Judging from the map, the layout of -1F is simple, but the corridors are long and narrow, while the rooms are extremely spacious.
Lu Cai ran all the way, trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible, and finally reached the corner of the corridor smoothly. She looked to the north, and it was dark and gloomy. The glass door at the end was closed, and the doors on both sides of the corridor were ajar.
Sure enough, dim lights can turn any illusion into a horror movie.
She walked forward cautiously, gun in hand. The first door she passed was on the left. There was a sign on the top of the iron door - Men's Restroom.
Lu Cai continued walking forward. On his right was the glass sliding door of the Fossil Exhibition Hall. After a few more steps and passing the women's restroom, he saw the paleontological information room right in front of him.
A rustling sound echoed from behind him, and Lu Cai stopped. In extremely dangerous situations, don't doubt your own fanciful thoughts, because to a large extent, conjecture is reality.
For example, at this moment, she felt that there must be a zombie following her, but when she turned her head suddenly, she saw a dimly lit corridor that seemed a little twisted. Except for a few bloodstains on the ground and walls, there was no one there.
But Lu Cai didn't think he was just imagining things - there were zombies following her.
As an awakened NPC, her understanding of this world came entirely from her own battles. From ordinary zombies to wart monsters and tentacle monsters, she had no idea how far these monsters would mutate.
In the zoo branch, the spotted hyena zombies maintain their hunting intelligence, which means that highly intelligent zombies are possible.
Lu Cai slowly turned around and looked up. The door to the data room was just a few steps away. He took two steps and heard the rustling sound behind him again.
She stopped and the rustling stopped.
The best-case scenario was that it was simply curious and had no intention of actually attacking her. Unfortunately, that scenario was highly unlikely.
According to the routine, when she touches the glass door of the information room, the thing behind her will attack.
Since she dodged as soon as she turned around, then just wait until there is no place left to hide.
Lu Cai didn't look back, and walked indifferently towards the glass door of the reference room. Through the glass door, he could see the layers of bookshelves in the reference room.
Paper pages and books were scattered on the ground, and a bloody mark left by five fingers digging into the ground and dragging them away stretched from the glass door to the bookshelf on the right.
In the shadows, her own reflection gradually became clearer. She saw that behind her, there was nothing but the flicker of the long tube light on the ceiling.
It was supposed to be a zombie copy, so why did she always encounter this kind of "haunted" situation?
Lu Cai slowly moved her gaze downwards, and in the dim light, she saw a skinned "giant frog" lying on the ground behind her.
Goose bumps rose on her scalp. The tender flesh dripping with blood was exposed in the air. In the shadow of the glass, Lu Cai could even see it grinning as it approached him. Its mouth was filled with jagged fangs, and black and yellow minced meat was stuck on its teeth.
Judge Lu looked away. As long as there was a physical body, it was good. The physical body meant that it could fight.
She walked towards the glass door, the crack of the door was just within her reach. She watched the movements of the skinned monster in the reflection, pretended to push the door open, and finally turned around suddenly.
The monster did not jump up as expected, but she turned around quickly and fired at the ground, and each bullet hit its head.
The sound of gunfire echoed in the narrow corridor, and the tender red monster lay motionless on the ground. Lu Cai stopped shooting, frowning in disbelief.
Didn't the monster want to attack her?
Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was because he was full.
There was a rustling sound in the wind, and Lu Cai's eyelids jumped. He tried to dodge, but before his feet left the ground, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.
The blood-red tentacle pierced through her left shoulder, and the stinging pain and tingling spread from the wound.
The skinned monster pretending to be dead on the ground began to tremble, and many bullets fell out of its head. Its mouth opened and it let out a strange "ho ho ho" laugh.
The tentacles grew from its ribs, and were almost identical to those at the elevator door. The muscles were pieced together into a main trunk as thick as a wrist, with blood vessels and meridians covering it.
Lu Cai raised his hand and grabbed the tentacle, and the tentacle muscles began to secrete that highly corrosive mucus again.
She couldn't think about why her defense mechanism had failed. She sighed, thinking she had been blindly confident, thinking she was invulnerable and truly invincible.
Lu Cai put the muzzle of his gun against the tentacle and fired. The tentacle began to move around, trying to pull out from her shoulder.
