The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 63

Chapter 63: (Part 2) The Fourth World [9]

◎ Exploring the Spherical City ◎

After so many days together, Shu Heng had already figured out Li Jianwei’s thought process.

With Li Jianwei, simple dissuasion was useless. She had to use emotional manipulation to make her realize the importance of her life.

“I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll send you a message first to see if there’s a second way. Or I’ll eat some more buff food before I try,” Li Jianwei said, her head lowered. “Don’t be mad, okay?”

“I’m not mad,” Shu Heng said, making her voice sound calm and composed. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Really?” Li Jianwei looked at Shu Heng with puppy eyes. Her intuition told her that Shu Heng was mad.

“Really,” Shu Heng sighed inwardly, reaching out to stroke Li Jianwei’s head. “I’m not mad at you. The circuit had to be fixed, and the risk was necessary and unavoidable.”

Shu Heng wasn’t lying. More than Li Jianwei’s sudden risk-taking, Shu Heng was more frustrated by her own lack of skill.

If she were as quick as Li Jianwei, Li Jianwei wouldn’t be the only one who had to take on most of the risks. They could take turns.

After processing her complicated emotions, Shu Heng’s face broke into a smile. “Alright, now it’s time for our rewards. There are a lot of strawberries and bananas here. Collect them and take them back, and we can make more smoothies. Maybe we’ll even find one that boosts our defense.”

Seeing Shu Heng smile, Li Jianwei relaxed a bit and started picking strawberries and bananas with her.

However, even after fixing the electrical problem, the elevator still wouldn’t start. The system’s message changed from “electrical problem” to “main switch is off.”

Without saying a word, the two continued to explore the corridor. After killing two annoying rats, they found a warehouse-like area.

According to the sign, the main power switch was ahead, but the path was blocked by shipping containers, making it impossible to get through.

After exploring the perimeter, the two found a rope ladder in a corner that was easy to miss. After climbing up the ladder, a control panel that was connected to a power source appeared in Li Jianwei and Shu Heng’s vision.

The control panel had only a joystick and a button. It looked very simple, with no extra instructions.

Li Jianwei boldly wiggled the joystick, then noticed a huge grabber arm moving with it. When she pressed the button, the grabber arm would activate and grab the container directly below it.

“Awww!” Li Jianwei couldn’t help but exclaim. “I get it! This is a puzzle game with a twist. I can move the containers to open up a path for you to the control room!”

Shu Heng looked down at the container-blocked path. “There’s limited space, and the containers can’t be stacked. You’ll probably have to keep moving them so I can get through a little at a time.”

“Looks like it. You’re better at this. You can do the puzzle, and I’ll wait at the entrance,” Li Jianwei said, taking her hand off the joystick.

Shu Heng didn’t refuse. In the ten seconds she had been observing, she had already planned out her actions in her mind.

“You go down first. I’ll tell you how to move, and you just follow my instructions. If you can’t hear me, use the friend chat system to tell me. Don’t worry about the points. I’ve put a lot of palm leaves in there, so we have enough for a lot of conversations,” Shu Heng said.

The free chat allowance refreshed every day, but the paid points didn’t. When they occasionally came across resources they couldn’t or wouldn’t go back for, Shu Heng would exchange them for chat allowances to avoid wasting them.

“Okay,” Li Jianwei agreed immediately, quickly climbing down the rope ladder and standing in front of the containers.

This was a level that required teamwork, whether it was between friends or strangers. But no matter the type of teamwork, trust between both parties was extremely important.

The containers’ movement range was limited. Sometimes, one had to be lifted by the grabber to see the path ahead.

In other words, the life of the person on the ground was completely in the hands of the person on top. Whether by accident or on purpose, the person controlling the grabber could easily take the life of the survivalist moving among the containers.

Shu Heng’s movements were flawless. In less than twenty minutes, Li Jianwei had successfully navigated the containers and reached the main control room.

After collecting the resources and blueprints inside, Li Jianwei pushed the main switch for the elevator.

