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Chapter 53: OP Garlic (VII)

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【Team member: Atobe-sama has died.】

【Team member: Names Are Really Difficult to Choose has died.】

The system notification pinged in their ears, and Wang Tanzhi hurriedly opened the menu to take a look. Displayed next to those two’s names was the word “Dead”. Thinking for a moment, Lil’ Tan opened his mouth to say, “Big Brothers, you don’t think that they died in the research laboratory down in the basement do you?”

“Oh? Why would you say that?” Pan Feng continued forward and didn’t even turn his head around to reply. Based on his tone, he didn’t really care whether those two were alive or dead, in fact it felt like…it was okay if those two died and it’d be fine if they were alive too. They wouldn’t have much effect on the PanHua duo’s ability to clear the Scenario. Of course, considering how strong he and Hua Xiong were when working together, they indeed could afford this self-confidence.

“Think about it guys, one of them was Level 14 and the other was Level 12. Whatever the circumstances, they’d still be a little stronger than me, right? If even I’m not afraid of the Blood Wolf Zombies out on the streets, they’d be even less likely to die at the hands of such monsters. But if they had also come to Allerbmu tower, saw the directory on the first floor and went to the research lab in the basement…” he hesitated, then continued, “We haven’t cleared that space yet, so it’s possible that there’s danger, possibly even a BOSS. If they met a Zombie Werewolf….”

“Hm…a logical conclusion,” said Hua Xiong, but listening to the tone he spoke with, it seemed he had already come to this conclusion earlier. Him saying “logical” was only to humor Lil’ Tan. “But since they’ve already died, if we turn back now there’s still nothing we can do about it. Besides, we’re already extremely close to the top floor. For the time being, let’s first go all the way, clear the top, and then…”

“How about this then,” interrupted Lil’ Tan, “You two bros continue to the top floor, and I’ll go to the basement alone.” As he said this, he took out his baseball bat (because he didn’t get a chance to fight, Lil’ Tan hadn’t even drawn his weapon until now). “The remaining player is my friend, it’s possible that he hasn’t arrived at this tower yet, but it’s positive that he’ll come. I’ll first go to the ground floor to wait for him to tell him not to go to the basement and first come meet up with you guys before going ahead.”

Pan and Hua both stopped and turned to look at him. They exchanged a look and Hua Xiong shrugged his shoulders as he replied, “Alright, then Little Bro, you be careful; we’ll go ahead.”

Lil’ Tan made a small noise of agreement then turned and went back the way they came. After turning down one corridor he just rushed into the fire escape. Right now there was no way that he could know that Feng Bujue was already underground in the research lab, nor could he know that he was wrong about where Atobe-sama and Lil’ Name died and was only moving based on his own assumptions.

Once he’d was far enough away, Pan Feng suddenly spoke in an extremely grave voice, “A long while before those two players died, they were together at the same coordinates. But that place is quite far from this building.”

Hua Xiong replied, “Ah, I also noticed. That place shouldn’t have a mini BOSS; the city should only have scattered Blood Wolf Zombies straggling around during the day. Plus…the time between their deaths was only a few short seconds, heh heh…unless they both jumped off a building together, otherwise….”

“Indeed it should be the work of a ‘Deviant’ right…?” muttered Pan Feng, “It’s attacking players so soon… we should speed up our movements too, we have to stop the other two players from coming into contact with the Deviant.”

“It’s good that that little bro left, we can let loose now. Anyways the trek back is relatively safe with most of the monsters cleaned up. He should be fine for a short while.” Hua Xiong continued, “That one called ‘Feng Bujue’ doesn’t seem to be in a promising state. The problem is that even though his health is at 73%, he’s already infected. When the infection progresses to the next stage the player will die. We’d best rush over before then to fix the situation.” He took a deep breath, “Altogether only four players were queued in, and we can’t do anything about the two that died, but if three or even all of us die before we clear the ending, our assignment will end in a huge failure.”

Pan Feng nodded, “Hm…you’re right. We need to quickly ‘kill’ Ashford, as long as we enter ‘that’ story line, then we’d be able to clear the Scenario quickly. Anyways…let’s first get the players out of the Scenario before anything else, afterwards we’ll properly concentrate on dealing with the ‘Deviant’.”

…………

Feng Bujue walked along the hallway in the research laboratory while holding his Winchester. The light here worked normally, and there weren’t too many zombies apart from the horde of zombies he encountered outside the elevator. He met with zombies here as frequently as he did when he was outside: only one or two at most while passing through several of these corridors.

The shotgun in Feng Bujue’s hands was extremely useful in these narrow halls. As long as he waited for the zombies to come a little closer before he fired, he wouldn’t even need to aim much and it was a surefire kill. As long as the arms or legs were hit, the limbs would break and they’d fall to the floor. If the torso were hit, then it’d be sent flying if not just explode on the spot.

