Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 88

The system issued a quest.

The timing was incredibly precise.

Without a doubt, everyone present had triggered the quest. A quick glance from the corner of her eye was all Tang Yu needed to see some players tapping their left wrists, their pupils darting from side to side as they likely checked the information.

But with mutated creatures already swarming at their feet, wasn’t escaping the top priority?

Tang Yu made a snap decision, turned around, and pulled Zhou Zhou back into the crowd. With her back against the cold wall, she figured it was best to let the people in front handle whatever came next.

Mixed in with the swarm of mutated creatures were two or three bl00d zombies, and even a normal-looking zombie dressed like Zombie A, which she assumed was the fourth zombie under the Leader’s command that Song Lengzhu had mentioned. However, this zombie’s combat strength was far inferior to that of A and B zombies. Now, finding itself somewhat isolated and helpless, it was brought down by the combined efforts of Li Luo’s teammates before it could even get close.

Tang Yu relaxed. It seemed there was a reason the Leader always kept A and B zombies with her; she likely had no other subordinates more capable.

Tang Yu found a moment to open her game panel as she retreated, glancing at the large words written on the translucent screen.

“Current Quest: B-Class Zombie King.”

Well, well. She was witnessing the birth of a Zombie King firsthand. So, the Zombie Kings in this game didn’t exist from the start but appeared only when a certain mechanism was triggered.

But this mechanism was too strange—a mutated human mutates again and becomes a Zombie King, and a high-level one at that.

The quest title was the same as the one for the C-Class Zombie King, with no hint as to how to proceed. But since Tang Yu was currently in the same space as the Zombie King, the system directly provided a triggered sub-quest.

【Special Quest: Join the B-Class Zombie King’s faction, completion progress 47%.】

It was a special quest, just like when she encountered the C-Class Zombie King, which meant completing it could trigger a random ability.

Wait, what was this 47% completion progress?

Tang Yu’s heart skipped a beat. She abruptly looked up at the Leader, who had transformed into the B-Class Zombie King, her mind churning with thoughts.

From the moment the Leader started to go berserk, Tang Yu had been hiding in the back, some distance from the crowd. She was certain she hadn’t come into contact with the Leader after her transformation.

It had to be the result of her earlier misfortune.

Tang Yu subconsciously touched her neck. The needle mark wasn’t obvious, and she couldn’t feel anything. The Leader’s injection technique was skillful; not even a drop of bl00d had seeped out when she pulled the needle. By now, the small wound from the puncture had probably already healed.

In the end, she had been tricked.

Tang Yu hadn’t known what was in the syringe before, but now, connecting it with the quest, she had a pretty good idea of what was going on. The C-Class Zombie King controlled zombies using some kind of mycelium; this Leader probably also used some kind of medium to achieve the same goal.

The contents of the syringe were her medium.

Previously, Tang Yu had thought the Leader also controlled zombies with the liquid used to soak the bl00d zombies, but on second thought, that didn’t add up. A and B zombies hadn’t been soaked, yet they obeyed the Leader, and this obedience didn’t even require verbal communication.

Tang Yu had never heard the Leader give A and B zombies any verbal commands, nor had the two zombies ever spoken human words or the zombie language, yet they could coordinate with the Leader’s direction to attack players.

Tang Yu sucked in a cold breath. When the quest progress reached 100%, would she be assimilated and become something like A and B zombies?

Judging by the fact that A and B zombies would eat humans, they were completely different from real humans. They had lost their basic moral sense; perhaps it was more appropriate to call them monsters.

If Tang Yu was a not-fully-infected zombie, then A and B zombies were purely genuine zombies that had gained self-awareness.

There was still a fundamental difference.

Tang Yu’s throat moved. She didn’t want to be controlled by the Leader. What if the Leader made her eat people? That was far more disgusting than eating mycelium.

