Chapter 145 The Worst Case Scenario

"The blood in the bucket is still almost full." Feng Bujue walked to the ice bucket again. "It seems the Derivative doesn't need it. Its purpose here is purely to kill the two players."

Xiao Tan added, "Then why didn't it come to kill us? Aren't we a lower level?"

"It's easy to understand why it didn't come to kill you. Your position is probably closest to the two GMs. If it came to kill you, it would risk entering their detection range," Feng Bujue said. "At the beginning of the script, me, Atobe-shaojie, and Name-is-hard-to-choose, all three of us could have been targets. Especially me, with my low level and acting alone, even if I were killed, the GMs might have mistakenly attributed it to the Blood Wolf Zombies.

"But... during that prime hunting time, the Derivative didn't attack me, nor did it look for the other two. It wasn't until you and I, along with the two GMs, were all in the Irupu Building that it came here to strike. So..."

Feng Bujue said, raising his head and shouting to Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, "Hey! You two generals, was the Derivative unable to move for a period of time at the very beginning of the script?"

Hua Xiong lowered his head and shouted down from the rooftop, "It's not that it was unable to move, it hadn't finished transforming yet." He then asked, "Remember that coffee?"

"How so?" Feng Bujue replied.

"Ordinary data is like ordinary instant coffee; it dissolves as soon as it's hit with hot water. But the Derivative's powder needs more time to dissolve," Hua Xiong replied. "Normally, when we quickly advance the script with the players to the point where it's about to be cleared, the Derivative has just completed its materialization and appeared in the script." He paused for two seconds and added, "But this time, the one we encountered is generating very quickly."

"I see..." Feng Bujue suddenly remembered something and said, "Right, how do you know the target is level four? System prompts when it's put into the script? Or can you check it in the GM menu?"

"You can see the level in the menu after you've 'contacted' it," Pan Feng replied. "Just brush it with a melee weapon."

"Wait..." Feng Bujue said, "So, you're saying that you're guessing that this Derivative is level four?"

Pan Feng and Hua Xiong looked at each other and then laughed, "Ha... We told you before that there are four levels of Derivatives, and you really took it to heart? Where are we going to find a level three Derivative? Our job is to eliminate all level four Derivatives. Unless we fail repeatedly, or a level four Derivative luckily encounters a six-person team continuously, a level three Derivative simply won't be born."

Feng Bujue chuckled dryly, "Alright, I hope you're right."

Pan Feng asked, "Say, Little Feng, how's the on-site inspection going down there? Have you come to any useful conclusions?"

"Hmm..." Feng Bujue put his hands in his pockets and paced back and forth, "The Derivative's appearance is that of a human female, about one meter sixty-five in height, slim build, and can instantly take out, or extend from somewhere on its body, claw-shaped weapons that are about twenty centimeters long. Its speed and strength aren't much different from the Ashford Doctor mutants we saw in the Irupu Building before.

"In terms of intelligence, you can only track its coordinates within the detection range, but it always knows your position. At the same time, it also knows the exact location of every player. Therefore, the operation of using us as bait won't work; as long as you're nearby, it won't approach us.

"I can't determine how high the intelligence of this Derivative is yet. From the current situation, it completely knows what it 'should' do. Its purpose is survival and evolution, and the necessary condition to achieve this goal is to make all players and GMs leave the script.

"Considering its position...

"First, it won't stop you from using the administrator's advantage to quickly clear the script, because clearing the script means that all the players will be sent away, which is easier for it.

"Second, on the premise of ensuring safety, such as when it's far away from you, the Derivative doesn't mind personally eliminating a few players, perhaps this helps its growth? I don't know..."

He said, stopping and adding, "Another thing that's more concerning is the relationship between it and the monster forces. Whether the Derivative will be attacked by monsters, or be able to communicate with monsters, whether their interaction will change the plot, and whether the main quests given by the system will be affected, I can't determine these things.

"In short... if I were that Derivative, combining the actual situation of this script, there are roughly three plans to choose from."

Feng Bujue sat back on the sofa, lowered his head, and tapped his forehead lightly with two fingers, "Hmm... the best plan is to use itself as bait, at a suitable time, such as after dark, deliberately enter your detection range, lure you to a specific location, and work with Ashford's mutants and the nighttime version of the Blood Wolf Zombies to take you down." He raised his head and touched his nose, "I know you can view FLAGs, monster information, and the script map, but you can't see the real-time coordinates of every monster. This... isn't hard to deduce, because you found Doctor Ashford through the trigger point of the plot FLAG before. But after it mutated and escaped, you couldn't find its trace again."