He searched a considerably large area as most of the electric door could still be opened. Many of the rooms only had several rows of metal frame shelves stacked full of cardboard boxes which were packed full of paper documents and file folders. Naturally, Feng Bujue read a few documents, but their contents were basically not in the least bit significant. A lot of them were just reports on the same experiments and any crucial details in the documents were all scratched out by black lines.

There were also rooms outfitted with large-scale computers, filling the walls and desks with monitors as well as confusing levers and buttons, all of which were broken without exception and were impossible to even start up. These kinds of dilapidated rooms gave no reason to worry; you could just leave after a glance.

After numerous twists and turns, Feng Bujue found an electric door that required higher level of security to access. It required dual scanning of the iris and fingerprints to open, but the game was incredibly considerate enough to set up a zombie dressed in a white lab coat a few meters away from the door….

Feng Bujue aimed a shot at the zombie’s abdomen and the creature hit the ground at the same time its intestines splurged out. Next, Feng Bujue took out his baseball bat from his inventory and went over to pulverize the bones in the zombie’s arm and knee. After having settled that, he switched his bat for his chef’s knife, held the zombie’s face, cut its head off and then sliced off one of its palms. In passing, he also searched the zombie’s trousers to confirm that they were empty before he considered his task done.

After the scan was completed and the electric door opened, Feng Bujue flung the head and hand far off in some direction before stepping through the door.

The room was clearly relevant to the plot line.

On the wall facing the doorway was a huge metal vault door, just like what banks use to secure their valuables. On the left wall was a row of glass columns, a meter high and about thirty centimeters in diameter. One could tell they used to be filled with liquid, but the cases had been already shattered; their contents spilled onto the floor leaving a big green stain where the translucent liquid had pooled.

The computers in the room were all inoperable with black screens and unbootable. Laying beside one of the control panels were two dead bodies in white labcoats. Feng Bujue approached cautiously and after examining them for a moment, determined that these two bodies were just ordinary corpses, not sleeping zombies.

These two dead persons were both male, one was probably in his mid-fifties, bald and wore spectacles, and the other was grey-haired, bearded and slightly older. Baldie was shot in the head and Beardy had a gunshot wound in the chest and abdomen. They didn’t seem to have been dragged here after their death based on the how they were positioned and how they posed.

Feng Bujue played out the situation in his head… the killer murderer must have been someone they were familiar with:

The killer entered the laboratory and right after he passed through the electronic doors suddenly drew his gun, aimed, and fired at point blank at the off guard bald man sitting behind the control panel. With one bullet he ended the man’s life and the freshly deceased would’ve slid from his chair and to the floor.

The bearded man, only a few paces away from the control panel, had his back to the door at the time of the gunshot. At the sound, he turned in shock, but unfortunately the killer didn’t allow the man any time to react and immediately let loose two consecutive rounds, killing the guard. And, as the Bearded one collapsed, his body fell forward but just moments before his death, he managed to grab onto the edge of the control panel, shifting the trajectory of his fall, before he fell over onto his side.

Feng Bujue drew the above conclusion based on the bodies’ positions, bloodstains, and expressions. As a mystery novelist, it was an easy and familiar thing to be able to infer the course of events at a scene of crime. Who knows how many times he’s deconstructed other similar plots in his head, sometimes he’d even conduct related experiments in order to to write some “elaborately setup” locker room murders. It sounds quite troublesome, but after all it’d be meaningless, if the method that he racked his brain to come up with proved to be unfeasible in real life.

“Heh…” Feng Bujue just laughed when he looked at the two corpses, “So they were never infected, then these two must have injected the antiserum….” He stood facing the bodies as he wondered aloud to himself, “With so many people in this base, only the core researchers who are constantly in direct contact with the virus would have the cure.”

He mentally reorganized the course of events and thought to himself, “Leaving aside whatever the motives might be, we must first assume that the assailant is a fellow researcher who has also been administered the cure. He killed two men, destroyed the container that held the virus stock solution, then took a small amount of the liquid out of this room and into the corridor where he killed a few more people, transforming their bodies at the same time using the virus stock solution…. After that he fled the research lab to let the infection spread above ground, but it’s unknown why everyone above ground turned into a different kind of zombie.

“Or maybe…the killer never even escaped the research lab and was subdued or even killed by the security guards. Then the virus that gave rise to the Blood Wolf Zombies outside of the lab has nothing to do the one in here and both are completely different matters.”

Having mulled over everything up until this point, Feng Bujue remembered one more issue and opened his mouth, “The guy outside also had clearance authority to enter this room, he should also be one of the research personnel and naturally should have received the cure, but why did he turn into a zombie….”

Feng Bujue needed more information and clues to resolve what happened here so he re-examined the two bodies and immediately found a key in the bearded one’s pocket.

After obtaining the key, Feng Bujue walked over to an office desk a few meters away without missing a beat. He opened each drawer, one after the other, and found two syringes, a pile of blank paper, some stationeries, a stapler, clips, tape, and other useless junk… only the bottom drawer was locked. He tried the key he just found and sure enough it opened.

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