Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 950: Side Quest

Chapter 950: Chapter 950: Side Quest

The boss’s face briefly showed an expression of embarrassment, which quickly turned into a smile. "Brother Ma, this gentleman is a patron of the bar, from out of town. Since you have some free time to drink today, it so happens that we’ve got a batch of fine liquor in. We’ve opened it up just for you."

The man known as Brother Ma no longer paid attention to Xu Huo, and with a giggling laugh, draped his arm over the boss’s waist and walked into the bar. "You harlot, casting flirtatious glances at other men when I haven’t seen you in a bit. If you don’t drink with Brother Ma today and make me comfortable, I’m not paying for the booze!"

The boss grabbed Brother Ma’s wandering hand, all smiles, as he ushered him inside.

"Wait." Xu Huo called out to them, and the two followers immediately behind Brother Ma stepped forward to stand in their way.

Xu Huo took out a small roll of White Notes from his pocket and drew out a hundred, passing it over. "Please save two dishes for me."

The boss hurried over to take the money, breaking away from Brother Ma.

Xu Huo glanced at Brother Ma, then leisurely stuffed the money back into his pocket and walked along the street.

It wasn’t far from there to the incinerator factory; even on foot, it was just over a ten-minute walk. He slowed his pace, bought a bottle of water on the way, and casually asked the shopkeeper if there were any places hiring nearby. After the other mentioned that the incinerator factory had been very busy lately, Xu Huo borrowed pen and paper to copy down three addresses, the last of which was the incinerator factory.

The two who had been following him left one behind, with the remaining one accompanying him to the first two addresses.

As darkness nearly settled, Xu Huo finally turned towards the direction of the incinerator factory. He was ambushed by Brother Ma and his flunkies as he passed through the woods.

Picking up a stone from the ground and hiding it behind him, he cautiously asked the three men, "What are you planning to do?"

"What do you think?" Brother Ma spat on the ground with a carefree attitude. "It’s unfortunate you don’t have eyes good enough to see that the owner of Star Bar is my woman."

"You could have just walked away, but you had to run your mouth. Out again at night? Think you’re some hero coming to the rescue with that lame look?"

"Start by cutting off that middle leg of his!"

Xu Huo took a step back. "Aren’t you afraid the Law Enforcement Team will find out if you act here?"

"The Law Enforcement Team couldn’t care less about these trivial matters," Brother Ma bragged triumphantly. "You’ve chosen a nice place. Once you’re dead, we’ll just dump you at the incinerator factory—who’s going to search for an outsider like you?"

"You make a good point." Xu Huo, right in front of the three, crunched the stone to powder, casually selecting a chunk to throw forward. The man at the front’s head burst open, and his body slumped to the ground.

"Player!" Brother Ma and the other man were so frightened they turned and ran, but Xu Huo dealt with them in the same way, cleaning up the bodies and taking them into the incinerator factory.

The surveillance at the incinerator factory was lax. He donned the Invisibility Cloak and walked straight through the gate. Inside, the workers were logging the number of items brought in to be incinerated. Most of the Alien corpses, bagged in plastic, had been specially treated so no fluid leaked out, but a small portion had already started to decompose and were piled in a cart.

"Wait for Old Ding and the others to start. First burn these rotten ones." The masked worker pointed from a distance and then left. Xu Huo moved closer, inserting an identifying Prop into the pile of corpses, but all of a sudden, a prompt popped up on the game panel:

He had triggered a side mission.

This was somewhat unexpected for Xu Huo, compared to Teacher Ai and the Base Laboratory, he had thought the incineration plant was a place with a lower chance of triggering a mission. Of course, there might be more than one side mission within the instance, but this mission should be related to the function of the biological samples being sent to W37.

The two destinations for biological samples were the laboratory and the incineration plant. The laboratory was a source of the virus, the very place where the outbreak that swept through the base had started, and the ashes from the bodies incinerated at the plant were used as fertilizer—one spread infection, and the other polluted the environment.

Up until now, the epidemic’s impact on players had diminished significantly. Even if the contamination spread or the environment became polluted, it would only harm the common folk. Under the control of the players, even if the commoners rioted, the damage they could inflict was limited. In other words, they could not harm the foundation of W37 Base unless other Base Cities seized the opportunity to launch an attack during the chaos.

It was hard to say whether the relation between W37 and the other Base Cities was as bad as the rumors suggested, but Base W37 City was somewhat in the know, especially since it had not reacted to the dungeon players taking away alien corpses. Their attitude was almost transparent: Base W37 City was to be sacrificed as the cost. Whether the samples were dead or alive, whether they had been delivered or not, it did not matter.

This could barely be linked with the "Countdown 48 hours."

Of course, aside from the outbreak of war between Base Cities, there was another even more terrifying possibility.

However, the thought passed through Xu Huo’s mind and he let it go. After failing to find a virus identical to the one in the living samples, he entered the incinerator workshop, clarified the ash transport process after incineration, and only then did he leave after throwing those three bodies into the furnace.

On his way, he posted a bounty in Beneath the Dimension for information on the epidemic, and the Game Government Library also had relevant data, though not very detailed.

According to the current situation, the virus showed signs of weakening over time and through successive infections. The crops grown by the infected living in the quarantine zone were unlikely to be polluted, not meeting the conditions for a large-scale contagion.

The living samples transported by W11 could very well be a viral carrier similar to the origin.

Currently, two out of three living samples remained with Xu Huo, and the last one had left W19 first. If it had reached W37 successfully, by now it would have either spread rampantly in the laboratory or turned into ashes and been sent to the quarantine zone.

If the incinerated ashes retained their infectivity, the first people to come into contact would definitely be infected. Since workers at the incineration plant showed no symptoms so far, he planned to visit the quarantine zone first, where those infected might be more vulnerable to the virus.

The entry and exit of the quarantine zone were guarded by Players; both sides of the wall were brightly lit, making it difficult to approach. He circled to a spot farther from the entry and exit, then used "Gentleman’s Stance" along with a violin string to vault over the high wall and land within the residential area of the quarantine zone.

The place constituted neat rows of houses to each side. Now, there were still many people moving about. Most covered their spots with long clothes, hiding their bodies. Xu Huo watched for a while then followed a few kids playing in the mid-afternoon sun.

These barefoot children running through the fields were covered in mud on their legs. They seemed indifferent to the strange spots left by the virus infection, scratching the lesions while they played.

The broken spots oozed out an ugly-looking pus, and a little girl started crying. Hearing her sobs, her mother rushed over. Upon seeing the wound, a look of despair washed over the mother’s face. Then, she pulled down her child’s trousers and picked her up into the house.

After the mother and daughter had left, others came to take the playing children away. The quarantine zone, once alive with voices, quickly fell into a deafening silence:

It seemed the remaining sample had already been successfully delivered.