With a beep, one by one, the previously dim corridor lit up, driving away the darkness.

The appearance of the lights made the headlamps temporarily useless. Shu Heng also noticed that there was more than one door blocked by containers.

[Shu Heng: The lights are on outside, but there seems to be another path to your left after you exit. Do you want to go see where it leads?]

[Li Jianwei: Sure. My health has already recovered to 100, and I still have backpack space. Just tell me which way to go.]

[Shu Heng: Drink another silver smoothie to bring your health up to 120. I’m worried there might be monsters inside, and I can’t help you from the control panel.]

[Li Jianwei: Roger that. Any other orders, ma’am?]

[Shu Heng: Go to the left, and stop when you see a blue container. Try to stay close to it.]

After another ten minutes of maneuvering, a circular handwheel appeared in front of Li Jianwei.

[Li Jianwei: It’s a door that needs a handwheel to open. I think there’s going to be something good inside.]

[Shu Heng: Is it like the cage door we found on the seabed? Any system alerts? Could there be a divine kin inside?]

[Li Jianwei: No. I put my ear to it and listened. There’s no movement inside. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything living. My health is 120. Should I try to open it?]

After thinking for a moment, Shu Heng agreed to Li Jianwei’s suggestion. She stayed at the control panel, waiting for Li Jianwei to send her a new message.

[Li Jianwei: There are twenty titanium ingots inside, and a blueprint for a large backpack! Whoo-hoo, we’re rich!]

Titanium ingots had to be smelted from titanium ore, which had to be dug up from the islands using the metal detector. Twenty titanium ingots were roughly equivalent to ten days’ worth of their work, so it was indeed a small fortune.

When Shu Heng saw Li Jianwei’s message, a smile appeared on her face. Titanium ingots were a good thing. They hadn’t been able to make the titanium sword before because they didn’t have enough.

Now, when they went back, they could upgrade Li Jianwei’s weapon, which would indirectly reduce the risk of exploring unknown areas.

After the main switch was flipped, the elevator finally returned to normal.

Walking into the elevator, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng discovered that the building had two underground floors and eighteen above ground.

Li Jianwei and Shu Heng wanted to explore each floor one by one and clear out the resources, but the elevator only had buttons for -2, 1, and 18 that worked.

Since they were on floor -2, they chose to go to the first floor first, following the principle of safety above all else.

The elevator door opened, and Li Jianwei and Shu Heng both had wary looks on their faces. They kept a close eye on the area outside the elevator, one on the left, one on the right.

After confirming there was no danger, they stepped out of the elevator.

It wasn’t until they walked out of the building that they realized it was already night. The sight that greeted them was a brightly lit city of skyscrapers, looking very similar to the real world outside the game.

But there were no people on the streets or in the buildings. There were only patrolling robots, which had very different shapes from humans. Their heads and bodies were square.

Li Jianwei pulled out her bow and slowly approached a robot.

When they were only ten meters apart, the robot’s eyes, which had been green, turned red. It raised its hands, which could shoot electricity, and ran toward Li Jianwei.

No need to test it now. The robot is also a monster! It will chase survivalists and zap them.

Metal arrows flew from the hands of Li Jianwei and Shu Heng, piercing the robot’s head.

But the robot didn’t stop. It continued to run toward Li Jianwei with its hands raised.

Shu Heng instantly understood. The robot’s aggression didn’t transfer when it was attacked. Its aggression was based only on distance, unlike other monsters.

But it wasn’t a good idea to rush over and split the aggro right now. Shu Heng just raised her bow and stayed calm, shooting arrow after arrow at the robot’s head.

After repeating this ten times, the robot’s eyes changed from red to colorless. Its limbs began to twitch, and with a pop, it started to smoke.

[Congratulations to the survivalist for killing the guard robot. You have received Elevator Key Card*1.]

It dropped an elevator key card? Do they want us to explore those brightly lit skyscrapers?

