Chapter 9

When Ma Le returned to the building with his loot, Jiang Dahuai stared in disbelief, never imagining that this rookie on his first adventure would dare face such a monster and even return alive!

"Xiao Ma, did you shake it off?" Jiang Dahuai noticed the dust on Ma Le's body and the blood on his lips, guessing that he must have narrowly escaped the monster.

But Ma Le grinned with pride, waving a bloody, thick spine in front of them and said, "Not just shake it off, I took it down!"

"What?!" Even Zhou Ruinan and Xia Yingying couldn't remain calm. They had seen the monster's speed and thought Ma Le might still have a chance to survive, but who would have thought this rookie would actually kill the mutated舔食者 (licker)?

Seeing their astonished expressions, Ma Le felt even more proud and deliberately put on an air of superiority, "Is it really that surprising? This monster is pretty strong, but compared to humans, it's still lacking in this!" He tapped his head as he spoke.

"Right, Brother Jiang, can you check what this spine is? Is it some kind of divine weapon? Oh, and this stuff that looks like a potion!" Ma Le handed the spine and the potion he found in the treasure chest to Jiang Dahuai.

Jiang Dahuai scanned the items with the Miracle Badge. Both were blue-quality materials. The spine was for making weapons and equipment, while the red liquid, which looked like a potion, was actually the blood of the mutated licker, used for making potions.

Ma Le was somewhat disappointed. He had thought it would be something good, but it turned out to be raw materials that couldn't be used directly. Jiang Dahuai comforted him, "The mission world is like a game's dungeon, but it's not a game. You can't kill a monster and get a sword. You can only get what the monster actually has. Getting two materials is already pretty good!"

"Does that mean we can only get equipment by killing people?" Ma Le asked.

"Not necessarily people. As long as they are wearing equipment or holding weapons, they can drop items. But only items obtained from treasure chests are recognized by Miracle City as the adventurer's loot. If you just strip the equipment from a corpse, you can't take it out of this world."

"Alright, let's hurry upstairs. The gunfire has stopped for a while!" Zhou Ruinan, the man in the white coat, said impatiently. Ma Le guessed he was jealous of his achievement and felt a bit smug.

Their goal was to find some weapons and equipment for self-protection. Since a distress signal had already been sent, there might be follow-up forces coming to sweep the battlefield. They needed to act quickly and leave.

Jiang Dahuai led the three rookies cautiously into the building. The special forces of * Company had been forced to retreat, so there were likely other mutated lickers upstairs. Even though Jiang Dahuai could handle them, the rookies might not be able to protect themselves.

They finally reached the third floor without much trouble. The floor was littered with charred bodies, some of which were particularly large, likely the charred remains of mutated lickers. It seemed the human team had brought flamethrowers. As they moved forward, the charred bodies became fewer, replaced by zombie corpses with damaged heads, indicating that the flamethrower fuel had run out, and the team had started to retreat. They eventually reached a narrow corridor where a makeshift barricade was built with bodies and debris. Behind the barricade, the bodies of soldiers began to appear, most of them with missing limbs, likely torn apart by the powerful lickers. Further ahead, they reached a toilet corridor, a dead end where the last human soldiers were found. It seemed they had run out of ammunition and were overwhelmed by the lickers, leading to their total annihilation.

Seeing the incomplete bodies on the ground, Ma Le felt a wave of nausea, but he didn't want to lose face in front of the girls. He forced himself to stay calm and secretly looked at Xia Yingying and Zhou Ruinan. To his surprise, the two rookies showed no reaction. Zhou Ruinan's calmness was understandable, being a surgeon, but how could Xia Yingying, a girl who screamed at the sight of zombies, be so composed?

"Crack!" A loud noise came from behind them. Before Ma Le could turn around, Jiang Dahuai pushed him away. As he flew, he saw a large figure pounce on Jiang Dahuai, and the two disappeared into the corridor filled with bodies.

As soon as Ma Le got up, he saw four more mutated lickers running from the hall. He couldn't handle them, and Zhou Ruinan and Xia Yingying seemed to be frozen in fear at the entrance to the toilet corridor. In a panic, Ma Le grabbed the iron pipe with the dagger and, with a loud shout, bravely stood in front of Zhou Ruinan and Xia Yingying.

"Bang!" A gunshot came from the corridor. Jiang Dahuai stepped out, grabbed Ma Le, and threw him into the corridor, saying to the remaining two rookies, "You two, get in here, I'll handle it!" The three rookies quickly hid in the toilets, peeking out to see Jiang Dahuai facing the four lickers alone.

