The Fallen Merman Chapter 10

Published at 5th of August 2022 01:27:01 PM

Bai Chunian watched as Rimbaud’s back painfully slammed against the wall. His upper torso wrapped in bandages, as well as his team’s uniform, were drenched in blood—it dripped down his fingertips and hit the cold ground. The spirit in his pupils gradually faded, as wisps of blood trickled down his mouth. 

It looked too realistic that Bai Chunian had even felt a petrifying anguish, his heart pounding achingly.

“Crawl under the chair and hide there. Little Rabbit, you go as well. Take the recovery serum and tank up.” Bai Chunian then picked up the colt python, and also the SA80 rifle he’d found from the fallen corpse and stuffed them both in his leathered army belt.

SA80 Rifle

Leather Army Belt (belt usually used by the military for their guns and knives. It’s usually worn in the waist area.)

Bi Lanxing, who was on the other corner of the building, had received the news from the communicator and hastily rushed over to rendezvous. He put the remaining recovery serum he’d been carrying into Lu Yan’s pocket, hoisted his Uzi, and looked at Bai Chunian. “Charge?”

Bai Chunian’s taciturn gaze trained at the distance, to the Greyhound sniper’s temporary location. “Wait. If we let that opposite sniper incapacitate the both of us, they’ll surely take advantage of our recovery time to rush over and wipe us out.”

Bi Lanxing, who had vines growing on his fingertips, distractedly prodded Lu Yan’s head as he released soothing pheromones to ease his pain, all the while examining Lu Yan and Rimbaud’s injuries. The bullet holes were placed in an odd location, and he had assumed the sniper’s marksmanship wasn’t that accurate. But then he saw that both bullet holes in their collarbones were exactly identical, without the slightest difference.

“Did he invite an amazing exam helper?”

Bi Lanxing’s doubt was reasonable. Judging from the sniper’s accuracy, no doubt he should’ve been able to headshot both Lu Yan and Rimbaud, but he didn’t, and only left them a sliver of life. Moreover, the broadcast had also been announcing the Shrill Winds Rise’s team, but Xiao Xun’s name had never appeared on the elimination notice. Bi Lanxing suspected that he must’ve given the kills to his teammates. 

“Unlikely.” Bai Chunian gripped the cigarette case he’d been holding. He’d seen Xiao Xun before they entered the exam and visually estimated that he was around 20 years old. Given his team leader’s bad attitude towards him, nevermind an exam helper, even with an exam helper it’d be difficult to find a sniper whose sniping accuracy outmatched Rimbaud, even though it wasn’t scientific.

Bi Lanxing casted a brief look over the badly-injured Rimbaud. The merman twisted himself with his tail into a little ball and hid beneath the chair, faintly flinching due to the gunshot wound pain. “Nevermind that. You should… go pacify him first.”

“It’s not like he’s really injured anyway. Let him reflect upon himself why he didn’t snipe that guy.” Bai Chunian intentionally averted his gaze from Rimbaud’s body. “We didn’t see each other for three years, and he’s turned stupid.”

As Bai Chunian predicted, Shrill Winds Rise took advantage of their two injured teammates and drove directly into the kindergarten’s main building. Except for Xiao Xun, the three men climbed upstairs and split into two paths to surround them, intending to wipe them out in one fell swoop.      

Bi Lanxing swiftly released vines and created two poison ivy armors for the low-health Lu Yan and Rimbaud, to prevent them from being eliminated. 

The three members of Shrill Winds Rise rushed to the classroom building. Bai Chunian had ascended the stairs in advance and waited for them to show up, while Bi Lanxing made full use of the overgrowing vines and suspended himself outside of the main building, waiting for Bai Chunian to force the men down so he could capture them all in one go. 

Bai Chunian used his peripheral vision to pay attention to any sign of activity at the distant point. Instantaneously, from the branches of a lush poplar tree 200 meters away, he spotted the muzzle of a leaf-camouflaged sniper rifle.

