Cafeteria

Cafeteria

After confirming the details, Shen Jinwen prepared to set off.

Before she left, Xu Zhi tugged Doggie's ears and instructed, "Be sharp, understand?"

Doggie barked once. Xu Zhi figured it probably understood.

Then Xu Zhi tapped Little One, which was playing dead around her wrist. Little One reluctantly flicked out its tongue, slithered down from Xu Zhi's hand, and returned to the size Shen Jinwen had seen before.

After Shen Jinwen left with the two Familiars, Xu Zhi returned to her room and took out the Game Console. Through the Familiars' perspectives in the game, she could keep track of their progress at all times.

However, commands that had already been issued could not be altered or withdrawn. During these seven hours, she could only watch the Familiars' actions through the screen and could not change their orders in real time. That was one drawback of idle mode.

Perhaps once the Familiars became more intelligent, she would be able to remotely issue new commands through the game.

For now, all she could do was pray that Little One and Doggie were clever enough.

On the screen, the one human and two Familiars took around forty minutes to reach the entrance of the Affiliated Middle School.

That was the time it took to travel through the fog. They had even run into other Mutated Animals that attacked them along the way, wasting a little time. If their vision and movement had not been affected, walking from the Affiliated Middle School to the Old Residential District would have taken less than half an hour.

"They're too close."

Even if the Affiliated Middle School had been farther away, Xu Zhi would not have been in such a hurry to deal with them.

Once Shen Jinwen arrived at the entrance of the Affiliated Middle School, Xu Zhi saw through her Familiar's perspective that the iron gates stood wide open. Two youths who looked like students seemed to be standing guard outside. Xu Zhi guessed that they had probably lured in some people through the broadcasts over the past two days. Keeping someone at the entrance at all times was likely meant to "welcome" those gullible little lambs who fell for it.

Little One had already quietly shrunk down and slipped into the campus. Meanwhile, the youth standing guard quickly spotted Shen Jinwen, who was alone except for a dog at her side. He did not even greet the companion beside him before eagerly heading toward her.

Only after seeing his movements did his companion, apparently out of habit, subconsciously look in the direction he was heading. Upon seeing Shen Jinwen, he too immediately walked toward her.

When they drew close and saw the large dog following behind Shen Jinwen, their steps paused slightly, and the excitement on their faces faded a little. One of them looked at Shen Jinwen first and asked, "Are you here to join the survivor base too?"

Shen Jinwen looked at them and nodded. "Yes."

"Is that your pet?" The two were somewhat wary of Doggie's unusual size.

Though these lunatics were not very intelligent, they were not completely brainless either.

"It—"

Before Shen Jinwen could finish, Doggie suddenly lunged at the two without a sound. Its sharper-than-normal fangs sank viciously into one man's thigh, and a scream burst from his mouth.

Even Shen Jinwen froze in shock at the sight for a moment. Then she decisively drew the blade strapped to her back and slashed at the leg of the man beside him as he tried to kick Doggie.

The fight erupted instantly. If an ordinary person had been bitten like that by Doggie, that leg would have been ruined for sure. Yet these lunatics could still move while limping. They were injured, but not severely.

"What terrifying physical strength. Could they still be considered human?"

Watching from in front of the screen, Xu Zhi was honestly surprised by Doggie's sudden attack as well. But after thinking about it, she found it understandable. Wasn't that how beasts behaved? Once they found an opening, they attacked. Unlike humans, they did not need to put on an act and chat first.

These lunatics had bodies like wild dogs, and their brains were not as smart as normal people's. Yet their thinking was clearly stuck somewhere between beast and human, making them seem exceptionally stupid. That was probably one of their more obvious weaknesses.

During the fight, Shen Jinwen and Doggie deliberately let one of them escape to report back. Once the fighting began, Doggie had even intentionally howled a few times. Xu Zhi considered it for a moment. It should be enough to draw some people out.

The moment she saw the progress here, she switched the view to Little One. By then, Little One had already shrunk to the size it was when wrapped around her wrist and slipped into the Affiliated Middle School.

Even after shrinking, its crawling speed had not decreased. In fact, due to its increased biological level, all five of its senses had improved dramatically. Its vision was no longer limited to merely seeing thermal images. It could even easily sense where nearby blood was coming from. Following the scent, Little One arrived at the school cafeteria.

As it entered the cafeteria, Xu Zhi was startled by the sight inside, even through the mosaic.

Blood was everywhere. The floor, the tables, the surrounding walls—blood and mangled limbs formed a scene like hell on earth.

Even the words [Affiliated Middle School Cafeteria No. 1], written in red paint above the serving window, had been smeared so badly with blood and flesh that they were nearly illegible.

".How many people died here?"

At a glance, the severed limbs on the floor alone clearly belonged to no fewer than fifteen people.

The scene struck Xu Zhi as strange. Even if they enjoyed killing people, why make such a spectacle out of it?

They did not eat people. They simply dismembered them after killing them. Was it some kind of sick hobby?

Moreover, when Little One slithered up high and Xu Zhi looked down over the entire cafeteria through the pixelated game screen, she felt that the scattered limbs looked as though they had been casually tossed onto the floor, yet there was also a faint sense of order within the chaos. It bothered her greatly.

Unfortunately, it seemed more like an inexplicable intuition. The narration did not appear to confirm her suspicion, so Xu Zhi could only remember this oddity for later.

There were quite a few lunatics in the cafeteria. Xu Zhi counted them and found more than thirty. That was twice as many as the dozen or so the student had lied to her about before.

"Is their group constantly growing?"

Honestly, Xu Zhi did not think those two had needed to lie to her about their numbers. After all, they had never intended to let her reach the Affiliated Middle School alive.

What would happen if these lunatics were left alone to keep expanding?

Xu Zhi considered it briefly, then shook her head. In any case, it would not lead to anything good.

The lunatics in the bloodstained cafeteria sat calmly in their chairs. Suddenly, the door was slammed open, and a blood-covered person limped into the cafeteria, shouting something. Then seven or eight people rose from their stools and ran outside.

There was no urgency on their faces. Instead, they looked excited. The way they rushed outside made them seem less like they were going to rescue their companion and more like they were hurrying to seize prey.

Not long after they ran out, someone emerged from the direction of the kitchen.

He wore the cleanest clothes in the entire cafeteria and a pair of somewhat refined-looking glasses. Compared with the frenzied expressions of the other "people" present, he looked perfectly normal standing among them.

Yet that very normality only made him seem even stranger.