The King of Black Fog

Three days after the full moon event began, many players had already died in the corners of Prague, due to carelessness, due to lack of strength, or due to bad luck.

In the northwest outskirts of Prague, a nature reserve, Wild Shalka.

The sky was azure, with casual, scattered white clouds, as if a painter had casually brushed a few strokes with a white brush.

A squirrel jumped between towering trees, advancing rapidly.

Soon, it reached the edge of the forest, facing a yellowish-white country dirt road, with tall wild grass on both sides and a red-roofed white-walled rural villa at the end of the road.

The squirrel's round, black eyes scanned the surroundings, and its tiny nose twitched continuously, assuring no strangers were around before it quickly ran towards the cottage.

The thick grass parted as it passed, closing again behind it.

The squirrel reached the door.

"Knock, knock, knock."

It knocked on the door, keeping an eye on its surroundings like a secret agent.

"Who is it?" someone inside asked.

"Pika pika, chu," the squirrel replied, with a specific intonation as previously arranged.

With a creak, the door cracked open a slit, the squirrel squeezed in like liquid, its head remaining outside to vigilantly scan the surroundings once more before it completely closed the door.

The interior was decorated in a typical European rural style, complete with a fireplace, chimney, bar, large sofa, and wooden tables and chairs.

"Any news?" the man sitting at the bar turned and asked, drinking.

A very bear-like man, with thick arms and a waist as wide as a barrel, sitting there like a small hill.

"Get me a cup of water, Taoli," the squirrel hopped onto the armrest of the sofa, leaning back against it.

It used the armrest as its own personal sofa.

The one actually sitting on the sofa was another person, a black-haired Asian male, reading a book.

Taoli was a woman, a brown-haired European woman, somewhat plump, with a somewhat ample chest.

Besides, at the dining table sat a woman with blonde hair, wearing a duckbill cap, her slim legs crossed, chewing gum.

"Beatrice, it's your turn next," the squirrel said as if eager to shift the responsibility to the girl with the duckbill cap.

The girl named Beatrice, seemingly indifferent, blew a bubble in response to the squirrel.

"Here you go, you must be tired," Taoli handed over a small drinking glass.

"Thanks," the squirrel took the glass, which was the perfect size, and drank half of it in one go.

Wiping the wet fur around its mouth, it said to Taoli, "Taoli, I like your kind of female, come back with me to the Kamchatka Peninsula, I have stored enough food in my cave for us to live for three winters."

"I'm talking to you, rodent!" the bear-like man (briefly, Bear Man) slammed the bar.

All the items on the bar jumped up like a skipping rope, very neatly.

"And you!" Bear Man glared at the Asian man on the sofa, "Stop staring at that rotten book all day!"

"I say," the squirrel took another sip of water, "if you are annoyed with us, you could act on your own, scout for information, or even stir up trouble in town, whatever suits you."

Bear Man suddenly stood up, striding towards the sofa.

"Oh!" the girl with the duckbill cap excitedly blew another bubble.

"Alright, alright." Taoli stopped Bear Man, her hand gently stroking his granite-like chest, then turning to the squirrel on the armrest, "Chu, go on, what's the news?"

"A little, but not much," the squirrel named Chu, finished the remaining water in its small glass.

It continued, "There are indeed signs of a fight in the forest, but it's unclear what from. The polar bear from the zoo refused my invitation, said it's too hot outside, unless we give him an air-conditioned backpack."

"There's no backpack for air conditioning!" Bear Man punched the bar again, causing the items on the bar to skip once more.

"That's what I told him," the squirrel shrugged, twirling the small glass at his fingertips.

Drops of water splashed out of the glass, and the Asian man raised his hand, blocking a drop from landing on his book.

"It seems we can no longer find new teammates," Taoli murmured to herself, then asked them, "What do we do next?"

"Into the city~" the girl with the duckbill cap said.

"Into the city." Every syllable spoken by the man resembled the swing of a hammer.

"What about you two?" Taoli looked toward the person and squirrel on the couch.

"Hmm—" the lion haired squirrel, arms crossed, was deep in thought.

After a while, it said, "Alright, into the city. Just hiding like this, I can't be content. Plus, my intuition tells me I need to gain something from this event, otherwise, I'll face a winter without food."

"Three votes." The duckbill cap girl blew a bubble, "Do any of you know Prague? We need a guide."

"I can help." The voice of a sixth person.

The squirrel leaped up all of a sudden, its body shooting into Taoli's arms like a fluid.

Taoli covered the squirrel with her left hand, while her right hand grasped at nothing, a wooden pot lid appearing in it.

The man pulled out a heavy machine gun from beneath his feet.

"Pop!" The duckbill cap girl's bubble burst as she picked up a kerosene lamp from the wooden table and lit it with a flick.

The light spread, illuminating the four people and squirrel in the living room.

"This kerosene lamp can indeed make one disappear visually, but..." a drone slowly descended from outside the window facing them, "it also makes one more visible in other kinds of surveillance."

"A drone?" the duckbill cap girl paused, then suddenly realizing something, blurted out, "Wang Donghua!"

Aside from the Asian man still reading on the couch, the other three and the squirrel all displayed obvious unease.

There had been no news of Wang Donghua in the city for the past few days, but the less news there was, the more worried the players became.

A player who controlled the network was most frightening when silent; no one knew where he was watching from or what he was planning.

Now he had appeared, coming for them.

"Jiang!" the duckbill cap girl shouted.

The man reading on the couch closed his book with his left hand, looked out the window, and with his right hand claw-shaped, made a downward gesture.

Through the window, the drone lightly landed on the ground, astonishingly turning into a piece of paper!

"To be expected from Jiang!" the duckbill cap girl cheered.

"With Jiang here, all of Prague is ours!" the squirrel scurried out of Taoli's embrace.

"I teamed up with you folks entirely because of Jiang," even the man relented, completely forgetting he had criticized Jiang earlier.

The man named 'Jiang', the Asian, stood up from the couch with an indifferent expression, holding the book.

"Let's go," he said, "the points are now concentrated in the hands of a few, saving me the trouble."

"Cool!" the duckbill cap girl blew another bubble.

Except for the man packing the heavy machine gun into the system backpack, the four of them and the squirrel left the countryside villa, carrying nothing.

As soon as they opened the door, drones filled the sky, hanging around the villa like rain, densely ordered in layers, each equipped with a weapon, each with a firing angle.

"Jiang!" the duckbill cap girl shouted in panic once again.

Jiang Tai'an opened the book in his hands, pretending to hear nothing.

The cover of the book was big, white, and long, a photo album of Dai Mee from a few years ago.

"Jiang…?" the duckbill cap girl asked, puzzled.

"We are strong now, but we can be stronger," Jiang Tai'an said.

"...you are scared, aren't you?" the squirrel was sharp.

Jiang Tai'an didn't lift his head, fixating on Dai Mee, and Dai Mee appeared to be gazing back at him from the photo album, as if they were making eye contact.