Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Ms. Reed’s pen clattered onto the blueprint.

Amid all the red lines plunging on the death stats screen, that sudden 0.1 jump practically jumped out at everyone, sending a chill down their spines.

Lana nodded firmly. “I’ve checked it three times. It’s a solid 0.1 increase.”

Lana turned to Zoe, who was sitting at the recording desk.

“Zoe,” Lana called.

Zoe stood up right away. “Mine increased as well.”

Zoe spoke up, her voice louder. “Human Vital Flame rose by 0.08.”

Garrett strode to the front of the long table. “How did it increase? Did you try anything different? Did you come into contact with anything unusual?”

Garrett bombarded them with questions.

Zoe waved her hands in denial. “I didn’t do anything. The only thing different was I had dinner with Lyra yesterday.”

Garrett stood there stunned, his mind short-circuiting for a moment. “A meal?”

The others in the meeting room exchanged glances.

Lana looked at Lyra. “Yeah, the only thing that was different for me was that I had dinner with Lyra last night.”

Ms. Reed pushed up her glasses. “You’re not talking about the nutrient supplement, are you?”

“No,” Lana replied firmly.

“Lyra invited us yesterday, so Zoe and I broke the rules and had a proper hot meal in the cafeteria.”

“Yeah! We had braised pork, rice, chicken with mushrooms, bean sprouts, cucumber, and soup!” Lyra chimed in.

Ms. Reed’s eyes lit up. “Natural grains and veggies, the carbs in rice, the rich fat from pork melting away.”

She murmured, “The nutrient supplement has all the chemical stuff your body needs to stay alive.”

“One bag keeps you going for a day, but that’s all it does. Nutrition-wise, it doesn’t even come close to real food.”

Lana glanced at Ms. Reed’s hunched back. “Yesterday afternoon, Lyra tried tossing an apple at the Southwell Ruins Defense Line. The moment the apple hit the ground, it instantly shriveled up and turned to ash.”

Lyra nodded. “Wraiths feed on life force. Wheat breaking through the soil is life force, and cows and sheep grazing on the hillside, getting plump and strong-that’s pure, raw life force right there.”

“So when you eat real food, and all that cooked goodness goes into your stomach, your body naturally absorbs all that vitality.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that just the simplest way to recharge and heal?”

Ms. Reed clenched her fists. “This is the breakthrough we’ve been looking for!”

She rushed to the whiteboard, yanked off the marker cap, and the worn tip scraped across the board with a harsh, grating

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sound.

She circled the terms “synthetic substances” and “natural food.”

These bloody fifteen years!” Ms. Reed spat out.

“After the Nuclear War, just to keep hundreds of millions alive on land that barely grew anything, we rolled our a nationwide top-grade nutrient supplement program.”

“One bowl of rice got stretched into ten thousand servings of nutrient supplement-barely enough to keep people breathing. We even relied on synthetic food to fight off mass starvation.”

“We cheated our stomach acid, bypassed our body’s warning alarms, but the law of conservation of energy? That one never let us off the hook!”

“Natural life absorbs the flow of energy between earth and sky as it grows.”

“But synthetic products? They sever the bond to true vitality!”

Lana rubbed her temples. “For fifteen years, no one has tasted the life force from earth-grown grains.”

“The foundation of our three Vital Flame values has been scorched to ashes, and that’s why everyone’s physical strength keeps dropping year after year.”

Garrett’s chest heaved with emotion as he looked at Lana. “Chief Advisor…”

“If we force a nationwide switch back to natural food rations, how many months can our total grain reserves actually hold

out?”

This harsh reality snapped everyone back to their senses, but it only made the mood in the room even heavier.

The farmland was nearly wiped out during the Nuclear War. Even the reclaimed safe zones never yielded enough crops, and the grain output Lyra secured in the Vastlands still needs time to grow.

Every bushel we hand out chips away at our sense of security.

Lana’s gaze returned to the documents. “Right now, we only have data from Zoe and me. The sample size is too small to be conclusive.”

“We need to test this hypothesis first. We’ll select two teams from the border guards-one with high three Vital Flame values and one with low Vital Flame. They’ll eat one meal of natural food every day, and we’ll track their data.”

“Yes!”

After the meeting, the Command Center buzzed with activity again.

But Lyra finally had some downtime. Zoe taught her knife skills, they tested Wraithslayer’s abilities together, and got some exercise side by side.

Lyra also learned how to browse forums and check what was trending online. Seeing all the praise from fans made her face turn red with embarrassment, but she couldn’t help sneaking more glances.

‘Wow, everyone seems to really like me, Lyra thought, feeling a little shy but secretly thrilled.

Happy days always flew by, and before Lyra knew it, she was back in the Monitoring Room, ready for another round of the

game.

“Lyra, the notification has been sent out. Once you’re in the game, don’t rush into the mission right away. If anyone from Draconia gets selected, they’ll come find you as soon as possible.”

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Chapter 63

“But with a level two mission, no one knows how dangerous it could be. No matter what, your safety comes first, Lana reminded her seriously.

“Got it,” Lyra replied earnestly.

A flash of white light, and Lyra was pulled into the game once again.

[Welcome to the forty-seventh round of Global Hide-and-Seek.]

The game’s voice rang out, same as always.

[All players are ready. This round’s mission: Level 2 Mission, Midnight Mall.]

Lyra looked up, listening intently. Level two meant the rules were bound to change.

[Number of participating countries this round: 48.]

[The rules have been adjusted for this round.]

[Hiding time: one hour.]

[Hunting time: six hours.]

Lyra’s eyebrows shot up. ‘An hour to hide?”

In level one, you only had thirty minutes to hide for the first forty-five rounds, but in the forty-sixth round, it dropped to just fifteen minutes.

Level two just doubled the hiding time-and bumped the hunting phase up to six hours.

[If you get caught, you die, and your country will have one region invaded by Wraiths.]

[Survivors will receive rewards.]

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