"All the best for the second round, I'll be going my own way since working together will do neither of us any good, I hope that's okay with you?" said Lin Mu before slowly walking away from Leo.
"Yeah alright, I had the same idea in my head- stay safe" Leo said as he started to rack his brains on how to approach this round as for starters he decided to stay close to other players, intertwining his scent track with that of others in hopes of surviving longer.
" If you want to take positions within the test stage, you have one minute to do so.
After one minute, the tracking dogs will be released and after five minutes the rabbits will be released" The Alliance leader said as almost instantly many began to scramble to find a place to hide from the hounds.
Leo too began to move, as he carefully intertwined his own scent track with that of other assassins moving haphazardly all over the testing arena to make his trail as obscure as possible.
He hid behind a large tree trunk, in a position where he was about a hundred metres away from the starting location but still at a point where he could track the movement of incoming hounds if needed.
A few other assassins that Leo was able to track either climbed over the tree, or a few dug borrows in the ground as everyone seemed to be avoiding staying on ground 0 at least for the start.
It was at this moment that Leo suddenly realized that he was not an NPC but a player, as he simply swapped his scented assassin's robes for his starter layman's clothing, as almost instantly he was able to get-rid of the tracker scent that lingered on his body.
" Haha-" Leo chuckled as he rolled around in the mud to get rid of any last traces of the scent that might be on his neck or hair as by the time the hounds were unleashed, Leo felt like he had arguably the best odds of survival of all the candidates in round two.
************
( Lin Mu's POV )
Lin Mu hid herself near poison ivy bushes.
She had already singled out the poison ivy bush before the round even started as she had recognised it to be a unique object that could be used to her advantage regardless of what the challenge could be.
Although its most effective usage was as a skin poison that induced rashes, Lin Mu also recalled that poison ivy was a plant which emitted a strong sweet smell to attract insects and hence hiding behind it was her strategic approach to masking her scent.
Her starting location was much closer to the starting point than Leo's as she hid at about only 50 meters from the start which was a gamble considering the fact that almost a majority of the hounds were going to be released from her nearby location.
*CLANG*
A minute later, as the dog cages opened, the tracking dogs immediately picked up a thick scent trail and began to bark and run towards a singular point, as all twenty dogs ran straight past Lin Mu's hideout and towards the direction where Leo was supposed to be.
Sighing in relief, Lin Mu quietly rolled out from behind the poison ivy plant and using her soundless footwork technique changed her position to one which was further away from the hounds but closer to the starting point, from where the rabbits were expected to be released.
***********
( Leo's POV )
Leo felt his heart fell out of his chest when he saw the hounds ignore everyone else and all other scent trails and head straight towards the direction where he was hiding.
10 metres….20 metres….. 50 metres.
The dogs ran as a pack and ignored all of the stupid overlappings and haphazard marks that Leo had made and kept running straight for the tree he was hiding behind.
"Ha- haha….. RIP" Leo murmured to himself as he mentally prepared his body to be ripped apart by dogs, but much to his surprise, just 15 meters ahead of him, behind a rock, the hounds began to dig and bark non-stop as they discovered two assassin's buried in the ground below.
" Miracle…miracle!" Leo thought to himself as he barely muted his voice and ran away from the tree he was currently hiding behind, tactically changing his location and circling back towards the starting point in a way that he would not be detected by the hounds.
It turned out that it wasn't his trail that the hounds had picked up, but rather the trail of two assassin's who had teamed up to dig a hole and jump inside as their genius plan failed epicly as they became the first ones to be eliminated.
Once safely away, Leo turned and looked at the activity of the tracking dogs and discovered that they had started to disperse now, as they followed the multiple different scented trails that they could pick up on and were slowly breaking into smaller gangs.
Two dogs were even sniffing the tree that Leo was hidden behind and had Leo not taken his opportunity to run and stayed hidden behind it as a coward, he would have undoubtedly been caught at this point, however, because of a bit of luck and a bit of courage, Leo was still alive in round two.
Every few seconds, a tracking dogs barked and a new candidate was eliminated as within the first five minutes until the rabbits were released over 15 candidates were eliminated.
With 55 minutes still left in the contest and 3 rabbits to hunt, the second round was only getting started yet Leo already experienced a near knockout experience once.
He was clearly out of his depth in this competition, however, he was thoroughly enjoying every last second of it.
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/// A/N - Starting tomorrow I'll increase the length of each released chapter by 20-30% more than usual, so that even though my release rate remains 1 chap/day, the content covered is more.
This arrangement is only till 22nd Feb, after which I'll increase the release rate to 2 chapters a day///