Alex tapped on the first trial game summary video.
The first few minutes were the introduction phase, which revealed some rules and then introduced all 10 hunters. Soon the game started with a bird's-eye view of the city, along with markings showing where each player was.
He realized that only half of the city was part of the game. There was no construction site in this city. Even so, half of the city was too big of an area for a game with only 10 hunters.
Soon, the camera shifted to different players' locations.
All the players scattered randomly on the map, almost a few kilometers apart from one another.
The camera first shifted to this Goli guy. He was one of the few lucky players to start in the posh area. This area was perfect to do some spooky stuff away from surrounding eyes, and he saw this guy pull out an iron rod supporting a fence within the first few minutes.
It was all about luck. If he tried something like this on the main road, he'd have the police behind him.
But there were a few more interesting hunters. First was this beautiful female hunter named Kite.
Just like him, she also started in the market, but she was in the garage area on the other side of the city.
What baffled him was that this girl not only used her beauty to attract random strangers on the market but was also decent with her quick hands.
He saw her pickpocketing a dozen random men on the busy streets, and even when she got caught once, she just shouted for help, which baffled the NPCs while she used the chance to disappear into the crowd.
This side of the market was much more crowded than the one where he started. The more he looked at Kite, the more he realized he had missed an aspect of the game: your looks.
Now, he didn't know if this girl had custom-made her character or randomized it, but whatever the case, it was undeniable that she was smart enough to use it to her advantage.
Another weird thing he noticed was that many players were just randomly moving around the big streets, looking like they were searching for someone.
It hit him that these 4-5 people were likely part of local groups. He had seen online that members of these groups searched for others like them to complete tasks.
He wasn't sure if they were part of the same group or if all groups did this to reduce risk in the trial game.
Since the summary was a trimmed version, he only saw two of these guys successfully find each other. There was also a moment when another two hunters missed each other by a few meters.
Except for these members, he noticed that a few players took it slow. They just moved around fixed areas and did not dare to explore more.
Out of the 10, there were just 2 reckless guys in the game. The first was himself, who was running around alleys filled with stray dogs, and then there was this Chain guy who somehow took a lift on a bike and was now moving along the main road in search of dogs.
Too bad for Chain, most of the rabid dogs were hiding deep in the city, but Alex did like Chain's way of befriending the bike NPC so quickly.
The scene changed again, and he saw his fight once more. As he thought, he was the first to kill the dogs and then leave the game.
Right after him, the tag team duo also found another dog. They handled the dogs with ease.
He even saw them arguing in the end. It was likely about who would go for the kill, but in the end, this Adam guy took the kill.
Unlike him, Adam chose to stay in the game. While the tag team was fighting, another member of this moving-around group encountered a dog, but he just ran away. It was a smart move, as this guy didn't get trapped in an alley like him.
What happened next was insane. The dog attacked a random guy on the road.
This created havoc and many rushed to help. When people saw the dog was mad, they started stomping on it, and this hunter used that chance to deliver the final blow, killing the dog on the spot.
It was another smart move. This guy used the crowd as his shield to surround the dog and kill it in the open without facing any trouble from the police. After all, the police would only bother you when someone saw you killing an innocent dog, not when a group of people saved someone from a mad dog.
Compared to his life-and-death battle with the dog, the others easily handled these dogs. Even this guy refused to leave.
Now that he looked at the way they were dealing with the dogs, he couldn't help but clench his fist.
After these three deaths, another search began around the city. He now noticed the animal rescue squad entering the city.
They were proficient in their task, and within 5 minutes, they sedated and captured one dog.
At this point, he noticed the number of orange dots increasing in the city. It looked like one of the infected dogs started spreading rabies to stray dogs.
Then the second round of fighting started. This time, the Goli guy found the biggest initially infected dog. It was around waist length.
Unlike others, Goli rushed toward the dog with the iron rod.
After an intense fight, Goli managed to stab the rod into the dog's skull. Unfortunately, their fight attracted locals, and someone saw Goli killing the dog.
Goli missed this and chose to stay. He became the first hunter with a police complaint.
Something similar happened with Kite. Even though she managed to get two chef knives that helped her kill another initial rabid dog, the extra crowd in the market hurt her as many saw her stabbing the innocent dog, increasing the police complaints to 2.
He also saw the first death in the game: this girl who was still searching for others encountered one of the initial dogs. She was so dumb that, even with so much time passed, she wasn't able to find any weapon.
She also tried to run from the dog, but unfortunately, two newly infected street dogs rushed from the other side.
She screamed for help, but before anyone could reach her, the three dogs jumped on her. The next few minutes were nothing less than a horror scene as the girl continued to scream on the road while the dogs bit chunks out of her body.
This scene was a reminder for him that, even if death wasn't real in the game, the mental pain you experienced was real.