A Not-So-Reliable Team

From a rational perspective.

With hordes of zombies rioting in the hallway, opening the door to save someone—

It looked dangerous, but in reality, it was not safe at all.

But from Lu Bai's perspective, this was clearly the bright side of human nature.

Without even a second of hesitation, Lu Bai dashed into the office and casually locked the security door behind him.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The zombies roared and howled, accompanied by the frenzied sound of pounding on the door.

That was hardly surprising.

After all, the duck that had reached their mouths had flown away. Even zombies would get angry.

Fortunately, the quality of the security door was reassuring. Even under such relentless pounding, it remained firm.

Only after confirming that they were temporarily safe did Lu Bai have the time to inspect the office.

The office was fairly large, with five desks and a roughly ten-square-meter partitioned room for storing documents and files.

But despite its size, there were only three men and three women inside.

Aside from a middle-aged female teacher in her thirties or forties wearing thin-framed glasses, the rest were students in school uniforms.

The three boys were Fatty, who looked close to two hundred pounds; the Sports Student, who was over six feet tall; and Bowl Cut, who wore glasses.

The pretty Female Classmate standing beside him raised an index finger to her lips, signaling for him to stay quiet.

Lu Bai nodded in understanding. As the sounds outside gradually subsided, his gaze settled on the last Girl.

Her smooth black hair was tied in a high ponytail. Beneath her dark green plaid skirt were a pair of long legs, and she was probably over five foot seven.

"Hey!"

Apparently noticing Lu Bai's gaze, the Sports Student pointed at him but looked toward the pretty Girl as he added, "Wu Ya, I'm warning you. Next time you do something like that, you'd better discuss it with everyone first."

"There wasn't time to discuss it..."

The pretty girl called Wu Ya instinctively retorted.

The Sports Student either had no intention of arguing with a little girl, or simply disdained to. He turned and examined Lu Bai with suspicion.

More precisely, everyone present looked at Lu Bai with at least some suspicion.

The reason was the bloodstained Long Sword in Lu Bai's hand.

This was not some American-style school shooting scenario. Carrying such an exaggerated restricted weapon was truly conspicuous.

The Sports Student raised a hand and pointed. "Please go stay in the partitioned room by yourself."

Hearing that less-than-polite instruction, a smile unconsciously appeared on Lu Bai's face.

Wu Ya hurriedly tugged Lu Bai's sleeve and explained softly, "Classmate, don't be mad. Ke Jianghao doesn't mean any harm. He's just worried about everyone's safety... Well, you haven't been bitten anyway. Just stay there for ten minutes, then come out."

Hearing that, Lu Bai raised an eyebrow.

What makes you assume my species?

Frankly, he felt that his current physical condition was not much different from a zombie's.

And with those flimsy partition walls, they would not be able to contain a zombie anyway.

He looked around and found that although no one said anything, they all seemed to hope he would isolate himself.

When the bespectacled boy noticed Lu Bai's gaze sweep past him, his body even trembled slightly.

"Sure."

Lu Bai casually agreed, walked into the partitioned room, and even shut the door himself.

He moved a stack of documents down from a display shelf, sat on it, leaned against the wooden door, and stretched lazily.

Since arriving in this world, he had rarely had such a chance to relax. His whole bearing became languid.

After their brief interaction, he had formed a general judgment of this "Survivor team."

A do-gooder who risked her life to save people, a timid and cowardly Glasses Man, and a teacher who could not handle pressure.

"Feels like they've already met all the conditions for a total wipeout..."

Luckily, his health bar was fairly thick.

With that thought, Lu Bai gripped the blade. Applying slight pressure with his thumb, he let the edge cut a small wound into his fingertip.

He calmly observed the blood seeping from the wound.

Just as expected.

After only a few breaths, the bleeding stopped. Even when he deliberately squeezed it, no more blood seeped out.

"Does the healing speed depend on the wound's area or its severity?"

He still did not know whether there were other grades of Ability Pool besides gold and silver.

But if this so-called Deathmatch Showdown was viewed as a battle royale game, then in theory, it should ensure a certain degree of fairness.

Yet no matter how he looked at it, this regenerative ability was clearly stronger than a Long Sword that could easily be taken away.

Could a higher-grade Ability Pool be his cheat?

Lu Bai rubbed his chin and glanced at the current rankings. The number of survivors had fallen to 376.

The elimination rate had clearly slowed considerably. Most likely, the majority of the "players" had already survived the initial chaos and found safe places.

[Ding!]

[This Deathmatch Showdown has been underway for thirty minutes. The current locations of all combatants will now be announced.]

[The next location announcement will be in two hours.]

A mechanical notification sounded in his mind. At the same time, a dark green image resembling a radar display appeared on the Data Panel before Lu Bai's eyes.

A wave extending from the center of the display rotated clockwise once, sweeping out densely packed dots of light.

Without any reminder, he immediately realized that the highlighted green dots represented the so-called deathmatch participants.

Without a doubt, if locations were announced at intervals, hiding in one place forever would not be very realistic.

"Why does this look like the Dragon Ball Radar?"

Lu Bai stared at the location map thoughtfully. "So the dot representing me should be a little brighter?"

"Classmate, are you still in there?"

Wu Ya's voice came from behind the door.

"Can I come out now?" Lu Bai stood and slung the Eight-Sided Han Sword across his back.

Creak—

The partitioned room's door was carefully pushed open.

Seeing that nothing had changed about Lu Bai, the tension on Wu Ya's pretty face immediately vanished without a trace.

She stepped aside and said, "It's good that you're fine. Oh, right, I'm Wu Ya. What about you?"

Lu Bai walked out of the partitioned room, glanced sideways at her, and replied with a smile, "Lu Bai."

"You're also a senior? How come I don't think I've seen you before?"

Ke Jianghao, the Sports Student, was currently sitting cross-legged on an office desk.

"Maybe I don't have much presence."

Lu Bai shrugged and casually pulled out an office chair to sit down.

He had also realized that, at least so far, he had not felt emotions like anger or hatred at all.

It gave him an intense sense of disconnect.

Because his soul—or rather, his consciousness—clearly knew what those feelings were supposed to be like.

"Forget it. Even things like the living dead have appeared..."

Ke Jianghao leaned forward slightly. "I'm more curious about where you got that sword."