Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 423: Chapter 261: Zone-wide Announcement

As the two of them were lying on the ground in disarray, gazing up at the brilliant, starry sky, they both caught a flash of light in the corners of their eyes.

Turning their heads, they saw their wristwatches were automatically glowing.

’The production team again?’

The two of them curiously raised their wrists and, sure enough, saw a few lines of text appear on the watch screens.

[A contestant has successfully captured an American Crocodile. Time remaining until the end of the competition: 2 days, 21 hours.]

"They’re talking about you, right?"

"Probably. Who knows."

Lin Chen sat up and shrugged. "It’s possible someone else caught one, too. I think that Andre guy could definitely do it, but since he was still setting bait just a little while ago, I doubt he could’ve gotten one in such a short time."

"But it doesn’t matter. With everything I’ve gathered so far, if someone can still surpass me and take first place, I’ll accept defeat gracefully. For the last two days, I just want to slack off."

"Don’t slack off! Make me something delicious. I’ve never had crocodile meat before!"

"Seeing as you helped carry it, you’ll get your share."

「At the same time.」

Across the Dalian Mountain Range, the other five remaining contestants were also awake, each setting up various hunting traps.

When they saw the message from the production team suddenly pop up, their faces changed as if they’d been struck by lightning.

"An American Crocodile?? Dammit, how could it be an American Crocodile!"

"How could anyone capture an American Crocodile without modern weapons? That thing’s a monster weighing several hundred kilograms!"

"Even if you could chop down trees, the traps you could make wouldn’t be enough to do any real damage to an American Crocodile. How on earth did that guy do it? Did he find some kind of discarded weapon?"

"Forget it, forget it. First place is definitely out of reach now. But the prize for second place is pretty high, too. It’s not time to give up yet."

Unlike in the past, the top five contestants in this competition would all receive prize money, and only eight contestants were left.

Surviving this long meant that every one of them had a wealth of outdoor survival knowledge and skills. At this stage, they all felt they were certain to win some prize money; the only question was how much.

"You’re not thinking about going for some prize money?"

At the cave entrance, Lin Chen patted the dust off his pants and stood up, feeling a burning pain in his shoulder.

The bamboo-strip rope was certainly strong and useful, but its drawback was its coarseness. It could easily chafe the skin when pulling heavy objects.

"Me?"

Erica pointed to herself. "Are you kidding me? I’ve barely done any real hunting. I just go to the seaside every day to pick up a few things to eat. And my shelter is just the one you abandoned. I have basically no points."

"You could come out to sea with me. We could catch a bunch of big Lobsters, crabs, sea urchins, and stuff from the seabed. Your score would definitely go up faster than the contestants who haven’t gone into the ocean. Without proper tools, it’s impossible to build a shelter that’s worth much anyway."

"I’ll pass," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "That’s too much work. I’d have to stay up late, and it’s bad for my skin. After all that exhausting effort, the best I could hope for is to scrape into fifth place. How much is the prize money, anyway? Two hundred thousand? Or five hundred thousand?"

"Uh... I don’t really remember. You know, the lower-ranking prizes weren’t on my radar, so I never bothered to memorize them."

"It’s not worth risking the condition of my skin for that little bit of money. The cost of a trip to a beauty salon afterward might be more than that amount. Besides, most of the contestants here are probably in it for the prize money, right? Better to leave it for those who need it. I’ve already achieved my goal for entering this competition."

Lin Chen’s mouth twitched. He silently gave her a thumbs-up. "...Spoken like a true wealthy lady."

If she wasn’t competing, it would become a five-way race among seven people. Excluding him and Andre, three of the remaining five would win prize money. For those who needed the funds, the odds had certainly gotten a lot better.

After a short rest, he found a nearby tree with relatively soft wood. He shaved off the rough outer bark, exposing the soft woody layer underneath.

He cut off a palm-sized piece, folded it in half, and placed it as a cushion on the chafed, red spot on his right shoulder before shouldering the bamboo basket again.

The way back to the bamboo hut from here was all uphill. Dragging it was no longer an option; he could only rely on his own two feet, one step at a time.

"I’ll go with you!"

Seeing this, Erica also made a move to shoulder the bamboo basket.

But after getting it onto her shoulders, she found she couldn’t stand up no matter how hard she tried, as if she were carrying a mountain instead of a basket.

"You should just rest. This basket is over a hundred kilograms. Your skin is so delicate; I can’t afford to pay you hundreds of thousands of US Dollars if your shoulder gets scraped. Besides, even for me, this weight is a huge strain. I’d probably have to rest every few dozen meters... Forget it, this is too inefficient. I’ll unload some of it first. Worst case, I’ll just make an extra trip."

As he spoke, he could already feel the basket on his back uncontrollably sagging downward.

The bamboo basket had a limited weight capacity. If it broke halfway up the path, that would be a real disaster.

On top of that, climbing a mountain while carrying such a heavy load was pushing it. He decided to just take out a third of the crocodile meat from his basket and piled it up in front of Erica.

"Your mission is to guard it for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

"Yes sir! Mission accepted!"

Watching Lin Chen’s staggering figure disappear into the distance, Erica didn’t stay idle. She took her own bamboo basket out from the cave, divided the remaining chunks of meat into two even piles, and gave it another try.

This time, she could barely stand up, but walking was still a struggle.

This was a load of around eighty kilograms. On top of that, she had already spent over an hour dragging the carcass, so her stamina was nearing its limit. There was no way she could carry it.

Even at peak strength, trying to climb a slope while carrying this much weight was unrealistic.