This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 264: Selling Gas Masks as the Version Answer?!

Chapter 264: Chapter 264: Selling Gas Masks as the Version Answer?!

"The lobby is secure!"

The three squads that burst into the building swiftly took control of the lobby. Group C set up a perimeter outside the elevators and shot the Eaters attracted by the noise inside the lobby.

The newbie responsible for transporting supplies ran in through the main entrance with a backpack filled with ammunition and dynamite.

"Ammunition!"

"Thanks!"

Neighbor Old Wang picked up a backpack, unzipped it to take a look, and casually tossed it to the Battlefield Atmosphere Group waiting by the elevator.

"Brother! It’s all on you!"

"OK!"

Old Soldier, wearing heavy gear, effortlessly stuffed the backpack to I Max Black, then walked over to the partially closed elevator doors, grabbing them with both hands.

The output power of the Miner Type I Exoskeleton was maximized.

The rusty door panels creaked under the strain and were quickly forced open just enough to allow one person to enter.

An Agility system player from Group B ducked inside, raised his rifle to check the entrance overhead, and then signaled all clear.

"The passage is clear!"

"Received—"

Old Soldier held his breath, his arms continuously exerted force, causing the elevator doors—and the steel plates welded to his exoskeleton—to tremble.

Seeing that the elevator doors weren’t opening, "Kakarot" quickly activated his Strength Type talent to help. With their combined effort, the hefty elevator doors were finally pulled down.

"MMP! This door is too darn solid!" sighed the leader of the Battlefield Atmosphere Group, raising an arm to wipe his forehead.

Standing by, I Max Black was still examining the backpack; he opened the zipper and peered inside repeatedly.

"What’s all this stuff inside?"

And it’s pretty heavy!

Old Soldier chuckled.

"17 kilograms of dynamite, be careful with it."

I Max Black paused.

"17 kilograms... what does that mean?"

"Kakarot": "It’s like two rounds of 155."

I Max Black looked confused, clearly not understanding what 155 meant.

However, some players who understood instinctively moved away a bit and cursed under their breath.

Not wasting time, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group patted I Max Black’s shoulder, signaled him to stop playing around, and led the squad members into the elevator shaft.

The space inside the elevator shaft was fairly spacious.

The elevator car had probably fallen to a lower floor, but there was no shortage of places to land in the shaft, equipped with backup magrails and steel cables, and even climbing ladders—probably for elevator maintenance.

Old Soldier secured a survival rope made of Devil Silk to a steel cable, pulled on a climbing ladder embedded in the wall to test its sturdiness with his exoskeleton’s weight, and then confidently shifted all his weight onto the ladder.

"Our mission is simple, just like the Spring Water Commander said—go straight to the 43rd floor via the elevator shaft, then blow it downward vertically!"

I Max Black swallowed nervously.

"Are we really climbing up?"

Another squad member playfully slapped his shoulder.

"What’s there to fear? It won’t be tiring! Just a bit troublesome."

The claim that it wouldn’t be tiring wasn’t exactly accurate.

Lactic acid buildup in the muscles would still make players feel heavy, weak, and sluggish, only the accompanying soreness was blocked.

Still, breaking through vertically from the elevator shaft was much less challenging than fighting all the way up.

Due to the spore cloud, Eaters from nearby streets and even nearby subway stations were attracted to the vicinity of the building.

And those few stairways and corridors leading to the 41st floor were exactly where the spore concentration was highest!

Old Soldier had taken a moment to peek through a safety passage entrance behind the elevator shaft and saw a horrific sight that could only be described as "mountains of corpses and seas of bones."

It truly gave credibility to having a reliable commander for a sense of security!

Climbing the forty-plus floors by hand took a good deal of time.

Those who couldn’t continue had to hang from the survival rope to rest for a while before continuing.

By the time Group A safely reached the 43rd floor, it was already four in the afternoon.

They briefly regrouped at the elevator shaft entrance on the 43rd floor.

