Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 718 - 337 Reconnaissance_2

Chapter 718: Chapter 337 Reconnaissance_2

Lin Sha returned to the villa and waited by the iron gate for about a minute. A propeller drone flew over the street and hovered 20 meters above, continuously scanning the surrounding area with a red beam. At that moment, the owner of the neighboring villa came out to check the situation. The red light paused on him for several seconds before retracting and continuing its scan of the vicinity. The neighbor, acting as if it were a common sight, returned to his house.

"Stay here," Lin Wu said before vaulting out and walking onto the street to face the red light. He didn’t notice a gun barrel on the drone. With Lin Wu’s knowledge of drones, they came in two types, reconnaissance drones with propellers and fixed-wing combat drones. The former had slow speed, light weight, and long endurance. The latter had fast flight speed, heavy weight, and short endurance.

The red light lingered on Lin Wu for a moment, then the drone lunged at him. Lin Wu, of course, took off running, with the drone in hot pursuit. At the critical moment, Lin Wu Wind Stingered behind a zombie. The drone crashed into the ground where Lin Wu had been and exploded, instantly killing the zombie. Although Lin Wu was spared from the shrapnel, the blast wave sent him smashing into a streetlight.

This commotion instantly alarmed the nearby zombies and NPCs. The NPCs stepped out of the iron gate to look at Lin Wu, watching as if it were a movie; expressionless and silent, they just watched. But it was different for the zombies; they all converged from every direction.

"Retreat!" Lin Wu shouted. He dashed between two villas, raised his pistol, and shot two zombies that were blocking his way dead, then ran like crazy toward the stone wall.

Shana, who had already reached the rope, drew her pistol to cover Lin Wu, but he yelled, "Go first." Don’t delay me climbing up the rope.

Shana holstered her gun and swiftly climbed up the rope, followed by Lin Wu who also made his way back to the road. Standing by the side of the road, they saw four drones flying in from the direction of the airport. Lin Wu said, "You go ahead."

Lin Wu stood in place quietly waiting as the four drones scanned the area with red lights. Reaching the site of the explosion, they spread out to search. One of them flew to a position right above Lin Wu’s head, but did not cross the boundary of the road or the town, nor did its red light.

"Hey, I’m here," Lin Wu called out.

The drone seemed not to notice him and continued scanning the area, not even sparing a bush. Lin Wu threw a stone toward the back wall of the villa. The noise immediately caught the drone’s attention, and the red light instantly illuminated the spot where the stone fell. After about 5 minutes of disturbance, the four drones left toward the direction of the airport.

Shana, who had watched everything from a distance, came to Lin Wu’s side and said, "The search radius is 100 meters, covering an area of nearly 30,000 square meters, all with kamikaze drones. We’re in their photos, and it takes 1 minute for the drones to arrive. That means once we’re captured, we must leave the 100-meter radius within 1 minute."

Running 100 meters in 1 minute is a very simple task for a normal person, who should be able to do it in about 13 seconds at full sprint. Not to mention the noise of footsteps, the sound of catching one’s breath after running would awaken even the soundest sleeping zombies. Also, the actual route to take must be considered, as going through walls or entering houses would definitely take more time.

Even after running 100 meters, it’s very possible one would face a siege of zombies. Worse, there’s the possibility of being captured by other cameras.

After summarizing the situation, Lin Sha reported through the earpiece to Maya, "The defense system of Leimeng Town should not be operated by humans, but by a vast network system. Having roughly counted the distribution of surveillance in town, I believe it will be difficult to infiltrate the town on foot."

Maya asked, "What about by car?"

Shana replied, "Vehicles will likely be tracked by road surveillance."

Maya said, "After dropping people off, the car continues driving forward, and the driver finds a way to leave town. The rest of us will avoid surveillance and drones while occupying the commercial street. However, there’s no room for error with this tactic, and we are yet to confirm whether the commercial street is a system-recommended base."

Shana replied, "Even if it’s not a system-recommended base, it’s still viable for us to take over an area with our manpower."

Maya said, "No, that lacks prospects for development. We don’t have much time; winter is coming in about ten days, and we need to prepare winter supplies. There might be mandatory events at the end of the season. So that leaves us with only about one week to ten days. Now it’s three in the afternoon; tonight Lin Wu and I will explore again in the dark to find a possible infiltration point. Then we’ll work out a plan overnight and attack at dawn tomorrow."

