Chapter 2: Successful Extraction
“Map? Login Device? Sys… System?”
Lin Jiayao, regaining her senses, quickly pulled the gun barrel out of her mouth and placed it on the table. Ignoring the silvery strand connecting her lips to the barrel, she began to carefully examine the map in front of her.
“This is… a world map?”
Lin Jiayao could easily locate China, and the province she was currently in. A flashing green arrow marker pulsed over Yangzhou City. This seemed to be Lin Jiayao’s current location.
“System?”
Lin Jiayao tentatively called out.
Over the past five years of the apocalypse, she had countless times fantasized about having a “system.”
But when this panel actually appeared, it gave Lin Jiayao a surreal feeling.
It felt like a dream, but after pinching herself, she was indeed still in the real world.
“System?”
Lin Jiayao called out again, but the system still didn’t respond.
She looked at the “Please select your spawn point” on the system panel, hesitated slightly, and then tentatively reached out and clicked on her current location.
The moment her finger touched the spawn point, the virtual map in front of her instantly collapsed.
「Randomly logging in—」
Shattered points of light continuously converged on her fingertip.
The concentrated light, upon reaching its limit, burst into a brilliant white light.
Then, everything in front of Lin Jiayao changed.
The simple, cozy room, meticulously cleaned by her, vanished along with the candlelight.
In its place was a crossroad bathed in the clear moonlight.
This is…
Lin Jiayao’s pupils constricted slightly.
This was Baiyan District of Yangzhou City, a once-prosperous area on the edge of the city, now filled with abandoned cars, overgrown with weeds and moss.
Although not the city center, it was still extremely dangerous. Sprinters, Corroders, Lurkers, Wailers… all the mutated zombies discovered by humans could be found here.
Lin Jiayao subconsciously took a step back, but soon, she froze.
A step back…
A step back?!
Lin Jiayao quickly looked down and saw her legs.
They were a pair of pale, withered legs covered in scars.
But without a doubt, they were firmly planted on the ground.
She was standing…
“Ugh…”
The sudden growl of a zombie nearby startled Lin Jiayao.
She quickly retreated, bumping into the shop window behind her.
The dust on the intact glass was shaken off. Lin Jiayao subconsciously turned her head and, through the reflection of the moonlight, saw herself in the glass.
A withered female zombie with a missing jaw and long, dry hair reaching her waist.
Lin Jiayao incredulously raised her withered hand, and she saw the reflection in the glass also slowly raise its right hand.
I’ve become a zombie?
The Lurker behind her, seemingly oblivious to her presence, continued to lie flat on the ground, using its deformed bones to sense the surrounding vibrations.
「Extraction Time 1:59:51」
Lin Jiayao noticed a countdown timer in the upper right corner of her vision.
And within her field of view, a green door-shaped marker appeared, with clear Chinese characters written on it.
【Extraction Point: 9.8km】
This seemed to indicate the direction and distance to the extraction point…
Other than that, the system gave no further prompts.
Login Device…
Fuzzy pre-apocalypse gaming memories gradually resurfaced in Lin Jiayao’s mind. She roughly understood what the system was conveying.
She had to use this body to reach the extraction point?
Finally, Lin Jiayao decided to stop pondering why she had become a zombie.
Compared to that, she wanted to experience the long-lost sensation of walking.
She walked step by step towards the extraction point.
Although she couldn’t feel the cool night breeze, Lin Jiayao’s heart gradually became enlivened.
Her walking was slow and limping, but she was indeed walking.
Judging by her speed, she had clearly become an ordinary Biter zombie.
Slow movement, insensitive to sound and sight, acting solely on predatory instincts…
Looking at the unchanging 9.8km and the countdown timer, Lin Jiayao’s heart sank.
At this speed, she couldn’t possibly reach the extraction point.
“Thud—”
Suddenly, Lin Jiayao seemed to have tripped over something, but feeling no pain, she didn’t realize there was something under her feet until she almost fell.
It was a skeleton covered in decaying, blackened flesh. Beside the skeleton’s hand was a rusty crowbar.
