"Bzzzzz..."
The middle-aged woman held the middle-aged man's severed left elbow, a faint green light glowing from her hands.
Before everyone's astonished eyes, in just a minute, the gushing wound on the middle-aged man's stump stopped bleeding and began to heal. The dangling, useless tendons fell away on their own, and the cross-section of the wound started to scab over rapidly.
Although the severed forearm didn't regenerate, the injury was quickly brought under control, and the pain on the middle-aged man's face subsided considerably.
It was only then that everyone realized the middle-aged woman's white lab coat wasn't just for show. Her profession was likely a doctor or something similar, and she possessed a powerful healing skill.
However, this healing skill clearly wasn't without its cost.
After treating the middle-aged man's wound, the middle-aged woman's own face had turned pale, and she was breathing heavily. Obviously, the skill took a significant toll on her.
"Alright, that's enough..." The middle-aged man patted his wife's hand with his remaining right hand, signaling her to stop.
Although the middle-aged woman was exhausted, her face showed more heartache and confusion.
"How did it come to this..."
"Extending the damn ticket really does have a price... and such a steep one," the middle-aged man sighed. Only then did he remember to take out his ticket and look at it.
He pulled it out of his pocket...
And at that moment, everyone else saw it too.
The plastic tag, originally blue, had now turned yellow—the same color as Fumiya Jin's ticket.
"The ticket extension was successful?" The butler was slightly, pleasantly surprised.
Although the price was absurdly high, they had at least discovered a new way to change their tickets—which was better than having no options and just waiting to die.
"So it actually worked..." The middle-aged man felt a little emotional, feeling his recent agony hadn't been completely in vain.
But the next second, he suddenly snapped back to reality and turned to his wife. "Wait, the orange one... that's yours, right?"
His wife froze for a moment. "Yes... it is."
The middle-aged man slapped his thigh. "Shit, why did I extend my own ticket... I should have used yours first!"
The reason the middle-aged man had been in such a rush to extend his ticket, far more anxious than anyone else, was because his wife had the orange one, meaning she was very likely next.
So he had to find a way to save her.
But just now, because he had only tentatively called out to extend the ticket to see if it would work, he'd panicked when the Ticket-Specter appeared and hadn't been thinking straight, so he had forgotten to swap tickets with his wife before extending his. By the time he remembered, it was already too late.
The ticket had been extended for him. He was safe now.
But what about his wife, who was in greater danger?
"Then maybe... I should extend one too?" the middle-aged woman considered, and though fear showed on her face, she still asked through clenched teeth.
"Don't!" The middle-aged man immediately shook his head. "You have skills, you can still heal me. If you lose an arm, we don't even know if you could activate your skill. That would be too great a loss... Besides, extending the ticket for one stop doesn't guarantee safety. And I have a weird feeling about that die; we have no idea what the other results will be. If one of them is fatal, then you'd be..."
The woman froze. "Then..."
The middle-aged man thought for a few seconds.
He held out his hand to his wife. "Let me see your tag."
At the same time, he took out his own tag, ready to swap.
His wife paused, subconsciously following her husband's lead and taking out her tag.
But a second later, she realized something and shoved it back into her pocket. "What are you doing?"
"Just looking," the middle-aged man said, trying to sound casual.
His wife clamped her hand over her pocket, glaring at him. "Zhang... Honey, don't you try that with me! After all these years of marriage, you think I don't know you? Are you planning to extend it for me yourself?"
Exposed, the middle-aged man looked embarrassed and scratched his balding head. "If I do it, you can heal me, right? That's better than you doing it and me being able to do nothing, isn't it?"
"But isn't there a greater chance it could be fatal?" his wife retorted.
"I..." The middle-aged man couldn't deny it. He gritted his teeth. "Then what do we do? You're probably next. We have to take a gamble, don't we?"
His wife stiffened slightly. Thinking of the orange tag in her pocket, she felt a surge of panic.
She didn't know what to do.
Just then, however, Hasaka spoke up, pointing out something the middle-aged man hadn't noticed.
"Sir, your blue ticket was extended one stop and turned yellow, not purple. That might mean it's not following the strict order of red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple. Of course, this doesn't mean the next one isn't orange, just... that it isn't necessarily orange. I'm just offering this information for consideration."
Hearing this, the middle-aged couple had a sudden realization.
And then... they breathed a small sigh of relief.
They looked at each other, argued for a while longer, but ultimately couldn't come to a decision. In the end, they decided not to rush into extending another ticket and to wait and see if another opportunity would arise.
...
The bus continued to run smoothly.
With no one calling to extend a ticket, the conductor's uniform lay quietly in its place.
Everyone used this peaceful interlude to explore the bus a little, looking for any other clues.
But after three minutes of searching, they returned to their seats empty-handed.
Now, they all faced a decision.
Yuki Suou thought for a moment, then leaned close to Fumiya Jin's ear and whispered, "Boss, what do you think we should do? Should we gamble? ...Alright, it looks like you don't have to, but should I gamble?"
Fumiya Jin indeed didn't need to gamble. Since the middle-aged man's blue ticket had become yellow after being extended one stop, it meant Fumiya Jin's yellow ticket was definitely not for the next stop.
"I'm definitely not extending mine. If you want to, I won't stop you, but I don't recommend it," Fumiya Jin said.
"Why not?" Yuki Suou asked.
"That die has six sides. We have no idea what the other five sides will take from us, and we can't rule out the possibility of a fatal outcome. Let's be optimistic and assume five of the six sides result in something non-lethal, like losing an arm, and only one is fatal, like taking your heart or head. In that case, your probability of dying is one in six. But if you do nothing, when the next stop comes, one of six colors will be chosen at random, so your probability of dying is also one in six. The odds are the same. And that's based on a very optimistic assumption for the first scenario."
Fumiya Jin paused, then continued his analysis. "Furthermore, let's take it a step further. Even if none of the six sides are fatal, and they all just cause limb-level damage, extending your ticket means you'll start bleeding out. Right now, only that madam can heal, and she is not one of us. We can't count on her being willing to help. So if you want to extend your ticket, it means you'll be bleeding from now until the end of the instance... The survival rate is too low."
Of course, Fumiya Jin had another piece of supporting evidence for his advice—the countdown timer. He had a strong feeling that the middle-aged woman was next.
But naturally, he wouldn't tell Yuki Suou that, so he could only share his analysis with her.
"Is that so..." After listening, Yuki Suou rubbed her chin and thought for a good while. "Alright, that makes sense. I'll listen to you."
Meanwhile, on the other side, the young butler and the expressionless girl, also stared at their tickets, lost in thought and conflict.
But for the time being, no one else chose to extend their ticket.
A few minutes passed just like that...
"Psssshhh.... "
The bus began to slow down!
Everyone's hearts leaped into their throats.
______
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