MTLNOVEL Chapter 26 - Where Did It Go Wrong?
Thud——
The moment he touched the ground, Yuuki felt like he was going to fall apart.
They made it!
Scattered car parts littered the surroundings, while gunfire still crackled behind them, sending sparks flying off the pavement. The small truck, now belching white smoke, huffed and puffed as it barreled into the narrow alleyway.
No one was blocking their way. The gunfire gradually faded. The tension coiling around Yuuki’s toes finally loosened.
Beyond the canal lay the port district, dotted with warehouses and buildings of varying sizes. Beyond that—only the vast sea. No one knew what lay on the other side.
It was precisely because of its desolation that no enemies were lying in ambush here.
“Is anyone hit?!” Yuuki shouted as he ran his hands over himself. Aside from a few cuts from shattered glass, he found no bullet wounds.
The adrenaline was wearing off, and the pain started creeping back in. Sakurajima Mai, who had been sprawled across his thigh, finally lifted her head, drenched in sweat.
“No, but I almost suffocated,” she muttered, rubbing her neck. Yuuki had pressed down too hard earlier, and her cervical spine ached in protest. Still, there was no blame in her gaze.
As if he had done it on purpose—he had barely managed to get them out alive.
“Hasaka, your driving skills are even better than I imagined,” Yuuki called over his shoulder to Hayasaka Ai, who was still gasping for breath. The scene just now had been more intense than any action movie.
“My driving’s at a proficient level, and I outperformed myself back there,” the blonde girl said, the corners of her lips quirking up slightly as she struggled to maintain a neutral expression. “Your reinforcement magic was impressive too. Without it, even with rocket boosters, this junk heap wouldn’t have made it across.”
For that brief moment, the small truck had not only exceeded its horsepower limits but had also become significantly more durable. From her perspective, the hood was riddled with embedded bullets.
“It was a team effort. No need for mutual praise.”
“Who’s praising you?” Hayasaka Ai shot him a sidelong glance and was about to wipe the blood from her forehead when a bandage was already wrapped around it.
Sakurajima Mai hadn’t been idle—she quickly found something to do. She was getting the hang of this game.
“Thanks,” Hayasaka Ai muttered as she guided the barely functioning truck into a warehouse. Without turning her head, she asked, “Anything you noticed on the way?”
“Too many things, I don’t even know where to start,” Yuuki said with a dry chuckle. One of the reasons he had let Hayasaka Ai drive—besides her skills—was so he could observe their surroundings properly.
“First, those weren’t people. They were intelligent undead.”
“Yeah”
Both girls tensed. They had already experienced it firsthand.
The enforcers of this modern city saw nothing else—only the players to eliminate. They had caused ten times more destruction than the three of them combined.
“Second, the Reincarnation Game is generous, but the price is extreme risk. You have to act decisively and use your resources wisely.”
No argument there. The game even implanted the necessary skills directly into the players’ minds—no need for practice. Any hesitation was practically a crime.
It put a player’s allocation abilities to the test. If Yuuki had hoarded his enhancement points or wasted them on something useless, there was no way he would have survived.
“Third, this city is far more dangerous than the castle. The game knows how to exploit a player’s complacency.”
Yuuki exhaled deeply. If he had treated this place like the real world—leisurely flirting with girls, or assuming they were safe after breaking through once—he would have sealed his own fate.
Relaxing was fine, but vigilance had to return immediately. Every situation demanded a solution.
Hayasaka Ai hadn’t even touched the brakes—the truck, trailing smoke, had simply reached its limit and died.
The atmosphere was heavy. These past ten-plus hours had been pushing them to the brink. Thankfully, they had each other—sharing a few jokes to ease the tension helped keep their nerves from snapping. More importantly, when danger struck, Yuuki always switched gears in an instant.
Beyond observation and intelligence, this ability to shift personas was far more valuable.
Clang.
With a light kick, the truck door fell off on its own. Yuuki jumped down, his legs still trembling slightly. That was when he noticed a bullet hole just five centimeters from his head.
“Let’s move. We need to find a safe spot and wait for Li Dan. We can’t handle this level of pursuit on our own.” He turned back—only to find Sakurajima Mai staring at the truck with a strange expression.
“Senpai, don’t tell me you’re mourning your ice cream. I’ll grab you a few later, okay?”
“Who’s your ‘Senpai’?” She rolled her eyes before pointing at something. “Come here. Either I’m seeing things, or… this wasn’t here before.”
What nonsense was she—
Yuuki, full of doubt, climbed back inside. The next moment, his pupils contracted sharply.
A tablet-like device lay exactly where he had just put his foot down. Yuuki raised his head, locking eyes with Hayasaka Ai.
“Wait a minute—wasn’t there a radio here before? The one we salvaged from the police car?”
Hayasaka Ai knew a thing or two about electronics. She had dismantled the radio herself—there was no way she’d remember it wrong. They had even used it to eavesdrop on police communications.
“In other words, just now, an old-fashioned radio from the 80s turned into a modern tablet. Oh, and it’s connected to the police network.” Yuuki picked it up, his face full of intrigue.
The screen was covered in moving blue dots, along with real-time information. Their enemies’ search efficiency had just increased a hundredfold. He also noticed new dots appearing on the city’s outskirts—some moving at breakneck speed, likely police helicopters.
First, they get a three-star wanted level, and now the world starts spawning people out of thin air?
“Amazing. It’s like watching a documentary where someone suddenly scrubs the progress bar forward—reality just shifts without a sound.”
Sakurajima Mai and Hayasaka Ai exchanged glances. They had seen too many strange things since entering the game. The words “impossible” simply didn’t exist anymore.
Magic? Sci-fi? Some kind of underlying logic?
None of that mattered. What mattered was that their situation had just gotten even worse. Blending in like before was no longer an option.
“This change was sudden,” Hayasaka Ai said coldly.
“Saying ‘sudden’ is an understatement. There wasn’t a single sign,” Yuuki replied, tossing the tablet to her. “That proficient-level hacking skill of yours might come in handy.” Then, gripping his sword, he silently walked toward the exit.
“Also, tell Li Dan—if he can outsmart them, don’t rely on brute force. There’s no end in killing them, and they shouldnt be killed.”
The world looked different on the surface, as if drawn in a completely different art style. But Yuuki knew the core had never changed—just like the very first words when the game began:
【This place is under siege by bloodthirsty ghouls. They will devour your flesh and blood.】
Yuuki strode out of the warehouse. Out of Hayasaka Ai and Sakurajima Mai’s sight, however, his cheek twitched slightly.
From the castle to the city, he was starting to grasp the Reincarnation Game’s style. One question churned in his mind over and over:
Even if the game didn’t have difficulty settings, this scenario was beyond absurd. The survival rate for an ordinary person was practically nonexistent.
His thoughts drifted to his own innate trait description, his beginner’s tutorial… and certain details about Li Dan and Thomas.
Was the problem with him? With them?
Or—
Was it both?