Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 437 - 228 A1

Chapter 437: Chapter 228 A1

Maya slapped Nightmare awake, and after regaining her senses, Nightmare immediately joined the fight. Meanwhile, Stone returned as well. Their numbers growing, the players started to gain the upper hand in the battle. Nightmare, with her agile body, frequently charged forward, combining grenades and her pistol to take down the soldiers who had previously been bombed nearly to death.

The remaining 8 soldiers began to retreat, scrambling onto the second truck. The second truck rammed the first and took off. Lin Wu’s last shot hit the curtain at the back of the truck, scoring one more kill, but he could only watch as the truck sped away.

"Mission accomplished," Nightmare said. They received a B quality rating, clearly because one of the trucks had escaped.

Stone entered the dormitory and slapped the folding screen, "Let’s get to work, it’s showtime."

Everyone grabbed their weapons and exited the dormitory, dealt with the zombies, scavenged the truck, and transported the wounded to the infirmary. Shana, dragging Lin Wu, was the first to reach the infirmary. As a non-professional doctor, Emerald Feather was shocked by Lin Wu’s condition: "Is there still a chance to save him?" His left arm had been gnawed away to at least two pounds of flesh, and his face had been bitten into a crater.

"We have the update to thank for that," Shana said as she placed Lin Wu on the hospital bed.

Injuries deducted health before the update, but after the update, non-fatal wounds did not reduce health. However, health became extremely fragile, dropping from 100 to 0 in the blink of an eye. The health bar’s significance had greatly diminished; it was just evidence to judge whether one was still alive.

The next wounded was Peanut; Stone and Nightmare sat outside the infirmary in line.

Horse Soul, with a backpack, ran into the south gate and said to the Stone sitting slumped at the infirmary door, "Boss, a whole truck of medical packs and food supplies."

Stone asked, "Can we replenish our stock?"

Horse Soul nodded, "Nearly there."

"Good work," Stone sighed deeply after Horse Soul left, and said morosely, "So many food supplies, what’s the use of a farmer like me? I might as well be dead." With that said, he drew his pistol, aimed it at his head, mimicked a gunshot sound, and collapsed.

Nightmare, witnessing Stone’s clownish performance, said in disbelief, "As a leader, how can you be as dumb as beef?"

Stone touched his hair and explained, "That’s the movie effect. The scene stimulates the brain, evokes associations with movie scenes, and you can’t help but follow along. I’m serious, we shouldn’t do this kind of thing anymore."

Maya rushed in excitedly, "Armored truck, 60% durability, driving into zombies only reduces durability by 90%, and it can be driven."

"Wow." This was a great find, Stone asked, "Does it burn fuel?" Armored, a truck, and impervious to zombie collisions—such a good thing surely had a significant drawback.

Maya paused, "I don’t know."

Stone inquired, "Anything else?"

"There are also five boxes with twenty landmines each," Maya replied.

"That’s all?"

"That’s all," Maya explained, "You can’t loot corpses in this kind of battle." Even if you could get to a body, you’d instantly become a target.

Nightmare remarked, "The landmines are pretty good, too."

Stone questioned, "Where do you plan to bury the mines? There are zombies everywhere; one step and they explode. It’s fine if zombies trigger them, but we’re the only ones around. If we bury mines, we’ll just end up stepping on them ourselves. We might as well dismantle them—we could at least exchange them for some scrap metal."

Feeling somewhat guilty inside, Nightmare offered, "I’ll exchange them for some bullets for you."

Shadow, eavesdropping from inside the infirmary, commented, "Old Man is fooling you."

Stone threw a stone inside and said to Nightmare, "Keep them for yourself. As part of cooperative missions, you take the points, and we take the spoils of war." Stone wanted to see what Nightmare was like. So far, from their interactions, the girl seemed alright. Her previous recommendation to bring Dashuang into the base also showed this; it was out of gratitude for Ershuang’s help that she went out of her way to solve the two girls’ problems.

Besides, there was only negative feedback: a loner, poor at socializing, and easily manipulated by others.

Many people don’t understand this. For example, if you and a friend are walking in the countryside and come across a teahouse, you decide to sit down for a pot of tea while chatting. If you notice there’s no price list, you’re faced with two choices: ask for the price or, to save face, just order directly.

If you ask for the price and they say 188 for a brew of Tieguanyin, as a local, you know it’s several times over the standard price. Then you have two more choices: for the sake of face, accept it, vow never to come back or to report them later, or simply leave.

Someone like Nightmare, who lacks social skills, can be easily manipulated. Not to mention negotiating after being quoted for Tieguanyin, she wouldn’t even ask for the price. Stone, however, was different. Money aside, can being treated like an idiot be tolerated? At the very least, he would walk away. Why stay and be slaughtered like a pig?

Moreover, many low-priced tour groups operate this way. They take advantage of the tourists’ embarrassment and reluctance. On the flip side, if they don’t care about losing face, why should you care about theirs—are you the fool? Of course, it is not recommended to join a shopping tour, as it offers no real travel experience.

...

By dawn, everything was cleaned up, and Shadow had two things to take care of. One was the A1 laboratory mission brought by Nightmare. That matter was left to Nightmare, Maya, and Lin Wu to discuss.

The second matter was to occupy the Firepower Points. Shana, referencing an old map obtained from trade with Nightmare, checked against the Firepower Point Map that Fortress NPC agents had, and realized all Firepower Points were located high up, accurately, in the mountains. Left County was surrounded by mountains, and one could simply look up to see the continuous mountain ranges.