Jiang Dahuai was strong, with at least 150 points in strength, making him one of the top in the experienced adventurers. However, even he struggled against the four lickers. His main weapon, an anti-material rifle, was not suitable for close combat, putting him at a disadvantage.

Ma Le watched anxiously. If Jiang Dahuai failed, the lickers would easily overpower them in this dead end, leaving no chance of survival. Suddenly, he noticed the weapons near the soldier's bodies. This team was well-equipped, not only with flamethrowers but also rocket launchers.

Three rocket launchers lay on the ground near the bodies. Ma Le discussed with Jiang Dahuai and Xia Yingying, and they each took one, aiming at Jiang Dahuai's direction. Ma Le shouted, "Brother Jiang, get out of the way!"

Jiang Dahuai had already noticed their actions. Hearing the shout, he forced the four lickers back and leaped backward, lying on the ground, revealing the three rocket launchers. "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." The three rockets, trailing smoke, flew like comets. Unfortunately, their aim was poor, with one hitting the wall and two hitting the ground. However, the explosion radius was large, and the shock waves sent the lickers flying.

Ma Le was even more disheveled. The recoil from the rocket launchers was not strong, but as a first-timer, he was caught off guard and almost fell. Before he could steady himself, the shock wave knocked him over. This wasn't the most embarrassing part; when he finally got up, he noticed that the other two rookies were not as disheveled as he was. Ma Le felt embarrassed and puzzled. He had enhanced his attributes, so why did he perform worse than Xia Yingying? He looked at Xia Yingying, who noticed his gaze, turned to him, and gave him a sweet smile. The smile was so powerful that Ma Le felt his bones turn to jelly, and all his questions were forgotten as he stared at the girl. (Subtext: Clearly, there's something wrong with this girl, some kind of charm ability?)

Thanks to the three rockets, Jiang Dahuai had time to regroup. He readied his large anti-material rifle and, with two shots, eliminated two lickers. The remaining two were no match for him and were quickly dispatched.

The corridor returned to silence. The five lickers didn't drop any treasure chests. According to Jiang Dahuai, as a high-level adventurer, he would face penalties in a low-level world, making it difficult to get treasure chests.

The group began to clean up the battlefield, selecting suitable weapons and equipment from the bodies. Ma Le, suppressing his discomfort, searched through the blood and flesh. He noticed that the human soldiers were of two types: one was armed personnel wearing blue-black protective suits, bulletproof vests, and gas masks, while the other was researchers wearing blue protective suits and carrying large oxygen tanks.

These two types of attire were familiar to Ma Le. He was sure he had seen them somewhere, but it wasn't in a bio-horror game. He had searched several bodies but found no sign of * Company's distinctive octagonal logo. Jiang Dahuai explained that these were likely hired mercenaries, but Ma Le was skeptical because the outfits were too familiar, though he couldn't recall where he had seen them.

As he was pondering, he felt someone tug at his sleeve. Turning around, he saw Xia Yingying, looking shy and hesitant, asking, "Brother Ma, I... I can't bear to search those bodies. Could you help me get some weapons?"

Seeing Xia Yingying's shy expression, Ma Le's protective instincts surged, and he nodded eagerly, "No problem, leave it to me!" He dove into the pile of bodies, as if the severed limbs had become endearing. (Author's note: The protagonist is very principled, really not a pervert, trust me!)

At that moment, Zhou Ruinan's voice came from the women's restroom, "Hey, come and look, there's a survivor here!" The group ran over and saw Zhou Ruinan standing in front of an open stall, where a wounded soldier lay.

The soldier, seeing humans, shouted, "Help me!" Ma Le was about to help but was stopped by Jiang Dahuai. Jiang Dahuai squatted down and spoke fluently in English with the soldier. The soldier eventually handed him a disk and then died.

Ma Le, confused, asked what had happened. Jiang Dahuai sighed and explained, "He wasn't asking for help; he wanted us to do him a favor. His team was investigating the bio-virus and had made a breakthrough, obtaining valuable data. They were ambushed by lickers on their way back. He was critically injured and knew he wouldn't survive. He wanted us to take the data to the base. Damn, we got a side quest!"

"What do we do now? You said going to the base is dangerous. How do we deliver the data?" Ma Le asked.

Jiang Dahuai took out the half-smoked cigar, lit it, and took a deep puff, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "We wait here!"