How to deal with Anke’s body troubled Number 0 a bit. According to her original plan, she hadn’t intended to kill to silence him. After stabbing Anke, she just needed to find a hidden place to hide him. Once NPC Maggie’s mother returned, no matter how much the couple, disfavored by Colonel Washington, incited trouble, they wouldn’t be able to stir up any issues.
Man proposes, God disposes; Number 0 didn’t expect that the injured Anke would nearly strangle her. The surprising lethal force that burst out from her body afterward made her kill Anke in an almost brutal manner.
Point the finger of blame at that Caucasian woman? Unable to endure domestic violence, she kills her husband in anger — a crime scene often seen in reality.
Facing the lifeless, deformed body, Number 0 rejected the idea. A veteran like Colonel Washington would not believe that a common person like Mrs. Misi could commit the murder before their eyes. The boning knife even chipped from the forceful stabbing. That weak woman, standing before Colonel Washington, could clear herself of the murder suspicion.
The body must not be exposed; Number 0 dragged the body aside into the bushes and then turned over the blood-stained soil with the knife handle before wiping the blade and handle clean of fingerprints.
"Set it on fire?" Number 0 murmured, waving the knife in her hand unconsciously. The dismal blade flashed brightly in the fading night.
Only then did Little Eight realize, the rookie-like player Number 0 was a starkly two-faced person, "Your method of destroying the body is too inhumane."
"You don’t understand; in our era, cremation was promoted. Cremation is the most civilized method of burial," despite what Number 0 said, the reality was that the surrounding environment didn’t allow her to actually burn Anke’s body.
Before entering the "Military Road" system, she had once attended a teacher’s cremation ceremony at school. Without combustibles, cremating to ashes is a technical task, someone inexperienced like her could burn until dawn and still not clean it all up. The prominent fire during the night could potentially alert the rebel army on the opposite hill.
The fern bushes rustled, a disturbance occurred. Number 0 turned around vigilantly, no one was moving around.
By Anke’s body, what seemed like a cluster of ferns, had grown several inches taller in just a few minutes.
Anke’s body had also turned into a white skeleton. If not for the few broken phalanges, Number 0 wouldn’t have been able to identify the body.
As Number 0’s eyes passed over the strangely growing bushes, her mind flashed, "Spore fern, a corrosive plant, secretes a liquid that upon contact with fresh blood, produces a corrosive effect similar to nitric acid."
"That means, as long as there are no wounds, touching it is not much of a problem," the problem Number 0 faced had already been solved by that cluster of spore fern, "Without reconnaissance, I didn’t realize that the nearby plants, seemingly unimpressive, are all extraordinary. The prehistoric society in Military Road, is a world completely mutated."
As night fell, Number 0 did not immediately leave; she started to inspect within the grass cluster. After half an hour, the entire mountain road was shrouded in night, only then did she stop her reconnaissance.
The data about plants inputted once by NPC Maggie was very useful. Just now, Number 0 used the data shared in the system to match and identify more than ten prehistoric plants, improving her reconnaissance proficiency by 10 points. Unfortunately, the same plants wouldn’t increase proficiency upon reinspection.
During her search, Number 0 carefully observed the changes in a series of numbers including her Physical Strength indoors.
Reconnaissance did not consume a lot of Physical Strength, as for the Anger Value that had previously exhibited strange behaviors, it now calmly remained at zero. Number 0 believed that Little Eight knew the exact usage of this value, but it didn’t inform Number 0 about the purpose of that value after the fact.
"In the game ’Military Road’, there are more secrets hidden than she knew. With countless unknowns in two months, she must learn to make good use of resources around her and the handbook in her hands.
When she returned to NPC Maggie’s wooden cabin, the moonlight clock hanging on the wall just struck seven. NPC Maggie’s mother was no longer at home. NPC Maggie seemed distracted, flipping through a storybook and reading aloud to her little brother.
Only after the little boy in bed emitted slight snores did NPC Maggie remember that she had not yet prepared a place for her guest to rest tonight.
The number of wooden cabins in the rebel army camp for lodging was limited, and Maggie’s family was only allocated a simple two-room and one-hall cabin. Apart from the room where little brother and NPC Maggie stayed, only their mother’s bedroom and the narrow, clutter-filled living room remained.
Guest 0 politely requested to sleep on the floor in the living room, as she was going to stay at NPC Maggie’s house for a while, and she wanted to avoid disturbing the family’s daily life as much as possible.
"You should stay in my mother’s room. I don’t know where the extra blankets are, and besides, she won’t be coming back tonight," NPC Maggie blurted out before realizing she had misspoken. Her mother had repeatedly instructed her not to disclose her whereabouts that night to anyone, but NPC Maggie was still a child and inadvertently gave herself away.
"Maggie, you don’t have to be polite with me," With experience dealing with little sisters, Guest 0 didn’t immediately inquire about Maggie’s mother’s whereabouts but insisted on sleeping on a small patch of cold tiles in the living room that wasn’t covered with clutter.
"I’m not lying to you, my mom... she had to go back to her laboratory, she won’t be back tonight," NPC Maggie wasn’t good at lying, and before she could finish her sentence, her little face turned tomato red.
Their conversation was disrupted by a loud knocking on the door, 0 heard hurried breathing.
That white woman named Mrs. Misi appeared at a critical moment outside Maggie’s house.
"Maggie, have you seen Uncle Anke?" Mrs. Misi seemed to be looking for someone, yet her dishonest eyes kept scanning inside the house, only turning away when she saw that the door to Maggie’s mother’s bedroom was open and the room was empty.
"No," NPC Maggie had been inside the whole time and hadn’t seen Anke.
"Okay then, is your mother not in?" Mrs. Misi asked another question.
NPC Maggie’s face turned red again, and she shook her head stiffly: "She’s... inside putting my little brother to sleep."
"That’s good," Mrs. Misi chuckled dryly and hurried out.
"Maggie," Guest 0 nudged the little girl with her elbow, "When I was out for a walk after dinner, I thought I saw a man lying on the mountain path, it might have been the Anke she mentioned. Should we help to go search?" Mrs. Misi appearing at this time had only one possibility. She came to spy, and before spying, she came to verify Maggie’s mother’s whereabouts once again.
NPC Maggie hesitated for a moment but then nodded, probably Uncle Anke drank too much again, and Aunt Misi alone couldn’t carry him.
Guest 0 and NPC Maggie stepped out of the house, and had only walked a few steps when a row of lights came on, and from the hill not far away, they could faintly hear Colonel Washington questioning."