Malice

"South?"

Jack, wearing Uncle Long's face, looked a little surprised. Tao Yu's English had a noticeable accent, but that didn't seem unusual. Plenty of people in America had strong accents.

"Something seems to have happened down south. Grasslands and rainforests have appeared."

The bald man looked puzzled, too. From the rooftop, he'd been watching through binoculars and could more or less make out the strange changes in that direction.

But with all the zombies around, nobody had the energy to go check.

"I'm Tommy, former Marine. You've got some great gear and skills, brother. That rifle's been modified nicely, too."

The bald man reached out and shook Tao Yu's hand.

"I'm Senke."

The tall Black man with a crossbow on his back and a shotgun in his hands seemed quiet and reserved.

"Zhang Wei."

Tao Yu casually gave them a name.

"You're Chinese, too? Can you tell us what's going on down south? What are your plans now? Are you thinking of joining our settlement?"

Jack took the opportunity to ask.

"It's complicated down south. There's a kind of monster even more terrifying than the zombies. I wouldn't recommend heading that way. I want to investigate the zombies. I'll probably leave after staying here for a while."

Tao Yu wore standard combat gear. He had no insignia, but it was easy to mistake him for someone with a special affiliation.

His stated reason for investigating the zombies was a little unusual, but not impossible to accept.

Still, the fact that he'd dare do something like that alone drew a few curious looks.

"More terrifying than zombies?"

Jack frowned, making his large nose look even bigger. The scar on his face twitched.

"The zombies aren't much of a problem. There are just so many of them."

Tommy, the bald man, didn't seem surprised. The world had already ended, and they'd grown used to accepting all kinds of changes.

Zombies had appeared. Why shouldn't there be other monsters?

It couldn't get any worse, anyway!

They'd only just met, so it would have been awkward to interrogate him. Better to wait until they knew each other a little before asking certain questions.

"There's also a giant python."

"A giant python's nothing. We hunted seven- or eight-meter ones during training in the Amazon. With weapons, taking one down alone is easy. Without weapons, two people can handle one barehanded."

The usually quiet Senke chimed in.

"Senke used to be in Delta Force. I guess you could say I was a former CIA agent, though my memories are a little scrambled."

Jack, wearing Uncle Long's face, gave a brief explanation.

Without a doubt, the three of them were the settlement's heavy hitters. It was no surprise they'd become its leaders.

Hearing Jack's last remark, Tao Yu gradually realized who he was and what world he came from.

Who Am I? A meteorite with immense research value had fallen from outer space. A CIA task force had been sent to retrieve it, but the team had been wiped out. Jack had survived the attempt to eliminate them, but lost his memory!

It had been so long that Tao Yu only vaguely remembered the details. He thought the meteorite could also be used to make weapons, but those should have been conventional explosives. How had it turned into a zombie world?

The Abyss really was a mess!

"Anyway, let's head back first. We can tell you what we know about the zombies. As it happens, I know a little about what caused this crisis."

Jack sighed, seemingly lost in another memory. Then he looked up at the sun and decided to take them back.

As they crossed the alley between the rooftops and made their way back to the hotel, Jack continued, "I was betrayed by my superior during a secret mission. After I retired, a friend asked me to investigate a newly discovered virus. At first, it didn't have much of an impact. The zombies looked scary, but the virus didn't seem capable of spreading worldwide..."

Tao Yu nodded. If the zombies only spread the virus through blood, it shouldn't have been able to get far against modern weapons. The virus had probably come from another world.

"...Later, it seemed that water supplies everywhere had been contaminated. Someone was deliberately poisoning them. The virus had a long incubation period when spread through drinking water. By the time the few of us on the investigation teams figured out what was going on, it was too late. Only a handful of people with resistance escaped the initial infection. Everything went to hell in an instant."

Tao Yu's thoughts stirred. He asked, "Is the water still contaminated?"

"The broadcasts said it wasn't anymore. No idea why it stopped. Maybe the virus ran its course. But we can't receive official broadcasts now. We can only pick up the station next door."

Jack answered casually.

They returned to the hotel rooftop and opened the metal door. The group filed inside.

There were no lights in the stairwell, but sunlight from outside kept it from feeling too dark.

"We got our hands on a diesel generator, but the noise attracts zombies, so we don't use it unless we have to."

Jack explained as they went downstairs. Then he seemed to remember something and added, "By the way, friend, I saw how effortlessly you moved earlier. You even dared to investigate this alone. Can you also get stronger by killing zombies?"

Tao Yu was stunned. What was he talking about? Getting stronger by killing zombies? What the hell?

Even if the zombies carried a trace of Wish Power, he'd have to kill them and take their teeth. It would be faster to train directly.

Then Tao Yu picked up on the word also.

Could Jack, wearing Uncle Long's face, get stronger by killing zombies?

"Can you?"

Tao Yu immediately asked him in return.

"It took me a long time to notice. My companions got weaker as we traveled, but my physical abilities kept getting stronger. It was strange. That's why I became the leader."

Jack didn't hide anything. Beside him, Tommy, the bald man, added, "We're pretty jealous of the boss. But he's the only one we've seen who can do that. Can you do it too, brother?"

"Something like that."

Tao Yu didn't deny it. But his mind was racing. What was going on?

