Chapter 307: Escape the Desert 11

By noon, the heat had become unbearable.

Even so, no one took a single sip of water. This wasn’t because they weren’t thirsty, but because the events of the past few days had cost them a great deal of water, especially the players.

They were all parched, yet they still wouldn’t drink. They simply licked the corners of their dry mouths, gritted their teeth, and continued on their way.

Just then, a splash of an unfamiliar color suddenly appeared up ahead.

"Look! It’s an Oasis! An Oasis!"

It was unclear who shouted it first, but the entire caravan erupted in excitement.

Perry Yates, perched atop her camel, squinted at the patch of green ahead.

’Is it an illusion? This Oasis looks fake... almost like a projection.’

’Could it be a mirage?’

Perry Yates rubbed her eyes, finally confirming her suspicion. It wasn’t an Oasis at all, but a mirage.

However, she didn’t say this out loud.

After all, the appearance of the Oasis had reignited hope in the once-listless group. If she were to speak the truth, not only would no one thank her, she would likely become the target of their collective anger.

People hate the bearer of bad news more than the news itself.

While Perry Yates wasn’t particularly concerned about these people, she had no desire to become a public enemy.

In any case, whether the Oasis was real or fake, they still had to press on. It was better for them to travel with a flicker of hope than to march on in utter despair.

It was a classic case of seeing plums to quench thirst.

After walking for half a day, they finally reached the spot where the Oasis had appeared.

The group couldn’t wait to enter the Oasis, but just as Perry Yates had guessed, it wasn’t there. It had only been a mirage.

At the sight, looks of disappointment, and even despair, filled everyone’s eyes.

No water, no supplies. They would either starve to death or die of thirst in this desert.

Perry Yates noticed some of the players looking at others in a way that wasn’t right. ’These people... they aren’t thinking of dragging everyone down with them, are they?’

’On second thought, it wasn’t out of the question. After all, to clear the game, there was nothing these players wouldn’t do, let alone sacrifice the lives of a few NPCs.’

To a player, the NPCs in a survival game were no different from NPCs in a regular game. Killing them wouldn’t create the slightest psychological burden.

Perry Yates, still on her camel, quietly put some distance between herself and the others.

She used the Silver Cross to diminish her presence. As a result, apart from the caravan leader, everyone else had long since ignored Perry Yates’s very existence.

In their eyes, it was as if they couldn’t even see her.

So, even when she quietly led her camel away from the caravan, no one noticed she was gone.

’These people are moving too slowly. I’d better go on my own.’

Her mind made up, Perry Yates urged her camel into a gallop across the desert.

She finally stopped in a patch of cacti.

She first took out food and water, letting the camel eat and drink its fill before she got back on the road.

She could sense that she was actually very close to the Oasis. At her current pace, she could make it there in one more day at most.

「Day eleven of the game.」

When the familiar shade of green appeared in her line of sight once more, Perry Yates confirmed it carefully. ’Okay, not a mirage this time.’ She then urged her camel to pick up the pace.

When Perry Yates reached her destination, she discovered the Oasis was encircled by a wall of thorns, with only one entrance.

And in front of that entrance, a long line had already formed.

Perry Yates observed closely and found that anyone who wanted to enter the Oasis had to undergo a detailed questioning, including their name, gender, age, occupation, purpose for visiting the Oasis, when they would leave, and so on.

After the questioning was over, one also had to pay a small piece of Gold as an entrance fee.

Half an hour later, it was finally Perry Yates’s turn.

She answered the first few questions smoothly, but when asked her purpose for coming here, Perry Yates hesitated for a moment, then said, "I want to leave this desert, so I came here."

The moment she finished speaking, Perry Yates could clearly feel several gazes land on her. The guard who had been questioning her was also looking at her strangely. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, said nothing at all.

After entering the Oasis smoothly, Perry Yates remained bothered by the guard’s look. Her intuition told her it concealed an important piece of information, one that concerned her ability to leave.

This incident made Perry Yates more cautious. Instead of casually asking someone for the way out of the Oasis, she released her butterfly Spiritual Body to gather information for her.

As for herself, she found a tree and sat down, feigning rest while actually gathering information from the plants.

As an Oasis, there was certainly no shortage of plants. Moreover, to prevent the Oasis from disappearing, destroying plants or polluting the water supply would result in extremely severe punishment.

The plants weren’t very intelligent and didn’t possess much information—a lot of it was just random gossip—but it was enough for Perry Yates to get a grasp of the situation in the Oasis.

The only downside was that Perry Yates couldn’t get any information from the plants about how to leave.

Although she hadn’t learned how to leave, one thing was certain: a route out of the desert did exist here.

Perry Yates walked the streets of the Oasis. Compared to the drab, dusty town from before, the atmosphere here was far more cheerful and relaxed. She could even hear music coming from a short distance away, where people were singing and dancing, looking utterly joyous.

Moreover, the resources here were abundant. There was a wide variety of fruit, and although the prices still weren’t low, they were a bargain compared to the town, and the quality was much better.

The extreme temperature swings between day and night in the desert meant the fruit here was all exceptionally large and sweet.

Perry Yates wasn’t short on money, so she bought quite a few things along the way, using the bulk of her camel to discreetly move them all into her Safe House.

After walking a circuit of the Oasis, Perry Yates picked a guesthouse with an owner who seemed easy to talk to and good-tempered.

Since she planned to ask the owner for information, their personality was very important.

After entering the guesthouse, Perry Yates booked a room for two days. Once she had her camel settled, she saw the guesthouse owner busy weaving a blanket by hand.

"Wow, you’re so skilled! That blanket you’re weaving is beautiful."

Hearing Perry Yates’s compliment, the owner didn’t raise her head, but the slight upward curve of her lips betrayed her pleasure.