She didn't let go. The smoke faded, and the sound of gunfire continued. The skinning monster lunged at her. Lu Cai was struggling against the force of its tentacles, and had no time to turn and dodge. He was knocked down by the skinning monster, slamming into the glass door.
The door was thrown open and she fell on her back onto the cold tile floor.
It was covered in slime and opened its mouth to bite Lu Cai. Enduring the severe pain in his shoulder, Lu Cai held its chin with his left hand and shot it in the throat with his other hand.
There was a gunshot, and the skinning monster dodged backward, making a "grunting" sound.
Lu Cai turned the gun and fired another shot at the tentacle on the left shoulder, which snapped off. She raised her foot and kicked it in the abdomen, knocking the skinned monster to its side.
It seems that even if her skin's protective mechanism is breached, her strength remains. This skinned monster is slender, and a kick from her is effortless.
Looking at its outstretched limbs, it turned out to be a human without skin.
She pulled the broken tentacle out, only to realize that the barbs on the broken limb had penetrated into her flesh. As she pulled it out, the barbs tore at the flesh of the wound, causing her a piercing pain.
The erythema on the palm becomes more obvious because of the mucus.
If it weren't for her special physique, her skin would probably have been dissolved by the mucus and she would have turned into a monster like the Skinner.
Gnashing his teeth, he yanked the tentacle away with all his might. The severed tentacle fell to the ground, blood streaming from its shoulder. The skinned monster had already risen, a new tentacle sprouting from where the long one had been.
It staggered, seemingly exhausted. Lu Cai also stood up, holding onto the wall, and while the monster was still unconscious, he quickly turned and ran away.
In the first few shots, Lu Cai aimed at its head, but it was unharmed.
In this situation where she couldn't handle it head-on, she could only run away.
After running a few steps, there was a roar behind him, followed by a rapid rustling sound. Lu Cai rushed into the bookshelf aisle on the side and heard a loud bang behind him. The skinning monster crashed into the bookshelf.
It's not very flexible, so it pretended to be hit and then used its tentacles to launch a sneak attack.
Lu Cai turned around the second row of bookshelves. The hole in his left shoulder ached, as if a million ants were gnawing at it. There was no time to get out the spray, not even the emergency pills.
I hope I don't get wasted in this data room—
She looked up and saw an iron door on the south wall of the library, with a lock on the door. Not far behind her was the skinning monster that was pursuing her relentlessly. Lu Cai had to get rid of it.
She quickened her pace, took out her employee card, swiped the door lock and rushed in.
This is an office with two desks facing each other and a filing cabinet with its door wide open on one side.
Lu Cai leaped onto the desk, and there was a rustling sound behind him. He saw a thin figure on the desk, and the tentacles stabbed at the figure.
She dodged, jumped off the table, lowered her head and crawled under the desk.
The desks were flanked by solid wood partitions and supported by a horizontal bar on the back. Lu Cai lowered himself, intending to crawl under the two desks facing each other, when he heard a laugh.
Following the sound of laughter, she looked up and saw the distorted facial features of the skinning monster right in front of her. It was standing in front of another desk, facing her.
Lu Cai quickly stepped back, a cool breeze blew towards her head, and tentacles stabbed at her from behind.
She dodged backwards, her back hitting the side panel, and the back of her head knocking the drawer outwards. She was actually surrounded by a mutant zombie with tentacles!
Lu Cai looked at the tentacles that were about to be retrieved, and realized belatedly that the skinning monster didn't rush into the desk and confront her directly. It wasn't just because of its inflexible movements -
Seeing the tentacle retreat, she raised her hand to grab it, but the force of the pull almost dragged her out. In a hurry, she bent her legs and hooked the horizontal bar under the desk. With a strong pull, the skinning monster on the other side deviated to the side.
The tentacles really aren't long enough—
Cai Lu looked down at the two horizontal bars and pulled the tentacles in his hand hard. The squeaking sound of nails digging into the ground came from behind him, accompanied by bursts of angry roars.
The tentacle in his hand loosened and suddenly stabbed at her.
