Chapter 67.2
Xiao Tangqiu was stunned. This seemed to be the first time they encountered an NPC who would ask this kind of question. Before, when they discussed plot-related issues in front of an NPC, the NPC would never ask any questions. They simply accepted everything under the influence of the system and didn’t find their conversations strange.
This hedgehog-head was the first NPC to take the initiative to ask questions!
Xue Junli and co were obviously also somewhat surprised. They looked at each other before Xue Junli pushed up his gla.s.ses and said lightly, “Nothing, we were just discussing a game we played before.”
“Game?” Hedgehog-head was obviously not convinced, “What kind of timing is this? You guys actually want to discuss games?”
Xue Junli followed along and said, “Apologies, from now on we won’t go off on a tangent. Let’s concentrate on killing zombies.”
Hedgehog-head wanted to question some more but Duan Hongzhen directly cut in, “Alright, don’t waste time, go kill the zombies!”
Yu Fuling also echoed, “Yes, stop talking, let’s discuss it later.”
They forcibly changed the subject and blocked hedgehog-head’s mouth. Although hedgehog-head wanted to ask more, Xue Junli had already turned his head and left.
Hedgehog-head scratched his head and stopped questioning.
There were still aftershocks from time to time, but they were no longer severe. They pa.s.sed through the collapsed teaching building and came to a slightly smaller building. It probably did not collapse in the earthquake because of its size, but the situation was also not optimistic. The walls and ground were full of overlapping cracks.
Xiao Tangqiu asked hedgehog-head, “What is this place?”
Hedgehog-head sighed, “…It’s the gymnasium.”
The gym was probably the place where most students spent their break time outside of the cla.s.sroom. Xiao Tangqiu saw the crowded scene through the broken gla.s.s door, but of course, those students had all become slow-moving zombies.
Duan Hongzhen rushed in first, followed by Xue Junli and then others. Xiao Tangqiu, Shen Yuan, Tang Mianmian, and hedgehog-head fell to the back.
When Xiao Tangqiu stepped into the gym, a bunch of zombies had already fallen at Duan Hongzhen’s feet. They all rushed to help. Hedgehog-head gulped and also raised the blood-stained steel bar to rush towards his former cla.s.smates…
There were so many students in the gym that Xiao Tangqiu killed zombies until his hands went soft and he couldn’t help turning his back to secretly drink a bottle of the rejuvenating potion. Of course, he could drink the potion openly. But because hedgehog-head had already questioned them before, he couldn’t drink in front of hedgehog-head otherwise he would definitely be asked what it was.
After drinking the potion, he started fighting again.
After an unknown amount of time, they finally cleared zombies in the gym. Xiao Tangqiu looked out the window and saw that it was still deep in the night outside with no sign of dawn. It was as if the sky would never be bright again.
“Are we still continuing?” Hedgehog-head asked while out of breath.
Xue Junli said lightly, “Continue.”
Hedgehog-head gritted his teeth and continued to lead them forward.
Next, they went to the cafeteria. Because it was not lunchtime, there were not many students in the cafeteria to their relief. After clearing out a few scattered zombies in the cafeteria, they turned towards the next location.
Laboratory building, auditorium, libraryk2026;
They cleared the places one by one, and finally emptied most of the zombies. The howling that originated from the zombies became less and less on the campus but the sky still showed no sign of brightening.
Xiao Tangqiu looked up at the huge full moon that was still high in the sky, then turned to ask hedgehog-head, “Where else still needs to be cleared?”
“There’s the play-” hedgehog-head blurted out subconsciously, but he paused, then shook his head vigorously, “No! There’s none left!”
Xiao Tangqiu raised an eyebrow, “None? That can’t be right?”
Hedgehog-head gritted his teeth, “There’s really none!”
Duan Hongzhen scoffed, “What about the playground? We seemed to not have gone to the playground yet?”
Hedgehog-head’s expression changed, “Playground? We can’t go to the playground! Definitely can’t go to the playground!”
Duan Hongzhen crossed his arms and questioned, “Oh? Why can’t we go to the playground?”
Hedgehog-head gritted his teeth and said, “Just can’t! We can’t go no matter what!”
Duan Hongzhen raised his eyebrows, “You say we can’t go, then we absolutely have to go take a look!”
“Can’t go! Can’t go!” Hedgehog-head yelled aloud. But seeing that Duan Hongzhen and the others had decided, he gritted his teeth and turned around and ran back.
Duan Hongzhen let out a cold laugh and shot a flying knife directly at hedgehog-head.
With a “boom”, the flying knife’s handle hit the back of hedgehog-head’s head and instantly knocked him out.
Xue Junli frowned, “Why did you knock him out? Who will lead the way?”
Duan Hongzhen sneered, “Wouldn’t he run away if I didn’t knock him out? Just carry him and let him lead the way.”
Xue Junli said lightly, “Who will carry him?”
Duan Hongzhen looked around. Shen Yuan, pa.s.s; Yu Fuling and Sai Lulu, pa.s.s… So he looked at the remaining Tang Mianmian and Xiao Tangqiu.
…These two weak chickens, pa.s.s.
So he silently bent over and picked up hedgehog-head.
Although Xue Junli said that no one would lead the way, the playground was not difficult to find. Even without hedgehog-head leading the way, they still quickly found it.
