The next few days passed so quickly for Levin, Mira, and Chen Ze. Unexpectedly, during the night after their shocking meeting with the mammoth, Levin and Mira were attacked by a shadow user player. Fortunately, Mira's affinity toward light magic made it easier for her to detect anomalies in the darkness, and Levin managed to kill the man who tried to sneak attack before he could do any damage to them or their residence.
With that kill, Levin also fulfilled his deal with Chen Ze to help the man meet the requirement to advance to the next round.
However, that didn't mean he and Mira would leave Chen Ze just like that. No, right now, being with Chen Ze would be the best scenario for them. Not only did the scientist have his way of scouting the outside world without putting them all in danger, but his food supply also far exceeded their need for about two months, allowing them all to have the freedom to decide what they wanted to consume.
Of course, that wasn't the only thing that Levin was concerned about.
No, his intention to stay here was to figure out their hypothesis of a new power they would gain for the second round of the game. While it was pretty useless for them to think about something that they didn't know whether they would get or not, for a normal human being who didn't have any special power inside them, Levin and Chen Ze discussed this topic with full enthusiasm.
They even tried to send Eggly and Micey—the two surveillance robots that Chen Ze had—back to the waterfall where the mammoth and the other elephants lived. Unfortunately, the moment they were within a 500-meter radius, the signal sent by the robots suddenly started to get weaker, and if Levin and Chen Ze tried to force their way, they would lose their connection with Chen Ze's babies, which was not something that they were willing to do.
"Well, it seems that we are not supposed to meet the mammoth before the second round." Chen Ze said helplessly as Eggly and Micey were back at his hand. "I think, this is just a small warning from the ruler. If we insist on trying to figure out something we are not supposed to know, we won't be as lucky as we are right now."
Unfortunately, Levin had to agree with this assessment. He knew that Chen Ze came from a pretty advanced technological world, and the man built his babies with the best materials that existed in his old world. Even though the man had never said that, he knew that there must be something to prevent the signal from getting jammed by an unknown party. So, if they still lost a signal to the robots, the probability of a strong enemy waiting for them there was pretty big.
Fortunately, other than that and the sneak attack from the shadow user, there were no more accidents happening for them. They spent the next few days pretty leisurely, preparing their condition for the next round of the game. Mattheus – the gravity user – also visited a few times, with the first time was with starvation when he asked whether they had something to eat or not. Right after he saw their food stock, he was hooked and became a constant visitor in their small abode.
"Man, you don't know how lucky you three are." Mattheus talked while chewing his mouth loudly, eliciting a frown from Levin. "Ouch! What the hell is wrong with you, Old Man?!" He glared fiercely after Levin landed a karate chop straight to his head.
"Mind your eating manner! Don't let Mira copy your action or I will have your head!" He glared at the boy, threatening him fiercely.
Mattheus was about to retort, but he held back immediately when the boy saw the big doe eyes on the girl's face, not wanting to ruin her innocence with his crassness. In the end, he just made a series of rude gestures while glaring at Levin, which the soldier just ignored casually.
"Anyway, what did I say before?" Mattheus cleared his throat, trying to go back to the earlier topic.
"You said that we didn't know how lucky we were." Mira chirped, helping the boy happily.
"Ah, thanks, Mira! God bless you." Mattheus nodded gratefully at the girl. "Well, as I said before, you three don't know how lucky you are! Outside there, players started fighting against each other not for the game anymore, but for the food resource! They are really starving outside there, and some who don't have a bottom line even tried to indulge in cannibalism! Everything is so chaotic outside there right now!"
Mira's face turned pale as if all the blood drained from her face, and Levin couldn't help but glare at the boy for being so insensitive, telling about something so creepy and disgusting like cannibalism in front of a little girl like her. Mattheus himself scratched the back of his head sheepishly, realizing his wrongdoing here.
"Anyway, this is so strange! I know that even though we all come from different dimensions, everything here is the exact same copy of our old world, with forest, mountain, sea, town, and everything! So, how is it possible that there is not even a single animal living here?!"
Levin tried his best to maintain his poker face when he heard that. He knew that this should be related to Azzar – the mammoth. However, he didn't know how the creature was involved in this and he also didn't trust Mattheus about this information. After all, they were just an acquaintance to each other right now, not even an ally. Fortunately, Mira also knew how to keep her mouth shut when necessary as she didn't babble everything toward the boy.
However, this piece of information only made Levin more worried than ever. If before this, he still insisted on patrolling over the abandoned city for at least two or three hours, now he just let Eggly or Micey do that for him. In return, during his free time, Levin started teaching Mira how to defend herself.
"I know that usually, you will be on the back, supporting us with your priest magic. However, you have also experienced helplessness when you got separated from me. Remember the illusionist, right? I don't want you to experience something like that again, so I will start training you about how to defend yourself. Okay?"
Of course, he didn't go all out like how his instructor during his military year taught him. Levin guided the girl patiently from one move to another, and while Mira wasn't the most talented in hand-to-hand combat, the girl still worked hard to follow all of Levin's instructions.
Overall, they had a couple of productive days since their meeting with the mammoth, waiting patiently for the day the second-round game began. However, those peaceful days finally met their end when on the morning of the sixth day they were in this world, suddenly, Levin felt like he was floating on the sea of clouds with three young saplings wiggling in front of him due to the gentle wind breezing around him.
"Holy shit… Where the fuck am I right now?!"