No matter how many times Lin Luyao closed and reopened her eyes, the desolate highway before her remained entirely unchanged.
Lin Luyao sighed, suddenly feeling that going bankrupt right after graduation was a minor issue; her current predicament was the real thing driving her to hair loss.
No matter what, a miserable survival beats a decent death.
First, Lin Luyao checked the electric tricycle's remaining battery, which sat at a meager 30 percent, and then turned back to briefly tidy the supplies in the cargo bed.
Aside from the supply bundle she had received earlier, the cart held a 5.5-liter jug of drinking water, three packs of facial tissues, skewers of meat occupying two-thirds of a cooler, another cooler filled with vegetable and tofu-rice-cake skewers, plus some coal, a coal stove, disposable gloves, fire tongs, and a lighter.
These items should be enough to last her a couple of days in this godforsaken place, but judging by the harsh reality check the game dealt at the start, the road ahead was bound to be treacherous, and she had no clue how to leave yet.
Therefore, she needed to ration her supplies carefully.
Lin Luyao drank a few sips of water to moisten her throat, which had gone dry from tension and panic, before climbing back into the driver's seat and starting to pedal with all her might.
With the road ahead still unknown, she had to conserve the electric trike's battery for a critical moment when speed could save her life.
It was common knowledge that nights were more dangerous than days. Rather than dealing with the tall grass on either side where visibility was poor, she chose to push forward and find a secure resting place before worrying about anything else.
Pedaling along, Lin Luyao kept a sharp, watchful eye on her surroundings while occasionally checking the world channel and system interface for any valuable information.
In addition to the personal profile panel and chat module, the system interface included a task module, mall module, vehicle module, and a locked profession module.
After pedaling hard for over an hour, the waist-high weeds on both sides vanished, replaced by a gravel-strewn landscape dotted with a few thin, wind-whipped trees.
Scattered weeds still clung to the ground, growing increasingly sparse until they disappeared altogether, and a system message popped up.
[Congratulations to the player for successfully leaving the buffer zone.]
[Infinite Highway Survival Game advises players to conduct more outdoor exploration to gather sufficient supplies for exploratory dungeons.]
[Day 1 required distance: 40 kilometers (completed).]
[Day 2 required distance: 40 kilometers (unlocked / failure will result in a penalty bundle based on player attributes).]
Lin Luyao immediately stopped pedaling as her legs grew numb, feeling as though this bout of aerobic exercise equaled a whole week's worth of workouts.
Her calves were swollen and burning, and her stomach chimed in with loud, protesting growls.
She looked around, spotted no immediate danger, and decided to take a short break here.
Turning back, Lin Luyao caught sight of the marinated skewers in the cargo bed and swallowed hard, completely lacking willpower.
"I told you I didn't want to come to the newbie selection! A bunch of you just squawking and yelling until my ears hurt!"
"Who told you to grow so many ears? We can earn 10 credits just by attending one newbie training session. What a great deal!"
"Exactly! Earsong, tell me, if you were asked to run through those high-tier dungeons right now, would you dare? I'll eat my hat if you don't get skinned alive by those ruthless players!"
"Hehe, even if Earsong dared to go, given its physique, the system wouldn't assign it any high-tier tasks anyway."
All three of them chuckled at this teasing remark.
The creature called Earsong, which had spoken first, possessed a head as large as a bushel basket atop a remarkably slender body, crawling forward slowly on three limbs.
Atop its giant head, besides a single eye right in the middle, the most striking feature was the dense cluster of funnel-shaped ears covering the back of its bald head.
This appearance undoubtedly granted it an excessively keen sense of hearing, which also subjected it to plenty of torment today while it guided those newbie players through their trials.
"Hey," Earsong, unable to refute the others, could only let out a stifled, aggrieved sigh.
"Hey, do you guys smell something?" The creature that had first contradicted Earsong lifted its slender, tube-like head and sniffed hard at the air.
Its entire body was tiny and thin, resembling a bean sprout swaying in the wind, yet it possessed the highest combat capability in this quartet of four.
The moment it spoke, the others didn't bother to question the truth of it, eagerly sniffing the air as well to track down the source of the scent.
"Oh, I smell it!"
The hot-tempered Bulb Bug shrieked, a dazzling array of colors flashing across its rugged, dinosaur-like spine. Its eyes bulged wide with vertical slit pupils, unable to conceal its excitement: "It smells so good! What is this scent?!"
"So good! So good!"
The smallest of the four bounced up and down excitedly on the Bulb Bug's shoulder.
It looked the most human among them and often boasted that the legends of Thumb People passed down among humans were related to its ancestors. However, a century of tempering in the survival game had allowed it to grow from the size of a thumb to its current palm-sized dimensions.
"Go check it out."
Bean Sprout cautiously pinched the Thumb Person, its chopstick-thin arm spinning rapidly in circles before hurling it forward with force, launching the Thumb Person directly toward the source of the aroma.
In the survival game, human players weren't the only ones in danger.
Among those high-tier players, plenty of vicious entities sought out ways to hunt them NPCs in return.
Before the Thumb Person could react, it was airborne, leaving behind only a short, sharp scream that streaked across the sky before turning into a tiny shooting star in the distance.
Near the tricycle, Lin Luyao was grilling skewers when she vaguely heard a commotion. She looked up and saw something streak across the horizon, growing progressively larger within her field of vision and rushing straight toward her.
Lin Luyao was startled.
Her gaze swept frantically around, and she casually grabbed the kitchen knife she had kept conveniently at the edge of the cargo bed, raising it in a defensive stance.
"Ah! Help!"
The Thumb Person was already used to being tossed around, but when the edge of a blade flashed in the corner of its eye, it couldn't help screaming out loud.
The boss's throwing skills were getting more speechless by the day!
How could it just air-drop it straight to the destination like this?!
At the very least, it should have been tossed into the woods nearby for reconnaissance!
Hearing the voice, Lin Luyao was startled once again.
The tone sounded bizarre and eccentric, but the eerie part was that she could understand the meaning without any barrier at all!
Lin Luyao narrowed her eyes to take a closer look; though the size was wrong, it genuinely looked human-shaped from head to toe.
Her grip on the kitchen knife instantly wavered.
With a quick change of thought, Lin Luyao instead pressed the button to open the automatic umbrella that covered the entire cargo bed.
The little gadget streaking across the sky kicked its limbs frantically, flattening its body out and actually managing to slow its momentum.
Finally, with a *splat*, it hit face-first against the umbrella canopy, slid down slowly, and dropped to the ground.
"—Are you alright?"
Lin Luyao picked up the fire tongs used for the charcoal stove and poked the flattened little creature cautiously.
The creature jerked its head up, its body gradually returning to its original shape, while its bruised and swollen face broke into an expression of utter infatuation.
It sniffed avidly at the nearly palpable, savory aroma in the air, as if its very soul had been cleansed.
"So good! So good, so good! What is this thing?! I want to eat some too!"