Chapter 6119 - 5130: Journey of Wonder (7)

The group didn’t even have time to figure out what those white teeth were before all sorts of chaotic noises beside them grabbed their attention.

Greed looked up and saw countless zombies clawing wildly outside the window, emitting that classic zombie roar while their claws scratched loudly against the iron walls. The wind howled through the abandoned warehouse like ghostly wails.

Greed was stunned, wait a minute, isn’t this supposed to be a mystery-horror snowbound mansion? How did I end up here?

He wasn’t the only one; everyone else was dumbfounded. If you’ve been spending the past few hours looking for your way through a luxurious vintage estate, expecting to encounter ghosts and Evil Gods for an intense battle of sorcery, and then in an instant you get thrown into a heap of zombies, you’d be just as confused as they are.

Deathstroke instinctively reached for a weapon, his hand already stretched to his back before realizing he didn’t have a sword. He looked around and immediately noticed a section of the pipe beside him was slightly lifted. Steel pipes make decent weapons; you snooze, you lose, he promptly stepped forward intending to unscrew that section of the pipe.

After a few seconds of shock, Greed also came to his senses. Never mind what this development is about, with so many zombies they couldn’t be ignored. He also began searching for a weapon. The floor of the abandoned factory was scattered with all sorts of things, and Greed immediately set his sights on a piece of steel rebar. Though lighter than ideal for striking, it could still be used like a knife for stabbing, a barely passable option.

However, the piece he picked up was a bit bent, which would affect the piercing force, so Greed decided to try bending it straight with his hands. But just as he applied force, a judgment bar suddenly appeared before him, the kind where a cursor swiftly moves across the bar, with most areas red and only a tiny bit green.

Greed wasn’t prepared at all, and instinctively snapped it; the cursor stopped right in the red zone, with a crack, the rebar was snapped in half by him.

Greed was dumbfounded looking at the rebar in his hand. Seriously, even if he were gravely injured with guns blazing, he couldn’t snap something this thick in an instant. Even The Hulk would need to bend it back and forth a few times.

And what’s the deal with that judgment bar? Never mind the cursor moving ridiculously fast, and the green area being absurdly small, but you could at least give a hint before the judgment starts!

Just as Greed was pondering this, he heard a similar crack from Deathstroke’s direction, the section of water pipe he was trying to bend had broken off completely. He quickly slammed the remaining piece down.

"What the heck is this? Why did it suddenly make me do quick-time events? If you’re gonna do that, give me a keyboard, where am I supposed to press?"

"You guys just don’t get it, do you?" Little Superman said, "In these kinds of games, the better the weapon, the harder the judgment. Stick with a wooden stick and you’ll be fine."

He was gripping a piece of broken window frame. Though it was a wooden stick, it was solid wood and looked quite effective. Greed looked at him, the two exchanged glances.

"What kind of silly instance did you find?"

Unfortunately, the instance didn’t allow them to discuss anything besides the storyline, so Greed’s question was directly blocked. Little Superman waved the stick a couple of times, and the others resigned themselves to finding even cruder weapons.

There were a few pieces left of the broken window frame. Greed and the agent each took one. Deathstroke really found it hard to handle such a flimsy weapon, so he picked up a piece of iron sheet from the ground and grabbed a slightly thinner wooden stick, trying to bind the two together to make himself an axe. Just as he reached out to bind them together, yet another fleeting judgment bar appeared, and with a snap, the wooden stick broke.

Greed frowned; though the instance limited their abilities, attributes like focus shouldn’t be weakened too much. Deathstroke’s reactions were quick, even with prior preparation, why was his judgment still failing?

"Oh my God," Deathstroke sighed, "I swear that judgment bar appeared for only 0.5 seconds, and more importantly I didn’t even see where the green area was, how am I supposed to press it?"

Little Superman shook his head and said, "You don’t have the crafting skill level, of course, the judgment would be hard, getting it right would be a ghost’s luck."

Deathstroke also gave up, obediently taking a wooden stick. Once they had their weapons ready, the rickety gate was breached. With a loud crash, dust flew everywhere as countless zombies poured in.

"We can’t possibly fight this, can we?" the agent said hesitantly. He glanced down at the piece of window frame in his hand, using this thing to face an army of zombies would likely lead to his demise.

But fortunately, on the other side of the abandoned warehouse, they heard a bang as a zombie crashed through, breaking a window, just large enough for people to escape through. Without looking back, the four ran in that direction.

The floor of the warehouse was littered with debris, and with the zombie army chasing behind, there was no way to detour. Greed charged straight toward a pile of boxes, and just as he was about to jump, a series of letters suddenly appeared in the center of his vision, rapidly changing from red to green.

Greed was somewhat prepared, but still faced the same problem: where the hell was he supposed to press?

