Chapter 122

Chapter 122

It was only the second day of the Department Chief election, and the selection process wasn't over yet. As usual, the instructor dismissed the students early from training.

Lin Ke had moved today's long-distance running task to the end of the session. Lazily tossing out the instruction, "Those who finish running can leave on their own," she herded everyone onto the track like cattle, then stood back with her hands behind her, squinting leisurely as she kept tally of laps. This made it impossible for the Mecha Department students to sneak in fewer laps even if they wanted to.

"Ugh, so annoying, huff huff," Jessica ran alongside Eve at the front of the pack. Even though she was gasping for breath, she insisted on complaining about the instructor under her breath.

"I hated teachers like this the most when I was in school. They leave the troublesome tasks for last, saying things like 'those who finish can leave first,' but by the time the fastest person in the class turns in their work, it's already past dismissal time—this is basically dragging out the session and exploiting us!"

Eve deeply agreed, but: "...Shouldn't you have attended an aristocratic school when you were studying?"

She had thought aristocratic schools were pretty lax.

"No matter how lax, you still have to learn something," Jessica glanced at her. "What about you? How was it at the Medici Clan Academy? Pretty relaxed, right? The teachers were all in-house."

"Not bad. The biggest downside was that you couldn't play hooky because the teacher would actually come with a doctor to check on you," Eve replied.

Jessica let out a series of giggles, seemingly finding Eve's deadpan expression quite entertaining. But her glee didn't last long because Eve informed her that she would be the only one defending the challenge arena that night.

Staring blankly at Eve for a long moment, Jessica finally, slow on the uptake, realized why Eve had been asking about her recovery as soon as she arrived. She couldn't help but let out a teakettle shriek of frustration: "One night, six hours! Do you think I can handle that?"

"Honestly, I don't really care about that kind of issue," Eve said serenely. "But you're the Vice Chief now. If you lose again, you won't even be able to keep that position. This is entirely your own fight for honor."

"......"

The "little princess's" jade-green eyes glared at her coldly and sharply. Unfortunately, Eve was completely unfazed. After finishing the fifty-kilometer run, she smiled at the other and left, even blowing a kiss before going: "Good luck."

The Investigation Department's Department Chief selection process was also held in the combat simulators. Downstairs, the Command Department was using the same combat simulators for their election.

Eve was quite curious about the Investigation Department's selection process. She didn't know much about this major. Her first impression of the Investigation Department was the phantom-like or debonair spies from films and TV shows. Plus, the fact that someone like Lorca, who was still frail two years ago, could become the Department Chief only reinforced her stereotype of the Investigation Department.

...To the point where she wouldn't even be surprised if she opened the door and saw a bunch of people gathered around a table competing to see who could crack a safe's password first.

The First Empire Academy's combat simulators were also divided into small individual rooms. Eve found an empty room, successfully scanned her ID chip to verify her student identity, and entered. Then, she put on the equipment and logged into the personal account the school had issued to each student.

The moment the words "Login Confirmed" popped up, the room's space extended infinitely. The VR headset immersed her into a new world constructed of data and information streams. In the cobalt-blue virtual hall, Eve followed the instructions in the Investigation Department's document, selected a private arena, entered an access code, and then chose spectator mode.

After a dizzying shift, when she opened her eyes again, she was in a prison-like place. The lighting was dim, with a walkway railing on her right and empty prison cells on her left. The sound of dripping water echoed from somewhere.

A very standard prison map, except Eve felt her perspective was a bit strange.

Hovering, bodiless, able to pass through walls and fly... A ghost cam?

Eve blinked. After double-checking, she realized she had indeed become a prison ghost.

"......"

There were two small, bouncing red dots in the upper left corner of her vision. She tried to click them with her non-existent hand—or perhaps just with a thought. The left one turned out to be a chat room for online spectators, where several students as confused as her were asking questions, while the more experienced older students answered calmly.

"What is this weird perspective......"

"Newcomers again today, huh"

"Relax, it's just spectator mode. You'll get used to it after doing a few more simulated battles with the simulation system"

"Feeling a bit dizzy"

"Dizzy from the overhead view? You can try changing the perspective to 'third-person view' in the settings"

Eve followed the advice and changed the settings. With a soft "click," her perspective dropped to the ground. She now had semi-transparent little hands and feet to look at, and she could still pass through walls, but she could no longer phase through ceilings—which made sense, otherwise she'd fall straight through the floor into the eighteenth level of hell.

The other small red dot linked to her personal device. Clicking it brought up Jessica's ranting. Eve set it to "receive messages but no notifications" and then unbothered closed the chat box.

If your skills are inferior, what is there to complain about?

Go work hard for your Vice Chief position, "little princess"!

Aside from that, there were maps, settings, and such—pretty similar to playing a game. Eve explored for a while, then opened the chat room again to see what the seniors were saying.

The match had only loaded the map; not all players had logged in yet. The knowledgeable Investigation Department seniors had already started a free impromptu briefing in the chat room.

"The Investigation Department's election is quite interesting. Although it's an arena format, it's not one-on-one. Instead, it's a hunter-prey battle royale mode. There are always 6 players on the field, divided into 1 "prey" and 5 "hunters." The prey is the title holder, who can be the Department Chief or Vice Chief. Whoever kills the prey takes their place as the prey, and the system sends in a new hunter. Whoever survives till the end becomes the title holder."

"So what does this have to do with investigation?"

"Because the most unique aspect of this system is that there's only a two-way hunt relationship between hunters and prey. Hunters cannot kill each other—if they do, both are disqualified together. The prey can counter-kill hunters, but only when no third person is present. Besides that, everyone's appearance is altered upon entry, and only they know their real identity."

