"I can take the right side." Misty Rain Traveler pulled a scalpel from her pocket. "As long as no more than five Zombies appear at once, I am confident I can handle them."
"However..." Misty Rain Traveler looked over at Bai Mu.
"I will follow your lead," Bai Mu said.
He did not care which way they went. Mainly, the revolver he had obtained from the previous Script was still safely tucked into his pants pocket. With a gun in hand, he was not the least bit panicked.
His revolver had sixty-six rounds of ammunition. Starting the game with sixty-six rounds meant he was practically swimming in wealth. Thinking back to the past, he had charged his way out of the university town completely empty-handed. Now that he had both food and a gun, he was naturally as steady as an old hound. Not to mention, he was walking alongside someone who seemed like a very reliable powerhouse.
If the two brothers, Great Northern Wilderness and Nancheng Port, wanted to take the left, then let them. Bai Mu had just accepted a piece of armor from them, so yielding a little was the right thing to do.
That was just the kind of person he was—he believed in returning favors.
"That is too kind of you."
Even though Great Northern Wilderness said that, he grinned widely. His clenched hands relaxed a bit, and he pulled his brother a step toward the left.
"Then it is settled. We will gather at the small plaza on the first floor later," Great Northern Wilderness said.
"Do not wander into anywhere too isolated; just take a quick lap around the perimeter," Misty Rain Traveler advised. "We will try to rendezvous within fifteen minutes. If fifteen minutes pass and someone still has not shown up at the plaza, those still alive should prepare for the worst."
"Got it." Great Northern Wilderness flashed an OK gesture.
The four divided into two pairs according to their plan. One group headed left, the other right, and they began exploring the mall.
Bai Mu continued to trail right behind Misty Rain Traveler. They stuck close to the railing, keeping it on their left side, which meant they only needed to watch their front, back, and right.
There were not many Zombies on the mall's third floor. Judging by the storefronts and the decorations visible through the glass windows, many of the shops had already been emptied out.
It was obvious they had been cleared out before the virus outbreak. Most likely, a massive surge of hospitalized residents in a short period had caused foot traffic to dry up. Unable to afford rent, the merchants had no choice but to cut their losses and leave.
Through the glass, Bai Mu saw dining tables and chairs left behind by vendors, as well as plastic Models in clothing stores. Some of the boutique doors were wide open, displaying clothes still hanging on their racks.
After walking for about half a minute, he spotted a saleswoman inside one of the shops. She was dressed in a black-and-white staff uniform, wearing high heels and black stockings. From behind, she looked quite slender, but taking a few more steps forward revealed her face shrouded in the shadows.
Half of her face was highly decomposed. Yellowish-white pus clung to her swollen cheeks, and her complexion had long since turned a dark, sickly purple.
A nauseating stench of rotting corpses drifted out through the glass doors. As Misty Rain Traveler approached, she pinched her nose, clearly showing her discomfort. The smell was far more overpowering than Bai Mu's traffic cone hat.
Of course, Bai Mu remained completely unaffected. He studied that face with keen interest.
There were no visible external injuries on the saleswoman. She was decomposing naturally, not festering from a wound.
One month into the virus outbreak, it was only natural that these Infected had already begun to rot. Since they neither ate nor drank, there was no way their organs and bodies could sustain themselves like normal humans.
However, Bai Mu felt that the Zombies in this Script were somewhat weaker than the ones near his hometown—at least in terms of decomposition rate. He remembered that the zombies back home only started showing signs of rotting limbs and skin about three months after the initial horde outbreak. Their shelf life was clearly much longer than that of the saleswoman standing before him.
'The virus from my hometown might just be a bit more formidable,' Bai Mu thought. Back there, zombies were never afraid of water. Not only were they not afraid of water, but every single one of them was an athlete. People who could not swim while they were alive could somehow chase living humans through a river to bite their behinds after turning into zombies. The Mutants that evolved from those zombies were also wildly diverse.
Comparing the two, he felt these Zombies were rather weak. With their bodies already rotting, they probably could not run fast, and their strength would be even less impressive.
'Maybe we will not even need a car. We could probably leave them in the dust just by running on foot.'
Mentally estimating the Zombies' strength, Bai Mu soon arrived smoothly at the corridor's corner.
Before heading downstairs, Bai Mu raised his hand, gesturing for Misty Rain Traveler to wait for him a moment.
He pointed to a box on the wall. It was a red Fire Extinguisher Cabinet that had not yet been opened. Inside large shopping malls like this, these cabinets were typically equipped with a Fire Axe.
Even though he had a revolver in his pocket and a shotgun in his backpack, he still lacked a proper melee weapon. He wanted to get his hands on that Fire Axe.
When dealing with Zombies that were sensitive to sound, an axe might prove much more useful than a gun.
With the right technique and enough force, a single swing of an axe could split a Zombie's head open without making a huge racket. It was an absolute must-have companion for daily life, travel, murder, and robbery.
Misty Rain Traveler understood Bai Mu's intention. She nodded and even brought out her scalpel, wanting to help him pry open the Fire Extinguisher Cabinet.
However, Bai Mu waved his hand, signaling that he could handle it himself.
The Fire Extinguisher Cabinet in front of him was a very common type enclosed in tempered glass. There was a small red dot painted at the bottom, and a little hammer was snapped into a plastic bracket right beside it.
Under normal circumstances, hitting that red dot hard with the hammer would shatter the glass. Even a child could manage it, because the impact points on this kind of glass were specially designed to be the weakest spot on the entire pane.
But current circumstances were far from normal. Doing so would cause the glass to crash noisily to the floor in a shower of shards.
In the quiet mall, the sound of shattering glass would be ear-piercing. It would definitely attract nearby Zombies. For instance, that quiet saleswoman Zombie guarding the boutique was less than fifty meters away; she would absolutely come running to check out the commotion.
Other Zombies lurking out of sight would also be drawn in.
Misty Rain Traveler watched Bai Mu's movements with a hint of concern. She worried he might make a loud noise, but considering how astutely he had noticed the time issue earlier, she refrained from stopping him.
This F-grade novice, who had only cleared two Scripts, gave Misty Rain Traveler a very strange feeling.
He looked entirely too relaxed. Out of the four of them, he was the only one with this bizarre sense of ease. He spoke at a leisurely pace, walked with a calm stride, and remained completely nonchalant when faced with Zombies and a stench that had nearly made her vomit.
If he were a complete greenhorn, it would be understandable. One could just assume he was ignorant. An F-grade Player who had only cleared two rounds was undeniably a pure novice in Paradise. Yet, intuition told Misty Rain Traveler that Bai Mu was no beginner.
This man simply seemed truly relaxed and calm. He showed zero signs of nervousness, as if he were completely accustomed to this sort of dangerous environment.
No, it was more accurate to say he did not feel he was in danger at all. If forced to describe it, only one phrase came to Misty Rain Traveler's mind:
—A sense of relaxation that felt just like coming home.