Chapter 104 Nuclear Radiation 7

Chapter 104 Radiation Zone 7

Su Han returned to the white mist.

A translucent panel popped up before her, displaying the following:

Name: Su Han (ID-verified)

Level: 7 (EXP 20/30)

Profession 1: Nutritionist (Maxed-out skill, cannot be upgraded further)

Profession 2: Soap Maker (Maxed-out skill, cannot be upgraded further)

Hunger meter: 860/860

Hygiene meter: 860/860

Stamina: 860/860

The system voice did not announce the points earned or any additional rewards. Instead, it directly notified, "You have successfully advanced. Please participate in the 11th round of the competition sharp at 8 AM tomorrow."

The 11th round... Su Han sighed softly. In the end, she really had to take time off.

Then, the player automatically logged out of the game, and the game capsule slowly opened.

Su Han stood up and, before doing anything else, called her company to request time off.

When HR asked for the reason, Su Han was too embarrassed to say she was hooked on the game and had no intention of working. She vaguely replied, "Last-minute emergency, and I'm tied up. I’d like to take three days off. Since I still have 15 days of paid annual leave unused, just pull it from there."

HR didn’t ask further and quickly agreed.

After hanging up, Su Han thought aloud, "Three days should be enough to finish the competition, right?"

But who could know for sure?

Su Han shook her head, thinking that if three days weren’t enough, she’d just extend the leave. Steeling herself, she opened the survival game forum.

She had expected players to be raging by now, but that wasn’t the case.

"..."

"......"

"........."

From top to bottom, the perfectly lined-up posts almost made her suspect a hacker had invaded the forum.

However, upon opening the threads, she found that the poster IDs were all different. Clearly, the forum hadn’t been hacked—it had been flooded with pissed-off players.

After scrolling through five full pages, she finally came across an actual post—

"WTF. Playing this game makes me want to cry. I burned through everything trying to clear it, but life is too hard."

"In the first nine rounds, I grinded to hoard supplies, thinking I’d finally made it. But who knew I wouldn’t even survive until the 10th day of the 10th round? My ego got wrecked."

"The game itself is hard enough, but the other players are even more cutthroat. Running low on supplies, they straight-up mug people! Damn it, I got jumped by five people and died so unfairly."

"I had plenty of supplies and was just laying low in my room for the 10th day to pass. But my neighbor turned out to be a griefer—knowing they couldn’t pass, they took all the Timed Explosives from their Portable Storage and lit them all."

And then, the! entire! street! exploded! I was so unlucky to live next door and died instantly in the blast.

What the hell, where’s the fairness in that?!

"Humans without order are terrifying—worse than wild animals."

"Having high combat stats is useless, having ample supplies is useless—you need both to come out on top. In other words, those who specialize too narrowly are unlikely to survive, unless they’ve specialized to an insane degree."

...

"I just want to ask one thing—are there any experts who cleared the tenth instance without a Portable Storage? Food exposed to the air gets instantly contaminated by radioactive elements. No way anyone pulled that off?"

Su Han paused and clicked to check. The first reply read, "Yes, I did."

Someone below asked how the first commenter managed it, to which they confidently replied, "Teammate carried me."

Everyone responded with, "...”

The OP had to clarify, "I meant solo players—any of those?"

No one answered for a long time. Maybe such players didn’t exist, or they just didn’t see the post, or maybe they saw it but couldn’t care less to reply.

Su Han closed the tab and kept browsing.

After scrolling through many posts, a different take emerged: "I really don’t like how you guys keep talking about humanity, sabotage, or insanity.

It’s actually very simple—the rewards are based on player rankings. So, knowing they’d be eliminated, those doomed players chose to take out as many others as possible. That way, they could maximize their own rankings.

They’re only getting flak now because they lacked the strength. If they were strong enough to coordinate and eliminate all players in this round, some of them might’ve actually snagged first place.

After all, what they lacked wasn’t combat ability—it was supplies."

After reading the main post, Su Han got goosebumps. The idea of all players being wiped out in the nuclear radiation instance sounded horrifying.

Next was a rant: "Speechless. Only '...' can express my feelings right now."

Many people picked up on this new trend and flooded the forum with spam, drowning it in a flood of crap posts.

After browsing countless posts, only one thought lingered in Su Han’s mind—where’s the data post? How many survivors are left? Unfortunately, all she found were shitposts.

Then she realized—data posts would be stickied, impossible to miss in the flood of crap posts. If it wasn’t on the front page, that meant the stats weren’t out yet.

Su Han knew she’d left the instance early—others might still be playing—so she waited patiently. But when she returned to the front page, she spotted a stickied data post.

She clicked immediately: "BREAKING: 106,000 players participated in Round 10, 29,700 advanced—a 28% clearance rate. Among them, 23,000 survivors left on Day 10. No one beat the level."

Su Han was curious—what happened after Day 10?