Maya said, "Everyone, return to camp. Shana, you assign the fishing, hunting, and lumbering work; make the most of every moment to stockpile as many resources as possible."

"Okay."

Maya: "Lin Wu, you move freely and try to find at least one outpost that can supply power."

"Okay."

Maya said, "I’ve been to the signal tower to the south, with no discoveries. I’m not sure if there’s a signal tower to the north, or whether you should infiltrate and search for clues yourself. You decide."

"Okay."

Maya: "Don’t use Little Fight, we’ll need it for tomorrow’s siege."

"Alright." Nag!

...

After parting with Shana, Lin Wu walked along the road. With buildings towering around and not using Little Fight, the area he could survey with the naked eye was quite limited. Normally, facilities like substations would be located in the suburbs, but Leimeng Town had no such area. If there were to be any suburbs, it would be this U-shaped road.

Lin Wu got off the road and, as usual, climbed over the backyard wall. This time, he intended to climb onto the rooftop of a villa. Why not go to the northern signal tower? First, there may not be a signal tower to the north. Second, it was quite far, a full 20 kilometers, which meant a round trip would be 40 kilometers. Then why not return to the camp to get a horse? That was also quite far... The word ’lazy’ came to mind; why exert effort when you can save it, especially since Phantom wasn’t easy to manage.

The U-shaped road semi-enclosed and ran along the villa complex. Of course, the area wasn’t only composed of villas, but also public gardens, swimming pools, playgrounds, etc. Several dozen apartment buildings were structured in a U-shape, semi-encircled by the villa complex. The villas and apartment buildings formed the periphery of Leimeng Town.

The core area was in the middle of the U-shape, forming a ’Dry’ character. Looking at the overall layout of Leimeng Town, it wasn’t an exact ’Dry’ character inserted into the U-shape. Around the crossroad of the ’Dry’, at the town’s core, were malls, pedestrian streets, entertainment venues, office buildings, hotels, and so on. The commercial street was on the left side of the ’top horizontal’ line, which was the Laimeng River. The vertical line of the ’Dry’ character, pointing upwards, was the highway bridge to the airport.

How could Lin Wu see all this so clearly? Because there was a paper map inside the villa.

After failing to get a good look from a high vantage point, Lin Wu was planning to go back and get a horse to scout the north for the signal tower. But subscribing to the notion of ’never leave a heist empty-handed’ since he was already there, he checked out the second-floor study and found this map. On the map, Lin Wu easily identified the locations of two substations, as well as a seawater purification plant and a tidal power plant. Both the seawater purification plant and the tidal power plant, along with one substation, were located in the direction of the airport. Only one substation was at the bottom of the ’Dry’ character.

Lin Wu reported back, "Looking at the map, the substation is in the central park, which is semi-surrounded by the apartment buildings, and it’s a semi-underground substation. The park’s area is approximately... I can’t measure it without a ruler. But the park isn’t the problem; the entrance is. The park is semi-enclosed by the apartment buildings, accessible only by foot or bike. On the other side is the main road leading to the core area."

Maya responded, "On the contrary, that’s a good thing. Normally, there’s little surveillance in parks. Our main enemies are artificial intelligence and zombies. As long as we don’t attract the zombies from the direction of the apartment buildings, we shouldn’t have much of a problem. Remember to bring the map back."

"Okay." Lin Wu asked, "What are you doing? Climbing a mountain? Your breathing is so heavy."

"Pushing a cart," Maya replied through gritted teeth.

"Are you guys pushing an armored vehicle?" Lin Wu was immediately stunned. Why don’t you go tug on a tanker instead?

"End of transmission." If pushing it didn’t work, so be it, but they could actually push it. If it was uphill, Stone would have to burn fuel despite trying to conserve it. If it was downhill, they wouldn’t need to push the cart. The real killjoy was the flat ground. Both had strength enhancements and could barely move it. In non-Hardcore Mode, there is a stamina bar, and once it depleted, they had to rest. Hardcore Mode lacked such a stamina bar, and the feeling of exhaustion would directly manifest in their bodies.

Damn capitalists!

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