Ch68 - Fear of the Full Moon

They were fighting against the NPCs in the instance. This was a short instance. 12 hours of game time and 2 hours of preparation time…

Fear of the Full Moon… 

Why was the snow mountain level called Fear of the Full Moon?

Many thoughts crossed Nan Zhou’s mind as Lu Bifang ran down from the stairs. He was carrying three sets of fleece warm clothes, three jackets, three pairs of anti-cold gloves, three anti-cold pants, three pairs of double layered hiking boots with laces tied together over his shoulders and a portable oxygen tank under his armpit. His body was hung with objects like a Christmas tree. In addition, he ran fast. He stood in front of the three people and inevitably panted.

He quickly unloaded the goods to the three people and handed the oxygen tank alone to Nan Zhou. “You don’t look well. Sister Liang was afraid of your reaction to the height. You should suck on this first while we find a few more oxygen cylinders. I’ll give it to you then.”

Nan Zhou held the oxygen cylinder in his arms. His thoughts were interrupted by the person in front of him. Still, Nan Zhou wasn’t angry. He just stared straight at this person. 

Lu Bifang saw his confused face and immediately reacted. He took out the oxygen mask from the plastic bag, attached it to the bottle and neatly fastened it on Nan Zhou’s face. He pointed to the air button and bluntly said, “Press it according to your breathing rhythm.”

Nan Zhou obediently pressed the button and asked vaguely, “Why?”

He didn’t quite understand. They were in the same camp so it was fine to give appropriate help to teammates on the premise of taking care of their own team first. This was reasonable. However, the clothes that Lu Bifang was wearing when he came in weren’t thick. It was just a thin sweater. Nan Zhou’s fingers had grazed this person’s skin when reaching for the oxygen tank. Judging from the body temperature, Lu Bifang should be cold as well. Why didn’t they equip themselves first?

Lu Bifang wondered, “…Eh?”

‘The masses first’ concept that he took as common sense meant he didn’t understand Nan Zhou’s thinking. For a moment, he blinked at Nan Zhou in confusion.

Jiang Fang came out and broke the short deadlock. “What is your plan?”

Lu Bifang looked seriously at Jiang Fang but he still couldn’t remember where he had seen this person. “Just… search the building for supplies first and finish within 30 minutes,” he replied. “Then we will set off for the top of the mountain.”

“You want to leave after finding the equipment?” 

“Yes.” Lu Bifang replied. “It says that the mission will officially start in two hours but it doesn’t stipulate that we must start in two hours.”

This was definitely what He Yinchuan had said. Nan Zhou could imagine the expression on the captain’s face as he gave the order with crossed arms. Nan Zhou confirmed it again. “Start 30 minutes later?”

“Yes, it is almost like that.”

Lu Bifang added, “Sister Liang and I will protect you first. The captain, vice-captain and Xiao Lin will observe the environment again and follow at any time according to the situation.” 

“The instance doesn’t say what will happen if we fall behind the NPC group but it is better not to fall behind as much as possible. So you should work hard and first look for some knee pads, head lamps, snow goggles and other essentials. Just bring them and I’ll teach you how to wear them. There is no need to bring too much stuff with us. We’ll travel light.”

Nan Zhou agreed with this arrangement, although it meant he had to give up and adjust some of his own plans.

He nodded and said, “Then wait for me.”

Lu Bifang wondered, “…Eh?” 

Nan Zhou put on the jacket and pointed to a few mountain tents in the distance where there were no lights or campfires. “I’ll go there and be back soon.”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Against the backdrop of the orange fleece jacket, his face became even more white and moving. He looked much younger. Compared to Lu Bifang’s surprise, Li Yinhang suddenly remembered that this bigshot said he was 23 years old when he first introduced himself. He was still younger than her 24 year old self. 

Previously, Li Yinhang hadn’t dared to put him in the position of a younger brother at all. It wasn’t until he changed into these clothes and his overpowering feeling was decreased 70% by his weak body that Li Yinhang barely had the sense of being an older sister.

After realizing, Lu Bifang immediately raised an objection. “No, it is too dangerous!”

Nan Zhou seriously reasoned with him, “The game didn’t say that we can’t start ahead of time, the area of the small building isn’t large and the preparation time left for us is too generous. It doesn’t make sense.”

Lu Bifang thought it made sense. He still couldn’t agree. “If so, we should go. How can we let you guys take the risk?” 

“No.” Nan Zhou put on his gloves. “It has something to do with the completeness of the instance. We can’t give it to you.”

Then he looked at the gloves and changed his attitude slightly. “But I can take you with me.”

