The Plague Zone

As the first ray of dawn pierced through the gaps in the clinic's reinforced windows, everyone opened their eyes in unison.

Accustomed to their once-stable daily lives, the first thing Lei Heng felt upon waking was despair.

The hazy mist vaguely drifting in from the outside carried a terrifying sense of the unknown.

"It's... it's time to go."

Lei Heng snapped back to reality, remembering the day's plan.

That man, that man called Zhou Zhi.

Was that guy really a Plague Exterminator?

Lei Heng shuddered.

Not far away, the man sitting by the bed had woken up even earlier than the rest of them.

Although his face was youthful, no more than sixteen or seventeen, he possessed an indescribable sense of maturity.

Zhou Zhi gripped his scalpel with a bow-holding technique before tucking it into his waistband.

His gaze swept across the group.

Everyone wore a different expression.

"We leave in ten minutes."

Zhou Zhi spoke, "The earlier we depart, the more time we will have."

Daytime was not necessarily safe, but nighttime was absolutely a death sentence.

Everyone understood this, and no one raised any objections.

In the remaining few minutes, Lei Heng and his group scanned Bai Xiu's clinic, stuffing their pockets with unknown medications. After confirming there were no more supplies left behind, they waited in front of the clinic door.

Meanwhile, Xia Yu distributed masks made from curtain fabric and, together with Xiao Nan, tended to the patients.

Lei Heng looked at the patients with a cold, grim expression, but he did not lash out.

"Alright, Mr. Zhou Zhi."

Xia Yu's beautiful eyes flickered slightly. "The supplies are sufficient for now. If we don't encounter any danger and are careful, we can last at least three days."

It was clear that if Zhou Zhi hadn't appeared, the rift between Lei Heng and Xia Yu would have erupted within those three days.

Because the supplies left in Bai Xiu's clinic were limited, trying to sustain twenty-some people until official rescue arrived was, by any measure, unrealistic.

In Zhou Zhi's hand was a proper mask, not the kind Xia Yu had fashioned from curtain fabric.

[Inferior Mask].

[Can effectively prevent influenza pathogen infection].

[Current Status: Perfect].

Zhou Zhi slowly put on the mask.

"Let's go."

The man said in a low voice.

Now was the moment to witness this world with his own eyes for the first time.

A brand-new world.

Behind him, Lei Heng and the others stiffened.

Although they had been desperate to leave the clinic, now that the moment had arrived, their hearts were filled only with fear and dread of the unknown.

"I'm scared..."

Xiao Nan whispered.

Xia Yu's expression was equally complex.

"We will survive."

The clinic's reinforced door was slowly dismantled.

The bolt and the door groaned like an old man's wheezing, or perhaps like the sound of withered branches falling to the ground.

Someone swallowed hard.

Everyone knew that outside the door lay a world akin to hell.

Creak.

The door was pushed open.

What Zhou Zhi felt was a cold wind.

It rushed toward his face.

It was somewhat different from what Zhou Zhi had imagined.

Without the barrier of a window, he was truly looking at the outside.

The sky was gray and hazy, and that first ray of dawn felt like nothing more than a fleeting dream.

This area, known as the outskirts of Blue Stone Town, was unusually quiet.

There was not a single sound.

A thin layer of mist clung to the air, making Zhou Zhi feel as if something were scratching at his skin.

[Infected Environment].

[Prolonged exposure to this environment carries the risk of pathogeny].

Is that so.

Zhou Zhi walked toward the exterior.

Seeing Zhou Zhi take the lead, Lei Heng and the others exchanged glances and followed suit.

Though slightly trembling with fear, they still bravely stepped forward.

Xia Yu followed closely behind them.

They slowed their breathing as much as possible to prevent accelerating the onset of pathogeny.

The northeastern outskirts of Blue Stone Town.

This was Xiao Nan's home.

Xiao Nan remembered that this place used to be very lively.

The small square was often crowded with people.

Neighbors would wander the streets and alleys, their voices flowing through this corner of the small town.

But now...

There was nothing here.

It was silent as the grave.

There were no people, yet the houses remained intact.

Zhou Zhi walked along the bluestone steps, his right hand gripping the hilt of the scalpel at his waist.

Aside from Xia Yu, Xiao Nan and the others were all original residents of this district in Blue Stone Town.

Lei Heng was a hoodlum from the neighboring district.

As for Xia Yu, she was a student at Blue Stone Central School.

Thus, the role of guide was temporarily filled by Xiao Nan and the others.

The first order of business was to secure supplies.

Five minutes ago, Uncle Liang, from the group of the elderly and infirm, coughed twice and raised his hand.

"My family used to run a shop; there should be supplies there."

"I also want to... I want to see how my wife is doing..."

When the plague struck, Uncle Liang had been out making deliveries, and that was how he had been separated from his wife.

He had no idea if she was dead or alive.

Zhou Zhi certainly understood the hope Uncle Liang held in his heart, and it did not conflict with their own plans.

Walking down the steps, the architectural style of Blue Stone Town was quite low-slung, not much different from the old-fashioned buildings he had seen in his previous life.

However, Zhou Zhi looked past the tops of the houses toward the distance.

Beneath the mist.

At the center of Blue Stone Town.

Stood a building that was taller and more refined than all the others.

Above it was an emblem of a scalpel and a heart.

It appeared extremely eerie amidst the thin mist.

"That is the [Blue Stone Town Central Hospital]."

Hearing Xia Yu's words, Zhou Zhi withdrew his gaze.

If the mist here was relatively thin, then at the center of Blue Stone, the color of the mist was very deep.

One could even say it approached the color of black.

Looking at it from afar, it seemed like a black giant standing right in the center.

"It is said that there is an orthodox [Plague Exterminator] in the Blue Stone Town Central Hospital, a real doctor."

Zhou Zhi pondered.

Unlike someone like himself who claimed the title, this was the person in whom Xia Yu and the others placed their high hopes.

"It's just in this sector ahead... cough, cough, cough..."

Uncle Liang's face was covered in strange fungal patches as he pointed toward the cold, gloomy path ahead. Zhou Zhi took a closer look.

So, this is what a Pathogen Index exceeding forty looks like.

A strange odor wafted through the air.

It smelled like the stench of something rotting.

On the ground, there was a peculiar, viscous slime.

Squelch.

One of Lei Heng's underlings stepped right into it.

His expression changed in an instant.

"This slime..."

He looked toward the front.

In this corner, white mold spread across the walls and the path.

On the ground, the viscous liquid looked, in Zhou Zhi's eyes, more like...

[Snot].

"What are these..."

"The traces left behind by those monsters!"

"Boss... there are monsters here!!"

The underling's voice was dry, his body trembling.

Gurgle, gurgle.

The slime emitted a grotesque sound, as if being stirred by some unseen hand.

"It's just ahead."

Uncle Liang wore a smile, as if he didn't see the slime on the ground at all.

From up ahead came the sound of something crawling through viscous matter.

At first, there were only a few.

Then, dozens of sounds overlapped, dense and swarming.

Xiao Nan's face turned deathly pale from fright.

She could barely speak.

At the end of the street.

One by one, heads the color of a corpse poked out.

[They] had no focus in their eyes, looking like countless humanoid mannequins.

All of them.

"[Mucus Man]."

"[A disease strain that has a chance to form when an ordinary human is infected with influenza and their Pathogen Index exceeds forty]."

"[Although they look disgusting, they are indeed quite disgusting]."