Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 490 - 249 NPC_2

Chapter 490: Chapter 249 NPC_2

While tuning the radio, Doomsday Fortress found a player channel. They learned that this base, known as Angel’s Alliance, was located in the suburbs of North City, in an unnamed small town 12 kilometers from Doomsday Fortress.

The name "Alliance" suggested that the other party was not a common base. They came from a small town in Fantasy City. Before the event, they had rallied players who wanted to stay in Hardcore Mode and collectively moved to the small town through base relocation. Currently, their town has 24 player households, with a total of 108 people. There were not too many rules, and they operated in a tribal, mutual-assistance way. Since many members had Fishing Skills, their long-term food source would come from North City River.

Angel’s Alliance welcomed Doomsday Fortress to trade in their town. But it was difficult for them to come to Doomsday Fortress. Although the straight-line distance was only 12 kilometers, the road distance was 25 kilometers, and the hardest section was a two-kilometer tunnel near their town. The tunnel was the scene of a major car accident. However, the difficulty of driving was just one of the challenges.

There were sentry cards at the tunnel exit, and just like the ones in North Town, hundreds of soldiers had once been stationed there to block the road. As a result, not only was the zombie density extremely high, but they were also hard-skinned zombies, which were very tough to deal with.

Angel’s Alliance had quite a few vehicles, but gasoline was scarce, and daily transportation relied on walking, so it was only possible for Doomsday Fortress to conduct commercial trade at Angel’s Alliance.

Using the channel provided by Angel’s Alliance, Maya added channels from a dozen or so bases in the small town, and from then on, she listened to the communications between their bases. After monitoring overnight, Maya confirmed that what Angel’s Alliance had said was the truth.

...

At eight o’clock in the evening, Dashuang sought out Maya, Maya found Lin Wu, Lin Wu found Peanut, and the two boys then went to Lin Wu’s dormitory to play cards. Meanwhile, the three girls took advantage of the night to go swimming in Left County River, and also to take a bath.

Although there were bathrooms, without a water utility outpost, they couldn’t provide a water source. At present, the base only provided water for making tea, brewing coffee, and cooking, and like the electricity for the fridge, this welfare was only available for one month.

After bathing, the three girls took the opportunity to wash their clothes by the river. In theory, the boys did not need to look away, as all the parts without clothing were pixellated. However, men’s mentality was strange, always wanting to look at the parts that were not covered when a girl was dressed, and when a girl wore less, they liked to look at the parts that were covered. To avoid suspicion and wild thoughts, necessary separation measures were still needed.

They held a meeting at ten o’clock at night, and Maya confirmed the next day’s work: scouting and searching the warehouse area. Dashuang would stay home. During the meeting, everyone shared their Combat Skills, with Cotton being the main person of interest.

After her demise, Cotton had drifted to a medium-sized base, which fell over a month later. Cotton and a friend then joined another medium-sized base but soon left due to her friend’s conflicts with others and joined a small base.

During this time, she experienced various hardships. Her friend died, and she applied to join a new medium-sized base. As the base’s relations were quite complex, Cotton, who was neutral, was not affected but grew tired of the atmosphere. Therefore, when she received an invitation from Shadow Stone, she immediately accepted.

Cotton was able to join various medium and small-sized bases smoothly, of course, due to her abilities. Cotton followed the same path as Lin Wu, with agility as her main and physique as her secondary attribute, specializing in blunt weapons and sub-specializing in short blades. The reason she specialized in blunt weapons was that she had the active police officer tag, which gave her considerable bonuses when using riot sticks, batons, rubber clubs, and similar police equipment.

With 12 stars in agility and 4 in physique, she had impressive attribute data. Her Life Skills, which she learned from books, were very special, named: Search. Simply put, she could skip the Corpse Looting phase and directly obtain items from the zombies she killed herself. This skill was an absolute Divine Artifact for the previous Shadow. For various reasons, Shadow had missed countless bodies during sieges, including Titans and Frenzies.

