Chapter 239: Haisa 22

As intelligent parasites, their greatest desire was naturally to multiply and rule the entire world.

If they were going to rule the world, was there any host more suitable than humans?

The answer was no.

However, the ambitions of these Brain-Eater Bugs were even greater.

They had long known some of the passengers on this cruise ship were special, and they wanted to use these guests to expand the reach of their species.

As for the zombies on the ship—a bunch of brainless creatures—the bugs didn’t give them a second thought.

「The twenty-fifth day of the game.」

BOOM!!!!

Early in the morning, a deafening explosion erupted without warning, jolting everyone awake.

Immediately after, the cruise ship began to shake violently.

Perry Yates was hiding on top of a chandelier. To keep from being thrown off, she had to grip its arms tightly with both hands.

Even so, her body still swayed violently along with the chandelier.

’Don’t tell me we actually hit an iceberg.’

Perry Yates thought as much and prepared to go check on the situation.

But what she saw gave her a shock—the perfectly fine cruise ship was now smoking.

Just as Perry Yates was reeling from the shock, several more explosions rang out in quick succession. "BANG! BANG! BANG!"

At this point, if Perry Yates couldn’t figure out that someone was deliberately bombing the ship, she would have wasted all those years reading novels.

’This is worse than hitting an iceberg.’

Perry Yates pursed her lips. She didn’t know which genius was bombing the cruise ship, but regardless of who it was, saving her own neck was the top priority.

Summoning Claudia Vance, Perry Yates flew straight into the sky.

Once in the sky, she had a panoramic view of the cruise ship. The explosions continued to echo without pause.

Based on the sound, Perry Yates pinpointed the source of the explosions. They were coming from the ship’s keel.

In addition, the exterior of the hull had, at some point, also been rigged with bombs.

The bombs blinked with a red light, glinting on the surface of the sea, ready to detonate at any moment.

As if to confirm Perry Yates’s thoughts, a tremendous BOOM echoed as all the bombs detonated at once. The force of the explosion was so great it even created a mushroom cloud over the sea.

Fortunately, Perry Yates activated her Defense Skill just in time to protect herself. Even so, the aftershock of the blast sent her flying a great distance.

The cruise ship was so massive that even an explosion of that magnitude didn’t blow it to smithereens.

But even though it wasn’t shattered, the Haisa was now a complete wreck.

With a tremendous CRACK, the cruise ship snapped in half and began its slow descent to the seabed.

Surprisingly, however, even after such a massive explosion and the sinking of the ship, there were still survivors.

On second thought, Perry Yates understood how. After all, if she could anticipate the danger and get away, others surely could as well.

However, as she watched them floating in the seawater, Perry Yates had a bad feeling. ’The water is filled with Brain-Eater Bugs,’ she reminded herself.

"Identification."

Perry Yates used her Identification Skill on the water below. As expected, the sea was teeming with Brain-Eater Bug larvae.

The larval Brain-Eater Bugs had likely already seized the opportunity to enter the survivors’ bodies the moment they hit the water.

「The twenty-sixth day of the game.」

After the cruise ship sank completely, fewer than twenty survivors remained, including Perry Yates.

Felix Flynn and a few others were among them, but Perry Yates had no intention of going down to meet them.

Besides, it looked as though his group had already split up.

Perhaps due to Perry Yates’s earlier warning, they had managed to avoid contact with the seawater after escaping the ship.

「The twenty-seventh day of the game.」

Although the cruise ship had sunk, the survivors couldn’t leave the area. To be precise, they were unable to move beyond a one-hundred-meter radius from the shipwreck.

The same was true for Perry Yates, even flying in the sky. She couldn’t go more than one hundred meters from the shipwreck, nor could she fly too high—her altitude was capped at three hundred meters.

From this position, a lone cloud floating in the sky was actually quite conspicuous. However, as long as Perry Yates didn’t reveal herself, the players below seemed to have no intention of causing her trouble.

One mustn’t forget that Dealer Hunters were present among the survivors.

Now, the sinking of the cruise ship was good news for them. Everyone had lost their shelter, and their movements were restricted to a limited area.

For the Dealer Hunters, all they had to do was find the Croupiers, kill them, and inherit their abilities.

With less and less time left in the game, they were finally growing impatient and ready to strike.

That night, Perry Yates saw several people use the cover of darkness to slip into the water. It looked like they were planning a sneak attack, and their targets were Felix Flynn and another person she didn’t recognize—a young man who looked to be only seventeen or eighteen.

Seeing this, Perry Yates instinctively wanted to warn them. However, she quickly realized the two weren’t actually asleep; they had already awoken the moment they sensed someone approaching underwater.

’Well, it looks like they don’t need my help after all.’

「The twenty-eighth day of the game.」

Early in the morning, Perry Yates was jolted awake by a scream. Three corpses were now floating on the surface of the sea, their bodies covered in gruesome wounds.

"AH!!!"

It was followed by another terrified scream.

A female player pointed a trembling finger in a direction not far off. "Sh... sharks..." she stammered.

And there wasn’t just one.

A shark’s sense of smell is incredibly sensitive, allowing it to detect the scent of blood from a great distance.

These sharks must have been drawn by the scent of blood from the corpses.

"Don’t panic! Sharks don’t like the taste of human flesh. As long as we don’t thrash around, we’ll be fine."

Even so, as the sharks drew near, some people couldn’t help but scream. One person even broke down completely and began to sob.

"SOB... I want to go home! I’m done with this stupid game! I don’t want the ten million, I just want to go home!"

...

Finally, on the last day of the game, a familiar mechanical voice sounded in her ear—

[Congratulations, Player Perry Yates, on perfectly clearing this round of the game. The next round will begin in ten days.]

’What?’

’Ten days?’