"You might not think much of it when reading the rules, but once it starts—oh my god, cyber hacking, double-agent deception, assassination techniques... it's incredibly thrilling. Last year, Lorca dominated the arena alone. He killed the former Department Chief within half an hour of starting, then took down hunters one by one, pairs one by one. Combined with his elusive Spiritual State, he was practically invincible."

"This... this intense?!"

"Seems much more fun than our department's"

"Don't use the word 'fun' to describe something as solemn as the Department Chief election!"

"Then how are the Department Chief and Vice Chief distinguished?"

"The Vice Chief is appointed directly by the Department Chief. After all, a skilled Vice Chief can directly substitute for the Department Chief in the arena... It's less tiring with two people taking turns. But once the Vice Chief is defeated, the Department Chief has to shoulder it alone. So even though it's a free appointment, they usually don't choose based solely on connections—unless the Department Chief is very confident in their own abilities."

While they were chatting, the players also loaded into the map, along with some system-generated NPCs. The once eerily quiet prison instantly gained some life, and the empty cells now had hunched-over silhouettes in them.

Eve could even hear the guards shouting impatiently in the first-floor hall: "Hurry up, stop dawdling—"

Then came a clear, sharp sound piercing through the air—smack!

It seemed this prison's management wasn't very civilized, Eve thought to herself. Or perhaps the environment was one of the challenges these students faced.

Earlier, to test her wall-passing ability, she had locked herself in a cell. Now, the player count displayed "Total: 6," and she prepared to go out and observe how other departments conducted their elections.

She heard that Luo Wenzhou hadn't participated in the election yesterday. After all, yesterday was the Vice Chief defending the arena; winning would have been thankless anyway, so it was normal that not many people participated.

Thinking this, Eve squeezed through the narrow iron bars. Though she felt no actual sensation of squeezing, she habitually turned sideways to pass through.

Then, just as she was halfway through, an extremely sudden "smack" sound pierced through the air. Eve instantly tensed up, her eyes turning sharp, her hand instinctively reaching for the lightsaber at her waist—but there was nothing there.

Immediately after, an automated alert audible only to spectators and players sounded:

"Hunter Su Xing eliminated. A new hunter will join in five minutes."

The player count quickly dropped by one, and this was less than ten minutes after the match started.

Eve: "......"

Eve opened the chat room again.

The small red dot marking the chat room was flashing rapidly, as if about to burn up. Sure enough, upon entering, it was filled with effusive praise for Lorca.

"Beautiful, this is the strength of our Department Chief!"

"A familiar opening elimination; it seems like last year was the same."

"We still don't know how the Chief identified the players and NPCs so quickly..."

"He'd explained this in a group activity once. When players first enter the game, there's a period where they try to familiarize themselves with the environment, but NPCs don’t. It’s also partly that player’s bad luck—they landed right next to the Chief. Eliminated instantly."

"Easier said than done. To catch that brief moment of a tell at the start and observe how they blend into the surroundings requires observation skills most people don’t have."

"So where exactly did it happen? I need to follow the Chief and observe his moves!"

"Good question. If you find out, announce it in the chat."

A stream of praise, admiration, and amazement made Eve raise an eyebrow slightly. She hadn’t expected Lorca to be so popular in his own field.

Her impression of him still lingered from two years ago—a pale young man lazily leaning against the headboard, turning to her with a smile and saying he didn’t want to go to military school. In the blink of an eye, he had fit in so well.

Eve couldn’t quite describe her feelings, but overall, she felt glad. After all, every doctor hopes their patients can lead fulfilling lives even after leaving their care.

The chatroom continued to spam meaningless messages. After watching for a while and finding no further useful information, Eve closed the floating window. Stuck between the bars in an awkward position, she continued to shuffle sideways like a crab, even though it wasn’t necessary.

Looking around, she couldn’t distinguish NPCs from real players. Perhaps everyone here was an NPC—all equally numb, with tired faces flickering with a mix of defiance and submissiveness, passing through her translucent form without noticing.

After curiously observing for a moment, Eve decided to head to the staircase and wait. Once the ordinary prisoner NPCs were locked in their cells, anyone still exploring the map would likely be a player.

It was a basic strategy, something she could think of, and others could too. Just as Eve stepped onto the rusty welded iron staircase, another crisp "snap" sound echoed, efficiently taking out another player.

The system announcement sounded again, overlapping with the previous one’s cooldown ending. The two emotionless mechanical voices blended together, creating an indescribably eerie and chilling effect.

"Hunter Corol eliminated. A new hunter will join in five minutes."

"Hunter Luo Wenzhou has joined the match."

The bright red player count dipped then climbed again, finally settling at "5."

One person was still missing, and the time between the two hunters' eliminations was exactly five minutes.

A slimy, cold touch brushed against her calf. Even though her incorporeal form shouldn’t feel anything, Eve strangely and keenly perceived a familiar presence gliding past her leg like a lure.

She glanced down and saw a slender shadow, almost invisible unless looked at closely, winding its way across the dark gray concrete floor before stopping at someone’s feet.

The person wore a prisoner’s uniform, with an ordinary and unremarkable face, hunched in a submissive posture, eyes seemingly drooping meekly. Only when they turned slightly did a sharp, alert glint of icy green reveal itself.

There was no visible trace of weapons on them, perhaps hidden by the system, but the Wall-Imprisoned Serpent would never mistake its target.

Eve observed Lorca’s new appearance with curiosity, as if meeting him for the first time.

Then, she stepped forward and, like a ghost, silently followed the footsteps of the esteemed Investigation Department Chief.