New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1036: Stuck Between A Gun And A Wet Place

Ilchulbong, Rì-Chu patted Liu Yan's shoulder, giving him an understanding look, but kept his mouth shut.

He wouldn't be caught dead trying to help him out of that bog he walked into. Ri-Chū liked Liu Yan's friendship but wasn't prepared to lose all his other friends over it.

As they walked back, conversations started speculations about what kind of group the Zhong Kui was and what they should expect when they started meddling in their business.

Alex, David, and Kary abstained from commenting on this, as they knew who they were going up against. They would rather keep the speculating to a minimum, but they could hardly tell the others to stop talking about it.

After all, they'd so graciously offered their help with something they knew nothing about for the sake of helping a friend they knew not. It would be rude to keep them from talking about it.

Liu-Yan ended up at the back of the line, Aapo at his side, as they were excluded from the conversation.

Aapo projected a face of indifference, even though, deep inside, he felt hurt to be suddenly excluded from the chatting. Then again, he could only blame himself for always being so quiet.

As for Liu-Yan, his face was scrunched as he brooded over the situation.

'Fuck. I was just getting them to trust me, and I fuck up twice in a row. This is why I hate guilds. Too many hoops to jump through,' he mused.

He knew he was the distrustful type, and bringing that into an environment with many people around only bred more distrust. When you evidently don't trust others, it's hard for them to trust you in return.

Only fools trust people who don't trust them.

It was why he had always kept to himself and preferred to play solo in every game he ever touched.

And yet again, his distrust had bled him of an option of making allies.

From the front of the pack, Alex could all but hear the young man's thoughts. His face was like an open book from which he could read the internal turmoil in Liu Yan's head.

But he wasn't about to change his tune just because the man felt remorseful. He'd made his bed; now he had to lie in it.

Kary wasn't of the same thought, though.

"Should we give him another chance to choose to help us?" she whispered to Alex.

"No. He made his distrust of us clear. I'm not going to shun him for it, but I don't want to bring him on a task that requires us to all trust each other's backs. He's a liability."

Kary frowned at his words.

"How so?" she asked.

"If we need him to do something for us that only he can do, and he doesn't trust us, who's to say he won't ditch us mid-recovery?" Alex explained.

Kary looked at Alex and understood what he meant behind those veiled words.

"You don't trust him very much, do you?"

Alex scoffed lightly.

"It's hard to trust someone who doesn't trust you. His lack of trust bred cowardice earlier today already, and he paid a price that would have been fatal to anyone else. Liu Yan was lucky that Cory could use a resurrection spell on him. He was dead, Kary."

She understood Alex's point.

"And you're scared his distrust might lead to someone else's death?"

Alex simply nodded at her question.

There was no use in putting words to it anymore. His mind was made up.

Until the man could show that he was willing to trust them, he wouldn't extend that trust to him, either. Goodwill could only go so far.

The group quickly arrived at the other side of the crater, and Alex paused.

"What the..."

Beyond the ridge of the mountain, at the foot of it, he could see many flashing red lights as dozens of patrol cars lined the park's parking area.

He thought back to the article he had read, and his mind immediately thought they were here to catch them.

"Have they been waiting for us all this time?" he mumbled.

"Why all the commotion?" Killian asked.

Most of them hadn't looked at their phone yet, or seen an indication of the date, so they didn't know days had passed while they were inside the dungeon.

To their knowledge, they had entered the dungeon in the early afternoon and came out around the same time. Most of them thought time had flowed almost to a stop within the dungeon, the thought of it flowing faster outside, not brushing their minds.

Alex caught sight of a drone flying to their left, cameras on it pointed toward them, and he cursed under his breath.

'Fuck. Now they know we are here. There goes our sneaking out option,' he mused.

From the forest's edge below, he also noticed a group of cops barricaded on the path.

Behind their barricade, Alex saw two massive speakers, and he understood their purpose quickly as a piercing ring echoed up to their position.

In broken English, a man's voice reached their ears.

"Ah, hello, foreigners. This is the Jeju Police. We ask that you stay where you are and wait for our men to come and apprehend you. Please do not resist, as we are authorized to use lethal force if necessary."

David looked at the police barricade with a scoff.

"As if they had the firepower to take us out. Hah! What a bunch of clowns."

Alex slapped the back of his head with a disapproving look.

"It doesn't matter that they don't. We are not going to fight cops."

Jin-Sil looked at Alex with a frown.

"Why are they even here? It's not like we are criminals," she said, confused.

"They are following orders from leaders who are scared of us. Pay them no mind," Alex told

her, trying to look comforting.

"But why are they even here?" Jonathan reiterated her question.

Alex sighed loudly. This was a nightmare.

"Because they think we are the reason for monsters appearing," David said, his tactlessness

striking again.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"David!" Alex growled.

"What?!" he answered with exasperation.

Everyone looked confusedly at David.

"We don't have time to explain right now. I'll explain once we are back on the plane," Alex

said, backing away from the mountain's edge.

"And how are we supposed to make it there? There are cops on all the paths down," David

asked, looking at him with a frown.

"We fly over them."