"Smell is mainly for detecting things at close range. At a distance, it still relies on hearing. His eyes must be severely nearsighted, so he uses them to help his sense of smell when hunting."
Tao Yu skirted several zombies and reached a burgundy-colored house on the outskirts of the city.
The building was probably six or seven stories tall. Along one side was a metal staircase and railing, much like a fire escape, and below it sat trash cans that reeked of rot.
Tao Yu looked up. A zombie was caught against the metal railing on the third-floor walkway, but it was the only one he could see up there for now.
He planted his foot, leaped, and reached up to grab the railing of the metal fire escape. Then he easily swung himself up.
The creaking metal drew the attention of the zombie on the third floor, but before it could react, Tao Yu kicked it off the walkway.
He hurried up the rest of the way and reached the roof.
There was a body on the roof. Looking closely, Tao Yu could see an open gunshot wound in its head, though the corpse had almost completely dried out. There wasn't even a fly in sight.
"It must have been here for a long time. I should check the place where the curtain was moving first. Ideally, I'll find a local and ask some questions."
If they weren't natives of the fragment, he could accept either intelligent zombies or fellow pioneers.
He could exchange some information with the pioneers, too.
After estimating the gaps and distances between the buildings, Tao Yu gave himself a short run-up.
His powerful physique, combined with the various movements of the Five Forms Fist Technique, made him seem like a tightly compressed spring.
With his backpack on, he easily leaped across the alley between the buildings and landed on the other side.
Once he found his rhythm, he began speeding up, moving like a traceur.
The alleys between ordinary buildings posed no obstacle. Whenever he passed a zombie, he struck it with his hand. His palm, protected by a stab-resistant glove, swung like a bear's paw, knocking the zombie aside like a rag doll.
Running, bracing, sliding, jumping, rolling—despite carrying fifty kilograms of supplies, Tao Yu was far more agile than an experienced traceur.
"Seven stories, front right."
As Tao Yu raced over the rooftops, feeling the wind rush past his ears, he kept glancing at the buildings he'd picked out earlier.
As he made his way over, someone continued to watch the street from that window now and then, but never noticed Tao Yu on the rooftops.
"At least I can rule out pioneers from the Inner City."
Tao Yu made a quick judgment based on Yosef and Winuo's abilities. He was moving across the rooftops, but if the person inside was a newcomer from the Inner City, they should still have spotted him with ease.
He'd already figured that people from the Inner City wouldn't care about the spoils here, but ruling them out more conclusively gave him greater control over the situation.
Even now, compared to Yosef and Winuo back then, Tao Yu still couldn't face either of them head-on.
Swish—
The soles of his tactical boots scraped the roof as Tao Yu abruptly slowed and stopped at the edge.
There wasn't an alley below him. Instead, a four-lane road intersected with the road he'd used to enter the area, forming a T-junction.
The room where Tao Yu had spotted someone was in a hotel diagonally across the road.
When Tao Yu stepped to the edge of the roof and exposed himself completely, the figure that had been watching from behind the curtain finally noticed him.
Tao Yu met the hidden watcher's gaze. The person panicked and immediately backed away from the window.
Not long after, it seemed someone else took their place at the window. He pulled the curtain aside and looked at Tao Yu. He was a burly, imposing man with a tattoo on his bald head.
Tao Yu was dressed head to toe in tactical gear, wearing a tactical helmet and carrying a backpack. He was armed to the teeth.
He made quite an intimidating impression. After seeing him, the other man pulled the curtain aside and made a few gestures.
But Tao Yu couldn't make heads or tails of those abstract hand signals.
When he realized they couldn't communicate, the burly man pointed upward, then pressed a finger to his lips in a universal gesture for silence. Then he left the window.
Tao Yu thought he understood what the man was trying to say: they were going to climb onto the roof, and he should keep quiet.
Sure enough, three figures appeared on the roof before long.
