Chapter 309: Half a Lottery Ticket

Chapter 309: Chapter 309: Half a Lottery Ticket

This was the first time Seraphina Sinclair felt that fighting a monster was no different from chopping down a tree.

A thought even crossed her mind that a chainsaw would be more effective than her longsword. But other monsters weren’t like this one. The moment it was exposed to light, it stopped moving, letting Seraphina Sinclair hack away at it like an inanimate object.

Seraphina Sinclair raised her longsword high, and after the final strike fell, the battle that had lasted nearly an hour finally came to a close.

Once she discovered the monster couldn’t move in the light, Seraphina Sinclair no longer felt threatened by this path’s boss. All she felt was the exhaustion from the repetitive, mechanical motions and a wave of physical revulsion whenever she happened to glance at its utterly hideous form.

Seraphina Sinclair gave a final dry heave. Watching the corpse on the floor dissolve into glittering particles and vanish, she finally let out a long sigh of relief.

’Second path boss, down!’

A panel appeared:

[You have slain C-level Boss: Eye of Root Binding x1!]

[You have slain the C-level Boss for this path! Reward: Leader’s Supply Box x1]

There was no server-wide announcement this time, but the Leader’s Supply Box alone was enough to make Seraphina Sinclair happy.

She opened it, but the Legendary Equipment Lottery Ticket she’d been expecting wasn’t there.

Instead, there was only a notification: [Congratulations! You have obtained: Legendary Equipment Lottery Ticket x0.5!]

Seraphina Sinclair: "..."

’Right, she’d forgotten. She only got a whole ticket last time because of the first-time double reward bonus.’

’Now I’ve only got half... How many weeks will it take to combine it into a full one?’

Even though it was only half a ticket, the system had still produced a physical object.

After the Supply Box vanished, half a lottery ticket lay quietly on the floor of her mobile cabin.

Seraphina Sinclair sighed, bending over to pick it up.

It was cool to the touch. As the chill spread through her fingers, an idea suddenly sparked in her mind.

’She was already worrying about how long it would take to save up for a full ticket. Frostleaf had only gotten 0.25 of a ticket last time, and with her rank dropping so drastically after the Zone merge, it would be even more difficult for her to collect a whole one than it was for Seraphina herself.’

’In fact, to be blunt, it was probably an impossible task for Frostleaf at this point.’

’And if she can’t collect enough for a full one, then...’

’...she’d probably be willing to trade it, right?’

As she thought this, Seraphina Sinclair opened her private messages. She finally found Frostleaf’s chat, but her hand froze in mid-air before she could tap it.

Frostleaf’s profile picture was grayed out.

At some point, this old acquaintance had also passed on.

Death was always a heavy matter, but there were too many heavy matters in this world.

Seraphina Sinclair’s expression remained unchanged. She closed the chat window and scrolled through her contacts for a bit longer.

The profile for Miller’s Hardware was grayed out too. A few other people she was more familiar with were still alive, though.

Especially Pretty Guardian.

Seraphina had once thought she would get herself killed early on, either by offending someone with that mouth of hers or by doing something reckless. She never expected her to survive so tenaciously, and by the looks of it, she was even thriving.

On second thought, Seraphina felt it made sense.

They hadn’t interacted much, but Seraphina had some understanding of her character.

She would use any means necessary to achieve her goals. She’d never back down from a fight she thought she could win, but if she realized the gap in strength was too great, she would immediately switch tactics, putting on a completely harmless facade.

She had her own rules for survival, in a way.

Putting the matter aside, Seraphina Sinclair closed her private messages and opened the Chrona group chat.

She remembered it was filled with all the Rank 1 and Rank 2 players from the previous Zones. There should be plenty of people with Legendary Equipment Lottery Tickets; if she put out an offer to buy, she was bound to get some.

The moment she opened it, a flood of new messages popped up.

It was like this every time she opened the chat, so she didn’t think much of it.

Until she caught a message out of the corner of her eye:

"Don’t you guys think that a few too many of the former Rank 2 players in this chat have been dying lately?"

The sender was Quicksand, a name Seraphina wasn’t familiar with. The note next to their name indicated they were also a Rank 1 from a former Zone.

The chat went silent for a moment after that message.

It seemed everyone else was either processing the statement or carefully considering how to respond.

A few seconds later, another user Seraphina didn’t recognize replied. His name was Shatterer:

"People die in this godforsaken place every day. What’s so special about Rank 2s? Rank 1s die just as easily when their time is up."

He’d sent it as a voice message, and his tone was laced with an irritating nonchalance.

Someone else chimed in, "What’s the point of discussing this? Look at it another way, aren’t we all living on a knife’s edge?"

"Exactly. Just dealing with monsters is hard enough. Now some bastards have monopolized the Expansion Crystals, and I can’t get my hands on one no matter what. Who has the energy to worry about other people?"

"The monopoly is disgusting, sure, but they can’t hold onto those things forever. They’ll have to come out eventually. But this business with the Rank 2 deaths... you guys really don’t find it strange? If it was just monsters, wouldn’t the death toll have been highest on the first and second days after the Zone merge? It’s already the fifth day."

"Let me correct you on one thing. A lot of people did die on the first and second days. But the number of people who died today alone is equal to the total number of deaths from those first two days combined."

Seraphina Sinclair kept scrolling.

Shatterer: "Discussing this? What’s the point?"

His blatant attempt to shut down the conversation cooled the chat’s atmosphere, but it flared up again when Quicksand presented another fact:

Quicksand: "The point? If this isn’t a coincidence—if some*one* or some*thing* is systematically eliminating the former Rank 2s—who do you think is next?"

That sentence was like a block of ice dropped into the simmering, but still relatively calm, discussion.

"Fuck! I knew it! I’ve had more shit happen to me in the last few days than in the whole past month! I thought it was just bad luck! So there really is something targeting us!"

"Calm down, calm down. We were all civilized people once, weren’t we? We need to base this on evidence, not just speculation. Quicksand, do you have more direct proof? Or did you discover something? The burden of proof is on the one making the claim, after all."

"I want to know, too. But... it’s probably not man-made, right? Isn’t there only one way to kill another person right now? Besides... the use of a Duel Warrant is always posted on the public announcement board! I just checked. None of those Rank 2s’ names are on it."

Shatterer sent another voice message, this one a sneer. "Getting paranoid, are we? A few Rank 2s die and you’re all scared shitless? You’d be better off figuring out how to get your hands on some Expansion Crystals. That’s the stuff that will actually save your life."

’Interesting.’

Seraphina stared at the chat, lost in thought.

On the surface, it seemed ordinary, but the deeper she thought about it, the more serious the implications became.

Besides, with so many of the former Rank 2s dead, there was no one left for Seraphina to buy Legendary Equipment Lottery Tickets from, even if she wanted to.