How Many Passengers Can You Carry?

Fifteen Dog Pack members had stayed loyal and followed him from the surface down into the earth’s core. To be honest, Russell was a little moved.

But that raised a problem: how was he supposed to take fifteen Dog Pack members across the sea?

Russell had seen three memorable scenes from Journey to the Center of the Earth: the mine-cart ride, the ocean crossing, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex race. He vaguely remembered that the ocean crossing had been extremely dangerous.

There were piranhas with mouths full of fangs, sea monsters resembling plesiosaurs, and quite possibly enormous creatures that had been left out due to budget constraints. After all, they already had Tyrannosaurus Rexes and plesiosaurs; throwing in a few mosasaurs would be perfectly normal.

Russell even suspected that the Sea Monster on the cruise ship had escaped from here!

The trident was already useless. It could no longer command the pool water and had not reacted at all when they passed the waterfall, so it would definitely be useless against the ocean. Building a raft like the protagonists and crossing the sea that way was out of the question too. He was still young; he could not just die in such a muddleheaded way.

But using a card would be too wasteful…

"Oh? You’re done peeing? You take forever every time! Trust me, that’s an illness. If you don’t get it treated soon, it’ll be too late!" Ying Yingying was not surprised to see the fifteen Dog Pack members. She had seen them transform before and would not really mistake them for Huskies.

"How many passengers can you carry?"

"Huh?"

The abrupt question left Ying Yingying stunned. What did he mean, passenger capacity? He was describing her like some kind of vehicle.

Pah, you’re the vehicle!

"I’ll ride you across the sea later. If we tie up the fifteen Dog Pack members and hang them on you, that won’t overload you, right?"

"…"

Ying Yingying said nothing, merely rolled her eyes and let Russell figure it out himself. Fifteen Huskies plus a grown man—she could work herself to death and still could not carry them.

Was that even something a human being would say? Could a normal person come up with an idea like that?

Russell knew he was asking too much, but simply giving the Space Ring back to Ying Yingying felt like too great a loss. The Dog Pack members beside him gave him looks that were stupid, shameless, and utterly idiotic, piling on the pressure. After struggling with it for a while, he took off the Space Ring.

"I agree to an alliance!"

"Hey! Huh? Heeey—"

Ying Yingying suddenly had the Space Ring back. Her eyes went wide in disbelief. Afraid Russell might change his mind, she hurriedly slipped it onto her finger.

"Ahem! I accept your sincerity. From now on, as long as you don’t betray me, I’ll acknowledge you as my ally." Ying Yingying stroked the ring, her eyes slightly moist. She was so emotional that she had even forgotten to change her pants.

"Take out the Flying Carpet. Let’s get going!"

"Right, right, right!"

Ying Yingying nodded repeatedly. With the ring in hand, everything was negotiable. Even Russell no longer seemed quite so irritating. She took out the Flying Carpet and spread it open. The fifteen Huskies jumped aboard, and there was still plenty of room.

"Jason, can we discuss something? Give me the other ring back too. You can’t use it anyway." Ying Yingying guided the Flying Carpet into the air, batting her watery eyes at him.

What do you mean, give the ring back to you? That ring was mine to begin with!

Russell grumbled inwardly, but his tone remained unchanged. "When the mission ends, I’ll see how you perform and score you accordingly. Then I’ll consider whether to give you the ring."

Ying Yingying bared her teeth, so angry that her chest hurt. "Even though these past two days haven’t exactly been pleasant, and you’ve been bullying me the whole time, I can tell you’re not truly evil. So I’ll be honest with you. This ring isn’t mine. Someone entrusted me with upgrading and enhancing it, so… don’t make things difficult for an ally."

As she spoke, Ying Yingying held out her hand in front of Russell.

Russell slapped it away, making Ying Yingying hop around in pain. He asked gravely, "Did the person who entrusted you with upgrading the ring join this Team Battle?"

Ying Yingying raised her palm and kept blowing on it. "No. She’s just a tiny bit stronger than I am. She took the other members to grind instances, level up, and earn Reward Points."

Russell nodded to himself. It was about what he had expected: Ying Yingying was Supergirl’s teammate. As for why he had never seen this face in Supergirl’s social circle, it was probably because of the change in her body type. If she aged another four or five years, he might recognize her.

By then, the Flying Carpet had reached the skies above the ocean. The Inner Earth World was remarkably strange. Though it had no cycle of sun and moon, the conversion and alternation of energy still produced wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.

A fierce wind howled, and the sea surged restlessly. Beneath the wrinkled waves, huge black shadows occasionally swept past. There were squid with countless tentacles, pythons of astonishing length, and bizarre species with no discernible counterpart.

Russell looked down from above and felt that this sea was a complete hodgepodge, containing every imaginable species. Then the Flying Carpet suddenly accelerated, startling the Dog Pack members into flattening themselves against the carpet as they howled wildly.

"What is it?"

Ying Yingying’s expression darkened. "This sea is dangerous. We need to speed up and leave. I just saw the shadow of something huge in the water…"

"What huge thing? A mosasaur?"

"Much more dangerous than that. A snake-like creature with four limbs. It seemed to have horns too. You know what I’m talking about, right?"

Russell nodded solemnly. "I’ll add some Magic Power. Can you go even faster?"

The Flying Carpet flew high along the rock wall. With the wind at their backs, it moved quickly, and they reached the land across the ocean without incident. Compared with the islands on the other side, this landmass was far larger. The five ruins were all located here.

A chain of underground mountains lay beneath red sunlight, making the entire landscape glow crimson.

Red meant either great fortune or great misfortune!

Once the Dog Pack members landed, they regained their vigor and ran around gleefully, marking the ground in every possible way to declare ownership of the territory.

"Jason, I found the signal my teammates left behind. I’m going to meet up with them right away. Are you going to contact your teammates now, or are you coming with me first?" Ying Yingying patted the sand from her hands, delight on her face.

"I’ll go with you first and see what level your teammates are at." Russell replied with apparent arrogance. He had been used to being awesome on his own; he had never had any teammates.

Ying Yingying was in a good mood, and at the mention of her teammates, she could not help smiling. "They’re all pretty capable, though they’re still quite a bit weaker than me."

"Then they must be pitifully weak!"

Ying Yingying had only made herself look foolish and no longer wanted to talk to Russell. Following the signals, she led the way through the terrain until they reached a barren plain between the mountains.

The mountains blocked the sea breeze, leaving the plain dry and lacking water. As far as the eye could see, there was not a trace of green. The rocky ground was exceptionally hard, and faint heat seeped up through their feet as they walked.

Before long, they came upon a Tyrannosaurus Rex that had appeared in the original story… a corpse!

"Is this thing really a Tyrannosaurus Rex?" Russell clicked his tongue.

The dragon corpse was roughly thirty meters long and lay sprawled on the ground. Large craters still carrying the smell of gunpowder surrounded it; it had likely died under concentrated aerial firepower. More importantly, this "Tyrannosaurus Rex" had thick limbs, scales covering its entire body, spines along its back, horns on its head, a long tail, and two wings.

It was an oversized Winged Lizard—a Western Evil Dragon!

"As expected. A Tyrannosaurus Rex couldn’t stop Reincarnators, so the Main God altered the plot and raised the difficulty."