Lu Bifang, “……”

Wasn’t this too direct?! Still, it was easier for him when the other side expressed his demands so clearly without all the fanciful twists and turns. He scratched at his hair. “Yes, wait a minute. I’ll go and ask the captain.” 

Nan Zhou watched him rush upstairs before continuing to put on gloves. Unexpectedly, Jiang Fang grasped his wrist. Nan Zhou was stunned and tried to break free. However, even if Jiang Fang didn’t exert much effort, he could easily make the current Nan Zhou unable to move.

Jiang Fang lowered his head slightly and asked Nan Zhou, “Can you really go now? I am also against it.”

Li Yinhang saw Jiang Fang make a statement and immediately followed up. “Teacher Nan, if you didn’t have altitude sickness then I wouldn’t say anything but now it is too dangerous for you to go there. No one knows what will happen there. It might not be humans competing against us. So even if you want to investigate the opponent, you can’t go. If you don’t feel comfortable, why don’t I go with Brother Fang—”

Nan Zhou raised his eyes, looked at Jiang Fang and whispered, “It hurts.” 

Li Yinhang trembled at this rare show of weakness. Her heart had just softened when she heard Jiang Fang give a low laugh. “I am accurately controlling the strength of my hand. Don’t act spoiled, Teacher Nan.”

Nan Zhou saw that this person wasn’t fooled into letting go and pursed his lips. “I’m just a bit uncomfortable. It isn’t that you aren’t controlling your strength.”

Li Yinhang, “……”

How to put it? This bigshot was really flexible. 

Nan Zhou found that Jiang Fang really didn’t plan to let go. He blinked his slightly damp eyelashes with little fluctuations in his usual cold tone. “You asked me if I can go. Then let me ask you, can you go?”

Li Yinhang was stunned for a moment and immediately turned to look at Jiang Fang. Perhaps it was because he already exposed his imperfection to Nan Zhou but Jiang Fang didn’t mind confessing his weakness to Li Yinhang. “I’m afraid of heights.”

Then he quickly added. “It isn’t so much climbing a mountain. It isn’t rock climbing.”

Nan Zhou said, “Yes. It isn’t to this extent.” 

Li Yinhang had a headache when she saw both men staring stubbornly at each other. She finally figured out that due to various reasons, the original advantages of Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou had been sealed in this instance. She didn’t have time to wonder if the system specifically targeted their problems due to taking too much advantage in Squirrel Town.

The trouble was that Nan Zhou’s thinking did make sense. The nature of this instance was based on a ‘race.’ The other party was the instance NPCs and was presumably a professional mountaineering team. If they didn’t carefully investigate who was competing with them, why the opponents might climb faster and other details, it would be very difficult to win.

The current situation was that Jiang Fang was worried about Nan Zhou and Nan Zhou was worried about Jiang Fang. If no one was willing to give in and wanted to go to the other camp to investigate, the three of them would have to separate. It was either Li Yinhang following the Bronze Brigade people alone to investigate or Nan Zhou would stay in the two hour shelter for rest while Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang went together.

For the former, Li Yinhang didn’t dare guarantee that she could find anything useful with her own abilities. The latter was equivalent to leaving Nan Zhou alone in a strange place when he had zero combat power. Even if the Bronze Brigade revealed their identity very sincerely, Nan Zhou couldn’t fully, unconditionally trust them out of caution. After all, the teammates they encountered in the last instance had a problem. They had to be on high alert. 

The three people looked at each other for a moment.

Nan Zhou took the lead to speak. “I can really go with you. Even if I can’t use my strength right now, my mind is still clear enough to talk to those NPCs who are camping.”

Li Yinhang had developed the understanding of ‘this bigshot is younger than myself’ and dared to joke with him. “It is better to take Brother Fang than you. Brother Fang is livelier.”

Li Yinhang was worried that Nan Zhou would anger the NPCs and make them start the race early as soon as he opened his mouth. At these words, Nan Zhou had a cold expression while his eyes showed a hint of disbelief. “I am also very lively.” 

Jiang Fang couldn’t hold it for a moment and laughed loudly.

Nan Zhou grabbed his sleeve and shook it twice with a solemn look. “Let’s go together.”

Jiang Fang leaned back with a helpless smile on his face.

Nan Zhou confirmed it. “You’ll take me?” 

Jiang Fang held the hat with both hands, placed the ear part on Nan Zhou and gently covered the ears.

Nan Zhou blinked. “You aren’t worried about me anymore?”

“Of course not.” Jiang Fang’s fingers curved slightly and he pinched the cold ear. “However, aren’t teammates supposed to be used at this time?”

