At 3 pm, inside the building of Allerbmu, Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong led Xiao Tan as they cut their way to the top floor. The elevator that went from the ground floor to the 52nd floor was broken, and the entrance to the fire escape was broken down at the ground floor as well. But the elevators that led to the other floors were still usable.
They took trips up different elevators from the first floor to the seventh floor and then from the seventh floor to the tenth floor, and then they changed elevator again. Repeating this process, they finally reached the 42nd floor.
Along the way, they ran into two other mini bosses, but before Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong, they were completely defenseless, and they were cut down in less than three minutes. Facing normal BW Zombies was even easier; they were cut down like grass.
Xiao Tan learned many things following behind them. When it came to battle, he did not even have a chance to join the fray; it felt like he was a mafia boss cleaning up the scene with his best fighters and only needed to stay back to watch.
“Big brothers…” On the stairs between 42nd and 43rd floor, Xiao Tan finally asked, “Are you planning to clear your way to the top and then go back down?”
“That would be a negative,” Hwa Xiong replied. “We’re going to go save that Professor Ashford.”
Xiao Tan was confused. “Er… I’m not sure if it’s too late for me to bring this up, but I glanced at the building layout when we were on the first floor, and the lab is in the basement, not on the top floor…”
Theoretically speaking, when they heard him say something like that at that juncture, they should come up with reply like, “Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
But to his surprise, the two appeared completely unfazed. Hwa Xiong turned back to laugh. “Ha ha, little buddy, we know the lab is in the basement, but that doesn’t mean the professor will be in the lab, right?”
If the professor is not at the lab, where would he be? Xiao Tan thought internally. In the toilet?
Based on the common trope used in sci-fi movies, after the explosion of the virus, a researcher would normally find a relative safe location to quarantine themselves and find a way to control the virus or call for help. The top floor of the building was marked as an ’office space’, so if Professor Ashford was really there, he would be zombie food already.
Even though Xiao Tan had his suspicions, he did not voice them because he was being carried. What grounds did he have to complain? Even if it was later proved that they had gone the wrong way, he only needed to follow those two back down the building.
…
Several minutes later, Feng Bujue successfully gained entry to the building. By examining the wounds of the bodies that he saw on the way and the bloody footprints that he found on the ground, he realized that there were two people accompanying Xiao Tan. One of them used a heavy weapon with a bladed side, and the other used something like a long javelin. Furthermore, they were very good fighters because they killed all of mobs with just one hit.
Since the trio had cleared most of the way, it was easier for Feng Bujue to find his way in; the monsters that he ran into while he was inside the building were only a handful. He looked at the building layout and headed down to the basement. He had no idea that the other three were heading to the top floor. Therefore, Feng Bujue found the elevator that headed down in one of the corridors and walked into it.
The elevator was spacious, and it honestly looked quite similar to the log-in lobby without the touch screen and full-body mirror. There was some dried blood inside the elevator, but at least there were no body parts lying around. Since the elevator only connected the ground floor and the underground lab, there were only five buttons on the control panel. Feng Bujue pressed the one that would lead him to the lab, and then after the doors closed, the elevator started.
Based on the ’fight result’ that he had seen earlier, inside this enclosed space, BW Zombies would not have escaped from Pan Feng and Hwa Xiong. But he still gripped the wrench tightly as a precaution against stragglers even though he believed the chance of that was exceedingly low.
Just as the elevator doors were about to open, an echo of zombie groaning suddenly hit him like a wall, and this startled Feng Bujue. He saw an arm reach through the gap and then another one…
Before the door completely opened, three or four zombies were already trying to get into the elevator. Looking down the corridor, there were twenty to thirty zombies waiting in line. They were mostly wearing security uniforms or lab costs. Their mouths were dripping with saliva while their bodies radiated the stench of death.
Even though Feng Bujue was ambushed, he soon regained his senses. He bit on the clove of garlic that he already had in his mouth as he grabbed the kitchen knife to match with the wrench in his other hand. He aimed at the head of the zombie nearest to him.
After killing a few zombies, he made a startling discovery. The monsters that were rushing at him were normal zombies. Their faces were not pale, and they had no fangs and their bodies were free from werewolf furs, and the crucial thing was… they were not afraid of garlic!