“The robot’s attack style is very simple. I’ll try to fight it up close with my metal spear later,” Li Jianwei said, rummaging through the now-useless robot.

“My metal spear is longer than the robot’s arm, so I’ll definitely hit it first. And the robot will get stunned when it’s attacked. As long as I time my attacks right, I can easily take it down,” Li Jianwei added.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Shu Heng said, giving her rare approval.

Li Jianwei’s face lit up. “Then let me try it. You just watch me from the side.”

“No, I’ll try it. You just watch me from the side,” Shu Heng said, pulling out her metal spear and repeating Li Jianwei’s words verbatim.

“You said it yourself, these robots are easy to deal with,” Shu Heng said, looking at Li Jianwei.

Li Jianwei looked like she was about to say something, then stopped. Noticing Shu Heng’s calm tone and expression, she could only nod silently, then, holding her bow, nervously watched the robot approaching Shu Heng, ready to assist at any moment.

Now, Li Jianwei finally understood what it felt like to be Shu Heng, who could only play a supporting role while she took risks.

Shu Heng’s skills were indeed slightly inferior to Li Jianwei’s, but only by a little. If Li Jianwei hadn’t been on her second playthrough, it would be anyone’s guess who was better.

Using a metal bow required at least ten hits, but using a close-range metal spear required eighteen hits.

However, the robot’s stun after being attacked lasted for one second. Shu Heng could use that second to retreat, or she could seize the opportunity to attack again, and again, and again…

After the robot’s eyes changed from red to colorless, Shu Heng swiftly retreated, avoiding the small explosion that occurred when the robot broke down.

[Congratulations to the survivalist for killing the guard robot. You have received Elevator Key Card*1.]

“Just as you said, it’s very easy to deal with,” Shu Heng said calmly. “Our efficiency would be even higher if we worked together.”

Shu Heng: “From the drop rate, the elevator key card is a consumable. Each one can only activate one floor’s elevator. We’ll probably need to collect more key cards.”

Li Jianwei slowly let out a breath. She didn’t comment, but just walked over and gave Shu Heng a big hug, leaning close to her ear and whispering, “You need to drink a silver smoothie too. When we both have 120 health, we’ll work together.”

“Now you know to buff up before a fight?” Shu Heng raised an eyebrow, but then immediately rejected the idea. “We don’t need it for the robots. We have a limited supply of silver smoothies. We should save them for when the situation is more dangerous.”

Li Jianwei: “My health is still at 120. I’ll lure the monster, and you can start attacking after I pin it down.”

This time, Shu Heng didn’t object. After trying it herself, she was sure the robots weren’t a threat.

Judging from the items they dropped, these guard robots were more like a way for the game to give survivalists resources than to get rid of them.

But this also meant that there might be other dangers lurking in the brightly lit, modern city buildings.

They got right to it. Li Jianwei and Shu Heng started farming the guard robots. They would kill every single one they saw. Before long, they had a stack of 23 elevator key cards in their backpacks.

While searching for the robots, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng reached the edge of the city. While they found a large gate, they also saw a row of trees that could be chopped down.

When the gate was opened, an inflatable slide, like a plane’s emergency exit, popped out, allowing them to smoothly slide all the way into the water.

“If we go down, can we get back up?” Li Jianwei couldn’t help but ask.

Shu Heng carefully observed the material. “It looks like a one-way path. We’ll probably have to use the previous corridor to come back up.”

It wasn’t as convenient, but it would save a lot of time.

Li Jianwei suggested, “Should we go down to restock our supplies? And also craft the titanium sword. Its attack power is higher than the machete, and its range is bigger.”

Shu Heng nodded in agreement. “There should be many exits like this. We’ll pick one that’s closer to the raft, go back to restock, and then come back.”

With the mindset of “since we’re already here,” Li Jianwei began chopping trees to collect wooden planks, while Shu Heng took out the metal detector and circled the area, seeing if she could dig up something good.

