Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 200 - 136 Waste City (IX)_2

Chapter 200: Chapter 136 Waste City (IX)_2

Lin Wu was curious. By all logic, Maya and her five-person team should have reached the third rendezvous point by now, so why hadn’t he seen them?

Midway through his noodles, Lin Wu noticed a fog appearing about a hundred meters away. Observing from a different angle, he realized that fog was forming in all directions. The commander’s voice came through the headset, "Prepare for battle."

Lin Wu grabbed his tooth mug, quickly finished the noodles and drank up the soup. By then, the fog had closed in to about 70 meters from the city hall; through the scope, Lin Wu could vaguely see green shapes in the mist.

As the fog neared 30 meters, at the commander’s order, gunfire erupted from all sides. Even with his night vision on, Lin Wu couldn’t see any zombies, but the soldiers had already started shooting—unable to tell whether they were firing blanks. In any case, Lin Wu didn’t see a single zombie corpse.

The city hall’s glass was intact, so Lin Wu slid open the window, stepped outside, and with his agile skills, grabbed onto a concrete slab and lunged to the side, catching the external unit of an air conditioner. Settling on top of the unit, he took down Silencer and pulled the bolt, ready for combat.

A wise man does not stand under a shaky wall, and currently, it was unclear whether the 10 NPC soldiers were a liability, so the priority was to save his own life. The external unit unstable? No problem, Lin Wu had a rope. Utilizing the rebar exposed outdoors, he secured himself tightly in place.

By this time, the fog had spread to the city hall, shrouding the outdoors Lin Wu first. In the mist, he finally saw the blurred figures of green zombies. They moved fast, desperately running towards the main door. The NPC soldiers guarding the entrance were effective, mowing down all approaching zombies with their .50 machine guns like a breeze sweeping leaves.

The NPCs weren’t too bad this time!

Commander: "All personnel retreat to the second floor and start stairway defense."

You just can’t praise NPCs. Just moments ago, not a single zombie got within ten meters of the main gate. The .50 machine guns weren’t there for show; a hit to the body would leave a big hole, carbon-based lifeforms are nothing but dregs in the face of heavy firepower. So why the retreat?

Lin Wu was curious: if he didn’t fire a single shot, would the third rendezvous point fall? After observing for a while, Lin Wu felt he had wronged the NPCs. The reason for the soldiers to fall back to the second floor was to give players a chance to enter the battle.

The shrewd Lin Wu couldn’t see zombies clearly from outdoors, so he had to move back indoors. He descended to the second floor, stepped down half a flight, and reached the NPC machine gunner’s side. The indoor visibility was high; Lin Wu saw groups of zombies running from the door. After shooting two, he realized the NPC’s gun skills were terrible.

About a dozen zombies had reached the stairs, when suddenly the NPC’s shooting turned godlike. The two machine guns annihilated all the zombies at the stair entrance in an instant. Now Lin Wu was sure that the NPCs were giving him a chance to steal kills; they only shot the zombies that reached the stairway entrance.

Facing a horde defense, Lin Wu regretted trading his M16 for one from Shadow Base. The M16 had infinite ammo, and with NPC cover, he could have really made a splash in the city hall.

...

The terrain was good, and the view was open; the zombies had only one path and could only advance in a straight line. After playing for a while, Lin Wu went to the second-floor break room for a cup of coffee and found five NPC soldiers resting and reading, completely indifferent to the earth-shattering battle outside. Lin Wu took the coffee and sat back down, slowly starting his own rhythm amidst the fierce battle.

About fifteen minutes later, the commander’s voice came through: "A soldier is lost in the fog about 200 meters south, in very dangerous condition. Is anyone willing to go get him?"

Lin Wu chose to keep quiet. The TV had made it clear—players were advised not to leave the city hall during the fog. Going out on a mission now would be like having a death wish. The NPC soldiers turned a deaf ear and continued firing away. The commander called out a couple of times and, receiving no response, went silent.

Another ten minutes passed, the fog dissipated, and the zombies were nowhere to be seen. Lin Wu asked over the channel, "Commander, I heard someone is trapped two hundred meters away. I’m requesting to go on a rescue."

Commander: "Okay, be careful."

That works?

Lin Wu left the city hall and walked about 200 meters south, finding the mission target amid the ruins. But wasn’t the mission about retrieving him? Why then was the soldier unconscious? The spot where the soldier lay was not safe. Lin Wu had relied on Stealth to get there, and there were plenty of zombies nearby. Once he carried the soldier, Stealth would be compromised.

