PDLP Chapter 74 Kestrel
Chapter 74 Kestrel
The assembly point provides basic food and lodging, but resources are limited and it's first-come, first-served.
As soon as the officer announced the disbandment, the hundreds of trainees in the square suddenly sprang into action, like a swarm of ants disturbed.
The objective was clear: the three rows of temporary metal sheds erected along the edge of the square.
The number of sheds is limited, estimated to be no more than fifty, while there are several hundred trial participants.
This means that at least 80% of the people will be sleeping in the square tonight.
Spending the night under the outer wall of the protected area, no one knows what might happen.
The competition instantly intensified.
A conflict immediately broke out near the shack area.
"Get out of my way! This room is mine!"
A burly man with a scarred face kicked a skinny young man who was trying to approach the shed. The young man groaned and rolled to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
On the other side, two extraordinary individuals were already wrestling, each trying to drag the other away from the doorway of a shed.
Further away, someone directly used the power of the strange object, which was probably related to swapping positions.
Some people were switched places as soon as they entered the shed, and hadn't even had time to sit on the bed properly.
Lin Yu didn't rush over. He calmly scanned the chaotic area.
The shack doors appeared to have simple numbers, but the arrangement was irregular.
His gaze swept quickly across the shacks, finally settling on one that was relatively inconspicuous near a corner.
There was no one in front of the shack at the moment.
Lin Yu strode towards shed number 17 at a steady pace.
However, just as he was about ten meters away from the shed, a figure suddenly darted out from the side, rushed to the door of shed number 17 ahead of him, and reached out to pull the simple metal door.
It was a young man wearing a flashy leather vest, with his hair dyed green, a smug grin on his face. He glanced back at Lin Yu with disdain in his eyes.
"Kid, you were a step too slow... huh?!"
His words came to an abrupt end.
Because Lin Yu's speed suddenly increased, he almost became a blur, instantly crossing the last few meters, and one hand gripped the green-haired man's wrist as he reached for the doorknob like an iron clamp.
"Snap!"
The sickening sound of bones cracking rang out clearly.
The green-haired man let out a piercing scream as his arm twisted at an odd angle, clearly indicating that his wrist bone had been crushed.
Lin Yu pulled and swung the green-haired man like a tattered sack, throwing him four or five meters away before he crashed heavily onto the concrete ground and rolled several times before stopping.
Clutching his deformed wrist, he wailed incessantly, unable to even crawl.
The whole process happened in the blink of an eye.
Several other trainees who noticed the conflict immediately sharpened their eyes and looked at Lin Yu with more apprehension.
Decisive, ruthless, and without any nonsense.
This is definitely a tough opponent.
Ignoring the stares of those around him, Lin Yu reached out and grasped the cold doorknob of shed number 17, and gently pulled it—
The door wasn't locked and opened immediately.
The shed is slightly larger inside than it appears from the outside, about ten square meters.
A simple metal-framed bed, a small table, a chair, bare metal walls, and a dim emergency light hanging from the ceiling.
The air was thick with the smell of dust and rust, but overall it was much better than sleeping in the plaza.
Lin Yu walked into the shed and closed the door behind him, shutting out the noise and chaos from the outside world.
He first inspected the entire shed.
No obvious abnormalities or hidden mechanisms were found in the walls, floors, or ceilings.
The metal frame of the bed was somewhat rusted, but it was still quite sturdy.
The only unusual thing was that there was an inconspicuous metal plate on the wall directly opposite the head of the bed, with some blurry engravings on it.
Lin Yu walked closer to take a closer look.
The marks are very shallow, as if they were left by repeated scraping with a fingernail or a rough stone, forming a crooked symbol.
Lin Yu noted down the symbol, but did not act rashly.
He then sat down by the bed, closed his eyes to rest, and kept an eye on the activity outside the shed.
The fight over the shantytown lasted for about half an hour before gradually subsiding.
The shouts, the sounds of fighting, and the occasional screams gradually diminished, eventually being replaced by a stifling silence.
Those who failed to secure a shack either resigned themselves to returning to the center of the square to find a relatively sheltered corner, or gathered in small groups to keep watch vigilantly through the night.
No one dared to approach the shacks that already had owners; the earlier conflict had established a basic order.
It got completely dark.
A few sparse, high-powered searchlights lit up the edge of the square, their pale beams piercing the darkness but making the shadowy corners appear even more profound and unfathomable.
A night wind began to blow, carrying a faint whistling sound from the direction of the outer wall of the protected area, as if the wind were passing through a huge gap.
Time passed slowly.