After their backpacks were filled with all kinds of basic materials, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng found an exit that was almost right next to their raft.

“Perfect. This way, we don’t have to fight the sharks. We can just jump twice and be on the raft,” Li Jianwei said with approval.

Shu Heng, on the other hand, was worried that they would descend too fast and take fall damage on the raft.

“Should I try it first?” Li Jianwei raised her hand, trying to get her “leader’s” permission.

Shu Heng didn’t object. Judging from the height, the fall damage from a direct jump wouldn’t be more than thirty, let alone with the slide to cushion the fall.

After getting permission from her leader, Li Jianwei slid down like a child on a slide. Because she had a great command of her body, a simple roll was enough to dissipate the momentum, allowing her to land without taking any damage.

“Mission complete, leader! Perfect landing!” Li Jianwei stood on the raft and looked up at Shu Heng, a bright smile on her face.

Shu Heng’s lips curled up in a smile as well. In that moment, she suddenly felt that being trapped in this game wasn’t a bad thing at all. At least she had met Li Jianwei.

Even if they couldn’t leave the game world, she could still have a good life with Li Jianwei.

Of course, this thought only flashed through Shu Heng’s mind for a moment. The game world couldn’t compare to the real one.

More than being with Li Jianwei here, Shu Heng wanted to meet the real Li Jianwei, to hug her, to kiss her, to feel their bodies intertwined.

…

The new weapon was crafted. Originally, Li Jianwei planned to make two titanium swords. But Shu Heng stopped her. Titanium ingots were too rare. Even in this high-tech city, titanium ingots were stored and protected.

So, it was better to save some for backup when they weren’t absolutely necessary. Who knew when they might come in handy?

Besides, they still had a large stock of machetes and metal spears, and a few hundred metal arrows, which were enough to handle most monsters.

What if they encountered a monster that a few hundred metal arrows couldn’t take down?

Well, then they’d run away, of course! Where there’s life, there’s hope!

After busily organizing their supplies, it was already six in the morning. Looking at the sun rising in the east, Li Jianwei couldn’t help but remember what she had seen on the world channel yesterday, and she said, “It feels good to have survived another day.”

Shu Heng looked at Li Jianwei strangely. “Do you need to rest for a bit? The city has lights. There doesn’t seem to be a difference between day and night for activities.”

“No, I was just making a comment,” Li Jianwei said, glancing at her successfully expanded backpack. The large backpack added ten more slots than the original one.

This meant that together, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng could now carry a total of seventy items. They no longer had to be so stingy that they had to put spoils of war on their heads to carry them away!

The first exploration required them to be cautious, but on their second one, the two were very familiar with the route.

However, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng didn’t let their guard down. They learned from Xiao Ding that the monsters on special islands would respawn after five days, and the items they dropped would also drop again.

Since they didn’t know the respawn mechanism of the monsters in the spherical city, they needed to remain vigilant at all times.

Since they were already here, they took the elevator up to the eighteenth floor to see if there was anything good inside.

But to their disappointment, the eighteenth floor was empty. The only thing outside was a balcony.

Looking up, they could see ladders and other things at a higher point, but it was impossible to climb the smooth exterior walls, and the elevator was no help either.

“That building over there is very tall, and it has a rope connecting it to this one. Maybe the zipline in our backpack can be used here,” Shu Heng said, pointing to the second tallest building in the city.

Li Jianwei: “Should we explore that building first?”

Shu Heng held the railing with one hand, her eyes moving from one building to another. “Let’s explore a more normal building first, to see if there are any monsters inside, so we’re not caught off guard.”

“Okay,” Li Jianwei agreed to the plan. The only time she would object was if Shu Heng wanted to rush ahead of her. The rest of the time, she would follow her leader’s orders.

…

While Li Jianwei and Shu Heng were exploring, a raft with a stilt-house-like structure gradually approached. Looking at the modern atmosphere, the two girls on the raft exclaimed in surprise.

After a moment of discussion, they parked their raft near the underground entrance and jumped into the corridor one after the other.

