My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 20

In the middle of the night, Ren Chenxi was groggily nudged awake. In her half-asleep state, she remembered she was responsible for the second watch. Sharing the shift with her were Huo Keyu and Jian Dan.

Checking the game time, she saw it was already past midnight. Ren Chenxi instantly perked up, pulled up the Gacha Center, and began a new round of free draws. After drawing a Dress-up Card, a Flash Card, and a Greasy Card in ten-minute intervals, she finally landed a Blast Card. Drawing an R-rank card put her in a great mood. She peered through the gaps in the wooden planks covering the window from time to time, waiting for the next ten-minute countdown.

Since the apocalypse began, most of the country had lost power. City streetlights were mere decorations, let alone in these rural areas. The only light source was the moon, which remained completely indifferent to the end of the world. Ren Chenxi looked out several times, using the bright moonlight to watch the dark expanse of wild grass in the distance. Just as she was about to pull her gaze back and prepare for the next draw, she reflexively checked her mini-map. What she saw made her bolt upright.

The mini-map, which had been clear except for the green dots representing their group, was suddenly swarming with red dots. Ren Chenxi forced herself to count—there were at least thirty of them!

“What is it?” Huo Keyu asked, immediately alert as Ren Chenxi stood up.

“Wake everyone up. We have a situation—it’s likely a mutant beast raid!” Given the speed of the moving dots, mutant beasts were the only possibility Ren Chenxi could imagine.

At her words, Huo Keyu and Jian Dan moved with lightning speed to shake everyone awake. Some were pushed out of sleep in a daze, only to be hushed by urgent whispers: “Shh, don’t make a sound. Mutant beasts!”

Once everyone was awake, they crowded around the windows, peering through the cracks. In the distance, about three hundred meters away, they saw pairs of green eyes emerging one after another from the tall grass. The eerie green glow sent a cold shiver through the room.

“Good lord… with that many eyes, is it a wolf pack?” Yang Xiangrui’s teeth were literally chattering.

“Stay quiet. They might not be coming for us. Let’s wait; maybe they’ll just pass by…”

Faced with such a large pack of mutant wolves, everyone prayed silently that the pack was just wandering through the area.

However, wolves were naturally sharp-scented hunters, and after mutating, they could likely smell living humans from miles away. More terrifyingly, there were three Rank 4 mutant wolves among them!

Ren Chenxi watched nervously as the pack slowed down, circled the bus, and then headed straight for their house. Everyone’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

Thud! A Rank 3 mutant wolf tested the battered front door with a heavy ram. Fortunately, they had blocked it with enough furniture; even though the door splintered, a massive cabinet held firm behind it.

“What… what do we do? They’ve found us…” Song Xin whispered, her voice trembling as she looked to Ren Chenxi for help.

Crack! Before Ren Chenxi could answer, a wolf’s claw smashed through the wooden planks of another window.

“Everyone, spread out! Jian Dan, Song Xin, and Chang Ling guard that window. Don’t worry about the noise, just attack any wolf that gets close. Kill as many as you can. Zhu Kong, guard the other window. Attack the moment the planks break. Lu Ping, come here, stand by me…”

As Ren Chenxi spoke, she backed away to create some space. Jian Dan and her bandmates began their musical assault. Lu Ping walked over to her side, and just as he was about to ask what he should do, a black SUV suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of him.

“S-Sister Xi…”

Before Lu Ping could ask where the vehicle came from, Ren Chenxi pushed him toward it. “Lu Ping, use your strength to hold this car against the door. You must hold the entrance!”

The front door was large enough for mutant wolves to squeeze through easily. The windows, however, were small enough that a wolf would struggle to get in, making them perfect chokepoints for the group to counterattack.

With Lu Ping reinforcing the door, Ren Chenxi moved to the broken window. At that moment, Jian Dan’s sonic attacks had temporarily driven back the wolves trying to leap through. However, the pack didn’t leave; they simply lurked a short distance away, watching with those glowing green eyes.

“Jian Dan, move to the other window. Tang Ying, crystallize everything you can find—useless clothes, rags, anything. The rest of you, help break the crystals and pass the shards to me.”

Ren Chenxi had eight Greasy Cards left, but she wanted to save them for the three Rank 4 wolves. Among the pack, those three mid-tier beasts were the real threat. One Rank 4 leopard had nearly killed them; three Rank 4 wolves were a nightmare scenario.

Fortunately, she still had the “god-tier” Greasy Card. If she could make those three wolves slippery and greasy, their threat level would plummet. After all, a mutant wolf that slips every time it takes a step is less dangerous than a common dog.

