re like students in a cafeteria line," Feng Ling said. "When one window runs out of food, they just rush over to the next one."

Li Qing: "..."

He handed the phone back to Xu Yiming.

"I’m guessing the system has some way of letting the Maze Master sense the location of the offerings, which is why the Divine Travel Team changed its route," Li Qing speculated.

Feng Ling asked curiously, "If we destroy every offering table and all the offerings, will the Divine Travel Team just keep circling this road endlessly?"

Li Qing pursed his lips. "...I think they would just turn back."

Feng Ling thought for a moment. "That makes sense. If all the dishes are empty and even the plates are smashed, of course the person eating won’t bother trying to get food."

Li Qing said hesitantly, "That’s one way to look at it... I was thinking that for the Maze Master to split off a Divine Travel Team like this, it must consume energy. If it can’t successfully retrieve the offerings, the more times it splits, the more energy it will waste."

An idea suddenly struck Xu Yiming. "So if it splits, we kill the copy. If we do that a few times, could we weaken the Maze Master?"

"Theoretically, yes..." Li Qing frowned in thought. "But since we’ve already prepared a large amount of explosives to attack the main body directly, there doesn’t seem to be any need to use such a tedious method, right?"

Ye Zheng said with irritation, "The mountain is too big. We don’t have enough explosives left."

"What if we bring more in from outside the Maze?" Xu Yiming ventured. "The Guangshan Branch’s armory is definitely not short on explosives. We might even be able to requisition more powerful weapons."

Ye Zheng immediately shot him down. "The requisition process isn’t as simple as you think. Don’t assume the person in charge of every branch is like..."

She glanced back and saw Xu Yiming’s face. Her turbulent thoughts suddenly cleared a little, and she shut her mouth with a huff, saying no more.

Xu Yiming didn’t seem to mind her unfinished sentence. He continued, "Weapons are made to be used against our enemies. Normally, with Alien Species hiding within the city, we don’t get the chance to use WMDs. Now that we’re dealing with the Maze Master, we should naturally put everything to good use."

"That’s a good point," Feng Ling said with a nod, turning to Xu Yiming. "We don’t all need to go get weapons. We can split up. How about you go find Han Xu and try to requisition some WMDs?"