Around 10 p.m., Lin Yu's ears twitched slightly.
He heard very faint footsteps approaching his shed number 17.
The footsteps stopped outside the door.
Immediately following were two very soft but rhythmic knocks on the door.
"Knock, knock knock."
Lin Yu opened his eyes but did not respond immediately.
The people outside didn't seem to be in a hurry, waiting quietly.
A few seconds later, Lin Yu got up and walked behind the door, but instead of opening it, he looked out through an inconspicuous little crack in the door.
Standing outside the door was the woman with the chestnut ponytail, leather armor, and short sword from the train.
She was still wearing that dark brown leather armor, but now she wore a dark gray cloak over it, with the hood pulled low, covering most of her face.
Only a few strands of chestnut hair peeked out from under the brim of the hat.
With her back to the searchlight, her figure almost blended into the shadow cast by the shed.
She seemed to know that Lin Yu was observing her, and she slightly raised her head, her amber eyes flashing in the shadows as her gaze briefly met Lin Yu's.
She then took a small step to the side, allowing Lin Yu to see the ground beside her, where a person was lying.
A man wearing a tattered jacket, curled up, lay motionless, with a pool of dark liquid slowly spreading beneath him.
The man was still tightly clutching a sharpened steel bar in his hand, seemingly trying to sneak into the shed under cover of darkness to do something, but he had clearly run into a brick wall.
The woman lightly kicked the corpse with her toe, indicating that the trouble was over, and then looked at the crack in the door again.
Her eyes were calm, yet held a hint of pleading.
Lin Yu raised an eyebrow. So this woman solved a potential little problem for him? Was she trying to seek protection through this?
This can be considered a stepping stone.
Lin Yu was silent for a few seconds, then opened the door of the shed, but only opened it a crack wide enough for half a person to pass through, blocking the doorway with his body.
"What is it?" His voice wasn't loud, but it was loud enough for the other person to hear him clearly.
The woman raised her hand, pointed to the figures huddled in the cold wind in the direction of the square, then pointed to herself, and shook her head.
The meaning is clear: they couldn't get a shack and didn't want to sleep outdoors.
"So what's the price?" Lin Yu asked succinctly.
The woman seemed to have been prepared. She reached into a small leather pouch at her waist, took something out, held it in her palm, and showed it to Lin Yu.
It was a grayish-white crystal the size of a pigeon egg, with an irregular polyhedron shape, and inside the crystal it seemed to contain a small clump of slowly rotating gray mist.
The surface of the crystal is covered with naturally formed, dark red vein-like patterns.
"Mist Stone." The woman spoke, her voice colder than Lin Yu had expected, but very steady:
"Sequence 8 can be used to enhance and conceal strange objects related to mental protection, or directly trigger a short-term, powerful fog field."
It's definitely a good product; it seems Anna could use it.
But Lin Yu only glanced at it before shaking his head: "Not enough."
The woman's eyes remained unchanged, seemingly unsurprised by the answer.
She put away the mist stone, hesitated for about two seconds, and then spoke again, lowering her voice to make sure only Lin Yu could hear her:
"I know some information about the 'doors,' about the types of rules and dangerous tendencies that might appear on the first three doors."
This stake is much higher than simply obtaining Sequence 8 materials.
In the Abyss Trials, intelligence is life, especially regarding those with bizarre rules.
Lin Yu looked at her: "Where did you get it?"
The woman paused for a moment before replying:
"Where I came from, someone once came out alive through the second door."
She's gone mad, but I pieced together some fragments from her ravings.
Lin Yu gleaned the key information: "Where did you come from? Also from a planned development zone?"
The woman nodded, her facial features, framed by the hood, appearing particularly clear in the shadows.
Have you heard of "Ash Wasteland"?
Lin Yu's eyes flickered slightly. Ash Wasteland was one of the most environmentally challenging areas among the known areas awaiting planning.
It is covered by toxic ash year-round, strange events occur frequently, and survivors are few and extremely xenophobic.
The woman who was able to emerge from there and pass the selection process to qualify for the trial is definitely not simple.
"Name?" Lin Yu asked.
"...You can call me 'Red Falcon'," the woman replied.
Lin Yu nodded and stepped aside to open the door a crack:
"Come in. I'll give you half the intelligence now, and the other half before dawn."
Without the slightest hesitation, the woman named Red Falcon slipped into the shed, her movements as swift as a real falcon.
This reminded Lin Yu of the nightingale.
I just left one bird, and then I encountered another. That's interesting.
I wonder if this bird eats insects?
Lin Yu closed the door and locked it again.