Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 131 - 106: Healing Wounds_2

Chapter 131: Chapter 106: Healing Wounds_2

Stone: "What was I looking for you for? Oh right, at eight tonight we’re heading to Right County to pick up Nightmare. Will two of you be enough? Little Knife here can’t wait to join in."

Maya, clever as she was, replied, "We have to go through the tunnel, and Little Knife is indispensable. If anyone else is interested, they can come along. Last time we snuck through the tunnel, today we can fight our way through."

Stone said, "Have you noticed, you’ve been hanging around with Lin Wu for a few days and your killing intent seems particularly strong?"

Lin Wu: I didn’t hear that.

Maya changed the subject, "It’s 3 PM now, we’ll meet at the tunnel entrance around 7 PM. It’s a bit easier to get past the sentry checkpoints after 7..."

Lin Wu interrupted, "We don’t have a car, we’ll have to run there."

Maya said, "Let’s make it 6 then."

Stone: "Alright, got it."

After ending the call, Lin Wu asked, "We won’t be able to recover from our injuries before 6."

Maya took out a serum syringe and injected herself, saying, "If it’s just healing, we should have enough time."

Lin Wu regretted, "I really want to experience what it’s like to be poked by a needle."

Maya, hearing this, felt an urge to kick Lin Wu’s butt, but luckily she was a serious person. Among the many at the Shadow base, Maya would only occasionally talk with Lin Wu.

As Lin Wu healed, Maya had nowhere else to be, so she took a book from her backpack, sat down in the hallway across from the radio in the infirmary. If this had been at the Shadow base, Maya would have returned to her own bed to read, as that was her private space. At this sub-base, she didn’t want to leave Lin Wu alone. Besides, she found Lin Wu’s company quite relaxing; her definition of relaxing was that others wouldn’t feel cramped by her presence.

Like during team-building, when the staff went out to eat and sing karaoke, it was best for the boss not to show up and just take care of the bill.

Lin Wu wouldn’t crack dirty jokes, and he was very careful with his words in that regard. For example, after Lin Wu finished healing, he would never say something like ’Maya, it’s your turn to get on the bed.’ Not just in the game, but even in reality, Lin Wu was very polite towards friends’ girlfriends, noticeably distant kind of polite.

Maya got on the sickbed, Lin Wu picked up Maya’s book and glanced at it, Dream of Red Mansions. He flipped through it for a while, the story was about a man and a group of women. He hadn’t expected Maya’s taste to be so lowbrow, can’t she read some serious novels that aren’t palace dramas?

Lin Wu put the book aside, looked at the red dots on the electronic map without leaving, bored he picked up the mic, "Calling Stone."

Stone hurried over to respond, "Stone here."

Lin Wu: "Sing me a song."

Stone: "Get lost."

Rude, hmmph! Lin Wu: "Then I’ll sing for you."

Stone hung up, ignoring him.

With Stone, Lin Wu would joke around, and if he had questions or issues, he would ask Stone, who was happy to help him out. Hanging out with Little Knife was just fun, like doting on a little sister, teasing her but also protecting her. His time with Su Shi had the flavor of a gentleman’s friendship; although their interactions were few, they would always join in the fun when they saw each other.

Only with Soulless brother would Lin Wu be extra polite.

Bored, Lin Wu went for a stroll in the supermarket. As he turned a corner, he saw some scattered zombies wandering around the safe zone of his base. Lin Wu didn’t kill any zombies; after all, they would just respawn. Wandering around aimlessly for a while, Lin Wu had a sudden impulse and entered Stealth mode, starting an unfair game by tailing one of the zombies. Invisible to the zombie, Lin Wu would humiliate it; if the zombie saw him, Lin Wu would take it out.

Maya leaned against the wall of the aisle, finally understanding why Shana had learned the face-palm gesture. She kept silent, just watching Lin Wu as he followed the zombie, advancing, retreating, and turning. She hadn’t expected Lin Wu could act even more childishly.

Suddenly, Lin Wu popped out from the left side of the zombie, making faces and trying to scare it, before put down the unsuspecting zombie.

Maya watched the whole thing, finding it too cringeworthy to look directly.

After killing the zombie, Lin Wu realized Maya was there. He flushed with embarrassment and came over to explain, "I was recording zombie reaction data."

