Beihan wanted to ask more details, but he suddenly felt an unfamiliar discomfort, if he had to describe it, it felt like his chest and abdomen were burning in pain.
"Am I hungry?" Beihan said in disbelief. He had eaten bread just two or three hours ago, how could he be hungry again so soon?
Batman had already returned to the fire, continuing Shiller's job of preparing the wild chicken. While he was plucking it with boiling water, he said, "Our absorption ability seems to have declined, and the reaction of blood sugar caused by hunger is faster now. As soon as we feel hungry, we must replenish our physical strength, otherwise, our physical fitness will decline even worse."
In just a few seconds it took for Beihan to walk back to the fire, he already felt dizzy. A terrifying appetite rose at the same time, he felt he could even eat the charcoal in front of him.
Batman had never starved like this. Or to say, this was not merely hunger, but more like a negative buff forcibly applied to him, very difficult to resist by willpower alone.
Beihan felt his fingertips trembling, realizing that his blood sugar level was not optimistic, so he had to pick up a sandwich from the pile of fast-food and shove it in his mouth.
After eating a sandwich and a hot dog bread, Beihan managed to restrain himself and stopped. One, because he knew, given the speed at which they were feeling hungry, this bit of fast food wouldn't be enough, they had to save some for the others. On the other hand, he also knew that his blood sugar shouldn't rise too quickly, or else he didn't know what would happen.
Thankfully, after the blood sugar slowly rose, the terrible dizziness disappeared. Batman had cut the chicken meat with the ax they found in the cabin and threw them all into the pot.
The group of students had brought all sorts of camping gear, but it's a pity that it seemed to be more pretentious than useful. The pot had a fantastic camping-style shape, made from all silver stainless steel. The problem was it was too narrow and deep, which required a lot of water, and also the pot wall was too thick, it didn't conduct heat well, which meant they had to take a really long time to boil water.
The wild chicken was small, not enough for four people to share. So they decided that Natasha, who was injured, and the main force, Batman, have the hot food. Beihan and Shiller ate the fast-food.
There was only half of the large bag of convenience store food left. Looking at their hunger rate, it was just enough to get them through the night, but on the precondition that there won't be any intense physical activity.
Suppose there happened to be a forest chase. In that case, they would certainly be famished when they got back to the camp. If they couldn't replenish food and physical energy in time, they would die in the next chase.
And a night's time is enough for the Killer devil to initiate ten chases.
"I'm going out hunting later," Beihan said, "There should be rabbit holes nearby. You don't need any tools to dig rabbits out of their holes. You only need a bit of luck."
"Due to the climate and geomorphological conditions here, most of the creatures living here can't provide us with the meat we need," Batman said in thought, "And if the opponent is physically strong, a fair fight would be the worst choice."
"What about traps?" Shiller asked.
"Animal traps are not a good choice," Natasha shook her head, "Chances are they could block our own escape routes. Sometimes, if we made a mistake by just a little, we could miss the goal by a lot."
"It sounds a bit ridiculous, but realistically, the best option is to disperse and escape. The enemy is only one person, he can only chase one person at a time, the remaining people will have enough time to hide. You just have to hang on until daylight."
Beihan put forth the most rational solution. But he quickly changed his tone and said, "But I don't think we'd do that, given the fact that we have two Batmen in our team. Maybe we can find a way to make him think we'll do that."
Everyone looked at him, and after some thought, Beihan said, "Since Killer devil has already seen Natasha, and he has personally injured her, when night falls and we disperse, the most likely target he would choose is Natasha. Because injured prey is easier to kill, it's a hunter's instinct."
"Once he goes after Natasha, we could predict his path, set a trap, and get rid of him. This is probably the most effective method."
What surprised Beihan was that the other three did not object to his plan of using a lady as a decoy.
It's understandable that Batman didn't object. After all, every Batman knew that any plan carried risks, they preferred the risks to fall on themselves. But they were also confident in the thoroughness of their plans, and they didn't think they were risking their team members.
Natasha's lack of objection made sense too. She was a Russian woman, and seemed to be a very tough kind. She was probably more eager than anyone else to fight head-on.
But this doctor, who seemed very gentle, didn't utter a peep. It made Beihan view him in a new light. Because in classic horror films, whenever such a plan is proposed, there is bound to be a team member acting like a saint to object.