With this in mind, Ren Chenxi gripped a Greasy Card, aimed through the hole in the window, and locked onto a Rank 4 wolf that was creeping toward them.

Whoosh!

The card zipped through the gap, flying straight at the wolf. Then, Ren Chenxi saw a giant “MISS” float above the wolf’s head.

The Greasy Card could miss?! Her accuracy stat was supposed to be 100%! How on earth could it miss?

In disbelief, she pulled up her inventory panel and glared at the remaining seven Greasy Cards, re-reading the item description with intense focus. This time, she saw it.

Greasy Card: Targets hit by this card will continuously secrete oil for 5 minutes. Killing a target under this effect grants a random bottle of oil.

Note: Against mid-tier enemies, the success rate is only 35%. Against high-tier enemies, the success rate is 0.5%.

The text in the parentheses was tiny and colored almost exactly like the background of the information panel. Ren Chenxi hadn’t looked closely enough before to even notice it was there!

Damn it! And here she thought the Greasy Card was the hidden gem of the N-tier cards. It turned out it was practically useless against mid-tier enemies. Wait—it had worked on the leopard earlier, but that must have just been pure luck. There had only been one leopard then; now there were three wolves, and she had already wasted a card!

Wait… did her other “god-tier” card have a success rate against mid-tier beasts too?

Worried, Ren Chenxi quickly checked the Flash Card. Fortunately, after reading every single word twice, she felt a wave of relief.

The Flash Card had no level restrictions. As long as it hit the target, it would cause blindness for 20 seconds.

Just as she finished reading, Song Xin let out a low cry: “Sister Xi, they’re coming again!”

The Rank 4 wolf that had evaded the Greasy Card seemed to have sensed something, but after a moment of nothing happening, it grew bold again. It led the pack forward in a rapid charge. Ren Chenxi didn’t give them a second chance; she immediately flicked a Flash Card.

The moon had been hidden behind a thick cloud, making the darkness even more oppressive and the wolves’ eyes even more terrifying. Just as they were about to use the darkness to launch a surprise raid, a blinding burst of white light exploded. The lead Rank 4 wolf immediately began to howl in pain. The ten or so wolves following closely behind it began to wail as well.

The sound of over a dozen wolves howling in agony caused the others further back to halt their advance. Even though they were blind, the affected wolves instinctively scrambled backward in a panic.

But no matter how far they retreated, they were still within Ren Chenxi’s range. A pile of broken crystals already sat at her feet, and her inventory was stocked with shards suitable for throwing. She seized those brief 20 seconds, aiming at the wolves’ weak points one by one. She couldn’t throw multiple crystals at once because her combat system’s targeting reticle could only lock onto one enemy at a time. Even if she threw ten shards, they would all just home in on a single wolf.

She adapted to this by picking off the Rank 2 and Rank 3 wolves first. It took about five or six crystal spikes to bring one down. At the very least, she could puncture their eyes. Some Rank 3 wolves had thick hides and hard skulls, but their eyelids remained a vulnerability. She specialized in aiming for the eyes, even managing to land a few long crystal bars on the Rank 4 wolf’s face.

Unfortunately, the Rank 4 wolf’s reflexes were superior. Every time a crystal spike flew toward its eyes, it jerked its head aside at the last second, causing the shards to strike its thicker facial bones or skull instead.

If only I had an SR-rank Blast Card, she thought. Then it wouldn’t matter if it moved its head; its whole skull would just explode.

The 20 seconds passed quickly. By the end of the burst, Ren Chenxi had taken down five wolves and blinded four others. Her performance stunned the S University students. Almost everyone crowded around to help smash crystals. Tang Ying didn’t care about the mess anymore; she turned every scrap of cloth and dirty rag in the room into shimmering, translucent crystal.

Wolves are cruel but cunning. After this sudden setback, they retreated to a distance of 100 meters, watching warily. Ren Chenxi felt a twinge of regret—her accuracy skill was only Level 6.

“Sister Xi, do you think they’ll be scared off?”

“Don’t let your guard down. This pack won’t give up their prey that easily. Besides, wolves hold grudges. We’ve killed so many of them; do you think they’ll just let us go?”

“Then… what do we do?”

“Tang Ying, can you still use your ability? Crystallize as many items as possible. Everyone else, help me sharpen both ends of the crystals, but keep them as large as the original objects. Don’t break them into small pieces anymore.”

While throwing the crystals earlier, Ren Chenxi realized that while her hits were guaranteed, the force behind the strike depended on both her throwing power and the weight of the object. The crystals that had managed to kill wolves in one hit were the ones about the size of two fists.

She concluded that as long as the object she threw was heavy enough, the system would grant her a significant power bonus.

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