“The blood in the bucket is still almost full.” Feng Bujue walked to the ice bucket again. “It seems the Derivate doesn’t need these. Its purpose here is simply to kill the two players.”

Xiao Tan followed up, “Then why didn’t it come to kill us? Aren’t we at a lower level?”

“It’s easy to understand why it didn’t kill you. Your position was probably the closest to the two GMs. If it came to kill you, it would risk entering their detection range.” Feng Bujue said, “At the beginning of the script, I, Atobe-shao, and Name-too-hard-to-pick could all be targets. Especially me, with my low level and solo act. Even if I was killed, the GMs might mistakenly think it was the Blood Wolf Zombies.”

“But… during that prime hunting time, the Derivate didn’t attack me, nor did it go after the other two. It wasn’t until you and I and the two GMs were all in the Ailebu Building that it came here to strike. So…”

Feng Bujue stopped there, looked up, and shouted loudly to Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, “Hey! You two generals, was the Derivate unable to move for a period of time at the beginning of the script?”

Hua Xiong lowered his head and shouted down from the rooftop, “Not unable to move, but not yet fully transformed.” He then asked, “Remember that cup of coffee?”

“How so?” Feng Bujue replied.

“Ordinary data is like ordinary instant coffee, it dissolves as soon as it’s poured with hot water, but the Derivate’s powder takes longer to dissolve.” Hua Xiong replied, “Normally, when we quickly play the script with the players to the point where it’s about to be cleared, the Derivate has just completed its instantiation and appears in the script.” He paused for two seconds and added, “But the one we encountered this time is generating very quickly.”

“I see…” Feng Bujue suddenly thought of something and added, “Right, how did you know the target was level four? Was it a system prompt when entering the script? Or can you check it in the GM menu?”

“After ‘contacting’ it, you can see the level in the menu.” Pan Feng replied, “Just brush it once with a melee weapon.”

“Wait…” Feng Bujue said, “So, you’re saying that you’re guessing that this Derivate is level four?”

Pan Feng and Hua Xiong looked at each other upon hearing this, then laughed, “Ha… we told you before that there are four levels of Derivates, and you actually took it seriously? Where are we going to find a level three Derivate? Our job is to eliminate all level four Derivates. Unless we fail repeatedly, or a level four Derivate is lucky enough to encounter a six-person team consecutively, a level three Derivate will never be born.”

Feng Bujue chuckled dryly, “Okay, I hope you’re right.”

Pan Feng asked, “Say, Brother Feng, how’s the scene looking from below? Have you come to any useful conclusions?”

“Hmm…” Feng Bujue put his hands in his pockets, paced back and forth and said, “The Derivate’s appearance is that of a human female, about 1.65 meters tall, with a slender build, and can instantly take out, or extend from somewhere on its body, claw-shaped weapons about twenty centimeters long. Its speed and strength aren’t much different from the Ashford Doctor mutant we saw in the Ailebu Building before.”

“From an intelligence standpoint, you can only track its coordinates within your detection range, but it always knows your location. At the same time, it also knows the exact location of every player. Therefore, the operation of using us as bait is not feasible. As long as you are nearby, it will not approach us.”

“I can’t say for sure how high the Derivate’s intelligence is for the time being. From the current situation, it fully knows what it ‘should’ do. Its purpose is survival and evolution, and the necessary condition to achieve this goal is to get all the players and GMs to leave the script.”

“Considering it from its perspective…”

“First of all, it won’t stop you from using the administrator’s advantage to clear the script quickly, because clearing the script means that all the players will be sent away. This is easier for it.”

“Secondly, under the premise of ensuring safety, such as when it is far away from you, the Derivate doesn’t mind getting rid of a few players, perhaps this will help it grow? I don’t know…”

He stopped there and paused: “Another noteworthy point is the relationship between it and the monster forces. Will the Derivate be attacked by monsters, or can it communicate with monsters? Will their interactions change the plot, and will the main quest given by the system be affected? I can’t determine these.”

“In short… if I were that Derivate, combining the actual situation of this script, there are roughly three options to choose from.”

Feng Bujue sat on the sofa again, lowered his head, and gently tapped his forehead with two fingers, “Hmm… the best strategy is to use itself as bait, at a suitable time, such as after dark, deliberately enter your detection range, lead you to a specific location, and join forces with Ashford’s mutant and the nighttime version of the Blood Wolf Zombies to take you down.” He raised his head and touched his nose with his hand, “I know you can view the flags, monster information, and script map, but you can’t see the real-time coordinates of every monster. This… is not difficult to deduce, because before you found Doctor Ashford through the trigger point of the plot flag. But after it mutated and escaped, you could no longer find it.”

