At night, the bright moon remained, its radiance undimmed by the slight disturbances on the ground.
The incident had ended, and the clamor from the Training Camp's gate had ceased.
However, Liens, who had been in the instance, did not hear those distant shouts.
In fact, after hearing Wooly's story at noon, Liens realized that tonight would likely be the time for their operation.
Even if not tonight, it would certainly be within the next few days.
Liens really wanted to participate in this operation, but not in reality—rather, in the instance.
He didn't know their exact time of action, but waiting until tomorrow would be fine.
Time would turn the present into the past, and for him, yesterday's past was barely readable history.
At that time, he would personally go and understand the course of events.
For now, he only needed to continue practicing his sword.
Strength was the most fundamental guarantee for survival.
Besides not knowing the time of the operation, there was another reason Liens didn't open the instance at night to participate in this event.
That was a limitation of the instance.
"The time point experienced in the instance cannot exceed the real-world time point when this instance was opened."
To explain simply:
If Liens opened the instance at 8 PM real-world time, and he selected 7 PM as the instance time point.
Then the maximum duration of this instance would be one hour, and it could not exceed 8 PM.
Even if the real-world time reached 9 PM after an hour in the instance.
This limitation calculated the real-world time point when the current instance was opened, not the real-world time after it was opened.
Liens also couldn't be sure if Wooly and their final action time would exceed the time he opened the instance.
Although theoretically, the faster such an operation, the better, and the process might not take long.
But he didn't need to gamble on such a possibility at all.
He would know the answer tomorrow, so why waste time and energy gambling?
...
The horn sounded, and another day of training was about to begin.
After Liens woke up, he didn't see Wooly and Wendell. Including Liens, only 4 people remained in the entire dormitory.
"Liens, you slept so soundly last night. That commotion couldn't even wake you up?" a roommate said to Liens.
His name was Ben, and Liens remembered he was among the better performers in training.
This could be seen from his physique.
He was burly, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with bulging arm muscles almost comparable to the guards in the Training Camp.
Liens didn't even know how he was caught and became a Slave?
Among their batch of Slaves transported from Barton's Slave Exchange to the Training Camp, he was one of the most conspicuous.
Whether it was his height or his strong muscles, he appeared too conspicuous among the many Slaves of normal build.
However, perhaps because of his towering physique, the other people in the dormitory consciously or unconsciously ostracized him.
Of course, the remaining 4 people in this dormitory were basically also isolated and ostracized, not much better than Ben in this regard.
"What happened? Why are so many people missing from the dormitory?" Liens asked, pretending to be very confused.
"I don't need to tell you about this; you'll probably know soon... For now, let's go to the square. If we're late, we'll get beaten."
After Ben finished speaking, he left the dormitory and walked towards the square.
Even without Ben saying anything, Liens had a rough idea of what happened.
Wooly and the others must have acted last night, and they caused a huge commotion.
He just didn't know if they succeeded? Was Wooly still alive?
Even if they escaped, the chances of survival were very small, unless they could find an expert to lift that "contract" after getting out.
With some thoughts in his mind, Liens followed Ben and arrived at the square.
At this time, a group of people had already gathered in the square, waiting for the Trainer's arrival as usual.
After waiting for a while, the Trainer still hadn't appeared, but no more Trainers were coming into the square.
Liens roughly counted the number of people and found that there were 30 to 40 fewer than yesterday.
So many?
If each dormitory was fully occupied by 10 people, on average, 3 to 4 people from each dormitory participated in last night's operation.
Liens's dormitory even exceeded this average.
Who exactly planned this operation? And rallied so many people.
Although people often say to fight if you encounter danger, when it truly comes to that, not many people will have the courage to fight.
Liens believed Wooly was the kind of person who dared to fight, but were those thirty-odd people all like that too?
If they truly were all like that, then those who remained would instead become "cowards."
Liens found that he, who had been engrossed in practicing swords in the instance, knew very little about the other people in the Training Camp.
He might have learned some people's names during roll call in cultural classes, and some people's combat power during instance sparring.
But he knew very little about those people's personalities and the situations they faced.
Of course, Liens could also say that those people were merely familiar strangers to him, and he shouldn't have spent energy focusing on them in the first place.
This statement was correct, but was it too indifferent?
He suddenly felt that not only did he treat others as NPCs in the instance, but in reality, he seemed to be showing more and more signs of this as well.
"Alas, I was ultimately influenced by Wooly's story."
Liens muttered in his heart.
People have compassion; for pitiful people and things, a certain pity always arises.
Liens was no exception, especially since he had lived in a peaceful environment in his previous life, kindness was deeply rooted in his heart.
This caused him to feel a slight sense of self-reproach and to overthink things.
Footsteps suddenly echoed in the quiet square, interrupting Liens's continued overthinking.
Liens followed the sound and saw the Trainer's figure.
He really liked to make a grand entrance at the end.
The Trainer stood in front of everyone. This time, he didn't immediately announce the start of training, but said other things.
"Most of you must have heard the commotion last night."
"Some of you may be confused, while others may have already guessed something."
"Now, I will tell you the truth here."
"Last night, some people gathered, intending to secretly leave the Training Camp. When discovered, they continued to resist, trying to forcefully break through the gate's blockade by relying on their numbers."
"They did not succeed, and they will never succeed."
"This Training Camp has not only had people from your generation try to forcefully leave."
"But they all failed."
"The only way you can leave here is to graduate."
"Only by successfully graduating and officially becoming a member of the Glenbagen Family can you leave here honorably."
"As for the consequences for those who failed, I will now show you properly."
After speaking, the Trainer walked ahead, leading everyone in the square towards the gate.
As they walked, the closer they got to the Training Camp's gate, the stronger and more pungent the smell became.
It was blood.
Liens, who had experience, quickly identified the type of smell.
Sure enough, as Liens and the others reached the vicinity of the gate, they saw a small mountain piled up with corpses.
The bodies on the small mountain were already stained red by the seeping blood, and the congealed blood clung to them like dark red wax.
A foul, bloody smell was carried on the breeze, and the stained red weeds on the ground swayed with it.
At this moment, everyone had stopped, gazing at the grotesque faces on the small mountain.
Liens didn't find Wooly among them. He didn't know if it was because of his standing position, or if this mountain of corpses had already become his grave, freeing him from having to face this unjust world anymore.
After viewing the mountain of corpses, the Trainer led Liens and the others back to the square to continue their daily training.
Even with so many deaths, the training schedule could not be stopped.