She got up, made a cup of oatmeal tea, stirred it gently, then returned to refresh the post. A player had just shared their experience:

"#BackFromHell#

On Day 11, stats tanked. Barely any shelters were left in the instance. NPC survivors numbered under a thousand, all retreating underground. The underground plaza closed to outsiders but took in all NPC refugees.

In other words, only players remained aboveground. With no supplies, no trades, and no NPCs to rob, the only way to clear was to target other players.

Those with ample stockpiles had a shot at clearing—but they had to avoid other players at all costs. Living in that instance meant even sleeping in fear. It was no way to live!"

"Medic class here. I barely survived to Day 16 with Vitality Potions, thought I was home free—then the system announced another nuclear leak in town. Radiation levels spiked, and stamina got nuked. I wanted to rage-quit this BS system—since when does it play dirty?!"

"Struggling to survive until the 13th day, I encountered countless attacks and nearly died several times. I kept wondering, why insist on staying in this awful instance to determine the winner? Why not fight another day?

So I couldn’t hold back and left the instance. Afterward… I didn’t feel even a hint of regret, only pure exhilaration!

A nuclear radiation setting is no place for humans, okay? Should’ve left way earlier!"

"I’m different—I considered the problem from a unique angle. What if the high-level players stayed in the instance fighting desperately, only to meet with an unfortunate accident? Wouldn’t that mean those who chose to complete the instance got a free advantage? (For example, if 100 players chose to complete while the rest died inside, only those 100 would survive.) Thinking this, I decisively left the instance. But later, I realized I was overthinking—there were plenty of survivors."

Seeing the last comment, Su Han realized, *This was exactly the kind of tragedy I feared, which is why I deliberately left the instance early. After all, this is a survival competition, not an instance-completion one.*

Under thirty thousand players remained… Su Han inwardly reminded herself that, given the current instance difficulty, the winner would likely be decided in the next round—or at the latest, the one after. In other words, from now on, every step had to be taken with extreme caution.

After skimming a few more posts and confirming the rest were just low-quality posts, she turned off her computer and rested—she needed to recharge to better face the challenges ahead.

The next morning, Su Han lay down in the game pod early.

At exactly 8 a.m., the participants logged in on time, beginning the eleventh game.

The system’s robotic voice made no mention of the shop, directly transporting the players into the instance instead.

**

Before Su Han could react, the system proceeded with its introduction. *"This round is a survival game with a PvP setting. Players must do everything in their power to survive."*

*"Note 1: K44 Desolate Island (the server you are on) has a total of 120 players."*

*"Note 2: If the player survival rate drops below 50%, survivors who meet the completion requirements may request to leave the instance at any time. If the survival rate drops below 10%, it will be considered an ultimate challenge completed by the survivors, who will receive additional rewards. (Survival rate = players still in the instance / 120. Players who leave after the 10th day are not counted.)"*

*"Note 3: If stamina reaches zero, the character dies, and the player is disqualified from the competition."*

*"Note 4: Players are numbered from 1 to 120. Among them, you are Player 90 and have been granted the weapon—potassium cyanide. (Each player will receive a different weapon.)"*

*"Note 5: In this round, players’ Portable Storage/personal items will be frozen."*

*"Note 6: You have been given a hip pouch containing your poison (potassium cyanide) and a map of the desolate island. The map marks the locations of all resource points on the island, where you can obtain food, supplies, medicine, and weapon supplies."*

*"Note 7: You may transfer necessary items (non-weapons) from your Portable Storage to the hip pouch. Once prepared, the game will officially begin."*

Su Han glanced at the hip pouch—a leather waist pouch with a single main compartment. Strapped to her waist, it wouldn’t hinder movement, but its capacity was ridiculously small.

She estimated its dimensions: about 20cm wide at the front, 30cm at the back, and 10cm thick. Two water flasks would fill it to the brim, never mind the fact that it already contained a vial of potassium cyanide and a folded map.

*"Limited space, no weapons allowed—so only the essentials. But I have to balance food, supplies, medicine, and more…"* Almost instantly, Su Han thought of the Nutrition Capsules.

Nutrition Capsule: A high-tier food item. Consuming it restores +60 satiety, +60 cleanliness, and +60 stamina.

With excellent stats and a compact size, it was practically a game-changing item in this instance! Su Han immediately retrieved all the Nutrition Capsules from her Portable Storage. Counting carefully, she had exactly 15—enough to last several days.

*"My Innate Ability can reliably provide food and supplies, so I don’t need to prepare too much. But I should bring more medicine."* Su Han muttered softly while organizing the hip pouch.

But there were too many types of medicine, each treating different debuffs. After some thought, she simply stuffed two Vitality Potions into the hip pouch.

Finally, she wanted to bring her usual armored vest into the instance. Unfortunately, it was too large to fit, so she had no choice but to give up.

Once she finished selecting, the system asked, *"Are you prepared?"*

Su Han answered decisively, *"Confirm."*

The next moment, the system announced, *"The game has officially begun. Good luck."*