To show her sincerity, Miss Black Tights even shared her coordinates with Renee Kane.
Renee Kane replied with an "OK," then added in surprise, "I'm almost two hundred kilometers away from you?! Are players really spread out this far? No wonder I haven't seen a single living soul all day."
Miss Black Tights: "So, can you make it over? Or I could come to you. I have a car, after all."
Renee Kane refused. "No, no, it's fine. It's just a hundred-something kilometers, I'll head over now. There are a lot of mountain roads, so I might be a little slow. I'll let you know when I'm almost there, okay?"
Logan smirked and quickly replied, "No rush, no rush. Drive safely, I'll be waiting for you~"
He didn't have a car. His offer to go to her was just a bluff to test this "Brute Force."
'Perfect. Once she gets here, I'll have an off-road vehicle of my own. I was born to be a warlord!'
Logan bobbed his head smugly, took a sip of his ice-cold beer, and after arranging his men, simply waited for the fat lamb to walk right into the slaughter.
Meanwhile, Renee Kane opened the coordinates the Miss had shared. She was only about thirty kilometers away. 'If I take care of this quickly before nightfall, I can even make it back to rest.'
It was safe to say both parties in the chat were quite satisfied with each other's "cooperation."
There was a map on the game panel, but it only revealed explored areas; the rest was shrouded in a fog of war.
Renee Kane packed up her safe house, placed a marker on the map to find her way back later, and after thorough preparations, climbed out of the cave and headed toward the coordinates of Miss Black Tights.
She was dying to know what the deal was with this Miss Black Tights.
The worst-case scenario was that this person had a terminal case of main-character syndrome and was acting out this whole "unite the beta players" fantasy. If so, she would show the Miss just how cruel the world could be.
But if her other suspicion was true... then this person was even more deserving of death.
This wasn't to say she was on some righteous crusade. It was simply that after being betrayed by her companions multiple times and dying once herself, she had finally learned her lesson.
—To survive, and to thrive, she had to abandon some of her moral compass and any unrealistic expectations she had for her fellow humans.
In her previous life, Renee Kane had always had a nagging feeling that the game's extreme environments were a kind of selection process.
She didn't know what the game was selecting for, but if only one player was destined to reach the train's final stop, then Renee Kane would, without hesitation, eliminate everyone standing in her way.
*
Renee Kane set out at 13:40, just as the day was reaching its peak heat. The game interface showed the air temperature had already hit 46 degrees Celsius, and the ground temperature was even more staggering.
The landscape in the distance shimmered, distorted by the heat haze. The moment she emerged from the cliff face, she immediately summoned an off-road vehicle and climbed inside.
She cranked the air conditioning to full blast and made sure she was completely covered. Otherwise, the sunlight filtering through the glass alone would be enough to peel her skin off!
Even with the most heat-resistant tires she could find, she thought she could still smell the stench of scorching rubber as she drove.
In such intense heat, a person felt weak and short of breath, with no desire to move whatsoever.
Which made it the perfect time for an ambush.
Even if the Miss was on guard, he would probably never expect Renee Kane to brave the scorching heat and get to him so quickly.
But Renee Kane didn't dare to relax. The way he'd shared his coordinates so readily was far too confident. She had to be prepared for the possibility of accomplices or more powerful items.
The good news was that the coordinates from Miss Black Tights were also located within a mountain, making a stealthy approach much easier.
After all, the vehicle was a rather conspicuous target.
She deliberately parked the car on a nearby mountainside, found a suitable spot, and pulled out a pickaxe to start digging.
That's right. She was going to dig straight through the mountain to her target.
The mountain was already riddled with various winding passages. Renee Kane alternated between digging and walking until she was directly above the cave at the coordinates, even unearthing a few Wood boxes along the way.
When only a wall of rock separated her from her destination, Renee Kane cautiously stopped. She gently twisted the tip of her pickaxe, drilling a small circle into the rock face.
But when she peered through the small hole and saw the hulking, fierce-looking man who was presumably "Miss Black Tights," she was overcome with a feeling of exasperated speechlessness.
The "Miss" was currently shirtless, wearing a pair of baggy shorts, and lounging in a rattan chair sipping beer. He would occasionally jiggle his thick, hairy thighs.
...He looked like he was just asking to be ambushed.
*
Logan truly hadn't expected the seemingly sweet and naive "Brute Force" to lie to him.
After all, after his little speech in the chat lobby, only Renee Kane had added him as a friend. And after just a few sentences, she was apparently ready to run all the way over to join him. Leon Lynn had set a good precedent, giving Logan the pleasant impression that "all beta players are total idiots."
Furthermore, as his men rushed over from all directions, none of them—aside from the short one who was farthest away—had run into any other players. Thus, he had no reason to doubt Renee Kane's claim of being "200 kilometers away."
In his mind, it would take Renee Kane at least two or three hours to reach him.
He'd already posted his men to guard the three paths into the cave. Once she stepped inside, there would be no escape.
'And if she's good-looking, well... hehehe.'
Logan sipped his beer, thinking smugly, 'To come up with a plan this perfect... I'm a goddamn genius!'
The "genius" Logan had no idea that if he didn't have something Renee Kane wanted, he'd already be a cold corpse.
*
Renee Kane didn't act immediately. She first circled back out of the cave she'd dug.
Then, she followed the three forking paths outside and cleanly dispatched the guards lying in wait, turning them into loot boxes. Afterward, she returned to her tunnel and resumed observing the scene below through the peephole.
A moment later, three men walked in.
The man squeezed in the middle was covered in cuts and bruises, and the look he gave the brawny man was a mixture of terror and fawning.
The short man pulled out a Golden Treasure Box and set it on the ground. "Logan, look! This kid Leon Lynn's luck isn't half bad. A few of us dug all morning and only found one Silver Box, but he got a Gold Box in less than an hour!"
The bald man standing beside them shot the short man an inscrutable look but said nothing.
Just then, something completely unexpected happened.
Leon Lynn suddenly lunged toward Logan, shouting, "Logan! Don't let him fool you! I actually found two Golden Boxes, and one of them has a weapon! This guy, he wants to kill you and be the new boss!"
Before Logan could say a word, the short man broke out in a cold sweat.
He kicked Leon Lynn away and yelled, a mix of shock and fury in his voice, "What the fuck are you talking about?! Logan, don't believe him! We've been brothers for years, you know me! I'd sooner sell my own soul than betray you!"
He then pointed a vicious finger at Leon Lynn. "He's only saying this to get back at me because I'm the one who tricked him into coming here!"