[Congratulations to all surviving residents! You’ve successfully endured three days! From today onward, you’ll begin to notice changes in the world around you. Keep fighting, residents—we look forward to seeing you alive again tomorrow!]
[Survival Points gained: +10]
He Huan glanced at the wristband. Her total survival points had climbed to forty, though she still had no clue what they were actually for. Shrugging, she popped the last bite of food into her mouth and washed it down with water.
Then she rose, pulling the iron axe she’d packed the night before from her bag. The weapon felt heavy in her right hand.
Her left hand rested on the handle of her wooden hut’s door. She stood quietly, eyes lowered, staring at the time glowing faintly on her wristband.
The seconds ticked by.
Finally, as the display flicked to 08:00, she pushed the door open without hesitation.
[Time: 08:00]
[Phase: Dawn (Brave residents, may you grow accustomed to the enchanting night.)]
The world outside was still cloaked in darkness, though the horizon carried a faint, uncertain glow. Not day, not night—an in-between twilight that left everything hazy and indistinct.
The air was damp and heavy, filled with a silence that clung to the skin. He Huan shivered as her breath misted into white clouds in the cold morning air.
She tightened her fur coat around her shoulders and stepped out, resolute, into the lingering night.
This world had three distinct phases of time. Daylight was safe. Dawn and dusk were “semi-safe.” And Silent Midnight was nothing short of lethal.
From midnight to 08:00, Silent Midnight reigned. Anyone outside their shelter during those hours almost certainly ended in death.
08:00 to 12:00 brought Dawn.
Though still dark, the dangers were fewer. With courage—or the right tools—residents could risk venturing out to explore.
12:00 to 16:00 was the world’s rare “daylight,” the safest hours, when everyone could move freely.
16:00 to 20:00 was Dusk, mirroring Dawn in relative risk.
20:00 to midnight returned the cycle to Silent Midnight.
By that measure, there were only four truly safe hours each day. Dawn and Dusk together offered eight “doable but risky” hours. And the longest period—twelve whole hours—belonged to the deadliest night.
It was clear the game’s so-called “newbie phase” allowed survival in daylight. But she wasn’t naive. Only those who dared to explore Dawn and Dusk would seize the initiative to live longer.
She wasn’t the only one who realized this. On the road to claim Zhao Yan’s inheritance, she spotted two other residents already outside.
One lingered at the forest’s edge, chopping trees with an axe. Another filled containers by a stream.
Both were men, from what she could tell. And both, the instant they noticed her, stiffened. Instead of greeting or approaching, they turned away in silence and left.
She didn’t catch their faces—only their retreating figures.
He Huan guessed this was an unspoken rule here: keep your distance from strangers. She made a mental note to follow that same etiquette next time.
The inheritance pass dropped by Zhao Yan’s death wasn’t just a key to his shelter—it functioned like a locator as well. With it, she quickly found his hut. On the way, apart from those two wary strangers, she saw no one else.
Her pace was unhurried. Not because she was careless, but because her wristband kept flashing with prompts.
The day before, on her trip to Yang Jianhua’s shelter, she had noticed the prompts but hadn’t dared act on them. Today, she had time to experiment.
At 08:41, she slipped between a cluster of towering trees.
[High-quality lumber detected nearby. Harvesting will yield dense hardwood.]
It took her thirty exhausting minutes to identify the right tree among its identical neighbors and bring it down with her axe.
Reward: twenty-four planks of hardwood.
In comparison, ordinary trees yielded only twelve to sixteen planks of regular wood.
The prompts were accurate. Very accurate.
[Edible berries detected. Difficulty: Easy. Recommended to harvest.]
She found two catties of red berries—tart, with a sweet aftertaste.
[Edible fungi detected. Difficulty: Easy. Recommended to harvest.]
She gathered a dozen black mushrooms, each fist-sized, fragrant with earthy richness.
[Granite detected beneath a camphor tree. Difficulty: Easy. Recommended to harvest.]
She swung her pickaxe, sparks ringing against stone, until she dug out seventeen blocks of granite.
…
What should have been a forty-minute walk to Zhao Yan’s shelter stretched past two hours. She couldn’t stop herself—tree cutting, stone mining, food gathering—her mercenary-honed stamina was tested to the limit.
Dropping four chunks of granite into her pack, she collapsed onto a roadside rock, panting. She pulled out food and water to recover both strength and hunger.
Her pack was nearly full. Two slots remained empty; the rest was crammed with hardwood, granite, and food.
Both granite and hardwood were Tier 2 resources—stronger, rarer than the Tier 1 basics of wood and stone. They could substitute when Tier 1 was lacking, and crafted items made from them were sturdier.
She hated to part with any of it. But the pack’s limits were undeniable. The smaller her carrying space, the shorter her expeditions could last.
In the distance, hidden by thickets, she glimpsed Zhao Yan’s wooden hut. Once she secured his inheritance, she decided, she’d return to unload at her own shelter.
She tossed the last berry into her mouth, savoring its tang, then rose, axe in hand.
Two hundred meters to go. She swore this time she wouldn’t let any prompt distract her. No matter what it said, she’d keep walking.
Her pack was full. Enough was enough.
But fate had a sense of humor.
Barely thirty meters ahead, a new line of golden text shimmered into her vision.
[Bronze Chest detected beneath fallen leaves. Guardian: Fire Ants. Difficulty: Medium. Recommended to harvest.]
Her steps froze.
Even for her—hardened, battle-scarred—those four words, “Bronze Chest detected,” sent a sharp jolt through her chest.
She’d read the chats last night. Treasure chests were vanishingly rare in this world. A Bronze Chest? Practically legendary.
She advanced quickly.
The spot looked like any other patch of forest. Thick, rotting leaves blanketed the ground.
Kicking through the layers, her boot struck something hard. Pain flared in her toes despite her fur boots.
And then the ground erupted.
Seventeen or eighteen red fire ants, each the size of a peanut, swarmed out. Their mandibles clicked as they rushed her, fast and furious.
He Huan retreated, swinging her axe. She crushed two, maybe three—but their size and numbers gave her no clean angle. They pressed her back seven or eight meters before stopping.
The fire ants didn’t pursue further. Guardians they might be, but they would not abandon their post. One by one, they disappeared back into the leaf litter, vanishing as though nothing had happened.
She scowled at the seemingly undisturbed mound.
On their own, ants were weak. But as a swarm? Lethal.
What was she supposed to do—squat there and crush them one by one?
That was absurd. If there were hundreds of them beneath the pile, she’d spend all day fighting, and probably take injuries for her trouble.
But nature usually had its checks and balances. Where there were predators, there were counterforces. Perhaps this world followed the same rule.
She withdrew her gaze from the leaves and began scanning the forest around her.
And then—
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 98.2