Suddenly, a row of black text appeared in the clear sky. The players watched the words warily, trying to decipher any hidden information.
“What does this mean?” one player asked, pointing at a number highlighted in red in the sky.
“I know, I know!” another player jumped out. “It’s ‘Defend the Carrot’—I’ve played this game before!”
He explained everything he knew.
“It’s a tower defense game. Soon, monsters will keep spawning from the refresh points, and our job is to destroy them and protect the carrot. That number ten probably means there will be ten waves of monsters in this round.”
This explanation made sense.
Before the game officially started, there wasn’t much information, so the players stopped talking and began checking their own belongings.
An Suisui reached into her pocket, the cool touch of the items inside calming her nerves a bit.
She currently had five cards: hemostatic gauze, a special backpack, a sharp little knife, the beast’s cage, and one rather special card.
While sorting through her cards, An Suisui suddenly remembered the pet that made her right eyelid twitch.
It was S-rank, after all—surely it couldn’t be that bad?
She decided to let the husky out and take a look.
After the first game ended, a player tattoo had appeared on her wrist, invisible to anyone but players.
She gently touched the tattoo, and her personal information instantly appeared before her eyes.
Player: An Suisui
ID: 0023
Age: 22
Level: 1
EXP: 0/15
HP: 100/100
Agility: 6
Speed: 11
Endurance: 6
Strength: 3
Defense: 1
Companion: Husky (S)
Special Ability: None
In the companion row, a small black-and-gray dog tilted its head at An Suisui, looking very cute.
An Suisui clicked “companion,” and the dog suddenly appeared at her feet.
The dog was lively, immediately circling An Suisui as if getting used to her scent.
An Suisui had never owned a dog and didn’t know much about their habits, so she watched it warily in silence.
After a few laps, the dog was suddenly attracted by the big carrot not far away and dashed toward it.
The ground in the Gobi was uneven, with loose stones everywhere. The dog had only run a few steps before it tripped over a rock and fell with a thud.
Before An Suisui could react, the dog got up by itself, but it seemed especially angry, convinced that the stone had tripped it on purpose.
Awooo, awooo—
The dog started arguing with the stone, and An Suisui couldn’t pull it away.
Of course, the stone didn’t respond, so the dog got more and more worked up, then suddenly picked up the stone in its mouth and started gnawing on it.
At that moment, An Suisui’s right eyelid started twitching again, and she hurried to stop the dog.
But the dog was too worked up. Not only did it not let go of the stone, it picked it up and ran, only to trip over another stone.
Tragically, the first stone was still in its mouth, and when it fell, the stone got lodged in its throat.
The dog let out a weak whimper, collapsed, twitched a few times, and then turned into a puff of light, disappearing before An Suisui’s eyes.
At the same time, An Suisui received a game notification:
【Your companion Husky has died】
An Suisui: “…”
Jian Shi, who had watched the whole thing, couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing.
The still sky suddenly shifted, clouds moving, and the wind whistled through the rocks, bringing the Gobi to life in an instant.
All the players tensed up—the game had begun.
An Suisui reacted quickly, climbing up a high rock to observe the Gobi.
Her eyesight was pretty good; she could see things dozens of meters away.
Not just the player who’d spoken up, but An Suisui herself had played “Defend the Carrot” before and knew the rules.
But she also knew that in real-life games, many things would be changed, so she couldn’t rely entirely on the original rules.
She kept scanning the bare ground and finally spotted something odd.
Fist-sized black ants were crawling out of the cliff, but there were no visible ant holes—so where were they coming from?
“Everyone, over here!”
After alerting the others, An Suisui was the first to run toward the spot where the ants were emerging.
These ants looked like ordinary black ants, but they moved fast, had a strong sense of direction, and there were a lot of them. If these were the “small monsters,” they’d be tough to deal with.
She picked up a stone and threw it at one of the monsters to test it.
The stone hit an ant’s back, and a string of numbers floated up from its body. Suddenly, a red health bar appeared above what had looked like an ordinary ant.
So they really were monsters.
The other players who arrived saw this and were all surprised.
So these were the monsters? If they could just defeat ten waves, would they win?
There was almost nothing on the Gobi but rocks—even An Suisui didn’t have a truly useful weapon.
The ants’ attacks weren’t strong, but they were slightly poisonous. If bitten, your nerves would be paralyzed and your reactions would slow.
Things were getting tricky.
There were so many ants—surely they couldn’t just throw rocks at all of them?
And constantly picking up rocks would be too exhausting. Who knew how long the battle would last? Conserving energy was wise.
“There’s a tree over there! We can cut branches to use as weapons.”
One sharp-eyed player spotted a small, not-very-thick tree at the base of the cliff.
The players rushed over, each trying to pick the sturdiest branch.
An Suisui needed one too.
She took a couple of steps forward, then looked back and saw that only Jian Shi had stayed where he was.
Hands in his pockets, he seemed completely unconcerned by the growing army of ants.
When An Suisui finally got her stick and returned, she saw Jian Shi swinging a huge, pitch-black scythe—each sweep left a pile of ant corpses.
An Suisui was jealous.
That was obviously a reward from the last game—why hadn’t she drawn something so useful?
A certain dog’s image flashed through her mind, making her shiver. She quickly shook off the scary thought and refocused.
In tower defense games, you can’t win with just one max-level turret. No matter how strong, it can’t cover everything.
An Suisui reminded herself that this was a team game—she couldn’t be too selfish.
She helped clear out monsters farther from Jian Shi, while keeping an eye on the black ants running from the spawn point.
But she soon noticed that only half the ants were being killed by Jian Shi. The other half, even though they hadn’t crossed his defensive line, had disappeared.
She immediately became alert, climbed to a higher vantage point, and the other players soon joined her.
Here is a faithful English translation of your excerpt:
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