A gunshot pulled Tang Yu back to her senses. After the quest was triggered, the surrounding players, as if injected with adrenaline, grabbed their weapons and unleashed them on the newly minted Zombie King.

Having done a Zombie King quest before, Tang Yu could tell that the special quest the players had triggered was “Kill the B-Class Zombie King.”

It made sense. As players, they wouldn’t have the chance to trigger a quest to join the Zombie King’s faction.

Tang Yu didn’t know whether to be glad she had another choice or frustrated that her fate had been so clearly laid out for her.

A guaranteed special quest was enough to make the players fanatical. Even the mutated creatures rushing in couldn’t dampen their enthusiasm. In an instant, a new round of gunfire and explosions erupted, centered on the Zombie King.

In that brief moment, the quest progress on her panel had jumped from 47 to 52.

Tang Yu shrank back. Could this thing be changing based on her body’s absorption of the injection?

When no one was looking, Tang Yu quietly moved away from the circle of battle. As she retreated, her eyes subconsciously fell on Song Lengzhu. Just as she had guessed, Song Lengzhu wasn’t acting as the vanguard either. She stood behind the crowd as usual, waiting for the final blow.

She had the game’s rules figured out perfectly.

Tang Yu, who had benefited from it before, was very clear on how the kill on a Zombie King was judged. No matter how much damage the vanguard players dealt to the Zombie King, the final reward went to the person who delivered the final blow.

Experienced players would choose to wait and steal the kill.

Just like now, it wasn’t just Song Lengzhu who was biding her time. Several other players who looked like they were putting in effort were actually just putting on a show, waiting for the clueless hotheads to wear down the Zombie King’s strength for them.

Tang Yu saw that Li Luo had also moved to the back of the crowd, only occasionally firing a couple of shots. Zhou Zhou was doing the same.

But not all players were like them. The heart of the battle was already a chaotic mess. The pursuit of points had made people completely ignore the fact that the Leader also looked human. The moment the title “Zombie King” appeared, the players had arbitrarily excluded her from the category of “human.”

The concept of “kin” was both complex and vague, just as chaotic as Tang Yu’s thoughts at that moment. If she was truly assimilated, who would be her kin?

Tang Yu hadn’t closed her game panel. The translucent, indigo panel hovered in front of her, the number on it jumping from 52 to 57.

Suddenly, she heard someone calling her name in a whisper.

“Tang Yu~” The voice was very soft, the last syllable drawn out.

She looked toward the aluminum boxes. Xiao Li was peeking out with half her head, even waving a hand.

Well, what do you know. Those two hadn’t left either.

Tang Yu slipped back to her teammates’ side, feeling a little more settled. The three of them peeked over the boxes, three pairs of eyes watching the battle while exchanging information.

The area they were in was dimly lit, and all three were dressed in black clothes and hats, making them inconspicuous among the piles of junk.

Tang Yu wore a mournful expression. “In a little while, I’m going to become a monster like Zombie A.” She briefly explained her situation to Jin Ye and Xiao Li. Though her words were pessimistic, her mind was racing, trying to figure out a solution.

Jin Ye had also triggered the quest to join the Zombie King’s faction, but she didn’t have a progress bar. It was now certain that Tang Yu’s change was related to that injection.

She didn’t know if it was poison, if there was an antidote, or how to slow down the assimilation speed. The damn system gave no hints at all, and Tang Yu could only watch the number on her screen climb higher and higher.

Xiao Li, being a human, had triggered the special quest to kill the B-Class Zombie King. She suddenly let out a sound of surprise. “You guys can also kill the Zombie King, right?”

Jin Ye replied, “Yes. If we choose to fight the Zombie King, a new quest will be triggered. It’s just that Tang Yu’s quest is already in progress, and it’s happening passively. If we do nothing, her assimilation progress will go straight to 100%.”

Xiao Li ducked her head back down behind the box and began to sort through her thoughts. “So, you can trigger two quests: one to join the Zombie King’s faction, and the other to kill the Zombie King. And both are special quests. So, couldn’t you… do both?”