After a slight pause, he continued in a deep voice, "Assuming that this Derivative can find Ashford's mutant and communicate with it, and it's also smart enough, then it will definitely use the monsters to achieve its goals. The above strategy is the most likely to succeed for the Derivative."

At this time, he pointed into the distance and winked at Xiao Tan. Xiao Tan turned his head and saw a Blood Wolf Zombie approaching in that direction. He knew what Jue-ge meant, so he picked up a baseball bat and went over.

While Xiao Tan was fighting the monster, Pan and Hua had already jumped down from the roof, because Feng Bujue had just said that ambushes were useless, so they didn't stay up there to catch the breeze.

"The second-best plan is to go and kill Ashford's mutant," Feng Bujue continued to say to the two GMs, "If it does that, Xiao Tan and I will leave the script because of clearing it. Then the Derivative will deal with you, or continue to play cat and mouse with you. Anyway, after a maximum of eighty hours, you will be offline due to the game pod's restrictions. Of course, as a set of data, it probably doesn't have the concept of the 'real world' at all, and doesn't know about this rule." He paused, "Choosing this means that the Derivative can't communicate with monsters. In order to prevent unstable factors such as mutants and players from interfering, it would do this. It also shows that this Derivative believes that it has a high probability of killing you in a one-on-two situation."

At this time, Xiao Tan had already knocked the monster dead and was walking back here.

"As for the worst plan... it's unlikely," Feng Bujue said, "The worst plan is to pick a time at random and rush over, directly launching an attack on the four of us." He said, "Although the worst plan doesn't fit the Derivative's pattern of action so far, if it really does come to kill us like that, there must be some reason, such as... it ate Ashford's brain and suddenly mutated into an extremely strong monster, thus gaining the confidence to take on four people."

After listening to Feng Bujue's analysis, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong both stared at him with their mouths half-open, looking at him with a monster-like gaze, "May I ask what you actually do?"

"I'm a..." Feng Bujue was about to say one of his usual answers loudly.

Xiao Tan directly interjected, "Freelancer!"

Feng Bujue shrugged, pulled the topic back on track, and said to the two GMs, "Let's discuss how to deal with these three situations. Except for the second situation, Xiao Tan and I can play some role."

"Didn't the deaths of those two level fourteen and twelve players explain a lot? You yourself have a concept of the Derivative's strength through deduction. Do you really think you two can help?" Pan Feng said, "I know, you are a very capable player, and you have a lot of ideas. You're not someone 'played by the game'. If I weren't a GM, my game skills probably wouldn't be as good as yours. But when facing existences like Derivatives, all you need is combat strength, everything else is secondary."

"You underestimate the strength of the players too much," Feng Bujue said in a relaxed tone, "Just like you said, GMs have a solo kill success rate of over 95% against level four Derivatives. Then, if you measure it by the strength of you GMs... in a script of this level, the Derivative's strength is about equivalent to a player who is less than level twenty, and it's just an AI, not a person.

"Atobe-shaojie and Name-is-hard-to-choose were instantly killed because they were careless. If they had regarded this Derivative as a strong enemy from the beginning and used guns, skills, etc. to fight it, would they still have been instantly killed? I think they could have at least done some damage to it, and might even have escaped successfully.

"I'm really looking forward to witnessing the process of hunting the Derivative alive, and participating in it, so..." he paused, "Let's assume that this Derivative will choose the best plan, which is the most difficult for us, and let's think about how to deal with it..."

…………

As the setting sun passes the west of the city, the buildings are already dark.

Night fell, and in this city, it seemed that every wisp of air had become cold, a chill that could freeze a person's blood.

The eyes of the Blood Wolf Zombies had all turned blood red. Their movements were still as slow as zombies, but their sense of smell had become more sensitive than during the day. Once they smelled the scent of prey, their pace would suddenly quicken, and they would even crouch down and run on all fours. Their strength, speed, and ferocity were all vastly different from their state during the day. At this moment, the Blood Wolf Zombies were at least twice as strong as ordinary zombies.

In the night, two figures were moving forward quickly.

Behind them, more than fifty Blood Wolf Zombies were chasing after them.

Twenty minutes ago, the Derivative appeared within the detection range of the two administrators, and it was just wandering around in the distance, without any intention of approaching further, which was in line with the worst-case scenario that Feng Bujue had deduced.

At this moment, Pan Feng and Feng Bujue were running towards their target at a speed that was a few points faster than the Blood Wolf Zombies. Both of them had smeared a lot of uninfected blood on their clothes to attract monsters...