He tapped his communicator and ordered Bi Lanxing to change his location to avoid being sniped. At the very moment he directed Bi Lanxing to a new location, a sniper bullet broke through the window. Bai Chunian quickly jumped over the stair’s railing and skipped down to the second floor. His right forearm had a bleeding bullet hole from a sniper bullet and there was blood all over it; the blood bar in his chest got reduced by a quarter.

“This sniper… So annoying ah.”

The originally flawless ambush positions were thrown into chaos. Bai Chunian gritted his teeth, and simultaneously he’d also spotted the Greyhound omega positioned in the team’s auxiliary line, continuously keeping watch of his team’s positions as he set up his gun. He’d had several opportunities cut off because of this omega sniper.   

The performance of the three alphas in the building, however, were ordinary in comparison. There weren’t even any highlights in the trio’s coordination, and the team leader’s commands weren’t timely and accurate enough. It didn’t match and was unworthy of the overall excellent image of the Greyhound omega racking a gun at a distance at all. They might as well just let that omega hold the commanding position.

Greyhound dogs were visual hunters, possessing excellent visual tracking, speed, and explosive force. Thus, Bai Chunian speculated that his differentiation abilities might’ve consisted of improved vision and speed. 

Both men immediately abandoned the location the Greyhound omega had been holding up and relocated to a music room on the second floor. Bi Lanxing sealed the exit with upas tree vines and brought Bai Chunian into the vent. Bai Chunian followed the passage back to the steel-framed ceiling and waited with bated breath.    

TL: Here’s an example of what a steel-framed ceiling looks like. You see it in movies and games where they crawl in the vents and they sometimes break the square ceilings or like, crawl on top of it. 

The faraway hurried footsteps inched closer. The poker-faced Bai Chunian gripped the python revolver, and waited until the footsteps were directly under him before gently pulling the trigger.    

With a loud bang, the Shrill Winds Rise’s team leader covered his bleeding collarbone and rolled down the stairs, while his blood bar decreased sharply.

Bai Chunian didn’t kill him immediately. He narrowed his eyes and fired another shot.

Blood scattered all over the place, as the second bullet went straight through the hole left by the first shot. The alpha team leader roared and rolled about in great pain, but the collarbone wasn’t a vital part, so he wasn’t immediately eliminated.

The two remaining alpha members were rattled hearing their team leader’s painful howl. And they were too preoccupied with it to notice the vines that had suddenly appeared under their feet. 

All of a sudden, the madly growing vines dragged and tangled them up together. The vines’ sharp thorns injected toxins into their skin, giving them a severe burning pain. The two alphas screeched and crawled on the ground desperately, trying to escape from this terrifying thorny jungle. The corners of their mouths were overflowing with white froth due to poison.

Bi Lanxing frowned and pulled the vines tighter. Listening to the piteous cries of the two alpha, he felt a lot better. 

The pale Lu Yan got up and injected himself back to full health, picked up the desert eagle, and followed the sound to chase out. He happened to run across Bai Chunian. Bai Chunian threw the serum on his right hand. “I’ll leave these men to you. I’ll go teach that stinky sniper how to behave.”

The elimination announcement listed above:

【Casually Playing】Lu Yan eliminated【Shrill Winds Rise】Xiao Zizhe

【Casually Playing】Lu Yan eliminated【Shrill Winds Rise】Xiao Ziyao

【Casually Playing】Lu Yan eliminated【Shrill Winds Rise】Xiao Zichi

The ashen Greyhound omega put away his sniper rifle and immediately climbed down the poplar tree to escape after hearing the three elimination announcements. But when he turned around, his neck unexpectedly got seized by a strong, firm hand. 

Bai Chunian grasped the omega by his neck, neither letting him breathe unhindered nor suffocating him to death. He pulled the slender omega before him to take a closer look. “Let’s see whose family’s puppy is this. Still thinking of escaping? Come over here ba.” 

Like a male lion carrying his prey back to his lair, Bai Chunian captured Xiao Xun alive, dragging him all the way back and throwing him in a corner.

Xiao Xun moved his body. Bai Chunian singlehandedly picked up the rifle, rested the gun’s muzzle on his forehead, and poked at it. “Did I say you could move? Lean back.”

