"Can equipment really be shared?" Bai Mu asked, hearing about this kind of operation for the first time.
"It works in team modes," Great Northern Wilderness explained. "However, you can only share the right to use it, not trade it permanently. The person borrowing the equipment cannot take it out of the Script. When the original owner clears the Script, if the shared equipment isn't in their backpack, it counts as lost. If Players want to actually trade items, they have to do it in the community."
"This set of gear isn't exactly rare. My brother and I conveniently stripped over a dozen sets during our last Script. If you two don't have any armor, feel free to take some."
"I will pass," Misty Rain Traveler replied. "I am already wearing a complete set, and swapping out parts would break the set bonus."
"Brother Bai, do you want one?" Great Northern Wilderness offered, taking on the demeanor of a caring older brother.
He gave off a very approachable vibe. Perhaps he was simply so used to looking after his own younger brother that he naturally extended that same protective care to Bai Mu.
Strictly speaking, however, Bai Mu felt that this older brother was actually younger than him. His true age was thirty-one, while this man looked no older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Logically, Great Northern Wilderness should have been calling him 'Older Brother Bai' instead of 'Little Brother Bai'.
But then again, out in the real world, the one receiving care usually played the role of the younger sibling. Bai Mu was indeed missing a piece of body armor, so he had no reason to refuse the goodwill.
"Then thank you very much, Brother Great Wilderness. I will take a durable suit, but I will pass on the hard hat. I have a helmet of my own," Bai Mu replied, taking the Conehead Zombie's Cone out of his inventory to show him.
The moment he pulled the cone out, a notification chime echoed in his mind.
[Do you wish to hide this equipment's stat panel from other Players?]
[Yes/No.]
"No," Bai Mu selected.
It was not some incredibly rare treasure anyway; there was no harm in letting others see it.
"Why does this hat smell so weird?" Great Northern Wilderness frowned instantly, though his expression completely shifted once he finished reading the item's attributes.
"Damn, this hat actually looks pretty useful."
The Conehead Zombie's Cone was quite handy in the Journey of Death Script. Its equipment effect lowered the attention of zombie-type entities. Judging from the Script's opening cinematic, the Infected also exhibited rotting bodies, clearly categorizing them as zombie-types. This cone would make him much harder to detect.
"These stats really are quite good," Misty Rain Traveler agreed. "You managed to get your hands on this kind of defensive gear after clearing just two Scripts? Don't tell me you encountered zombies in an F-grade Script?"
"Uh, how should I put this... I got this item from an Adventure Script," Bai Mu explained. "A D-grade Adventure Script. I used Community Time to buy an admission ticket from someone, and he even gave me a strategy guide."
"No wonder you got matched into a D-grade team Script despite being F-grade," Great Northern Wilderness remarked, a look of sudden realization dawning on his face. "You got scammed, my friend. Did you follow the guide and get an S-grade rating? Because you cleared a D-grade Script, Paradise threw you into this matchmaking pool. The guy who sold you that ticket was seriously lacking in morals."
"Is that so? I feel like it turned out alright. After all, I did manage to clear it by following the guide." Bai Mu deliberately concealed a bit of the truth. Great Northern Wilderness seemed to have an underlying meaning in his words, and Bai Mu wanted to hear exactly what he was getting at.
"Even veteran Players like us do not dare buy admission tickets for such high-difficulty Adventure Scripts," Great Northern Wilderness stated, patting Bai Mu on the shoulder. "Take some advice from your older brother. The higher your clearance rating, the harder your subsequent Scripts will be. If you want to live a long life, it is better to lay low and play it safe. Newbies especially need to keep their heads down."
"Just look at me and my little brother," Great Northern Wilderness continued. "Ever since our novice Script ended, we have exclusively queued as a duo. In our last Script, we were stuck working as miners in a pit. We had a hotheaded teammate who insisted on pushing for a high rating by trying to rescue the NPCs. In the end, he ended up buried alive in that mine right alongside them."
"That suit you are holding was stripped right off his corpse," Nancheng Port interjected abruptly.
This was the very first sentence Great Northern Wilderness's younger brother had spoken since entering the Script, and it carried a thick layer of dark humor.
Bai Mu scratched his head, looking down at the durable suit in his hands. So this thing had been looted from a dead man.
No wonder Great Northern Wilderness had mentioned stripping over a dozen sets. He could practically picture the scene: in the dead of night, these two brothers panting heavily as they snuck into a morgue, pulling back the white sheets, and stripping hard hats and durable suits off the corpses.
"Hahaha, don't mind him, Brother Bai," Great Northern Wilderness chuckled awkwardly, hastily shooting his younger brother a warning glare. "Do you want to swap it out for a different suit? This one seems to be in rather poor condition."
"It is nothing, Brother Great Wilderness," Bai Mu dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Gear is gear, it is all the same. As long as it is usable, it is good equipment."
He used things belonging to dead people every single day anyway.
He drove a dead man's car, lived in a dead man's house, fired a dead man's gun, slept in a dead man's bed, and even ate a dead man's rice.
"That is exactly the mindset you need, brother," Great Northern Wilderness praised, giving him a thumbs-up.
"Now that we are done swapping gear, does anyone have anything to add?" Misty Rain Traveler inquired.
No one offered any further suggestions, so Misty Rain Traveler began establishing a set of hand signals for the squad.
Raising a hand meant they had spotted a Zombie. Giving a thumbs-up meant they had found resources like gasoline, food, or water. As for whether or not they would actually retrieve those resources, the final decision rested with Misty Rain Traveler.
She acted as the commander; if she believed it was safe to grab, they would grab it. Once they left the safe house, the four of them were to maintain a unified pace as much as possible, looking out for one another while covering all directions to ensure a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of vision.
Within a few minutes, the four quickly hashed out a simple set of operational guidelines.
Bai Mu donned the Conehead Zombie's Cone and slipped into the gray durable suit. Misty Rain turned off her flashlight. The Script's summary had hinted that these Zombies were highly sensitive to light, so they needed to avoid using illumination items as much as possible.
"From this moment on, no one speaks. We communicate strictly through hand signals," Misty Rain instructed, leading the group to the front doors of the movie theater. "I will head out first to scout the path. Watch my gestures and act accordingly."
The three men nodded in unison. Misty Rain took a slow, deliberate first step, slipping into the dark corridor.
She waved her hand, signaling that the path ahead was clear, and the trio quickly followed.
Bai Mu brought up the rear of the formation. The aisles of the movie theater were deathly silent, and surprisingly devoid of any Zombies.
At the very end of the corridor, a beam of sunlight spilled through.
[Vehicle location has been marked.]
The moment he saw that light, Paradise's notification chime rang out. A small minimap materialized in the upper right corner of his vision, displaying an icon representing the vehicle. It was located right in the very center of the commercial complex, resting in a small, open-air plaza.
Misty Rain guided the team, slowly leaving the confines of the theater and stepping out into the open area.
Suddenly, she raised her right hand—the signal for a spotted Zombie. The group immediately locked eyes on a lone Zombie standing perfectly still, facing a wall.
Turning their backs to it, the four slowly edged their way past.
Thanks to their prior coordination, they managed not to alert the Zombie, slipping past it in complete silence.
Everyone remained unfazed, displaying excellent psychological fortitude. It was as if they were entirely accustomed to wandering through a horror movie set.
But right at that moment, Bai Mu noticed a very crucial detail.
Glancing upward, he realized that the sunlight spilling outside the complex was a fiery red.
It was the color of dusk. The sun was about to set.