Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 559 - 277: Little Girl_2

Chapter 559: Chapter 277: Little Girl_2

Nightmare: "I did my best."

Maya said, "Everyone rest and have your boxed meals first. Lin Wu will use the drone to search and confirm whether Blood Meng is hiding in the manor. If the search of the wooden clock tower turns up nothing after the meal, we’ll set the clock tower on fire."

Lin Wu asked, "Why?" There was Nightmare burning down Dreamale’s lair before, and now Maya wants to burn the clock tower. Is it a contagion?

Maya explained, "If Blood Meng is nearby, she’ll definitely come back to check on the manor if she sees it on fire. After returning to the manor, she is most likely to visit the safe house to resupply her bullets and food. If Blood Meng is inside the safe house, she might notice the fire outside and come out to investigate. If Blood Meng is far from the safe house, we will have ample time to check this area of the manor."

Lin Wu praised, "You’re not only beautiful but also especially intelligent."

Maya: "You’d better spend your time scouting instead of flattering me."

"Hmph."

Little Knife teased, "Oh! Someone got told off, someone got told off."

Maya said, "Little Knife, keep your voice down. Don’t startle any potential targets."

Imitating Little Knife, Lin Wu twisted his body and mouthed: Someone got told off, someone got told off.

Angry, Little Knife found comfort in Snow Egg as they both quietly cursed at Lin Wu together.

...

The clock tower had been set ablaze, and everyone added various rubbish to it, causing thick smoke to billow, clearly visible from dozens of kilometers away. After everything was prepared, they found a shaded spot to rest, waiting for the latest news from Lin Wu’s drone.

It was just past one in the afternoon, and many people lay down to take a nap. Shana was worried about the time; with less than twenty-four hours left until the eight o’clock protection period the next day, finding the entrance to the safe house could take all that time if Blood Meng didn’t show up. However, this made her somewhat relieved; if the siege happened before they could get back, Stone could abandon the Sawmill with good reason.

Maya was concerned about the drone, which had been using a lot of solar energy, but the electricity consumption exceeded the solar charging rate. Her biggest worry was that Blood Meng wouldn’t appear during the day but would return home at night and run into them while they were searching for the entrance. In such a case, from a tactical standpoint, they could suffer significant losses in an ambush.

Time slipped away second by second amidst the leaders’ concerns. At three in the afternoon, Lin Wu reported, "Nothing found."

Maya: "How much battery does the drone have left?"

Lin Wu replied, "50%."

Maya asked, "Do you see the windows on top of the church?"

Lin Wu nodded.

Maya: "Retrieve the drone and set up an ambush there. We must prepare for the possibility that Blood Meng will return to the safe house at night."

Lin Wu opened his mouth as if to speak, and Maya said, "Or do you want to search every inch of land?"

Lin Wu chuckled, "I will certainly be a qualified Sentry." He regretted not bringing Wai; otherwise, he could have let it perch on the window to watch.

In the channel, Maya gave the order, "Start from south to north." Saying this, she stood up and looked deeply at the expanse of buildings, exhaling heavily. It was a vast project with uncertain rewards.

Maya turned to Shana and said, "We’re evacuating at eight in the morning, with two shifts arranged after nightfall."

Shana nodded, "Okay."

...

Lin Wu stealthily arrived at the church and avoided the few zombies there; he took the side staircase to the second floor, where there was a platform prepared for the choir. He made his way along the corridor bridge to the windows. Half of the window glass was missing; Lin Wu sat back against a pillar and began his watch with a monocular.

Battles were erupting outside. The number of zombies was not high, but there were many players. Without using firearms, they easily suppressed the zombies with melee weapons. After the fight, everyone entered the first building: the warehouse. This was a more than thousand square meter building used to park tractors and store tools.

Thinking about their workload, Lin Wu had great admiration for Maya’s ability to assign tasks to the right people. Actually, Maya didn’t want anyone slacking off and undermining morale, nor did she want someone’s work attitude to lead to missing important clues.

Under Maya’s supervision, everyone worked hard and conscientiously, each person responsible for an area. People kept asking on the channel, "How do you know when there’s a problem?"

Both Nightmare and Lin Wu gave the same reply, "You’ll feel there’s a problem when you touch it, but you can’t see it with the naked eye."

Maya asked, "Lin Wu, any situation on your end?"

Lin Wu replied, "No."

Maya checked everyone’s progress. It was already past four in the afternoon and only half the warehouse had been searched. The search was limited to the ground level. When it came to the dorms and main building, they also had to consider the walls and second floor. Even so, Maya still trusted Nightmare. If it were Lin Wu, he would surely start to doubt Nightmare in order to avoid the dull and tedious long hours of work. This was also one reason why Maya had Lin Wu serve as sentinel.

Lin Wu said, "Just to throw out a weak suggestion, usually I would use such a dumb method. Don’t you guys have any better ways?"

Shana’s pride was trampled by Lin Wu’s question, which fried her CPU for a moment before she had a flash of inspiration and said, "In Hardcore Mode, only the corpses are refreshed, while trash including stains on clothes aren’t. Look for trash, look for man-made trash."

Nightmare added, "When I’m in the safe house, I eat canned food, and I toss the cans out carelessly after leaving the safe house." This was to avoid leftover broth attracting mosquitos and insects.

Maya said, "Let’s reorganize the work."

The change quickly led to discoveries. Little Knife found a torn, discarded chip bag on the grass, but it was no use, as the wind could have blown it around. Soon after, Little Knife’s partner, Snow Egg, found a set of instant noodle wrappings inside a meter and a half tall vase on the ground floor of the main building, which contained the outer packaging and seasoning packets.

So, the search focused on the main building and they quickly found an important clue: an odd doormat on the ground of the ground-floor annex. Such mats are usually used to scrape shoes before entering a building. After a fruitless search of the annex, Maya noticed strange marks on the ground and brought over a nearby stepladder, which fit the marks exactly.

Eventually, they found a combination lock on the wall three meters up.

The decoding and unlocking process isn’t worth mentioning. What is worth noting is that Blood Meng’s safe house arrangement was quite different from Nightmare’s and Nightmare’s own. Nightmare’s and Nightmare herself’s safe house leant more towards a dark leisure type, with dim lighting or targeted illumination such as for a pool table or bar, where darkness lurked beyond the light.

Blood Meng’s safe house, however, was full of light, very bright and comfortable for everyone. Moreover, Blood Meng took on a pink decor, immediately revealing that it was a sweet and tender girl’s boudoir. She also chose different amenities, like a claw machine, a carousel, and placed an air mattress on a circular pool. The walls and display cabinets were adorned with many cartoon or non-cartoon stickers. Blood Meng’s bed wasn’t a spring bed or a single bed, but a water bed adorned with cushions, plushies, and such. Next to the bookshelf were two cabinets filled with various figurines.

This made it clear that Blood Meng was not cut from the same cloth as Nightmare and Nightmare. But work is work, life is life. Take a fish breeder, for example; he raises fish but never eats the fish he breeds.

Most sighed and focused their attention on the vast amount of supplies in the house. Only Nightmare looked around carefully, analyzing Blood Meng’s life and state of mind. Clearly, everything she saw had a great impact. At the very least, before this, she never knew that a pink girl lived inside Blood Meng’s heart.

Nightmare picked up a book from the edge of the pool and started flipping through it. It was a romance novel. From what Nightmare knew of Blood Meng, she should have scorned such books. Blood Meng would typically read things like The Thick Black Theory or similar books advocating for cunning and scheming. To them, love was simply a matter of money; if the price was right, any number of young men could be had. If the price wasn’t right, even the purest love would crumble.