Defense

After Kirk entered the prison, he realized things inside were even worse than he had imagined!

Walkers poured in from every direction, from every corner. The cell block had become a living hell, with women, old people, and children being chased everywhere. A dozen walkers were pinning down unlucky victims and tearing into them, blood flowing and flesh flying as screams echoed through the hall.

Rick and the other Plot Characters were stunned. He had used the warden's keys to lock every cell door, and the checks he'd made every half hour had revealed nothing unusual.

How had so many walkers gotten in?

But this wasn't the time to discuss it. Shane, Michonne, Mori, and the other Plot Characters were fighting desperately. When they saw Rick arrive with a large group of people, they breathed a sigh of relief. The Plot Characters grabbed their weapons and opened fire on the mutated walkers.

At that moment, Ma Ruiqi, Blondie, and the others also went all out. They pulled out the light and heavy weapons they had exchanged from the Plot Characters with their Contribution Value and opened fire, making the herd howl. They knew that if the Plot Character team was wiped out, none of the newcomers would survive!

The walkers had now undergone Secondary Mutation, and the most obvious sign was that they had grown considerably larger. Most were around 1.8 meters tall, with a few close to 2 meters. They weighed more, too, around 180 to 200 pounds. Their muscles had swollen until the skin covering their bodies split open, exposing blood-red muscle and veins. They looked even more horrifying, and their strength had clearly increased as well. Kirk had clashed blades with a 2-meter-tall walker, and when it swiped at him, the blow actually knocked him back two steps.

"Judging by that, its strength is over 10 points." Kirk was a little shaken. He had only had 3 Strength when he first entered the space, and even after his equipment and rewards had improved it, he had only reached 8. He wasn't completely overpowered by the walkers. But the other newcomers would certainly be. This meant that, without guns, newcomers who had once been able to fight a walker one-on-one now might not be able to kill an ordinary mutated walker even if two of them attacked together.

Even more frightening was that the walkers had more health. Ordinary walkers had originally had around 6 points of stamina; now they had around 8. The most obvious result was that a shot to a walker's head, with the Vital Part bonus, had once meant certain death!

Now, when Kirk shot a walker in the head, it only jerked its head back and was stunned for about two seconds before howling and charging at him again!

One shot to the head, and it still wasn't dead! That was a qualitative change brought about by a quantitative one! Before, one shot had taken care of one walker. Now it took at least two, cutting their efficiency in half.

Still, the walker's health had to be low after taking a bullet to the head. Kirk thrust his blade through its throat and cut its head off. This time, it could only die.

Kirk quickly found Little Fatty. Rick's son, Carl, was being chased by a blood-covered walker, but the kid seemed to hate it with every fiber of his being. He held a revolver and kept firing, "Bang, bang, bang!" Little Fatty seized the opportunity, raised his flashy steel shovel, and hacked away at the walker until it fell. Carl still wouldn't let up, continuing to fire furiously until the walker's head was a mangled mess.

Kirk looked over and saw a woman's body nearby. Her abdomen had been torn open, and half her organs had been eaten. Her face was unrecognizable from blood loss, but from Carl's reaction and the woman's clothes, Kirk was sure she was Rick's wife, Laurie.

Laurie had still died. Just as in the Plot, walkers that had secretly poured in through the back of the prison had killed her. There was a bullet hole starkly visible in her head.

Carl screamed frantically. The boy wasn't even ten years old. Just before Laurie died, he had been forced to kill his mother, who didn't want to turn into a walker, at her request!

It was utterly horrific.

Kirk's mind raced. He remembered the family photo of Rick that he'd taken from Rick's house. It seemed that this useless thing might have some value now.

The Plot Characters and the newcomer team fought back with everything they had. Although the walkers had undergone Secondary Mutation and grown much stronger, they were still hampered by their slow speed. Plot Characters like Rick, Shane, Daryl, Mori, Andalusia, Michonne, and Green were all tough, battle-tested warriors. Even against the mutated walkers, they could still take them down one shot or split them in two with one slash. Before long, they had pushed the defensive line to the junction between Zone D and Zone A.

Green was quick to lock the cell door. Behind the iron bars, the walkers snarled and bit, but there was nothing they could do against the steel barrier. All they could do was howl, expressing their desperate hunger for flesh and blood.

At the same time, as the Plot Characters retreated to the prison's Zone D, they braced its huge iron door firmly with H-beams. The walkers outside pounded on it so loudly it shook the heavens, but it did them no good.

For now, they had managed to escape disaster.

The team began counting their losses. They were considerable. Twenty-three Plot Characters had died in the fighting, most of them bitten to death by the horde of walkers that had attacked from behind the prison. Laurie was among them.

Rick stood beside Laurie's body, his face expressionless. He couldn't accept the cruel truth. Carl stood alone nearby, too. The little tyke had just exploded—or perhaps gone berserk—and killed at least ten walkers with his gun. Who knew who had taught him to shoot? He seemed to have started out at max level. Kirk had fired over a thousand shots, yet his pistol skill was still stuck at level 1. How was he supposed to live with that?

Three newcomers had also died in the first machine-gun attack and the fighting that followed, and two were seriously injured. Sally was among the dead. She had been blown to pieces on the watchtower by Reducto.

Laurie and her close friend Sally had both died in the attack.