The corridor was no longer pitch black. Emergency lights were on. It wasn’t as bright as it was outside, but they had about ten meters of visibility.

“Someone must have come already. There are no resources or monsters here,” the tall girl said.

If Li Jianwei and Shu Heng had been there, they would have recognized the voice of an old acquaintance.

On shipwreck island, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng had hidden and watched this duo of a tall girl and a short girl, but the duo hadn’t noticed their presence.

“I thought we were fast enough. I didn’t expect another survivalist to be faster than us,” the short girl said with a sigh. “Should we continue to explore? It’ll be very dangerous if they’re not friendly.”

“This place is huge. It’s safer to stick together,” the tall girl said. “Let’s just see. If they refuse to cooperate, we’ll wait outside. We can always wait five days for the monsters to respawn.”

Neither the tall nor the short girl wanted to make an enemy of the survivalists who had gotten there before them.

The fact that they were ahead was enough to show that they were very strong. If they fought, the chances of both sides losing were very high.

…

At this moment, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng had already finished exploring the first building. The elevator key card was indeed a consumable. One card could only activate one elevator, and the elevator could only go to a fixed floor.

The floors mostly contained basic resources, and the monsters were the mutated dogs Li Jianwei had encountered before.

They were very frightening when they appeared in groups, but when it was just one, Li Jianwei didn’t even use her titanium sword, easily taking it down with her metal spear.

“Shu Heng, look at this. A gold coin,” Li Jianwei said, picking up a gold coin she had found near a sink and eagerly showing it to Shu Heng.

Shu Heng looked at it carefully. “This doesn’t look like a material. It must be currency.”

“But there are no living people here. Even if it’s currency, we have nowhere to use it,” Li Jianwei said, touching her chin. “Is this another item that can only be used in a later stage of the game?”

“Gold coins… regardless of their use, the name itself tells you they’re valuable,” Shu Heng said, putting the coin away. “If you find them, just keep them. Even if they’re useless, it’s nice to look at them sometimes.”

“True. It’s actually made of gold,” Li Jianwei’s mind wandered. “If we can take our inventory items with us when we leave the game, we’ll be rich.”

Shu Heng’s thoughts were sidetracked. The gold coin they found was about the size of her palm. It must weigh at least 500 grams. If they could really take it out after clearing the game, they would indeed become rich.

“Let’s go check out that tall building. There might be something even better in there,” Li Jianwei perked up, looking as energetic as when she had just started.

Shu Heng let Li Jianwei lead her by the hand. After taking the elevator down, they ran together to the entrance of the second tallest building.

After using an elevator key card to activate the elevator, Li Jianwei noticed that only floors -5 and 5 were lit up. She subconsciously turned to look at Shu Heng.

“Why is there a -5 floor? Is there an unexplored area underground?”

Shu Heng was also surprised. A building having a -2 floor was common, but -5 was a bit absurd. The difficulty of construction was completely different.

“Floor -5 should be deep underwater. We didn’t bring oxygen tanks or flippers. Let’s check out the floor above first,” Shu Heng quickly decided.

The elevator door opened again, but unlike the office-like layout of the other building, what greeted them was a very spacious hall, large enough to hold a wedding.

The hall was very bright and empty. With one glance, they could see the whole area.

“No monsters for now,” Li Jianwei said, stepping out of the elevator first, her titanium sword in hand.

Shu Heng followed close behind. The two of them circled the empty hall and then found a very inconspicuous small door with a staircase leading up.

Looking up, the stairs went up and up, seemingly without end.

The lights in the stairwell were broken. Only the green arrows pointing to the exit were lit, making the scene look like something out of a horror movie.

“That’s weird. This staircase only goes up, not down. That doesn’t meet any construction standards,” Li Jianwei said casually, putting on her headlamp. The stairwell was instantly lit up.

The walls of the stairwell were white. When combined with the green emergency lights, it felt a little eerie after a while.