Maya didn’t know what to say. After a long pause, she added, "It’s about time. We need to head out." There are likely two kinds of people who are inherently good-natured: naive men and chatty women.

...

Running is a test of endurance. Lin Wu and Maya, both with secondary physical attributes, used up stamina at the same rate over the same distance and speed without any buffs or debuffs. The difference was in agility, which determined the upper speed threshold. At 20 yards, there was no difference between them, but once they exceeded 35 kilometers per hour, Lin Wu would still be using stamina normally while Maya would suffer from increased stamina consumption. Beyond 38 kilometers per hour, equivalent to surpassing the short sprint world record, Lin Wu would also start to incur a stamina consumption penalty.

Maya, who usually talked about work or data, asked, "How many stars is your Physical Strength?"

Lin Wu replied, "Three and a half stars." They had vehicles for transport, there was no need to run like mad on foot, and fighting didn’t rely on physical strength.

"You need to train more, you can increase your life limit." Snow Egg’s dual attribute at ten stars increased the life limit by 30 points. Maya said, "It seems like this game tailors skill improvement to a character’s day-to-day actions." Typically, for the five main attributes, passive or active skills could be obtained at the three, five, and ten-star marks.

Lin Wu’s Quick Gunner skill was a reward for reaching five agility stars, and at ten stars, he gained bonuses to Stealth and lockpicking. In addition to this, Lin Wu hadn’t received any skills at three stars for both Physical Strength and Agility.

"Frenzy." Lin Wu left the group and walked away. Maya stopped to rest for a moment before Lin Wu returned, "Damn, it’s just a Frenzy. Maya!"

"Hmm."

Lin Wu asked, "Do you think that as players become stronger, Dawn might gradually increase the realism of the game? Like canceling the daily food consumption setting. At Shadow base, for eight people, the system uses up eight units of food and gives eight portions to the players, who then have to eat these, whether cooked or raw."

"They probably won’t go that far," Maya said. "I believe some of the current settings act as newbie protection. Infinite bullets are key to defensive home play, and I think it’s unlikely they’ll remove that. Otherwise, no one could defend against a level five siege, and even if they did, they’d be effectively bankrupt."

Maya continued, "The complimentary candles at the base are likely to be phased out to encourage players to seek out electrical resources. The miraculous sickbeds will probably be further weakened, and the doctor’s profession will be given more attention. I think in the future they might lessen the death penalty, and with resources becoming increasingly scarce, most players will live skimpily, which will in turn increase the difficulty of the game. Living like North Town might actually be the correct approach."

In North Town’s center, 90% of the buildings were occupied by players, forming a secure zone. Food depended on Fishing or the Hunter’s skill, and having a bed to sleep in satisfied players’ survival needs. Once survival was no longer a concern, people started looking for more, and socializing became the cheapest and lowest risk form of interaction.

When a small base in North Town entered the system siege, they could likely get help from four or five allied bases nearby. Neighbors could help clear zombies from their own homes with guns. This brought its own issues, though: the small bases’ safe zones were too tiny, allowing outsiders to attack residents from just outside the safe zone.

After all, the sole purpose of a safe zone was to prevent zombies from respawning, and to manage non-resident’s weapons, not to provide an invincible haven of safety.

This was one of the game’s perks, the two of them could chat and run against the wind without getting a sore throat or feeling any other discomfort. Upon reaching the Sentry Card, Lin Wu drew away the zombies for the two to pass through. Not long after entering Right County Farm, they encountered two NPCs. Coincidentally, they were the same NPCs Lin Wu and Maya had met before, and the NPCs gave them the same quest.

The quest was common, with the purpose of unlocking the base honor points, granting the chance to receive Fortress tasks via radio. Lin Wu knew that these two couldn’t be killed off; maybe he could assassinate one with a surprise attack, but the other’s counterattack would be deadly. He had tried luring monsters before, but that didn’t work on them. The best strategy was to bring back a bunch of Frenzies and Titans, but unfortunately, the crafty NPCs made sure to stay where these creatures were absent.

(When playing rotten games, it’s possible to use mobs to besiege NPCs, and some NPCs can take down two Titans. Others might get torn in half by the Titans and tossed aside, with their equipment stuffed inside one half. If you’re unlucky or not observant, you might never find the half-corpse.)

It took ten minutes to lead the NPCs to a spot, defend for a few minutes, kill a few zombies, and earn honor points.