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group installed 300g of dynamite on the elevator doors and continued to move up to the 46th floor before detonating the charges.

Boom—!

A thunderous explosion rang out, blowing the elevator doors outward, with the blast wave sweeping through the shaft.

The five players in Group A quickly descended, burst through the open elevator doors into the 43rd floor of the building, accompanied by deafening roars as crowds of Eaters surged from both sides of the corridor.

"Open fire!!"

Muzzles spat flames!

Gunfire erupted in the corridor, bullets swept through like a violent storm, and Eaters were mowed down one after another.

Blood and flesh flew everywhere, with limbs and body parts scattered all around!

Yet despite the ferocious firepower of the players, the onslaught of the Eater army continued unabated, like a relentless tide!

At that moment, a thunderous explosion sounded from outside the building.

High-explosive bombs penetrated through the shattered windows, exploding in the corridor and instantly bringing down clusters of densely packed Eaters!

"Quick! Move fast!"

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group shouted loud, pulling out a grenade and throwing it toward the safety corridor at the end of the hallway.

With a resounding explosion, more Eaters fell!

Group A did not linger. They maintained their firepower while moving, swiftly advancing to the target room.

Rows of graphite-colored glass doors lined the room, dividing the area into different functional sections.

This must be some kind of office area!

Raising their guns to kill the rushing Eaters, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group quickly located the target position on the map, then took out the prepared explosives from the backpack passed by I Max Black, placed them in a circle on the floor, and carefully pulled out the pin.

"3 kilograms of dynamite! That should blow a hole in the ground!"

"Everyone, take cover and shout when you’re ready!"

The other four players shouted excitedly.

"Roger!"

They crouched at the corner, placing a table in front of them. The Battlefield Atmosphere Group took out the detonator, and gently squeezed it in their palm.

Boom—!

With a deafening explosion, the blast wave and the scorching blast swept through the entire office area!

The players quickly moved to the center of the explosion.

The concrete and floor tiles had been shattered into fragments, with only a few parts still hanging on the bent rebar skeleton.

Seeing the situation before them, a slight dread seemed to settle in the hearts of the Battlefield Atmosphere Group.

Although they had successfully blown open the downward passage, the destructive effect of the explosion was far below expectations. Three kilograms of dynamite...

In reality, that would have been enough to bring down a small house!

"Damn! How sturdy is this building?" I Max Black couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.

Master Craftsman Cai: "It might be difficult to completely collapse the ceiling... Let’s have Group B bring up the fuel."

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group nodded solemnly.

"Alright."

A brief exchange on the communication channel.

Group A returned to the elevator shaft, secured the winch at the entrance, and threw a rope down the shaft.

The winch turned!

Soon, fifty liters of biomass fuel were hoisted up!

After the fuel was in place, Group A returned to the blast site, quickly descended through the ceiling breach to the 42nd floor.

The situation here was completely different from the 43rd floor!

The spacious office area was filled with brown and dark red sticky mold, with a high concentration of spores in the air. The soles of their shoes felt sticky, like they were stepping on moss.

Visibility here was less than five meters!

And right beneath their feet was a forming lair!

"...Why do I feel like I’ve crawled into the belly of a Variant?"

I Max Black swallowed his saliva, raised his rifle, and carefully checked every corner of the room with the muzzle.

Ever since they came down from the ceiling, a strong sense of unease had taken hold of him.

However, this sense of crisis assaulted him from all directions, making it impossible for him to determine where the true fatal danger was coming from.

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group proficiently placed the explosives on the ground and pulled the safety pin.

"Your intuition is accurate. If you don’t want to become excrement of the lair, we better move fast."

The player squatting on the ground collected the test tubes.

"Sample collected!"

Another player spoke up.

"Setting the dynamite!"

The team members worked efficiently and had already completed most of their tasks, with only a few more explosives left to place.

But just then, from a dark corner, came a hissing growl.