But with the headlamp on, the white walls became an excellent reflective surface. Layer after layer of reflection made one headlamp shine as bright as three would outside.

Good news: Every time they climbed a floor, they would find a gold coin on the doorknob.

Bad news: The doorknobs with gold coins on them were unusable.

This meant Li Jianwei and Shu Heng could only go up the stairs and couldn’t open the doors to get to other floors.

When they had collected twenty-three gold coins, the door to the 25th floor could finally be opened.

As the door opened, a mutated dog with dark red glowing eyes lunged at Li Jianwei.

Another ambush. I’ve experienced it so many times. This game’s creativity needs a lot of work, Li Jianwei thought to herself. With a swing of her sword, she quickly took the mutated dog’s life.

Mutated dogs were a bit harder to deal with than mutated rats, but the former had a chance to drop leather, which made Li Jianwei feel a little better.

The layout of the 25th floor was identical to the other buildings, looking just like an ordinary office. There were restrooms, a pantry, an archives room, an office with rows of computers and desks, and a meeting room connected to a private office.

The glass window in the meeting room was broken. When they went inside, they saw a rope tied to one end, with the other seemingly leading to the tallest building.

“This must be the rope we saw earlier. We can use the zipline to get across. But it’s probably one-way. We can’t come back after we go over,” Li Jianwei concluded after studying it for a bit.

“We observed earlier that the rope is on a platform. As long as the rope doesn’t break, we can get to that platform safely,” Shu Heng said, pulling out the binoculars from her backpack and observing.

“The platform is connected to a very long ladder. We can…” Shu Heng suddenly stopped. “There’s someone on the eighteenth-floor platform. It’s the other survivalists.”

After saying that, Shu Heng traded the binoculars to Li Jianwei.

Li Jianwei took the binoculars and immediately looked in that direction. The familiar duo of the tall and short girl appeared in her view.

Li Jianwei’s memory was good. When she had been hiding, she had been relatively exposed and could vaguely see their faces, so she recognized them immediately.

“It’s the duo we saw on shipwreck island. Their progress is also a lot like ours. They’re at the front of the pack,” Li Jianwei said.

“Should we go say hello? Or should we find a place to ambush them and…” Li Jianwei didn’t finish her sentence, but she trusted Shu Heng understood what she meant.

To be honest, for one second, Shu Heng had been inclined to agree. After all, they had already worked together to take down that one man. Taking down two more wouldn’t be a problem.

“Let’s see if we can talk and cooperate. There are a lot of buildings here. It’ll take us several days to clear them all out by ourselves,” Shu Heng calmly analyzed.

“So we’re going over?” Li Jianwei asked, still holding the binoculars. “I’ve checked. The platform is in a good position. Even if we don’t come to an agreement, they can’t attack us with their bows.”

After settling on the “negotiate first, fight later” strategy, Li Jianwei equipped the zipline. With a whoop, she slid toward the platform, briefly experiencing what it was like to be an acrobat.

The zipline made a lot of noise. Since the tall and short girls’ vision was fine, they quickly noticed Li Jianwei flying toward them.

The short girl seemed to say “Wow!” and was then protected by the tall girl behind her.

“Survivalists below, we were here first. We cleared out the monsters. Should we respect a first-come, first-served rule?” Li Jianwei said, standing firmly on the platform.

“I’m sorry, we’re not here to steal resources. The radar just guided us here, so we came,” the tall girl said. When she saw Shu Heng also sliding over, her wariness increased.

The tall girl: “If you refuse to cooperate, we can wait until you leave to explore. But this place is huge, and the monsters will respawn. It’s much more efficient for four people to explore together than two.”

“You want to cooperate with us? What kind of sincerity can you offer?” Shu Heng asked.

“If we find any key notes or blueprints while exploring together, we won’t compete with you for them. We just ask that you craft the corresponding items for us after you learn the blueprints.”

The tall girl continued, “We’ll provide the raw materials and also pay a ten percent fee as compensation.”