Cai Lu pinched the tentacle and took the opportunity to quickly tie the tentacle around the horizontal bar... The skinning monster rushed into the desk from the direction of the tentacle, causing the partitions on both sides to shake.
She lowered her head, quickly climbed out of the desk, and ran towards the iron door. When she rushed out of the door frame and turned back to pull the iron door closed, she saw the skinning monster rushing out, but its tentacles were tightly tied to the horizontal bar under the desk. Her ribs were pulled by its sudden rush, causing a sharp pain.
Cai Lu quickly closed the iron door and locked it with his employee card.
Leaning against the door frame, she slowly sat down.
The library fell into silence.
Lu Cai quickly took out the blood-replenishing pills, poured two into his mouth, and put the vial back into the slot. He then took out the trauma spray and sprayed it on the bloody hole in his left shoulder.
This burst of pain was much more painful than the last time I was scratched by a zombie.
Her forehead was hot and she twitched against the cold tile wall for a while before she finally got through it.
After the pain subsided, Lu Cai held onto the wall and moved weakly towards the glass door to the east.
After taking out her pistol again, she had to leave this floor and find Qin Yu.
Qin Yu and Zhao Yan are much stronger than Cheng Mushen and Lin Yong. If I find them, my chances of survival will be much greater.
Slowly moving to the east door, through the glass, you can see that the narrow corridor is spacious and flat.
Lu Cai took a breath. This time, she had to rush straight to the stairwell. She raised her hand, pushed open the glass door, and squeezed through the gap. A few roars came from the hall in the distance. It was the group of sarcoma mutants.
Lu Cai walked forward slowly. There was no side door in this passage and the end was visible at a glance.
She walked quickly, her soles scraping against the tiles, leaving behind a few faint sounds. But the roars and crashes in the distance were even louder, making the movements on her side less noticeable.
When he reached the end, Cai Lu put his hand on the door edge and glanced sideways at the situation in the hall. A dozen sarcoma mutants were staggering around, and three or four zombies were banging against the tightly closed glass door opposite.
Lu Cai carefully pushed open the stair door and just as he squeezed in, he was greeted by a roar.
She turned around and raised her hand to press against the zombie's face. When her palm touched its face, the wrinkled and rotten skin burned and curled up immediately. Tender red tumors popped out and wrinkled when they touched Lu Cai's palm.
The zombie roared a few times, let go of Lu Cai, and took a few steps back timidly.
One side of the stairs only led downwards. Lu Cai turned and rushed towards the stairs, stumbling down while holding onto the wooden steps.
When she saw the "-2F" mark on the wall and realized that there were no zombies chasing her, she leaned against the door and rested for a while.
Was the tumor zombie afraid just now? She raised her hand to cover her left shoulder, then remembered the sticky liquid on her palm.
It's the slime of the tentacle monster.
It seems that zombies are also divided into different levels, with one level higher than the other.
I took out the small medicine bottle and swallowed two more pills. The pain and itching on my shoulder became more and more obvious.
Lu Cai smeared the mucus on the bandage on his right arm, then held the gun, pushed open the door and squeezed in.
It was pitch black inside the door. Relying on her memory of the structure of the -1F floor, she walked to the left.
When she reached the end, she came across a glass door, but unfortunately the door lock was not powered on and she could not get in.
Can the power source setting be changed at the beginning? Lu Cai endured the pain and walked back.
There was another rustling sound.
Lu Cai stopped and the pain in his arm was gone. Cold sweat oozed from his forehead and flowed down his face.
No way...are these mutants available wholesale now?
There was complete silence all around. She took a step and there was a rustling sound behind her. She stopped and the rustling stopped too.
He was apprehensive and cautious, taking steps forward. Just as Lu Cai was thinking, "I can't just keep wasting time like this," the long-tube light above his head trembled twice and then lit up with a "boom."
There was a moment of silence, and then she suddenly turned her body, and the tender red tentacles brushed past her side.
"Hehehe——" a strange laugh immediately sounded.
Lu Cai watched the tentacles change direction, lunged forward, clamped the tentacles with his left arm, circled his wrist, wrapped the sticky tentacles around his arm, and pinched them tightly with his palm.
The skinning monster, crawling on the ground, leaped up and leaped towards her. Lu Cai raised her right arm, wrapped in bandages, to block it. Its jagged fangs bit her right arm, and its slender, dry claws came down on Lu Cai's shoulders and waist.