Hearing that growl, everyone’s spine chilled, and they immediately raised their guns towards the source of the sound.

There was no time to think about what it was, and the Battlefield Atmosphere Group immediately gave the order.

"Fire!"

The muzzles burst into flames!

The flames at the gun muzzles lit up the darkness and fog, as bullets rushed toward the source of the sound.

And at that moment, the players were horrified to discover that the figure in the darkness was a Tyrant!

Its nearly four-meter-tall body was like a rotting deadwood tree, but its thick keratin armor had the protective capability of steel.

The bullets hitting the Tyrant were like stones thrown into a marsh, merely causing ripples.

"Roar...!"

A pained roar came from the Tyrant, which stubbornly withstood the barrage of fire and charged forward with powerful strides, its claws swinging wildly.

Caught off guard, I Max Black immediately took a swipe to the chest.

His bulletproof vest was torn apart!

Old Black grunted, thrown into the air, and shattered the old patio doors, falling outside the building.

"Ah—"

His scream faded away, and vaguely a "chuo!" could be heard.

Group A was down one man!

The players quickly scattered, attempting to use crossfire to divert the Tyrant’s attention and stop it from advancing.

Just then, a shout came from the communication channel from the Spring Water Commander.

"What’s going on over there!? Did I just see someone fly out?"

Fingers clutching the trigger tightly, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group cursed, "We’ve encountered a Tyrant! What you just saw was I Max Black! Damn, can you shoot it from there?"

Spring Water Commander: "We can shoot, but we can’t see anything over there! The spore concentration is too high!"

Thick clouds of spores, like gel, nearly blocked all vision.

Random shooting only risked hitting a teammate.

In a blink, another player was downed.

In just one minute, Group A had lost two members!

Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "MMP! 7mm can’t penetrate this thing! At this rate, we’ll all be going back to our roots!"

Spring Water suddenly had an idea.

"Quick! Give me a marker!"

Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "A marker?"

"Incendiary bombs! Mark it with incendiary bombs!"

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group immediately understood the intention of Spring Water and quickly pulled out a Molotov cocktail from their belt.

"Suppress it!" they shouted to their teammates, seizing the opportunity to hurl the Molotov cocktail at the Tyrant.

The explosive force momentarily restricted the Tyrant’s movement as the Molotov cocktail struck it squarely on the forehead.

Flames erupted!

The Tyrant let out a furious roar.

As it struggled to extinguish the flames engulfing it, four armor-piercing incendiary rounds, trailing flames, punched through the windows from outside, three of which harshly blasted into its shoulders and abdomen.

Flames and smoke billowed unceasingly, the three hitting rounds embedding in the beast like fiery nails.

Enraged, the Tyrant rampaged through the office area, attempting to smother the flames, to no avail.

By then, another player responsible for setting up the dynamite had completed placing the last block.

Additionally, barrels of oil intended for clearing out the mutated slime fungus were rolled into the center of the room.

"Prepare to pull out!"

The player yelled, taking the lead to move toward the broken ceiling, clambering up on a table.

"Roger that!"

The other two also replied, promptly retreating towards the broken ceiling.

Back on the 43rd floor, the trio dashed wildly toward the elevator shaft.

Hooking a survival rope onto a steel cable, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group leapt, descending towards the lower floors.

"Hang tight, brothers!"

As these words fell, he firmly gripped the detonator in his hand.

A light click sounded, followed by a deafening explosion as flames fiercely shot up, the shockwave instantly obliterating the concrete between floors 42 and 41!

Flames and heat waves ravaged like a tsunami, engulfing the two levels and even rushed into hallway, pouring into the elevator shaft.

The entire building seemed to tremble!

"Shit!"

"I feel the elevator shaft shaking!"

"Couldn’t you have waited a bit to press that?"

Shaken to their core inside the elevator shaft, the group barely avoided falling like dumplings thanks to the securely tied survival rope.

Dressed in an exoskeleton, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group fared slightly better, stabilizing themselves and then offering an awkward smile.

