Fatal Shot

“Hurry, hurry…!”

On an empty piece of ground in front of the building within the walls surrounding the Guard Bureau, a plow was installed on the front of a guard-issue energy firetruck, and it began to move slowly. Behind it, three guard patrol vehicles were parked together. The soldiers, holding assault rifles in their hands, escorted the elderly and children into the vehicles.

On top of the wall directly opposite the main gate, as well as on top of the building, the six-barreled railguns, the players’ machine guns, and energy attacks all fired at full power, creating a bloodsoaked empty space directly in front of them after eliminating hundreds of zombies.

The angry roar of the machine guns, the sounds of explosions, and the cries of frightened children were all mixed together, accentuating the darkness as the sun gradually disappeared. Added to that, a gathering of dark clouds emerging from the East made the sky look darker than it should have been.

******

“Protect him well!” 100,000 Volts and another Heavy Armor Warrior stood together with their alloy shields raised in their hands.

Standing between them was Bureau Director Locke, who was cuffed and wore two layers of a bulletproof vest and a guard-issue helmet. He was fully equipped, yet his face was still and pale as snow, filled with terror. His body even shivered a little.

The breakout was carried out in a hurry. In truth, after learning that Roguetown would be mercilessly blown up by the Umbrella Corporation, the Caucasian guard captain, Harley, who had still been able to keep his nerve throughout the battle, lost his cool for the first time. After double and then triple-confirming that the information was not a mistake, Harley immediately decided that everyone in the Guard Bureau, including the tourists as well as the surviving citizens of Roguetown, would immediately try to break out of the place.

Of course, he promptly sealed off information regarding the Umbrella Company’s plan to blow up all of Roguetown. This piece of information was only known to him and the players; even the other guard soldiers were kept out of the loop. It was because once the information was leaked out, they would most likely experience unprecedented chaos. However, even if that piece of information had remained sealed, the scene was still very chaotic in the beginning.

“No! I’ll never leave!” some NPC citizens shouted at the guards who notified them about the decision to leave. “You are guards, and you receive credits from the Federation. Isn’t now the time for you to go out there and destroy those living dead and create a path to survival for us?”

“Rose, my dear Rose… It’s you. It’s all your fault! You let the monsters outside bite her to death!”

“And now you not only do you don’t want to remedy your mistake of failing in your duties, but you also want us—a bunch of normal people who don’t even have any weapons in our hands—to participate in battle!”

“Break out? Why break out? This is just your excuse to get us to fight those monsters!”

There were also some who rejected them, as their faces filled with fear. This was because the guard soldiers told them the guards had limited firepower, so the men needed to find some weapons and participate in the battle.

“Didn’t you say that you had the most advanced weaponry previously, in the advertisement on the travel channel? Where are the energy military vehicles? Where are the heavy defense cannons? Why aren’t I seeing any of these right now?!”

“This is false advertisement! Wait till I get back! I’ll sue you in business court. The court will make you pay dearly—it’ll bankrupt the entire town!”

“No, your town is nothing right now. Then all of you here should bear the cost of repayment!”

There were also tourists who were shouting at the guards. Plus, they included the citizens of the town as objects of their anger, which almost caused conflict on both sides. Of course, as they shouted these things, their expressions showed extreme agitation; however, deep in their eyes were fear and terror.

For the NPC tourists and citizens who stayed hidden inside the Guard Bureau building the entire afternoon, the living dead monsters outside who bit people were undeniably scarier than anything they had seen before.

To fight against monsters like these? They must be joking!

“Don’t go out. We’ll wait here!”

“If something large-scale like this has happened, the Federal Government will surely send someone to rescue us. We should just wait here in the building for help to come!”

“As long as we close the door of the Bureau, those slow-moving monsters would never be able to enter. These cowardly soldiers only want to trick us into fighting outside. Everyone, do not be tricked, the breakout is absolutely the wrong decision!”

“Humph! Do as you please!”

Harley’s decisiveness exceeded the players’ expectations. To the people who refused to leave the Bureau building and were shouting and cursing with pale faces, he did not even address them. Instead, he just set his jaw and began to arrange for those who were willing to leave to begin moving. He moved the elderly and the children into the armored vehicles first while distributing weapons to the men.

All the weapons in the Guard Bureau were distributed. Among those who were willing to leave, there were people who had experience using firearms, so some of them were given a pistol or a suppressed submachine gun. Of course, there weren’t many bullets. At most, they each had one magazine.

“Wait a minute…”

“No… Don’t leave me!”

Everything happened in little more than ten minutes. Upon seeing how ineffective their cries and tantrums were—and as soon as they saw the people gathered downstairs and were ready to leave as they distributed weapons—the people who had made up all kinds of excuses to oppose the breakout finally cried and screamed, running downstairs and toward the group. Moreover, they sought to take the weapons that were being distributed. Some even tried to take the seats of the elderly and the children in the vehicles.