Lin Wu, now calling himself Lin Rope, took out a rope from his backpack, tied it under the arms of the soldier, fastened the other end to himself, entered Stealth, and started pulling the soldier towards the rendezvous point with difficulty. Thus, after much time, Lin Wu dragged the man close to the city hall, then carried the soldier up the steps and into the building.

Lin Wu did not consider whether the soldier might die from his injuries during transit. As long as Lin Wu was dragging him along, the soldier had a chance at life. If Lin Wu carried him, both would have been doomed.

And so, the number of base soldiers increased to 11.

In the following two days, no new gamers arrived at the third assembly point, and thanks to Lin Wu’s efforts, the number of scientists had grown to 10, and the soldiers to 22.

The assembly point emitted fog every four hours, which was Lin Wu’s only form of entertainment during these two days.

With 48 hours left until the end of the instance, the assembly point issued a new mission: install locators on as many green devices as possible. According to the commander, they would retreat after 48 hours, and following their retreat, the Ocean Fleet would bomb the targets based on the locator signals, in hopes of destroying the green devices.

Lin Wu rummaged through his backpack again, packing food, water, a sleeping bag, and bullets. Filling up his remaining carrying capacity with 100 locators, he left the third assembly point. Compared to spending the past two days fighting off enemies with the heavy machine gun soldiers, Lin Wu preferred doing some sneaky tasks.

Less than 20 minutes after leaving, Lin Wu had already attached locators to three green devices around the city hall. Then, he launched his drone, which still had 40% battery life, to circle around and mapped out his route on the electronic map before heading towards the fourth target.

The Waste City instance had given Lin Wu a taste of the desolation of the apocalypse. The quiet world and the zombies that could appear at any time made Lin Wu feel like he was the anomaly, that he should be assimilated by the zombies. Up to this point, Lin Wu had lost his enthusiasm for completing the mission, instead mechanically carrying out the work. To Lin Wu, the only redeeming aspect of the mission was that it provided him with a goal, keeping his drive to move forward and survive.

In the last 24 hours of the game, after breakfast, Lin Wu had another epiphany; he seemed to have gotten used to the apocalypse. His mind was also devoid of excessively sentimental thoughts, his survival instinct stronger than ever. Completing the mission and staying alive had become his sole objectives.

Two hours ago, the second assembly point had been breached by zombies, forcing players and NPCs to retreat towards the third assembly point. Unluckily for them, they arrived near the city hall just as the fog was starting, stepping unknowingly into it.

Lin Wu was now far, far from the city hall, unable to hear the gunfire and battle cries. He followed his own trail, attaching locators to the green devices one by one. Not entering buildings, avoiding alleyways, clearing zombies from his path. Lin Wu strictly adhered to these three principles, which allowed him to spend the last 48 hours of the instance without any surprises or dangers.

At dawn on the final day, Lin Wu glanced at the time and swallowed the last bite of his beans while facing the rising sun. Stationed at the retreat point, he contacted the third assembly point through his headset. About 10 minutes later, a rescue helicopter landed, and Lin Wu, packing up his Silencer, boarded the helicopter and left Waste City.

During the helicopter’s return journey, Lin Wu saw countless bombers taking off from the Ocean Fleet, heading towards Waste City. With that, the first expedition to the Waste City instance came to a close.

Stepping off the helicopter onto the deck, Lin Wu obtained a title: Waste City Survivor. The title reward allowed him to open the electronic map after entering Waste City.

...

The players who died were not teleported out of the instance but to the Birth Fleet instead. Accompanied by an announcement, all players participating in the instance went to the deck of their respective ships according to the broadcast instructions. Standing on deck and looking out, a dense fleet filled the entire sea.

It was then that Lin Wu also saw Maya coming up from the gangway. He waved and greeted her proactively, "Hi, Maya."

Maya nodded and walked up to Lin Wu, asking, "You didn’t die?"

"Luck."

Maya asked, "Why couldn’t I contact you?"

Lin Wu took off his headset, "I was saved by the soldiers, they asked me to join their squad, so I switched headsets. What about you guys?"

Maya replied, "When we retreated to the third assembly point, we encountered the fog and were wiped out."

"Oh," Lin Wu nodded repeatedly.

It was a terrible ’oh’, signifying that Lin Wu was merely asking out of politeness but in reality had no interest in Maya’s experiences over the past few days.