She couldn’t make it at this speed…
But zombies could evolve.
And she knew how zombies evolved.
She slowly bent down, picked up the crowbar from the ground, and started walking back.
Lin Jiayao, hunched over, dragging the crowbar, limped back to where the Lurker had been lying.
Sensitive to sound and smell, the Lurker still trembled on the ground, seemingly indifferent to Lin Jiayao’s approach.
Even when Lin Jiayao placed the crowbar against its head, it still made no movement.
“Crack—”
Trying to pry at the crack in its skull, Lin Jiayao easily lifted its skullcap.
Without hesitation, she thrust the crowbar into the opened area and slowly stirred.
The Lurker didn’t resist even until death.
Its stupid brain couldn’t comprehend how the lowest-level Biter could use a tool to pry open its stupid skull.
Black blood flowed from the dead Lurker’s mouth, pooling on the ground and coalescing into a small, blood-red shimmering crystal.
A blood crystal. This was a substance formed by the fusion of the zombie virus and blood, which would precipitate after death.
Even 1g of blood crystal had immense value, enough to exchange for contribution points to live in any camp for a day, including food.
And the zombie Lin Jiayao had just pried open had yielded nearly 2g of blood crystal.
Lin Jiayao slowly bent down, and with a “crack,” her old back broke, and she fell to the ground.
However, Lin Jiayao didn’t care. Most biters were on the ground anyway.
She picked up the blood crystal from the pool of blood and directly stuffed it into her mouth.
It had no taste.
But Lin Jiayao’s zombie body, after ingesting the blood crystal, began to transform.
The Lurker’s pointed bones protruded from her body, her broken spine reconnected, and her bones became harder.
Moreover, lying on the ground, Lin Jiayao felt a sensation she had never experienced before.
Every rustle of wind and movement of grass within a hundred meters, she could hear clearly, whether upstairs or underground.
She could even distinguish which mutated zombies were moving.
There was a Sprinter upstairs…
Lin Jiayao slowly picked up the crowbar and stood up, walking towards the upper floor like a machine.
“Clang—Clang—Clang—”
Every time the crowbar hit a stair, it made a crisp sound, but the surrounding zombies remained oblivious to the source.
Soon, Lin Jiayao reached the third floor and saw the Sprinter inside the room.
The Sprinter’s thick muscles were exposed, like a damaged anatomical model.
It glanced at Lin Jiayao with its scarlet eyes, then ignored her and continued to wander.
Lin Jiayao walked directly behind it, raised the crowbar with both hands, and slammed it down hard on its head.
“Crack—”
The Sprinter’s skull was much more brittle than the Lurker’s, and its head instantly burst open.
It didn’t die, but turned around and roared at Lin Jiayao.
But before it could roar a second time, the second blow landed on its head.
Lin Jiayao leaned on the crowbar, quietly waiting for the blood crystal to form on the ground.
2g, lucky.
Lin Jiayao picked up the blood crystal and stuffed it down her throat.
The muscles all over her body began to bulge, tearing through the fragile, decaying skin and exposing themselves.
A tingling sensation. Her body began to feel slight pain and other tactile sensations.
Next… was the extraction point…
Lin Jiayao held her breath, looked towards the extraction point, and charged directly towards the window.
“Crash—”
The window glass shattered as she crashed through it. Just like the real Sprinters of the night, she ran towards the extraction point with terrifying momentum.
The closer she got to the extraction point, the more familiar it felt to Lin Jiayao.
Soon, the city was gradually left behind, and a slope appeared in front of her.
A camp enclosed by barbed wire and shipping container walls appeared before Lin Jiayao.
And the extraction point was in a building a few hundred meters away from the camp.
【Extracting in 7.9】
The extraction timer was counting down, but Lin Jiayao took a step back, interrupting the extraction.
This zombie wasn’t strong enough yet. There was still an hour and a half until the extraction deadline, and this was her free time…
The mindset from her gaming days, of maximizing profits, slowly surfaced in her mind.
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