A Survival Guide for Noncombatants

(Female protagonist. "He" is used as a gender-neutral pronoun. See the note about pronoun edits at the end of the blurb.)

Games descend upon the world, and players are bound to all kinds of systems.

Everyone has their own way of getting by, and in the apocalypse, all kinds of players rise to the top.

Xie An is bound to the Survival System!

No flashy supernatural abilities. The System has a very simple goal: keep its Host alive at all costs.

Xie An is so happy he could cry. This is exactly what he needs!

An ordinary person who's timid, afraid of dying, and faster than anyone else to run when trouble hits, Xie An is terrified when the apocalypse arrives.

This System is perfect for him!

In a zombie world, Xie An lies motionless in a pile of corpses until the dungeon ends. Researchers mistake him for a specimen and send him to a safe zone.

In an escape game, Xie An wears a ghillie suit and hides in the bushes until he takes second place. First place dies in the poison zone, so Xie An gets a painless chicken dinner.

In a war zone, Xie An drops his weapon, changes his clothes, forges his papers, and successfully crosses the border disguised as a civilian to complete his objective.

He knows exactly where he stands:

Never take the initiative, never refuse, never fight.

When others unleash their ultimate moves, he plays dead. When they go for headshots, he dives into a hole.

He isn't the least bit envious of the other players who control the battlefield and save the world against all odds. As soon as a dungeon opens, he finds somewhere to hide and stays there until the game ends.

But even with all his efforts to keep a low profile, the other players gradually start noticing him.

Player forums:

"Who is this Hiding Queen, anyway?"

"She's hilarious. Her combat rating is always zero, but her survival score is always perfect."

"I'll bet a dime she makes it to the end."

Xie An goes viral. Completely viral. People give him all kinds of nicknames:

The Hiding Queen, the Hiding Mogul, the Survival King, the Undying God, the Grim Reaper's Evasion Machine.

As the forums say:

- The Hiding Queen sure knows how to save her own skin!

- You think he's a coward, but his luck is unbelievably tough!

Then Xie An casually saves a few people and gets mistaken for a mysterious mastermind. Some even suspect he's connected to the organization that created the apocalypse game.

Xie An discovers that his guild, which other people forcibly set up for him, has become the biggest guild around, and that he can even decide the direction the entire game takes.

Wait, wasn't he only trying to stay alive in the first place?

But now, it seems he might be able to do something different...

Pronoun note:

Women are people, so there is no need to emphasize their gender. Therefore, the character uses the pronoun "he" throughout the book, rather than the later-coined gender-specific pronoun "she."

The same logic applies to words like youth, upperclassman, sir, and son. There's no need to make them girl, female upperclassman, madam, or daughter.

Note: Unless a character's gender is specified in the story, they should be assumed to be female. Male characters and characters of other genders will be explicitly identified with words like man, gentleman, male, boy, or young man.

Other notes:

1. Not a conventional strong female lead. The protagonist can't fight at first, but will grow stronger later.

2. Female ensemble cast, with women making up a high proportion of the major characters.

3. There is a romance, and the male lead is not just window dressing. The romance is important, and there are also many different kinds of male characters with romantic tension. This is not a romance-free story pretending otherwise.

Theme: Staying alive is winning