This is a fully immersive virtual reality game, indistinguishable from the real world; what kind of nice person would have a keyboard embedded in their retina?

In the second of that confusion, with a bang, Greed crashed into the pile of boxes in front of him. He cried out in pain, while the agent running beside him quickly scooped him up. Greed stumbled, barely keeping his balance, and started running again.

At this moment, Little Superman, who was leading the front, shouted, "GHJNMV!"

Then he smoothly crossed over the obstacle in front of him, even leaping high with an exaggerated animation-style pose.

Wow, it still uses voice input!

The others also knew how to pass the judgement, and just then, Deathstroke was about to climb over the window frame, seemingly encountering a letter judgement. So he shouted aloud, but the next second he still got tripped up, falling headfirst onto the ground outside the window. Little Superman had to help him up.

"What happened?" Deathstroke looked a bit dumbfounded, "I couldn’t possibly have shouted wrong, can I not even recognize English letters?"

"Pay attention to the rhythm," Little Superman shouted while speaking, "There’s a space between each letter, you need to pause, you’ve heard of rest notes, right?"

Deathstroke didn’t even know what to say. He’s the world’s number one Mercenary, and yet he has to play a rhythm game to fight. When has your Uncle Zhong ever been this humiliated? If he had even just one sword, he would have spun over six hundred times by now.

The other two encountered different judgements; Greed faced a progress bar judgement. He had to jump forward when the cursor was in the green zone. Luckily, he was prepared this time, and despite the small green zone, he barely made it.

Agent had something even more absurd; he faced concurrent button pressing and holding, but since there was no keyboard input, he could only use voice. He had to shout loudly and in rhythm.

The problem was he was still running, first doing a fast sprint, then jumping over the window frame while still having to shout irregularly. Just as he jumped over the window frame, Agent got a side stitch, and after a fit of violent coughing, he almost ran out of breath.

Right as the last person ran out of the factory, they suddenly realized they couldn’t move. Then their perspective changed to an overhead God view, and without any movement, their bodies moved by themselves, walking slowly forward as a zombie horde gathered in that direction.

Then everything went dark in front of their eyes, and the location changed. When they opened their eyes again, Greed found himself in a somewhat messy bedroom. There were bloodstains on the walls, miscellaneous items scattered everywhere, and the window glass was broken.

He was lying on a bed, Agent was leaning against the nearby wall, Deathstroke was sitting on the ground, and Little Superman was leaning against the door. The four of them woke up almost simultaneously, and each saw a speechless expression on the other’s face.

Greed sat on the edge of the bed, wanting to talk to Agent. What he wanted to say wasn’t about anything outside the plot; since they were here, they had to study the plot, figure out how the Zombie outbreak happened in this world, and what to do next. But as soon as he opened his mouth, four dialogue options appeared in front of him:

"1: Zombies are really scary, luckily we ran fast."

"2: How are you? The zombies didn’t hurt you, did they?"

"3: Thankfully we’re all here, can’t imagine how much it would hurt if they bit us."

"4 (Accusation): Your running skills are lousy, you nearly tripped me just now."

Greed was dumbfounded, what kind of dialogue is this? Even Brainiac would call this foolish. This dialogue feels like "The Zombie Virus has broken out, please write a letter to your friend in the tone of a middle school student, Li Ming." Anyone with a level four proficiency couldn’t come up with such a stilted English dialogue.

The most ridiculous is the last option; how is there an accusation? At a time like this, you’re still accusing someone. And if you’re going to accuse, isn’t that accusation a bit too low-grade?

With a disbelief in jinxing things, Greed chose accusation. Immediately afterward, a heart-shaped icon appeared above Agent’s head, with an arrow pointing down next to it, and words saying "Your companion remembers your choice."

"You have the nerve to say me? Wasn’t it you who almost got us bitten by zombies just now?" Agent said.

Hearing that, it was clear he also chose accusation, so Greed continued with an accusation: "You’re a guy with no team spirit. Being your teammate fills me with shame."

"You’re the one who’s clueless about the situation. We should be working together now, but we’re falling apart because of you. This is all your fault."

"You really break my heart. You’re destroying the team’s unity. I want to expel you, you damned guy."

"You’re so annoying. No one likes you here. We will unite to judge you."

"I hope you get bitten by a zombie. You bastard."

The two of them went back and forth with accusations, but actually, the purpose of this option was just to accuse each other, and it had no role in advancing the plot. As long as you keep choosing, the argument will continue in this machine translation style English, and the mutual favorability will keep dropping of the two, and the accusation style gets sharper.

But even the sharpest style doesn’t come close to one-tenth of the banter intensity of regular interactions with Shiller. So even though the system indicated that the two of them remembered each other’s choices, these words didn’t linger in their minds for even a second.