Just then, the sound of Lu Bifang’s hurried footsteps were heard from above again. He brought back some supplies as well as the approval of Captain He Yinchuan. “The captain asked me to go with you.” 

Once they wore all the cold-proof equipment, the four people stepped out of the cement building together. Thankfully, they had good protection. The temperature difference between inside and outside the small building was at least 45 degrees or more.

After walking more than 10 meters, Nan Zhou looked back. At an altitude of 4,500 meters above sea level on a snowy mountain, this small man-made building stood out from the vast snow-capped mountains.

Two hours later, this safe area that the instance specially left for them to rest in might be forcibly erased from the map. His face might mostly be covered by the snow goggles but Nan Zhou still had some of his skin exposed.

The strong moonlight and cold snow fell on Nan Zhou like white phosphorus, splashing and burning his skin. This made Nan Zhou’s face pale and more fragile, like he could break with a touch. The finely crushed snow particles hit his face, causing some pain. 

Nan Zhou hated his unusually sensitive state so he tried to curl up his body behind Jiang Fang as much as possible. Jiang Fang also took the initiative to protect Nan Zhou from in front while handing over his hands covered in thick, warm gloves. At the same time, Jiang Fang took deep breaths as he forced himself to forget the slight dizziness triggered by being in the mountains as well as the fresh, snowy breeze.

The orange-read headlights could only illuminate a fan-shaped area in front of them. Outside the headlights was a bleak whiteness. Pure white was sometimes more frightening than pure black.

Lu Bifang knew that it was still within the safe time but he wasn’t sure about the result of their trip. He whispered, “There is no campfire.”

As soon as he opened his mouth, he ate a lot of snowy wind. His teeth were frozen and he had to shut up. Yet even without a campfire, it was impossible to lose their position and not find the opponents’ camp. 

Under the giant moon, the ground was white. The other side’s campsite and the small concrete building weren’t far apart. In around 15 minutes, they arrived at the other side’s camp.

Nan Zhou’s physical strength was severely lost but this didn’t mean his judgment had declined. The number of tents was small. There were three double tents set up for six people. They camped very sloppily and didn’t have a campfire to keep warm or drive away mountain beasts. There were several holes visible to the naked eye in the tents and one tent’s pegs had actually come loose. As a result, half of the tent was blown by the wind and snow of the night, like a torn battle flag.

It was more like an abandoned camp.

Li Yinhang was brave and just wanted to go up to take a look when a middle-aged man in bright yellow mountaineering clothes quietly came out from another tent and headed to the tent half collapsed in the wind. He held a giant mountain climbing hammer in one hand to move the tent cloth back to its original position, fixing the tent pegs by hand. 

The moment Li Yinhang saw him, she was extremely shocked. The man was extremely dry and thin. He didn’t look like a living person. He was more like a walking corpse. Was this an NPC they would be competing with?

She instinctively wanted to say goodbye. Then after taking a step back, she remembered that neither Nan Zhou nor Jiang Fang were in the best condition now. As their teammate, she had to support them. Li Yinhang gulped and walked closer. She summoned her courage and said loudly, “Big brother, hello.”

The big brother concentrated on fixing the tent as if he couldn’t see the four big living people in front of him.

Lu Bifang’s heart was beating like a gong or a drum and he was very uneasy. He took a few steps forward, guarding Li Yinhang while saying, “Comrade, hello…” 

This comrade also turned a deaf ear to his greeting.

Nan Zhou withdrew his gaze from the camp. He was a dozen meters away as he spoke to the middle-aged man, “Excuse me. We want to go up the mountain—”

The middle-aged man abruptly raised his head and stared at Nan Zhou. Seeing the dark circles under his eyes and the almost blue-black lips from a close distance, Li Yinhang almost screamed. The man stared at the four people in front of him. His vocal cords trembled and almost formed a buzzing echo in the mountain breeze.

“Don’t… go up the mountain.” 

“Go up the mountain and you will be punished by God.”

Nan Zhou grabbed Jiang Fang’s shoulder. He went slightly on tiptoes as he asked in a low voice, “What god?”

The man raised his hand, as if wanting to point to something. Then he immediately realized something and retracted his fingers back into his sleeve in horror.

Carrying the hammer that could easily break a human’s head, he stared at the moonlight reflected by the snow on the ground and muttered in a low and nervous voice, “Go up the mountain and you’ll be punished by the moon god.” 

“No one can go up the mountain. It isn’t allowed to go up the mountain…”

“Go up the mountain and die.”