He raised his knee and slammed it hard into the chest of the skinning monster, which seemed to gag. Lu Cai took the opportunity to knock it over and pin it to the ground.
The tentacles behind her were clamped. Realizing how strong she was and unable to break free, she simply turned her head and drilled into the flesh of her left shoulder along the wound that penetrated her shoulder.
Lu Cai's left arm went numb and he lost consciousness due to the pain. His fingernails dug into the muscle of the tentacle, pinching a blue vein.
She used her arm to block the skinning monster's mouth and pressed one knee against its chest. Under the cold white long tube light, she could see long tentacles growing from the upper part of the skinning monster's chest.
The tentacles of the previous skinned monster grow in a different place.
The skinning monster began to struggle, but was held back by Lu Cai. It didn't have much strength, and only its tentacle was desperately drilling into the flesh.
Lu Cai ignored it completely and held it tightly. Where was its weak point? Or rather, where was its brain?
“Beep—beep—”
There was a sound of a lock being opened behind her, and then she heard Zhao Yan cursing.
"What the hell! What the hell is this!"
Lu Cai did not dare to relax either. She found that when her knees pressed against the connection between the tentacles and the skinning monster's body, the skinning monster would struggle violently, with its chest heaving violently.
His right hand stretched out, and a dagger appeared.
She raised her right arm, but the skinning monster still held her arm tightly. Lu Cai slammed her arm and the skinning monster's head to the ground, struggling to break free. He aimed the dagger at the connection between the tentacles and stabbed it into the skinning monster's chest.
"puff--"
The tentacle that had drilled into the old wound pierced her shoulder again. Lu Cai did not loosen his grip, but simply let go of the tentacle and held down the dagger with both hands.
The skinning monster struggled violently, digging its claws into her side. Hot blood slowly flowed out, and mucus adhered to the wound, burning her skin.
Zhao Yan was about to come up to help, but was sternly scolded by Lu Cai.
"Don't come over here!" This mucus is highly corrosive. It was hard to kill it. If Zhao Yan came up to join in the fun, it would be a waste of time and effort.
Lu Cai pulled out his dagger, then raised his hand to grab the tentacle and pulled it out from his back.
A ball of bloody threads connected to the tentacles were pulled out from the wound. The hooks and thorns had been buried in the flesh for so long that they turned into roots.
She stumbled to her feet from the skinning monster and leaned against the other wall.
Only then did Zhao Yan see the green and yellow slime falling to the ground, burning large holes in the white tiles.
"What is this?" Zhao Yan was surprised.
Lu Cai said weakly: "Mutant."
Zhao Yan approached her and tried to help her, but was rejected. Seeing her hands covered in slime, he naturally understood what she meant.
"I saw a white coat at the information desk. I'll bring it over to wipe your hands—" He was about to go back the same way to get the white coat when he was stopped by Lu Cai behind him.
"The Sarcoma Monster is afraid of this slime..." Lu Cai explained, "There are too many Sarcoma mutants in this research institute."
Zhao Yan also frowned. Since they entered the side story, they had encountered only a handful of ordinary zombies, most of which were sarcoma mutants. Now this monster with corroded skin all over its body appeared.
"Do you have a container?" Lu Cai asked him weakly, "I'll collect this mucus. When we encounter the tumor monsters later, we can use the mucus to deal with them—"
"Are you okay?" Zhao Yan realized it later and saw that her arm covered with mucus was beginning to turn red. He was a little concerned, "Your arm -"
"It's okay for now—" Lu Cai sighed, "So do you have a container? If not, we should run away as soon as possible..."
Zhao Yan's eyes were still on her arm: "I'll look for it..." He stood there dumbfounded. After a while, a small bottle of blood-tonifying medicine fell into his hand. "Take this—"
Lu Cai looked at the medicine bottle in his hand, then raised his eyes to look at the muscular man Zhao Yan, and somehow he thought of the timid and thin Lin Yong.
"Thank you, I have medicine..." Resurrection cards couldn't be used in the side story, so pills and potions were extremely valuable. Lu Cai felt he wouldn't die anytime soon, so why waste their supplies?