Unexpectedly, Cotton was not fond of this skill, as it was obligatory. In most cases, killing zombies only resulted in junk items like torn cloth, and with bad luck, even maggots and pebbles. After a day of fighting, her bag was filled with all sorts of strange items.

Why were there maggots? They are Divine Artifacts for Fishing.

When sharing her attributes, Cotton felt a hint of pride. Thus, she was shocked on the spot when she learned that Lin Wu had 20 stars in agility and 7 in physique. She was a very diligent person, who spent every day fighting outside except when sleeping. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she worked, 50 could never beat 100. Although Lin Wu was lazy, he benefited from the bonuses of having both agility and physique as primary attributes, gaining experience just by crawling on the ground faster than Cotton running frantically.

Cotton just couldn’t compete in attributes, much less in skills. Cotton had only one combat skill, while Lin Wu had a whole set of them. Faced with this reality, Cotton could only sigh and accept that some were naturally better....This was Doomsday Fortress’s first time venturing out, and compared to before, today everyone had half the usual amount of bullets. Except for Lin Wu, they each carried a crossbow, which proved its cost-effectiveness in Hardcore Mode.The zombies had also undergone some changes. Aside from the density and so forth, the zombies now more closely resembled those in films and shows. They were still relatively clean, devoid of boils and maggots, although their clothes were tattered. The difference lay in the gurgling sound they emitted from their throats and the terrifying grimace that their faces would twist into upon sighting players, which had a certain visual impact on players.One of the most crucial updates was that zombie corpses, like trash, would no longer be automatically cleared by the system. However, Dawn still left a backdoor open; otherwise, players would have had no choice but to become corpse movers.Zombie corpses more than two hundred meters away from players or player bases’ safe zones would be cleared. This rule meant that players were responsible for dealing with zombie corpses within a two hundred meter radius of their bases’ safe zones. If there was a siege, players would first have to deal with disposing of the corpses. Fortunately for Doomsday Fortress, there was a river on one side and the sea on the other, allowing for easy disposal.If players did not deal with the zombie corpses, after a certain amount of time, they would begin to stink. Continuously for about a week, after which time the corpses would also be cleared.There was another possibility: the bodies could attract scavenging animals. Vultures, hyenas, badgers, jackals, and the like. If enough of these animals gathered, they might pose a threat to humans.In Hardcore Mode, there was another rule: animals and zombies were neutral to each other and would not attack one another.Zombie corpses were not disgusting, without blood, just dried-out bodies, hardly distinguishable from dry wood. If one was willing, they could even be used as fuel. This was why there were no zombies in water over two meters deep; the bodies were too light and would be swept away by the current.After dealing with a few zombies at the warehouse, Maya began to measure distances. It was good news. The safe zone of Doomsday Fortress was just over two hundred meters from the warehouse. Maya explained to everyone with a map: from now on, whoever killed a zombie within the zone would be responsible for disposing of the body. The method was simply to toss it into the river. If there were many, they could be piled up and burned.Peanut sighed and said, "I hate Hardcore Mode."Lin Wu was rather optimistic, taking things in stride. He said, "Be grateful. If Dawn initiated a 100% reality simulation, the dozen of us wouldn’t last long." Since the rules couldn’t be changed, one could only comply.Peanut said, "Maya should be able to survive."Lin Wu answered for Maya, "No one can survive alone in an environment surrounded by formidable foes."Maya nodded, "That’s right! Lin Wu, up."There were a few hundred warehouses here, divided into high-rise warehouses and standard warehouses. The high-rise ones were over ten meters tall, while the standard ones were less than five meters. They were to scavenge the back-to-back row of standard warehouses, all uniformly equipped with rolling shutter doors and small iron doors. Some warehouses had several rooms combined to create a larger space, while others were just a single room. The standard single warehouses were roughly 50 square meters in size.Lin Wu pried open the lock of a small iron door and pulled it backward. Maya was blocked by Peanut and didn’t enter immediately. A Frenzy burst out from the door, lunging at the innocent Cotton. Lin Wu’s Wind Stinger pursued, overtaking the Frenzy from behind, wrapping his arms around Frenzy’s neck, giving it a slash, and then another, bringing it down.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.