As a nobody from the Outer City, Tao Yu's access to information was limited. He'd crammed in a lot of research earlier, but there were still plenty of gaps.

That didn't stop him from drawing his own conclusions.

If Jack was the only one who could do it, he might be the Child of Destiny Tao Yu had heard about.

There were always a few special individuals in world fragments. Tao Yu had only ever known about them in passing, but apparently the company's old settlements had some people like that working for them.

It seemed that after killing Wish Power Creatures, these "important figures" could automatically gather Wish Power and naturally use it to strengthen themselves in their day-to-day lives. Over time, they'd begun to notice the change.

Apparently, they didn't need to absorb Wish Power items, but they also couldn't choose to strengthen themselves or use their power actively.

Thinking about how his own world's World Will was trying to save itself, Tao Yu suspected this might be how some world fragments tried to save themselves, too.

For a moment, Tao Yu even entertained the idea of making a Furniture City Mastery skill pop out of Jack.

But he quickly pushed the thought aside.

Tao Yu didn't think of himself as a good person, but he didn't want to become a slave to profit.

If he already had a cheat, what was the point if it turned him into someone he didn't want to be?

Still surprised by Jack's claim that he'd grown stronger, Tao Yu was somewhat distracted as he followed the others to the hotel's seventh-floor lobby.

The hotel had become rather chaotic. Supplies were piled up in the lobby before the elevators, and the corridors leading to the rooms were cluttered with all kinds of things.

People in an assortment of clothes sat listlessly on sofas and chairs that had been moved out into the open.

Most had numb expressions and worried faces.

It wasn't until they saw Tao Yu come down with a large pack on his back that several people's eyes lit up.

"Got any food?"

"What supplies do you have?"

"..."

Tao Yu frowned at their eager looks.

He wasn't short on food and could return to his own world if necessary. As someone shaped by twenty-first-century values, he didn't mind giving others a hand when it wouldn't affect him.

But he didn't like being guilt-tripped.

"What are you staring at? It's his. Don't embarrass yourselves."

Jack still had some authority as their leader. His rebuke quelled the growing agitation.

Just then, a voice with a noticeable Cantonese lilt called out from a corridor on one side of the lobby. The Mandarin sounded oddly out of place.

"Brother Jack, those three who ambushed us are gone. All three of them. There's no sign they escaped."

Tao Yu then saw an utterly ordinary face that looked like Gu Zai's as a man came hurrying over.

Well, there was another familiar face. His words lacked some context, but Tao Yu pieced it together: three pioneers had attacked them and been captured. While locked up, they'd each used meditation to return to the Real World.

That happened from time to time. But since they returned to the same place, whether they truly managed to escape still depended on luck.

Since he had this face, he probably wasn't some nobody. Tommy had said earlier that only Jack could absorb Wish Power. Was Gu Zai unable to do it, or was he holding something back?

Or had Tao Yu gotten it wrong? Was this not Who Am I?

Tao Yu pondered the possibilities, but he didn't have enough information.

"What do you mean, gone?"

Jack couldn't understand. They'd been tied up in a room. How could they disappear?

Then he explained to Tao Yu, "His English isn't good. He's an undocumented migrant who came here for work. Earlier, a few cocky bastards attacked our base. They were all strong and had excellent aim. If they hadn't been holding back, a lot of us would've died in the first exchange.

"He helped us ambush them and killed one. Otherwise, we could've taken a serious hit."

After explaining to Tao Yu, Jack turned back to the man in front of him and continued in Chinese, "Shaolin, what exactly happened?"

Tao Yu had been listening with a smile, but when he heard Jack call Gu Zai by name, his expression suddenly stiffened. Then he slowly took off his helmet and smiled as he spoke in Mandarin.

"I understand, too. We're all on the same side."

Then he looked at Gu Zai with a warm smile.

"You've got a handsome face, young man. What's your surname?"

Tao Yu himself was exceptionally good-looking now, even a little more so than Gu Zai. When he took off his helmet, the others stared for a moment.

Gu Zai then answered without thinking, "Oh, no need to be polite. My surname's Cao. I'm Cao Shaolin, an undocumented worker."

A smile appeared on Cao Shaolin's face, but it looked a little strained.

Tao Yu's Spiritual Sense, sharpened by his Deification of the Crane Form, immediately picked up the malice bearing down on him.

Right. It had to be him.

He'd hidden it well, but this was definitely Cao Shaolin!

What the hell? How had he ended up here?

Gu Zai hadn't played many villains, but Tao Yu had a particularly strong impression of this one.

The scene where he said, "I don't eat beef," was still vivid in his mind.

Most importantly, when that malice hit him, Tao Yu felt a prickling sense of danger at his back.

Could this guy actually threaten him?

He was supposed to be nothing more than a warped rich kid.

Thinking about what Jack had said, if Cao Shaolin had come from another world, Tao Yu had no idea what he'd gone through along the way.

He was a lunatic who could easily stake his own life on a gamble, doing everything for the sake of his own "game."

Damn, he'd adapted to this Abyss environment pretty well!

Tch~

Tao Yu twitched his fingers but forced himself to suppress the urge to strike first. He simply smiled and nodded.

"Nice name..."