Because it coincided with the time between cla.s.ses, there were a lot of students on the playground, so there were also more zombies. Perhaps because they loved sports when they were alive, they were extraordinarily strong and moved faster than the slow zombies from before. When they saw living people, they screamed and charged over.
Everyone immediately plunged into the battle. Duan Hongzhen tossed hedgehog-head aside and rushed into battle excitedly.
Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian fought together back to back. But as they were fighting, Tang Mianmian suddenly yelled, “That’s not right!”
Xiao Tangqiu frowned slightly, “What’s not right?”
Tang Mianmian said while fighting, “Never mind those places like the cafeteria and library. Although they did not completely collapse, the students there might still die and become zombies. But what is with the playground? The playground is an open place, isn’t it? Logically speaking, the playground should be the safest place. How come the students here also died and turned into zombies?”
Xiao Tangqiu paused. He hadn’t thought about it before. Tang Mianmian’s reminder made him realize what an unreasonable situation this was. An open place like a playground should be the safest place on campus after the earthquake, and the students here should have been able to survive the catastrophe. Why did they become zombies?
At this moment, an abnormality suddenly appeared!
The originally calm playground suddenly shook violently. Xiao Tangqiu only felt like his whole body was tossed up and down with this tremor. The next second, his feet stepped on air. The ground under him had collapsed!
He reflexively grabbed the ground beside him and did not fall to the bottom with the ground under his feet. But his current situation was not optimistic. He turned his head and saw that Tang Mianmian was also hanging off a ledge like him on the suddenly cliff-like ground.
He turned his head to look at the other people to see that they were all in the same situation. It seemed that everyone was caught off guard by the ground just now. The movement of the ground was too huge, it was not something most people could avoid…
As Xiao Tangqiu was thinking about this, he heard Shen Yuan’s rushed voice from above ground, “Jiujiu! Jiujiu! Where are you?”
Alright, some people could escape it! But this was no ordinary person!
Apart from Shen Yuan, Kisaragi the Miko also didn’t fall. She looked at the people hanging on the edge of the ledge indifferently and she didn’t move to help anyone.
Before Xiao Tangqiu could answer, Shen Yuan had already seen him. Shen Yuan also saw the others at the same time. After sweeping his eyes across Duan Hongzhen, Xue Junli, Yu Fuling, Sai Lulu, and Tang Mianmian, he decisively walked towards Xiao Tangqiu and reached out to pull Xiao Tangqiu up.
Xiao Tangqiu breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank you…”
Shen Yuan looked at Xiao Tangqiu with bright eyes.
Xiao Tangqiu silently avoided Shen Yuan’s sight, “Go and save the others first…”
However, the Reincarnation Team was obviously much better than Xiao Tangqiu imagined. Even if no one pulled them up, they quickly climbed out on their own. Even Tang Mianmian struggled for a long time and managed to climb up.
“Wowowow I almost thought I was dead!” Tang Mianmian sat down on the ground and yelled with lingering terror.
Xue Junli frowned, “It’s best not to stay here too long. There might be another wave of ground collapsing.”
Tang Mianmian immediately patted his b.u.t.t and stood up.
Just as they were planning to move to a safer place, a hand suddenly appeared on the edge of the chasm and a zombie crawled out!
Xiao Tangqiu turned his head and saw how terrible the ground collapsing was just now. Almost the entire center area of the playground had become a sinkhole. There were also countless deep and crisscrossed fissures around the collapsed area. Fortunately, they only arrived in the playground not long ago and were just cleaning the zombies on the edge. They only fell into the fissures on the periphery of the sinkhole. If they had reached the central area, they might have had to climb for a long time before they could climb out… If they could even climb out!
Countless zombies crawled out from the fissures and the sinkhole in the center of the playground. No one knew if they were the zombies that fell into the sinkhole just now or if they were new zombies born in the sinkhole…
Just as everyone was bewildered and preparing to fight, hedgehog-head who was thrown aside suddenly woke up. Because Duan Hongzhen tossed him aside early on, he was lucky and didn’t fall into the chasm. When he saw the sight in front of him, his expression changed drastically. This was definitely a h.e.l.lish sight.
The playground he used to be familiar with had completely collapsed. In the middle of the playground was a very deep and terrifying black-hole-like sinkhole. That black hole was surrounded by deep and crisscrossed fissures and countless students who fell in slowly crawled out of the hole. When they came out, they fell and broke their hands and feet, and some even broke their heads. But they kept roaring and charging towards them.
Xiao Tangqiu’s gaze darkened and he picked up the crossbow and fought side by side with everyone.
This was undoubtedly a fierce battle. The zombies that crawled out of the hole and fissures in the ground seemed to be particularly difficult to fight. He had to work a lot more than usual. The worst thing was that the zombies came at a steady stream. Every time they killed a group, there would be another wave crawling out of the ground.
The zombies were not only very difficult to fight, they were endless.
The Miko, Kisaragi, held her longsword. Her eyes were indifferent but unyielding as if she already knew everything.
Every time Xiao Tangqiu hesitated in his heart, he couldn’t help but take a peek at Kisaragi. Seeing that Kisaragi was still as firm as before, he would secretly breathe a sigh of relief and continued to fight.
Just like this endless night, these zombies were also endless. They were also tireless, leaving only the instinct to kill.
After an unknown amount of time, the last zombie that crawled out of the hole also fell.
Xiao Tangqiu’s hands were already numb. He was actually a little at a loss, was it over?
…Was everything really over?