“Huh?” “What?”

“Look, if you kill the Zombie King in time, then there will be no one to control Tang Yu, right? Even if Tang Yu’s progress for the ‘Join the Zombie King’s Faction’ quest reaches 100%, the leader will be gone, and her top subordinates—A and B zombies—will be gone too. Who would be left to give you orders?”

Tang Yu was speechless, frozen on the spot.

It sounded absurd, but it actually made some sense.

“If Tang Yu is the one who kills the Zombie King, she could complete two special quests in one fell swoop.” Xiao Li’s eyes lit up. Why choose, when you can have it all?

“The only risk is that we don’t know what changes will happen after Tang Yu is fully assimilated. If she completely loses her true nature and becomes a human-eating zombie, that would be terrifying.”

Tang Yu touched her neck. The quest progress bar was already past the halfway mark, but her body showed no abnormalities. Logically, that didn’t seem right.

The Leader had also shown a surprised expression when she injected her, which meant that when she injected others before, the effect was immediate. Only Tang Yu was an anomaly.

This might be related to Tang Yu’s special status. She wasn’t a pure zombie and already possessed self-awareness. Could that have a neutralizing effect on the injection? Was the injection now slowly taking effect in her body, which was why she was being assimilated?

“Speaking of which, what exactly is in that syringe?” Tang Yu muttered to herself.

Zhou Zhou’s voice came through the camp’s communication channel, answering her question. “It’s a serum.”

Tang Yu looked over and saw Zhou Zhou on the outskirts of the battle, picking up the empty syringe from the ground.

There was still some transparent, yellowish liquid left in the syringe. Zhou Zhou studied it for a moment, also looking puzzled. “Strange, the effect of this serum is different from what I imagined.”

Zhou Zhou had been researching a serum to cure the zombie virus for a long time, with the goal of turning zombies back into humans. After all, humans became zombies due to some kind of mutant virus, so there was hope for a cure. It was just that Zhou Zhou had failed in all her many attempts.

The substance in the syringe was very familiar to her, but the Leader’s use of it was baffling.

The Leader certainly wasn’t trying to cure Tang Yu; her actions showed she wasn’t that kind. And based on the results, this serum was more inclined to transform zombies into controllable beings, like A and B zombies.

But the serum wasn’t entirely useless. Judging from the state of A and B zombies, they might have gained self-awareness because of the serum, although this awareness was different from that of humans. It was more like they had become a new species, separate from both humans and zombies.

So that was it. That was how A and B zombies gained their self-awareness. Perhaps the liquid used to soak the bl00d zombies was also a diluted version of this substance.

It was just that Tang Yu was half-human, so the serum’s effect was significantly delayed.

Zhou Zhou put the syringe into her backpack. This was good stuff; she had to keep it.

Tang Yu let out a long breath, her heart settling. A serum, not a poison. That was good. At least she wouldn’t die a sudden death.

It made sense when she thought about it. Since being assimilated was a game quest, she could at least be sure she wouldn’t go offline directly. If she went offline, completing the quest would be meaningless; the game wouldn’t be designed that way. The players’ behavior also showed this; if the completion of some quests meant death, they wouldn’t be so fanatical about quests and points.

In this situation, she would most likely become a mutated being with the ability to think but whose mind was controlled by the Zombie King. That made things much simpler.

A plan formed in Tang Yu’s mind. Xiao Li’s suggestion had inspired her. As long as she killed the Zombie King before her assimilation progress reached 100%, the Zombie King’s control over her would be ineffective. That logical chain would be broken. She had to wade into these muddy waters.

Plus, she had her precognition ability. She could know her state after full assimilation in advance, allowing her to react one minute ahead of time. It wasn’t much time, but it was better than nothing.

Right now, on the system interface that Tang Yu hadn’t closed, the completion progress had changed to 77%.