Although they were dressed differently, Tao Yu was fairly certain they weren't pioneers from the Outer City.
It wasn't that pioneers from the Outer City couldn't have good clothes. It was just that they usually carried their own backpacks and belongings everywhere. Even if they had good clothes, they'd likely be mixed and matched with all sorts of things, creating a strange overall look.
That kind of bearing was easy to recognize.
The three men who came up were the bald white man with tattoos, a tall Black man carrying a shotgun, and another man with a pistol. One of them also seemed to have a crossbow strapped to his back.
But the strangest thing was that the man walking in front—the apparent leader of the group—was an Asian man with a scar on his face and a big nose.
The key was that Tao Yu could make out the Asian man's features from this distance, and he looked incredibly familiar.
What was going on?
Uncle Long from the furniture store?
Had he appeared in a zombie movie?
Although a deep scar across the Asian man's face made him look rather fierce, there was no doubt about it: he was that big-nosed Uncle Long.
This was the first time Tao Yu had encountered a local in an Abyss fragment, but he hadn't expected his first meeting to be such a shock!
When he saw Big-Nosed Uncle Long, Tao Yu felt a vague sense of unease.
This world wasn't simply a Zombie World!
There was no way this guy had ever appeared in a zombie movie!
Thinking of the giant python that had been implanted with an alien, Tao Yu began to suspect something.
The three men on the roof had also crossed an alley and jumped onto the rooftop across the road. Then the Asian man who looked like Big-Nosed Uncle Long repeatedly waved for Tao Yu to move back.
Tao Yu then saw the tall Black man take a crossbow bolt from his back. A rope was attached to the bolt, and Tao Yu immediately understood what they meant.
He looked down at the street. The zombies weren't especially densely packed, and the roadway and sidewalk together were only about twenty meters wide.
Tao Yu thought it would actually be faster to go down and climb back up on the other side.
But after giving it some thought, he decided against it.
Whirr—
The crossbow bolt shot over and pierced the rooftop water tank.
The bald white man with tattoos motioned for Tao Yu to pull the rope.
Tao Yu walked over and checked it. The rope wasn't very tight, so he simply pulled out the bolt and tied the rope around the water tank's frame with a hitch like a tow hook. After pulling it tight, he signaled for the men on the other side to pull.
The rope quickly went taut, and the other end was secured to something over there.
Without hesitation, Tao Yu grabbed the rope with both hands and crossed over quickly, hand over hand.
As he moved, though, he kept his eyes on the other side.
Although Uncle Long's roles were usually righteous, Tao Yu wasn't about to entrust his safety to someone else.
He stayed alert, ready to deal with them even if they suddenly opened fire. With Bullet Time, he could still maneuver.
If he fell from this height, he could throw his backpack to adjust his trajectory and land on the roof of a car.
Once Tao Yu reached the other side, nothing he'd been guarding against happened.
The tall Black man and the bald white man simply kept their guns at the ready, watching him warily.
Tao Yu's gear, along with the strength to cross hand over hand with his full load, gave them good reason to stay on guard.
In an apocalypse like this, people could be more frightening than zombies.
"Hello, I'm Jack. For now, I'm more or less the leader of this survivor base. That's some nice gear, friend. Where'd you get it?"
Uncle Long introduced himself in English and cautiously asked a question. As he spoke, the scar on his face twisted, making him look rather menacing.
Jack?
Tao Yu didn't recognize the name. It sounded like a typical American name, probably from a Hollywood movie. Compared to names like Chan Ka-Kui, it felt unfamiliar.
Still, he quickly answered in fairly fluent English.
"I came from the south. What exactly is going on here?"
Tao Yu didn't know whether they'd encountered any pioneers, but the radio messages had made it clear that they'd noticed the grasslands and rainforest to the south.
Pioneers weren't required to keep secrets from the natives of the fragments, though they usually tried to make the most of their information advantage...
Before you continue