This sudden development took the advantage away from Feng Bujue. He had thought that there would not be that many monsters, but that was not true. To make matters worse, he was cornered inside a cramped space like the elevator. The garlic was of no use, and the normal zombie moved faster than the BW Zombies on the surface. They were as strong and as fast as a normal human.
Feng Bujue had already used Slowing Sands in the earlier scenario on Roderick Usher’s soul, so he was trapped. If it was a normal person trapped inside an elevator with tons of zombie, the best solution was probably… to kill themselves.
However, Feng Bujue did not even have the time to pull out the guns. He waved the weapons in his hands frantically, and thanks to the special effect from Brain Concussion, he managed to keep the situation until control somewhat. Still, the zombies attacked with their arms, not their heads, and the limitation of space within the elevator made it hard for him to hit the heads.
As expected, it did not take long for him to be bitten and not only on one spot. The sensation of pain was not acute, but he knew that he was probably infected. After dealing with the immediate threat, Feng Bujue stood in the corridor alone with twenty or so dead zombies behind him, and blood flowed like river. He inspected the wounds on his body. They were on his arms and legs, four in total.
Other than the cloth near the sensitive parts, the player’s outfit could be ruined. As long as the damage was less than ten percent of the overall outfit’s coverage, the system might delay or deny the recovery. Therefore, Feng Bujue’s sleeves and pants had openings that exposed the zombie’s bite wounds.
The status next to his Life Points showed that he was ’Diseased’, proof that he was infected. Feng Bujue sighed and took out the Winchester from his backpack and loaded it before moving forward. Why the lab would contain normal zombies, he had no idea, but he knew that there was a buffer period before the infection took over. There would be symptoms like a high fever, so he still had some time left.
The plan was to find a serum inside the lab and to investigate whether Xiao Tan and the other two players were there or not. If they were not, it meant that they had headed upstairs; if they were, there had to be a reason to explain the ambush at the elevator.
…
At the same time, in front of the gun store, Atobe-sama and Ming Zi grabbed a sofa and placed it in the middle of the road. The two sat on it and used the zombies that were shuffling slowly toward them as target practice.
Of course, as relaxing as that was, they still maintained some caution. After all, with their accuracy, landing a headshot at a long distance was quite difficult. For those zombies that fell over from a hit to the legs, they would walk over to inspect whether the zombies were really dead or not. Those that were still alive would be rewarded with a shot to the head.
The guns in the shop were generally useable by those with F in general ability, so they had a lower equip requirement than the M1911A1 Pistol that Feng Bujue had found when he was level five. Obviously for scenarios above level ten, the limitation on the usage of firearms was relaxed so that players who had not unlocked the marksmanship mastery had the chance to do so.
“Hey, look, what is that?” Ming Zi suddenly saw a strange shadow that was coming from afar.
Atobe-sama was facing the opposite direction, but he turned around to look. “Could that be… another player?”
The person’s movement was not that of a zombie, and that was why it had attracted Ming Zi’s attention. As ’she’ approached, the two finally got a closer look.
It was a young lady with great proportions and hair to her shoulders. She had a pretty, oval face. Her skin was fair with deep, rippling eyes, a high nose, and small lips. She was wearing a black tuxedo that was too small for her figure. It accentuated her slender frame, forming a great contrast to the volume around her chest.
“In any case, she’s not wearing the outfit made default by the system,” Ming Zi said.
“Hmm… You have a point, and from her looks, I don’t think she’d call herself Unparalleled General Pan Feng or Thousand Kills Hwa Xiong,” Atobe said. “That Feng Bujue told us Wang Tanzhi is his friend and is also a male player, so there shouldn’t be a female player in this scenario…”
“But she doesn’t look like a monster either. Is she an NPC?” Ming Zi asked.
“Let’s try to talk to her.” Atobe raised the TMP and aimed it at the beauty, shouting, “Stop! Who are you?”
The answer that he got was a smile on her lips. Several seconds later, the smile turned into a wicked grin, revealing the fangs that it had been hiding.
