Chapter 4

Carl and Donut encounter a crashed minivan belonging Team Free Love with two bugbears, Radoslav and Jasha, and a dead team member inside. After Donut easily defeats a powerful Screeching Death Manatee blocking the road, Carl learns that the bugbears are aware they are NPCs in a game and that winning the race offers them freedom from the in-between. Carl decides to tow their vehicle to the finish line to prevent facing his friends in future heats.

Carl's truck narrowly avoids colliding with an overturned, burning minivan. A massive Screeching Death Manatee—a special guest creature from a horror-themed safari planet—emerges from the water. Donut, operating at level 135, obliterates it with magic missiles in a single shot, earning a special notification about audience voting on the creature's fate. Carl uses temporary water source scrolls cast into a bucket and bowl to help the two surviving bugbears, Radoslav and Jasha, fight the fire. Inside the van is their dead teammate Alevtina, who broke her neck when the giant ladybug knocked them over. The bugbears reveal they are aware of being NPCs in a game—they regained fragmented memories of multiple lives and places (slime mines, submarine, rope city) after killing a bune crawler who mentioned going home. They explain that a voice offered them a choice: return to "the cold" or race for freedom. Alevtina wanted to win so she could start a family. Carl learns that the prize for winning is freedom and relocation away from the in-between. When Jasha notes their van cannot reach the finish line, Carl decides to tow it to prevent finishing last and facing his friends in subsequent heats.