Of course, what awaited such behavior was the heavy butt of a guard soldier’s rifle, as well as warning shots.

Rumble…

The stone and metal main entrance of the Bureau slowly opened, controlled by a motor. The four-meter-tall firetruck was the first to exit.

The plow that had been installed in front of the vehicle pushed away the corpses of the zombies accumulating on the bare ground created by the previous unreserved concentrated firepower. With a rumble, it created a three-meter-wide path that was completely soaked and covered with blood.

And behind it, three guard patrol vehicles and around 300 tourists and citizens of the town began to pour out!

******

“Finally can’t take it anymore? Then let the final test begin!” Wesker said softly. His lips beneath, his shades, twitched slightly after he watched the firetruck rushing out of the gate on the screen in the underground base beneath the retirement home.

“Analyzing behavioral pattern. Calculating path…” A row of data flashed by on the eyes of the little girl in white. At the same time, red-colored routes of different sizes appeared on a real-time 3D visual representation of the town floating in front of her. “Test project number three initiate. Sending data!”

In an empty street on the West side of Roguetown, a big and burly man who towered over two meters held a heavy gray alloy shield in his hand. The Heavy Armor Warrior player, walking leisurely, touched the Umbrella Company communicator on his ear. “Number one received!”

After he replied, he raised his head. A demon-like, dark crimson color appeared in his pupils as he emanated a murderous aura.

“Okay!” On top of another commercial building, a Sniper player who also wore the same ear microphone pushed armor-piercing bullets with a light blue glow, one after another, into the black sniper rifle magazine. After that, he smiled and said through the communicator, “It finally starts, after we have waited for so long! Smoke Gun, right now, I can’t wait to kill two people to try out my strength!”

“Really? You’re confident you’ve improved that much?!” In a position on another building, another Machine Gunner player with a cigarette in his mouth was running quickly while carrying a half-assembled machine gun. Similarly, his dark and crimson pupils were striking in the darkness.

“Of course!” The Sniper did not hide the excitement in his tone as he aimed at the empty streets under the building. “Even if I don’t use the sniper rifle, I can clearly view a position from 150 meters away in an environment like this. After integrating with the T-virus, and with the bonuses from all kinds of potions from the Umbrella Corporation, my attack increased by 40 percent, and my senses also improved on all fronts. I feel like even if the enemies are the people from the first team of the group, their only option is to wait to be destroyed by us!”

“The first team? You sure are confident!” The Machine Gunner threw away the cigarette butt in his mouth and seemed to have found his spot. He put down the machine gun in his hands and began to take out the remaining parts from within his backpack.

“The first team is only taking advantage of being favored by the corp leader. They’ve been relying on the support of the guild the entire time,” the Sniper player said in a tone that initially showed a little bit of contempt before returning to excitement. “All the good equipment, rare potions, and special bullets would be given to them first. It’s the only reason why they have such amazing combat strength. After accounting for these factors, they are nothing more than ordinary elite players! And now, what we have experienced is a significant and genuine improvement to our body quality. The T-virus! What an amazing thing!”

“It certainly is a good thing,” the Machine Gunner replied. “It’s just a pity that we can’t keep using it all the time. After the duration of the bonus from the potions elapses, it will only be an improvement of around 15 percent of our battle strength! Moreover, to get the permanent stat increase, we need to achieve victory in this combat mission! If we fail, not only will we be infected more deeply by the T-virus, but we will experience a permanent reduction in stats. The side effect of this mission is way too heavy.”

“Wealth comes from taking risks!” said the Heavy Armor Warrior with a cold and deep voice through the communicator. “With higher gains, there are naturally higher risks! If everyone doesn’t want to drop stats, then we have to succeed in this mission. So, only success! No failure!” The Heavy Armor Warrior’s face and tone were full of determination. “Moreover, this is also related to Boss Lightwind’s plan, as well as everyone’s future…”

“Yes!”

“We’ll definitely get rid of the enemies!”

“You can rest assured, Captain!”

The voices of the other nine people sounded consecutively over the communication channel.

******

At the same time, Roaring Dragon Lightwind, who was currently inside a luxurious private room within Silvermoon City, finally went from being anxious to calm upon hearing a one-sentence voice message after a notification popped up on his communicator. After that, he raised his head and looked at the semi-transparent virtual screen floating in front of him. It was an infographic created by words and lines of different colors used specifically to analyze intelligence.

His gaze stopped briefly on the three words in the middle: “Roaring Dragon Invincible,” before moving on. He then sat down on the genuine leather sofa before closing his eyes to wait.