"There are two more pills in here. After you take them, the empty bottle can be used to store mucus—" Zhao Yan explained, "This medicine bottle looks only the size of a thumb, but it holds 500 milliliters of liquid. That should be enough for us to survive for a while."
Lu Cai did not refuse any more. He took the medicine bottle, poured the remaining two pills into the bottle cap, and fed it directly into his mouth.
The container was filled with slime, and the two exchanged information as they walked.
Zhao Yan had just arrived at this floor, but he had come up from -3F. He arrived a little earlier than Lu Cai and came up first to turn on the power.
"Did you wake up and enter through the external elevator?" Zhao Yan was puzzled. "It seems that each player dropped into a different location." He woke up directly behind the information desk on the -3F.
Lu Cai did not respond. She believed that this way of dropping was not aimed at the players, but at her.
It was Lu Cai's tight embrace that prevented Qin Yu from properly entering the side storyline. If it weren't for the truck explosion, the temperature on the stone wall wouldn't have reached the breaking point, and they wouldn't have been able to enter the research institute.
There were also many tentacle monsters outside the elevator. Unlike the skinning monsters in the research institute, the tentacles outside the institute were mainly semicircular lumps of flesh.
They walked along the corridor into a plant research greenhouse, and encountered two sarcoma mutants on the way. Lu Cai killed them one by one with a dagger coated with mucus.
The botanical garden was steaming hot. Lu Cai looked at the shadowy broad leaves and walked in carefully along the stone path.
"The developers of KB Games must have never played 'Resident Evil', otherwise this botanical garden wouldn't be left empty like this—" Zhao Yan looked at the greenhouse full of strange plants with a half-relaxed and half-joking look.
Lu Cai smiled and said, "The place where we landed is the 'Paleontological Research Institute', not the 'Pharmaceutical Company'."
Zhao Yan also laughed: "I hope they don't have any substantial research results. I don't want to see a pile of dinosaur eggs--"
Both of them paused.
Lu Cai stared at him: "Can you say something nice?"
Zhao Yan also looked serious: "Do you understand what I am saying?"
The two fell silent.
Lu Cai continued forward. When facing Qin Yu, she was still alert. But when facing the burly Zhao Yan, she unconsciously relaxed.
"Dinosaurs won't really appear, will they?" After a while, Zhao Yan asked her as if to change the subject.
Lu Cai replied, "Dinosaurs are too big for this research institute to accommodate. But if they develop some variants, who knows—"
"This dungeon can't be that terrible, right?" Zhao Yan said in a somewhat weak tone, "It's not enough to have zombie mutations, but we're also going to have mutated ancient creatures?"
"If there are mutant ancient creatures, that would be another book—" Lu Cai comforted him.
When mutant ancient creatures collide with the zombie virus, who knows what kind of monster will be created...
The room suddenly shook, and Lu Cai steadied himself: "Qin Yu——"
Zhao Yan, holding his gun, was also shocked when he heard her words: "Did Qin Yu make this noise?"
She caught a hint of system information from the vibration, which was an outward telekinetic attack.
"Let's go downstairs!" Cai Lu quickly turned around and returned to the stairwell.
Four or five zombies gathered in the corridor. Lu Cai wiped the slime on the hem of his clothes with his dagger twice and rushed over.
The zombies also rushed towards her. Lu Cai ignored the oncoming grabbing hands and directly slashed into its solar plexus with the dagger. He quickly pulled out the blade, wiped the slime on his elbow a few more times, and dealt with the next one.
At first Zhao Yan was a little surprised, but now that he has seen it more often, he actually thinks that her operation is routine.
Zhao Yan followed Qin Yu and had been outputting physical strength all the time. Now he was blocked in front of him by a thin little girl. He had no chance to finish off the enemy as he walked all the way. He was overwhelmed with mixed feelings for a moment.
Cai Lu chopped all the way to the staircase entrance. The wound on his left shoulder throbbed with pain, and his entire arm was trembling slightly.
He raised his hand, pushed open the door, and stepped into the stairwell. A large and intense rustling sound came from downstairs. Qin Yu quickly jumped up the stairs, saw the two people, and hurriedly shouted: "Run!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