"I was worried the signal might not be so good further down!"

His fellow squad members: "@#%!"

The elevator shaft was filled with the elegant tones of Mandarin.

Meanwhile, at the east side of the building.

The Spring Water Commander, holding binoculars, stood in front of a shattered window, gazing at the smoke-enveloped 41st floor.

Deep red walls caught fire, black smoke replacing the grey-green fog.

Even hundreds of meters away, the intense heat was palpable...

"While it differs slightly from the plan, it should be dead and gone," the Spring Water Commander put down his binoculars.

Destroying it before the lair could form should weaken the Tide’s intensity.

However...

The spore clouds gathered around seemed unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.

The Spring Water Commander glanced north, frowning at the endless clouds which seemed to be brewing a storm.

A player lying in front of the window, hearing his words, couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

"Can we not jinx it?"

Saying so, he triggered his weapon, firing an extra high-explosive bomb at the 41st floor.

The Spring Water Commander quickly cautioned him.

"Don’t use a high-explosive, haven’t you heard explosions snuff out fires? Just send a couple more incendiaries to make a point."

Be it additional shots or not, it hardly mattered now.

Against such violent flames, a 20mm incendiary round was like tossing a match into a inferno—completely inaudible.

On the first floor of the building.

Group A regrouped, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group and the two players behind him emerging from the wide-open elevator doors amidst billowing smoke.

The three were blackened all over, looking as though they had just rolled out of a coal mine.

"Kakarot" approached Brother Battlefield and asked excitedly,

"So, how’d it go? Is it done?"

"It’s done," replied the Battlefield Atmosphere Group. Though disheveled, his voice held no trace of unsteadiness—it was filled with excitement, "The lair’s blown up! Damn, coming down that elevator shaft was one hell of a thrill!"

Hearing this, the two teammates behind could not help but burst out,

"Damn! You got the nerve to say that?"

"Yeah! I nearly fell off because of the shaking!"

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group cleared his throat.

"It doesn’t matter! We got through, that’s what counts!"

"Kakarot" counted the people.

"Why are there only three of you back?"

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group casually responded, "One fell down, and another stayed up top."

"The one that fell was ’I Max Black,’ right? Truly unlucky." Neighbor Old Wang clicked his tongue, "Falling from forty-something floors up—what a sight... it was eye-watering..."

A thought crossed the Battlefield Atmosphere Group’s mind.

"Where is he? I’ll go take a look!"

"Kakarot" gave him a strange look.

"He’s dead through and through, even the VM’s broken."

The Battlefield Atmosphere Group sheepishly smiled, scratching the back of his head.

"Mainly because I haven’t seen one."

Kakarot: "..."

Neighbor Old Wang: "..."

All players: "..."

Is this even something a human should say?

At the same time.

Outside the building.

Standing on the pedestrian bridge, Chu Guang took his eyes off the building emitting billowing smoke and turned to Heya standing beside him.

"Is the problem solved like this?"

Heya stared at the building for a while and slowly nodded.

"It should be solved... The ’Mutated slime fungus’ can’t withstand high temperatures, and the damage to the incubation room exceeded 90%, which is essentially irreparable."

Vanus stared at the nearly shattered corpses and a pool of blood on the road not far away, and couldn’t help but remind him.

"I think I saw something fall just now."

He was sure.

What had fallen seemed to be a person.

But Chu Guang, standing next to him, didn’t care and casually replied.

"Just a minor issue, not important."

Just a bit of active material, even if it awakened, it would just be two points.

Is that even a problem?

Obviously not!

Vanus hesitated for a moment.

His worldview and understanding of Blue Jacket had been completely overturned.

And that was the second time today...

...

[Worldwide Announcement: The lair in the New Era Data Building has been cleared, and the intensity of the Tide has been weakened! Let’s give a round of applause to the 20 players who participated in the battle!]

Official Forum.