Shiller clearly was the most suitable team member to play that part.
On the one hand, he was a doctor. Although Beihan couldn't say with certainty that all doctors are compassionate, their risk aversion was usually higher than that of the average profession. On the other hand, from Shiller's appearance to temperament, he didn't quite look like a combatant, and support staff had an even higher risk aversion.
"I believe in Batman's plan," Shiller nodded, "You always come up with useful plans, and execute them perfectly. So unless I can come up with a better plan than yours, I won't object."
Now, Beihan started to understand why he could join Batman's professional team.
After their dinner, the group began to set a trap while the evening light still lingered. They chose a spot where the trees were sparse and dug a sizable hole using their tools.
Of course, the kind of deep pits covered with leaves seen in cartoons can't be achieved in reality.
Anyone who has dug graves knows how hard it is to dig a hole that a person can lie down in. Digging a pit deep enough to trap a standing person is not much easier than digging a well by hand.
This pit was simply meant to trip the killer devil. It was shaped like a mild slope, leaving one side of the earthen wall suddenly high as a trap to snag the killer devil's foot, causing him to stumble forward.
Next came the tripwire from the cabin. But it wasn't to ensnare the killer devil. Instead, it was attached to a spring-loaded mechanism. Once the trap was triggered, the mechanism would be compressed downwards, trapping the killer devil in a prone position for a few extra seconds and preventing him from standing again.
Obviously, the pit wouldn't be filled with precarious angled spikes, or other unreliable weapons. The only weapon Batman trusted was himself. Therefore, he would be the one waiting in ambush on a tree, ready to deliver a fatal blow to the killer devil.
The plan seemed risky, but all the traps and tripwires were just extra insurance for Batman. If it wasn't for his weakened physical condition, two Batmans could take on any creature, even Godzilla, under prepared conditions.
The success rate of this plan was rather high. All Natasha needed to do was run towards the traps the moment the killer devil appeared and successfully jumped over them. These traps were not dangerous for Natasha. Her foot size varied from the killer devil's, and only by taking large steps and lifting her legs high would she avoid tripping into the pit.
As the night fell, they all sat by the burning bonfire, awaiting a potential life-or-death battle.
The jungle at night was both quiet and noisy. There were no man-made sounds, but the music of nature — the rustling of leaves in the wind, the chirping insects and nocturnal animals, the crawling creatures' soft pattering — composed a nocturne that no composer could recreate.
Dawn broke. It was Christmas Eve.
No one looked surprised. Beihan, who had spent the night watching the bonfire, took a deep breath.
He had already removed his mask to peak into the cabin. Now, with his thin lips pressed tightly together, he revealed a grim, helpless smile, "I was played, wasn't I?"
The others also stood up to stretch their stiff bodies from a night of sitting. They left the hut with nothing, heading back to the bus stop where they came from.
Natasha brushed some leaves off her trousers and asked, "When did you find out, Mr. Detective?"
"My intuition told me something was off, but it wasn't until I investigated that hunter's hut that I confirmed my suspicions. Someone was acting."
"Oh? What confirmed it for you?" Shiller asked with a smile.
"The size of the furniture inside the hut."
Images of all the furniture Beihan had seen inside the hunter's hut flashed through his mind. First, the couch — a very ordinary leather couch.
The framework didn't seem homemade, but the owner may have reupholstered it. The problem, though, was the size.
The footprint that Beihan saw by the river suggested that the killer devil was extraordinary in size, standing at least around 2.2 meters tall. Any creature weighing less than 300 pounds couldn't have made such a deep footprint.
Think about it, how could a man standing over two meters tall and weighing three or four hundred pounds fit into a couch that looked perfectly average to us? He probably couldn't even squeeze himself into it.
And if you think the size of the couch is barely passable, consider the size of the bed. The bed in the bedroom was at most two meters. A creature of that size sleeping on a two-meter bed would probably have half his leg hanging off.
And the bed wasn't an already-made product bought from a shop, but a DIY bunk made from wooden slats and bedding. If he could make his own bed, why not make it bigger?
These contradictions were glaringly obvious.
"So which one do you think is fake?" Shiller asked again.
"The footprint, of course." Beihan said with certainty.
"But you said that footprint looked several days old. We weren't here yet several days ago."
Beihan paused, turned to look at Shiller and said, "That just means there's more than one director in this play."