“The other end is the ‘Cat House,'” Earth-Mouse said. “In other words, my room.”
“You have a room too?”
“Yes.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “Please rest assured, leaders, I won’t lie within the rules. Our respective rooms are at opposite ends of the hall, with excellent soundproofing. I absolutely cannot hear your discussions, nor will I enter your room.”
Qi Xia looked again at the ‘Cat House’ on the far right. That room had a white door and was separated from the ‘Mouse House’ by five rooms. Even if the soundproofing wasn’t good, it would be difficult to hear sounds from each other’s rooms.
“The five rooms in the middle, plus this main hall, make up our game area,” Earth-Mouse introduced. “Our main activities will all take place in this zone.”
As Earth-Mouse spoke, he walked to a yellow door and reached out to push it open.
The room inside was very spacious. At the far end was a wine-red altar table with a white porcelain plate on it. Several fruits were stacked on the plate like offerings, and upon closer inspection, they appeared to be dragon fruits.
This was definitely a rare commodity in the ‘Land of the End.’
“Tsk, how inauspicious, it’s like worshipping the dead…” Zhou Liu said. “Who taught you to stack fruits with three on the bottom and one on top?”
“Auspicious…?” Earth-Mouse grinned without any real smile. “We’re already in a place like this—who still cares about auspicious or inauspicious?”
He walked forward and pointed at the dragon fruits on the table, saying, “These fruits can fill your stomachs… but only in the ‘literal sense.'”
“What?”
“Leaders, for the next part I need you to put on the collars before I can continue the explanation.” Earth-Mouse waved his hand, gesturing to everyone.
Qi Xia exchanged glances with the others. They knew that having already come to participate in the game, they couldn’t escape this moment sooner or later, so without another word, they put the collars around their necks.
Once all the collars were connected, lights lit up on both the left and right sides of each person’s collar—two lights in total.
“Everyone… the lights on your necks represent your ‘Satiety Value,'” Earth-Mouse said, feeling his explanation wasn’t clear enough, so he added, “Right now there are two bars, meaning you’re ‘full.'”
“When will our ‘Satiety Value’ decrease?” Qi Xia asked.
“It automatically decreases by one point each round,” Earth-Mouse said. “Leader, let me reiterate—each round is divided into two phases: ‘Night’ and ‘Day.’ After these two phases pass, everyone’s satiety value will collectively decrease by one point.”
Seeing everyone nod, Earth-Mouse continued, “Each time you ‘steal’ food, you can increase your satiety value by one point. Each fruit can increase one ‘Mouse’s’ satiety value by one point, up to a maximum of two points.”
Qi Xia silently calculated in his mind. Everyone started with an innate two points of ‘Satiety Value,’ totaling ten points. Each person would lose one point per round, and over six rounds total, they would need to spend thirty points of ‘Satiety Value.’
Excluding the initial ten points, theoretically they would still need to find twenty pieces of food.
The current room had four fruits, so the remaining rooms might also have four each. Five rooms totaling twenty fruits—the number was just right.
After hearing this, Luo Shiyi murmured to himself, “So we really have to play mice and steal food?”
“That’s exactly it, leader. The ‘Satiety Value’ can drop to 0, but if it falls below 0, your collars will explode.” Earth-Mouse glanced at him and continued, “During each night, the ‘Mouse’ camp can make one of three choices: Search, Transport, or Rescue. Each person can only choose one. Next, I’ll explain these three choices in detail.”
He walked to the wall and found something resembling a switch there, saying to everyone, “There’s a button here. Enter the room and press the button, and the door will lock. This also counts as the ‘Mouse’ deciding to search in this room. The next day, you can take away the fruits in the room. But please note that under any circumstances, each ‘Mouse’ can only transport three fruits.”
“So how can we ‘Transport’?” Qi Xia asked.
“To trigger ‘Transport,’ the prerequisite is that the ‘Mouse’ must stay in the room for a complete round. The next round, you can ‘Transport.’ By the way, as long as someone triggers ‘Transport,’ they can transport items for their companions, but the limit is still three fruits.”
“This is getting a bit complicated…” Luo Shiyi scratched his head. “We’ve covered Search and Transport now—what was the other one again?”
“There’s also ‘Rescue,'” Earth-Mouse said. “To trigger ‘Rescue,’ I have to mention the ‘Cat’s’ actions.”
He paused and said to the people in front of him, “For the ‘Cat,’ there are also three actions: one is ‘Search,’ two is ‘Set Up Checkpoint,’ and three is ‘Patrol.'”
“You have ‘Search’ too?” Qi Xia asked.
“Yes, but my search isn’t searching for fruits—it’s searching for ‘Mice,'” Earth-Mouse explained. “After each of you chooses ‘Search,’ the door will lock. During the day, I’ll randomly select a room to begin ‘Searching.’ Once I enter a room with a ‘Mouse’ in it, I’ve caught him.”
“What happens when you catch someone?” Qi Xia’s most pressing question finally emerged. “Are they directly eliminated?”
“It’s not that unreasonable,” Earth-Mouse said. “As a ‘Cat,’ when you catch prey, you must torture it slowly—you won’t eat it immediately. So I’ll bring this person to the ‘Cat House’ and eliminate them at the start of the next round. You can choose to enter the ‘Cat House’ during the night to rescue them. Although I’ll be in the room, I won’t interfere. After six rounds, all ‘Mice’ who survive and are not in the ‘Cat House’ are considered victorious.”
“We can rescue people? Then how can you still win?” Luo Shiyi asked. “Don’t you understand what kind of team we are?”
“Ha, it doesn’t matter—feel free to rescue them, leaders,” Earth-Sheep said with a dry laugh. “From the bottom of my heart, I hope you help each other.”
Qi Xia’s expression slowly darkened. He felt this game had some tricks to it.
If a ‘Mouse’ was caught and the others chose to ‘Rescue’… was that really a good idea?
In other words, one ‘Mouse’ would have to give up a ‘Search’ opportunity and consume one point of ‘Satiety Value’ to go rescue someone. This round would require the other teammates to bring back at least one extra fruit to make up for the loss.
But the situation wasn’t that simple. The rescued person had also been starving for at least a day and would likewise need to immediately replenish with ‘fruit.’ If they rescued someone when there weren’t enough ‘fruits,’ it would only accelerate the entire team’s death.
This Earth-Mouse game was clearly very different from the Earth-Dog game… It didn’t require overly close cooperation. It focused specifically on ‘hiding’ and ‘searching.’ The five mice could even each fend for themselves, and as long as just one survived at the end, it would count as victory.