In the past two days, the hottest posts on the official website weren’t the award speeches by the newbies but discussions about the upcoming Tide.

Though there were still 10 days left on the official countdown, most players could already visibly feel the changes in Qingquan City.

Gray-green clouds were spreading from the city center outward, and the rotting Walking Corpses lingering in the streets and alleys had become significantly faster and stronger.

The Crawlers that used to move only through tunnels and ruins were now appearing more frequently on the streets.

In just two days, four hunting teams of five people each had been annihilated, all due to being surrounded by Eaters.

Elena: "Listening to you all makes it sound so thrilling, I want to come back. (funny)"

Night Ten: "Isn’t Red River Town thrilling? (funny)"

Elena: "It’s okay, but it’s too desolate here; it’s not as fun as Qingquan City."

Gnome King Riches: "Mainly because there’s too little to eat here, you know."

Elena: "Get lost! (`Д´*)9"

Makabazi: "Hahaha!"

The gathered numerous mercenaries in Red River Town and the battle against the Snake Tribe from the Chewing Bone Tribe were at a stalemate. Both sides had dug trenches and built fortifications and started a brutal trench war.

It was said the Snake Tribe seemed to be waiting for reinforcement from the Ya Clan, but the Ya Clan’s combat power was entirely restrained by the resistance organization in West State City, leaving no time to spare.

Not just that, rumors were circulating that, due to Looter’s reign of terror resulting in a large number of corpses, West State City had experienced a rat plague outbreak.

This rumor was confirmed by Difficult for the Strong.

His influence was expanding rapidly, and it even slightly exceeded his control...

These rats were reproducing too quickly!

Fang Chang: "Hasn’t West State City experienced the Tide?"

Difficult for the Strong: "No, compared to Qingquan City, West State City is just a larger small county town. Probably because it’s located in the hills, the buildings here aren’t very tall, and the density of buildings is also not high, but conversely, the vegetation is quite lush. Rats, cockroaches, and Hyenas are common Variants here, as well as Potholing Beasts, Multilegged Beasts...as well as some stuff not seen before."

Old White: "Feels like a satellite town next to a super-first-tier city."

Difficult for the Strong: "You can understand it that way! (grinning)"

Midnight Chicken Killing: "We don’t have the Tide in Far Creek Town either, but we do have quite a few trees.

Tomato and Eggs Stir-Fried: "Pff, there’s no Tide in your place, not even Eaters."

Playing Tiger Uninterested: "Hope it doesn’t affect the area I leased; I just planted a batch of bell peppers. T.T"

Stop Talking Nonsense: "Don’t affect my fishing either! I’m not interested in the Tide; I just want to fish!"

Crow: "Hey, speaking of which, the timing of this Tide... I and Teng Teng were shopping in the store without buying anything, and were forced to spend 40 chips to buy two gas masks... Feel like these chips are even harder to spend than Silver coins._:(´□`」∠):_"

Edge Shoveling: "What?! What kind of masks are so expensive? 40 chips?!"

Teng Teng: "Eh? Did we overpay? (°ー°〃)"

Edge Shoveling: "..."

Debt Giant Eye: "Neighbor Old Bro meant to say he picked up a few plastic bottles from the dump, got some gauze and activated carbon, and made one himself, and it worked incredibly well. (grinning)"

Canyon Running Mole: "Damn!! One mask for twenty chips? I freaking want to come back and do business! If I made thousands of gas masks and took them to Giant Stone City, wouldn’t I make a fortune?!"

Wild Wind: "Let’s analyze this rationally, it could really make a tidy sum. But one mask for 20 chips...this is purely being slaughtered like a fat sheep, right? (sweat)"

Crow: "!!!"

Teng Teng: "Σ(°△ °|||)"

Actually, just by thinking a bit, you’d know, twenty chips are like an ordinary person’s week’s income.

Were it actually that expensive, how could normal people afford it?

5–6 chips would be a more reasonable market price, something ordinary people could afford.