“You can just shoot.” Xiao Xun stared at Bai Chunian coldly, as if he’d been humiliated, and his fingertips trembled.

Bai Chunian poked his forehead again with the muzzle of his gun. “Figured it out? You’re the only one left on your team, so you’re now the only hope of the whole village. Be a good boy and answer whatever I ask you.”

Xiao Xun shut his eyes. “Ask.”

“What’s your J1 ability?” asked Bai Chunian. 

Xiao Xun didn’t expect it. He was unresponsive for a little while, but then softly answered, “Universal dashboard.” 

Bai Chunian suddenly gave a short laugh. “That explains it.”

Greyhound gland’s J1 differentiation ability, Universal Dashboard: Wind course, wind velocity, range measure, target’s dynamic analysis; all the sniping data were displayed in hindsight. 

If the forte of a good sniper depended on their analyzing speed of the target, then the ability of this Greyhound omega lied on the fact that he had no need to analyze. Just like when given a computation problem, others would see the problem first, while Xiao Xun could see the solution directly.

“Second question,” Bai Chunian put the rifle against Xiao Xun’s forehead, “how old are you?”

Xiao Xun turned his head away and didn’t want to answer. Bai Chunian lifted the SA80 and fired a shot to the rubber floorboard between Xiao Xun’s legs. The scalding muzzle moved upward. “Stubborn indeed ba. I’ll neuter you later, little doggy.”

Rubber floorboard 

Xiao Xun trembled, frightened by the shot. He wore an intense, conflicted look for a long while before he managed to hold out a sentence in a very low voice, “Nineteen.” A streak of water slowly trickled out of his eyes.

“Scared?” Bai Chunian put down the butt of his gun and beamed at him. “Your fault for sniping our team’s little O that time la. One-shotting our little friend. You’re so arrogant, there’s no such thing as me refusing to bully you.”

That’s enough bullying. Bai Chunian pulled three anti-detonation devices from Xiao Xun’s belt, leaving only one that would lose effectiveness in 40 minutes. “Come on, it’ll depend on your skill whether you’ll be able to carry your three trash teammates for two more days.”

Xiao Xun raised his eyelashes in bafflement. When he saw that Bai Chunian had really meant to let him go, he tried to feel the ground for the sniper rifle and placed it on his back. When he found that no one had stopped him, he rapidly flipped out of the window and ran away.

Bai Chunian paid him no mind and went to see Rimbaud who was under the chair. Lu Yan glared angrily at Xiao Xun’s retreating figure and couldn’t understand why he’d been set free.

It was just an exam. Bai Chunian didn’t really have to retaliate against an omega who’d been seriously taking the exam. Besides, he wasn’t an exam helper. It was fun to tease him a bit. 

Things were a bit complicated on Rimbaud’s side. 

The bottomed out blood bar had been replenished with the recovery serum, but Rimbaud still hid under the chair, refusing to move. He wrapped himself in his tail, and only his vigilant eyes were visible.

In a realistic sensation VR, pain would be the same as that of the real world. The response to being shot had been completely simulated by imitating its real-life state. Rimbaud’s physical instincts are set on defense and self-healing mechanisms. Rolling himself into a ball of fish to slowly heal was a type of restorative associated ability of a mermaid.

Bai Chunian had to take him out and gently pat him on the back, releasing soothing pheromones to coax him. “It’s okay ah, everything’s fine. Open up, I’ll give you a hug.” 

Rimbaud stared at Bai Chunian feebly. He touched his fish tail in a stiff manner, found a glimmering blue scale, gently lifted it, and tore one off. He endured the pain as he placed it in Bai Chunian’s palm.

Bai Chunian was a bit perplexed. 

Rimbaud pulled another fish scale and gave it to him. A while after, he cut off the most beautiful scales and piled a handful of them in Bai Chunian’s palm.

Then Bai Chunian finally realized Rimbaud’s intention.

The fish must’ve thought he was dying, so he wanted to leave a relic of himself.

How do I explain to someone who’s a different species and with a language barrier between us that it’s just an ordinary exam? Waiting online, f****, it’s urgent!!!

Chapter end