Just then, a System Prompt rang out: "[Defend the Prison] Phase One has ended. Although you have suffered heavy losses, 80% of you have survived. You are temporarily safe tonight. The mission is judged partially complete! Phase Two will begin tomorrow at 7:00 a.m."

At last, they were temporarily safe. The most dangerous moment had been when the team was in total disarray. Now they had organized themselves and set up defenses on both sides. The walkers couldn't get in, so they could make it through the night safely.

Tomorrow, after sunrise, the walkers would lose some of their vitality, and they could organize a counterattack then.

However, Rick, the team's longtime leader, had fallen into deep grief and self-reproach over Laurie's death. He simply sat there, staring blankly at his wife's body and kissing her pale face over and over, as if Laurie were only sleeping. Andalusia, Amy, the old doctor, and the others tried to comfort him, but it was no use.

Even Ma Ruiqi went over and tried to console Rick with her high Charisma, but he shoved her away. The woman's expression changed, as if she had received some kind of prompt. With a dark look on her face, she went to her room and slammed the door.

Little Fatty said with a grin, "That hussy's trying to seduce the protagonist and become his mistress when his wife just died. Rick probably took his anger out on her. She failed to become his mistress, and her Favorability plummeted. Heh. I'll go console her later. No ex-wife is unforgettable; there are only mistresses who don't try hard enough. Go for it—we're rooting for you."

Kirk thought for a while, then said, "But we can't afford to lose Rick as our leader. The team needs him to keep everyone together, or our counterattack tomorrow will still be a problem."

He went over to Rick's younger son, Carl, and handed him their family photo. "Mori and I found this at your house when we were searching your town. I'm sorry about your mom, but it wasn't your fault. I'm sure your mom understands, forgives you, and still loves you, kid."

When the usually cold Carl saw the only family photo they had, tears finally streamed down his face! He ran to Rick and kicked him over. "You bastard! You got Mom killed! I hate you!"

Rick clutched his son tightly and roared, "Yes, it was all my fault! I want to die—don't stop me!"

Then he grabbed his submachine gun and started to jump out the window!

Kirk let out a string of anguished cries. "Big brother, don't be so reckless, okay?" He rushed forward, grabbed Rick by the leg, and hauled him back.

Rick fell to the floor and mumbled like a wooden puppet, "Bastard, don't stop me! Let me die! Let me die!"

Carl rushed over. "Rick, I don't want you to die! You still have me!"

Rick looked at his son and finally found a little courage to go on living. "Yes, I still have my son. I have to raise you and keep you alive, for Laurie..."

Rick carried Laurie's body and strode toward his room. Before closing the door, he looked deeply at Kirk.

Kirk immediately received a prompt: "Contractor No. 4444, thanks to your sound advice and selfless actions, the team has escaped danger. You used a Plot item and completed the Hidden Side Quest [Rick's Grief], rousing the protagonist Rick from his deep state of self-reproach ahead of time. The two achievements have been calculated together. You have gained 2% Plot Deviation, 300 points of Plot Team Contribution Value, Rick's Favorability toward you has risen to Intimate, and Carl's Favorability toward you has risen to Grateful."

The reward of 300 points of Team Contribution Value looked like a lot. But since Kirk had actually spent 100 points of Contribution Value to take a risk and save the team, he had probably gotten 200 points back in doubled rewards. Completing the [Rick's Grief] side quest had earned him another 100. Each Hidden Side Quest only gave 100 points, which wasn't an outrageous amount.

After half a night of turmoil, both the Plot Characters and the newcomers were exhausted in body and mind. But no one dared rest. Everyone was still wondering:

How had the walkers managed to break open the doors and get in?

The Japanese cross-dresser Ranmaru stood and said softly, "I know who did it!"

Everyone turned to look at him. He recalled, "I once went into Zone A to get this key. When I passed a storeroom, I heard people talking inside. There may have been survivors in there. I was in a hurry, and I didn't know whether they were friend or foe, so I left without stopping. Could they have been the ones who did this?"

"Probably." Ma Ruiqi walked out of the room with an expressionless face. "According to the Plot, five prisoners are still hiding in the prison, and they have plenty of food. After the Plot Characters rescue them, their leader repays their kindness with betrayal. After fighting Rick and the others, only one short guy escapes. To get revenge, he leads a horde of walkers here, cuts open the cell doors, and turns on the loudspeakers, bringing a similar attack to the prison. To prevent that from happening, we already increased patrols after locking the doors. I didn't expect things would still return to the Main Plot, and Laurie died because of it." She glanced at Ranmaru. "Maybe the voices you heard came from those prisoner Plot Characters."

Ranmaru nodded in sudden understanding and said no more, lowering himself back into his seat. Quite a few others had seen the Plot, too, and they all spoke up to say that was probably what had happened.

Kirk gazed thoughtfully at Ma Ruiqi. The woman had clearly lost Rick's favor. Since Rick blamed himself for his wife's death, he naturally hated Ma Ruiqi, who had once caused arguments between him and his wife. Now that Ma Ruiqi had lost Rick's support, her position as leader of the newcomers was in serious danger. No wonder she was in such a bad mood and still trying so hard to make herself heard.

But Kirk still had a huge question in his mind. Had it really happened as Ma Ruiqi said? Had the space forced the Main Plot back onto its original track to increase the challenge, making the five prisoners appear ahead of schedule?

For the first release, visit No GG.