Chapter 27
Chapter 27: Insect Infestation
Time ticked by. More than twenty minutes passed. Long Ming stood alone on the platform, feeling a bit speechless. [Great. The more I worry, the more it happens.]
But when the wait hit thirty minutes, the patterns on the platform’s central Mechanical Obelisk lit up and flashed with bright light. Long Ming quietly let out a breath and focused.
White Tier light flowed over him.
A few seconds later, the brightness faded and his vision cleared. He lifted his M24 sniper rifle and scanned his surroundings.
He was standing in a street alone. Around him rose buildings of reinforced concrete. The glass curtain walls were shattered, and gray cocoons hung from the outside walls.
Shops on all sides were a wreck. The window displays and shelves were crawling with dark Red Tier insects.
He moved a step.
Crunch.
The crisp crackle came from underfoot. He looked down and saw the ground covered in shriveled insect shells. Now and then, tiny larvae poked their heads from the husks. Goosebumps ran across his arms. He had never seen something this disgusting. A timid person would have screamed already.
He drew a deep breath to steady his heartbeat and studied the area. Crashed cars, toppled streetlights, and scattered trash bins were all speckled with clusters of eggs.
Over the city, clouds of flying insects passed, blocking half the sky as they swept by.
Watching this, his expression grew more serious. The city didn’t look big, but it felt extremely dangerous.
Even so, he refused to be scared. There’s a saying: the timid starve, the bold feast. He seemed to be in a commercial street. Clothing stores and convenience stores lined the road, as well as jewelry shops.
He skipped them all. After the last civilization and after learning the market, he understood that only Purple Tier or higher items, gear, and medicines were truly valuable. The rest could be ignored.
But Purple Tier items were hard to find. So he decided to search for gear first to boost his combat power.
With that goal set, he glanced at the wristband map. It was all black. He would have to explore to light it up.
He moved forward step by step, careful not to step on anything he didn’t have to. The whole street was quiet, so quiet only his footsteps echoed. The silence stretched his nerves tight.
As he passed a jewelry store, he saw the mannequins’ plastic faces crawling with dark Red Tier insects. Sticky, nasty droppings smeared the window ledges. In the cases of jewelry and luxury goods, worms wriggled across the pieces. He gave it one look and felt no urge to search inside.
Soon he reached the center of the commercial street, where a round fountain stood. The fountain had long since shut down. The basin was dry, and gray fungus grew in the gaps between the stone tiles. Nearby benches had their wood eaten hollow by ants, leaving only rusty metal frames.
He kept going. After a short walk, he stopped before a three-story reinforced concrete building and read the sign at the gate: “Akaya Garrison Sub-bureau.”
The main doors stood open. Three patrol motorcycles coated in dust were parked on the left, one of them toppled on its side. Not far away lay a skeleton in a tattered uniform, a pistol still gripped in its hand.
Long Ming crouched to take the pistol, but a red-marked, black-haired insect crawled out of the sleeve. He yanked his hand back like he’d been shocked. [Who knows if that thing is poisonous. One bite would be trouble.]
He didn’t give up. Using the barrel of his M24, he hooked the pistol over and picked it up.
Bzzz.
A prompt flashed on his wristband: “Geco automatic pistol. Durability: 62/100. Magazine: 5/15. …”
He checked the stats, pocketed the Geco, and stepped into the lobby of the Akaya Garrison Sub-bureau. The place was a mess. Webs covered the floor, and dried shells lay everywhere. Under some husks, skeletons in uniforms were visible.
He moved carefully to the reception desk. The computer screen there was shattered. A ring of keys lay on the surface, dusted over and smeared with sticky droppings. He stared at the keys, thinking, then took them, wiped them on his clothes, and slipped them into his pocket.
Next, he went to the bodies on the floor to check for anything valuable.
A moment later, he had found three more Geco automatic pistols. He scanned them with the wristband: durabilities 89, 21, and 63. One magazine was empty; the other two held 3 and 4 rounds.
He popped all the magazines, dumped the rounds, and loaded them into the magazine of the pistol with 89 durability. Then he tossed the 21-durability pistol aside as useless, put the other two into his backpack to sell later, and kept the best one in his pocket.
Just then, a larva with Red Tier markings crawled out from a husk and slid toward him. As it reached his shoe, Long Ming lifted his foot and crushed it. Sticky fluid smeared across the floor.
Bzzz.
A mosquito-like whine rose behind him. He turned and saw a mosquito about seven centimeters long flying toward him. His face tightened. He swung his M24 to shoo it. It couldn’t get close and finally veered away.
Watching it fly off, he felt gloomy. [What kind of place is this? Even the mosquitoes are mutated and huge. If that thing bit me, I might bleed like crazy.] He pushed the thought aside and kept exploring.
Soon he reached the stairwell. He climbed carefully to the second-floor corridor. A few skeletons in uniforms lay scattered there, and rooms lined both sides of the hall.