After a half-second pause, he continued in a deep voice, “Assuming that this Derivate can find Ashford’s mutant and communicate with it, and it is also smart enough, then it will definitely use monsters to achieve its goals. The above strategy is the most likely to succeed for the Derivate.”

At this moment, he pointed to the distance and winked at Xiao Tan. Xiao Tan turned his head and saw a Blood Wolf Zombie approaching in that direction. He knew what Brother Jue meant, so he picked up a baseball bat and went over.

While Xiao Tan was fighting monsters, Pan and Hua had already jumped down from the roof, because Feng Bujue had just said that ambushes were useless, so they didn’t want to be up there in the wind anymore.

“The middle strategy is to kill Ashford’s mutant.” Feng Bujue continued to say to the two GMs, “If it does this, Xiao Tan and I will leave the script because of clearing it, and then the Derivate will deal with you, or continue to play cat and mouse with you. Anyway, after at most eighty hours, you will go offline due to the game pod restrictions. Of course, as a set of data, it may not have the concept of a ‘real world’ at all, and doesn’t know about this rule.” He paused, “Choosing this one means that the Derivate cannot communicate with monsters. In order to prevent unstable factors such as mutants and players from messing things up, it will do this. It also shows that this Derivate believes it has a high probability of killing you in a one-on-two situation.”

Xiao Tan had already killed the monster at this time and was walking back here.

“As for the worst strategy… it’s unlikely.” Feng Bujue said, “The worst strategy is to pick a time and rush over, directly launching an attack on the four of us.” He said, “Although the worst strategy does not conform to this Derivate’s behavior patterns so far, if it really just kills over like this, there must be some reason, such as… it ate Ashford’s brain and suddenly mutated into an extremely powerful monster, thus gaining the confidence to take on four people at once.”

After listening to Feng Bujue’s analysis, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong both had their mouths half open, looking at him with a look as if they were looking at a monster. “May I ask, what exactly do you do?”

“I’m a…” Feng Bujue was about to shout out one of his usual answers.

Xiao Tan interjected directly, “Freelancer!”

Feng Bujue shrugged, brought the topic back on track, and said to the two GMs, “Let’s discuss how to deal with these three situations. Except for the second situation, Xiao Tan and I can play a role to some extent.”

“The deaths of the two players at level fourteen and level twelve have already explained a lot, right? You yourself have a concept of the Derivate’s strength through reasoning. Do you really think the two of you can help?” Pan Feng said, “I know, you are a very capable player, and you have a lot of ideas, and you are not someone ‘played by the game.’ If I weren’t a GM, my game skills would probably not be as good as yours. But when facing a Derivate like this, all that’s needed is combat strength. Everything else is secondary.”

“You underestimate the strength of the players too much.” Feng Bujue said in a relaxed tone, “Just like you said, the success rate of a GM solo hunting a level four Derivate is over 95%. Then, if you measure it by the strength of your GMs… in a script of this level, the Derivate’s strength is roughly equivalent to a player who is less than level twenty, let alone it is just an AI, not a human.”

“Atobe-shao and Name-too-hard-to-pick were killed in seconds because they were careless. If they had regarded this Derivate as a strong enemy from the beginning, and used guns, skills, and so on to fight it, would they still have been killed in seconds? I think they could have at least done some damage to it, and maybe even successfully escaped.”

“I am really looking forward to witnessing the process of hunting the Derivate alive, and participating in it, so…” He paused, “Let’s assume for the moment that this Derivate will choose the best strategy, which is the most difficult for us, and let’s think about how to deal with it…”

…………

The setting sun descends in the west of the city, and the buildings have already darkened.

Night has fallen, and in this city, it seems that every wisp of air has become icy cold, a chilling cold that can freeze one's blood.

The eyes of the Blood Wolf Zombies have all turned blood red. Their movements are still as slow as zombies, but their sense of smell has become more sensitive than during the day. Once they smell the scent of prey, their pace will suddenly speed up, and they will even lean down and run on all fours. Their strength, speed, and ferocity are all very different from their daytime state. At this moment, the Blood Wolf Zombies are at least twice as strong as ordinary zombies.

Under the night, two figures are moving forward rapidly.

Behind them, there are already more than fifty Blood Wolf Zombies chasing after them.

Twenty minutes ago, the Derivate appeared within the detection range of the two administrators, and it was only wandering and hovering at a distance, without any further intention of approaching, which was in line with the worst case scenario that Feng Bujue had predicted.

At this moment, Pan Feng and Feng Bujue are chasing after the target at a speed that is even a bit faster than the Blood Wolf Zombies. Both of them have smeared a lot of uninfected blood on their clothes to attract monsters…