Alex stood up and started moving around the market road. There were a couple of cars that occasionally passed by, while fewer than ten pedestrians were walking around the street.
All of them should be NPCs, but it's possible that there were some hunters hidden among them.
While he was looking around the dust-filled road, his eyes were also snapping pictures of the surroundings. He still did not know if he would get the chance to review them in this game. But he was sure that if this game were to extend, then he could use the data in some ways.
For a start, he was searching for something he could use as a weapon in the market street. A blade or knife would be best in this situation, but he doubted he could get them normally.
He noticed a few old cuisine shops, but it wasn't like they placed any knives in the open, and he did not dare to steal from them.
All the trial games in Hunt 5 were not just about the game rules but also the world rules. For instance, as this trial game took place in a city, all the common societal restrictions would also be in effect.
If he tried to kill, steal, hit, or do any other lawless stuff, other organizations like the police and army could also get involved, depending on the level of the crime.
He did not want to start as a thief in this game, nor was he confident in his ability to steal, with no one else noticing it.
After walking around the market road and making sure that most of the road structures were similar to the ones in real life, he decided not to waste more time and started moving toward the nearby alley toward the barking sound.
He needed to verify what breeds of dogs he was dealing with before wasting more time on his weapon search.
While moving deeper into the mess of the alleys, he occasionally placed his head against the walls and road to make sure he was moving in the right direction.
Soon he encountered his first dog—it was a normal street dog going through the trash. As soon as the dog sensed him, it moved back while barking at him.
He looked for any signs of rabies. Like red eyes and a loose tongue, but except for some cut marks on the dog's body, there was nothing else.
As he tried to move closer to the dog, it wasted no time sprinting away from him. Alex did not chase it and once again bent down, closing his eyes and trying to hear any other nearby barking sounds.
These feet-wide alleys between the buildings were perfect places for colonies of dogs to live.
It didn't take long for him to hear many barking sounds on his left side. It seemed like there was a pack of dogs there. Alex started moving in the opposite direction as soon as he heard them. Street dogs or not, if he encountered them, it would not be a simple skirmish but a one-sided slaughter.
He was not foolish enough to believe he could take on an entire pack on his own. He doubted he could take on more than two dogs on open roads; forget about a pack of them.
Alex dared not stay on this side of the alley and moved out to the main road, walking to the other side.
The city-designed administrative mandates all the shops to have a foot boundary around them. This created a lot of alleys that were connected to the market road, and the deeper you moved, the more they branched out.
For a new person, they could serve as small mazes; even with his years of experience, he still sometimes walked to a dead end.
Alex continued to search near these small alleys, encountering a lot of normal dogs. Some were aggressive, while most were so meek that they ran away upon seeing him. So far, none of the dogs he encountered had rabies.
Even after 20 minutes passed, he still did not encounter any rabid dogs. It became plain clear to him that this was not a dog-against-hunter task but more about finding these rabid dogs.
There must be a limited number of rabies-infected dogs within the city, and he needed to find at least one of them fast.
He didn't know when the animal rescue squad would start taking action, but every dog they captured would be one less to hunt.
Alex stopped looking around and instead focused deeper into the alley. He could either take a chance to move deeper or check some other part of the city. He shook his head—no, with the city market this big, there was no way it wouldn't have a single rabid dog.
Alex changed direction and moved toward the alley filled with a lot of garbage. He looked at the small wall at the end that was blocking the alley; it should be around a floor height, about 3-4 feet.
He moved back a little, ran toward the garbage heap, jumping around to avoid the puddles, and finally took a gigantic leap, grabbing the edge of the small wall blocking the street. He climbed on top of the wall and then looked deeper into the dark alley.
It was not ideal, but he could see far from here. After looking at all the nearby dogs, it clicked to him that there was an unusually high number of dogs in these alleys.
When he was walking on the market road, he saw a dog or two, but in these alleys, there were tens of packs roaming in different areas. It was not normal from any angle.
He thought about the characteristics of rabies. It was something that could spread among dogs.
Normally, it would take time to spread from one dog to another, but this was not a normal condition. He looked at dozens of dogs in these alleys and shook his head; if something like rabies somehow spread to all these dogs, things would escalate super fast.
Alex decided not to take more risks by going deep. These unusual amounts of dogs were sufficient to rip him to pieces and not leave a bone behind.
Alex jumped back and started moving back toward the direction he came from, but he froze to see tens of dogs running from the front toward him while barking loudly.
"F*ck!"